The alien count is now at 1453 (now that I finally added Lenoxus' three aliens). Number 1450, for your pleasure:

LICH (B:Warp) Stores points for future encounters

You have the power of Phylacteries. As a main player, whenever you lose an encounter, place a number of cosmic tokens on your alien sheet equal to the amount you lost the encounter by. In any subsequent encounter, you may use this power to place one or more of your cosmic tokens with your encounter card when it is played face down. The cosmic tokens increase the value of your attack card. Any cosmic tokens played with a negotiate card are valueless. Cosmic tokens played in an encounter are discarded. You may not have more than 42 cosmic tokens.

History: Powerful necromancers, the Liches were unsatisfied with the level of enlightenment they held as fully living entities. Placing their dying souls into cosmic phylacteries, the Liches have been able to continue their quest to attain knowledge and power. Even death can not reduce the impact of their power and influence.

Type: Combat
Experience: Advanced

Wild: Whenever you lose ships in an encounter, you may discard an attack card with a value equal to or greater than the number of your ships lost, and return your ships to any of your colonies.

Super: You may add up to the same number of cosmic tokens you used in the encounter from your supply immediately after cards are revealed.

Thank you, Jack!

And dammit, I thought of exactly that power earlier this week! (Well, except for the 42 specification — how did you calculate it?)

Additionally, a couple months ago, I was working out the details for a somewhat similar alien, the Gradient. Its entire "attack card" total would consist of points drawn from some account — it would not deal with attack cards at all. The Gradient's number for each encounter would be written secretly and revealed along with the opponent's card, then subtracted from the Gradient's account. (In thinking about powers, I often dwell on those moments when you lose by a small margin and wish you had played a non-existent Attack 11 — or by a large amount because you only had a 30 in hand, and it feels wasteful. I was then inspired by the mechanism of a simple two-player game called Footsteps — vying.org/games/footsteps .)

What I had trouble with was figuring out how these points should be earned (I thought 3 per encounter might work, so in a four-player game, you'd get between 9 and 21 each round; or maybe earning the "margin of victory", like that Lich does, but from every other encounter). Not to mention all the rules that have to be dealt with when you're not using attack cards at all, and whether Negotiates would be involved… so I just sort of gave up. But anyone reading this can feel free to salvage something out of it and call it whatever you want!

Ooh, and one clarification for the Lich — I assume that in a tie, the offense is said to have lost by 1 (and therefore should always add 1 to the difference)?

Yes, since the defense wins in a tie, the offense technically lost by 1.