I believe it's been said before that the Cult of 1000 encounter cards aren't worth the hassle. The small benefit they could provide is heavily outweighed by the detrimental effects. However, as with all games I play, I tend to think of ways to improve under-used components (you should have seen some of my old Star Wars CCG decks, I was the only person I know who used Greedo regularly! *g*) and I've come up with a possible House Rule for the Cult of 1000 enocounter cards.

How about everytime you draw a Cult of 1000 encounter card you AUTOMATICALLY gain 2 Clue Tokens?

Some kind of incentive would help. Getting two clues would make membership more attractive, but it doesn't give players an incentive to have cult encounters. Here's a house rule that I came up with to increase the number of cult encounters:

Looking After Their Own

When an investigator with a cult membership card gets knocked unconscious or goes insane, he can choose to move to the Unvisited Isle, the Black Cave, or the Woods instead of moving to Arkham Asylum or to St. Mary’s Hospital. If he does so, he must draw a cult encounter card. All other rules work the same (e.g., players that get knocked unconscious may choose to draw an Injury card and restore their Stamina, or lose half their items and clues and be restored to 1 Stamina). Investigators may not move to locations with open gates. Monsters at the location can be ignored until the following turn.

It has the obvious advantage of increasing the investigator's mobility by letting him strategically pick his "recuperation" location. If you go insane, you can pick which side of town you want to move to (the asylum, woods, cave, or isle) as long as there isn't a gate there.

I'm not suggesting 2 Clues for joining, I'm suggesting 2 Clues per cult encounter ...

Oh, I missed that. Sorry!

Seems a bit strong. Maybe you can grant one clue token if you're still in the location after receiving a cult encounter. Or, maybe you can deal one cult encounter and one regular location encounter and the investigator can pick.

I don't know. I'm not going to house-rule it yet, because maybe there's some huge secret incentive that I'm missing...

Tibs said:

That's one of the house rules that I use.

I was also kicking around ideas for bringing down the cult. Maybe you could have something like the Feds Raid Innsmouth track. If cult members spend 2 clue tokens at each of the three cult locations (woods, black cave, and unvisited isle), the police raid the cult and shut it down for the rest of the game. In that case, gates can no longer open on the three cult locations. (The locations don't count as sealed unless there is already an elder sign there.) Maybe that would be too easy - make it 3 clue tokens at each location.