What’s up with that card tray they have been showing in the pictures?

The symbols on the side could indicate some function besides keeping your cards organised.

Maybe that's what they mean when they use the phrase, "build the codex". Assuming that cards get added to the tray (or it could be the opposite). We'll have to wait for more info to be released.

These cards all have different backs, and so cards are typically taken from the bottom of this deck.

On 9/10/2018 at 4:43 PM, Bleached Lizard said:

These cards all have different backs, and so cards are typically taken from the bottom of this deck.

Yeah, very Fury of Dracula 2nd edition. Pretty sure you're right

something to do with the drawing of cards, and placing some at the back of the deck, so when you draw from the bottom, you don`t have to lift the deck up, they talk about it in the hour long demo....

17 hours ago, soulman said:

something to do with the drawing of cards, and placing some at the back of the deck, so when you draw from the bottom, you don`t have to lift the deck up, they talk about it in the hour long demo....

Also, someone took photos of the Learn to Play guide at GenCon and posted them on the internet somewhere, so the rules are basically known.

When generating clues and gate bursts, you draw from the top of the deck. When generating doom, you draw from the bottom. Each of these cards are (eventually) discarded to a common pile, shuffled, and added to the bottom of the deck at intervals dictated by the chaos bag. In practice, this means that, like outbreaks in pandemic, doom tends to cluster to some extent, while still allowing for the possibility of its unpredictable spread and allowing cards drawn from the top of the event deck to spread the action to new locations.,

4 hours ago, BD Flory said:

When generating clues and gate bursts, you draw from the top of the deck. When generating doom, you draw from the bottom. Each of these cards are (eventually) discarded to a common pile, shuffled, and added to the bottom of the deck at intervals dictated by the chaos bag. In practice, this means that, like outbreaks in pandemic, doom tends to cluster to some extent, while still allowing for the possibility of its unpredictable spread and allowing cards drawn from the top of the event deck to spread the action to new locations.,

Yup. The reason for that card tray is so you can pull cards of the top or bottom of the deck without seeing what comes after.

The Event deck itself is comprised of 24 cards - each unique to the scenario indicated on the bottom of the card (the above from Approach of Azathoth) you're playing. Most locations can gain Doom (in the above, Hobb's Roadhouse) indicated by the doom symbol before that location. Because not all location can get doom, and because not all cards are limited to giving 1 location Doom, there are a disproportionate number of cards to possible locations. This can make certain locations "safer" and others "more dangerous" in terms of Anomalies, Gate Burst tokens and Doom tokens.

When placing Doom via the Doom token, you pull the bottom card of the deck and place it wherever it is indicated.

When a Gate Burst token is drawn take the top card of the deck and add 1 doom to each location in that neighborhood, then shuffle the discard pile.

When you spawn a clue, take the top card of the deck & the top 2 cards of that location's deck, shuffle them together and put them on the top of that deck.

The symbols are there to remind you whether to take the card off the top or bottom of the deck when you are instructed to. The front symbols (on the card holder in front of the deck) are Clue & Gate Burst. The back symbol (behind the deck) is the Doom symbol.

The Codex

I had assumed that the Codex was tied to that holder, so I will quickly say that the Codex is a separate deck kept unshuffled. When you are instructed to find a card and add it to the Codex, you search that deck by number and take out the specified card(s). The card(s) or card that summoned it/them will instruct you what to do with it/them, and many of them enter play (not on the board itself) and gives new story-driven mechanics - often ways to interact with Clues and Doom, or additional actions you can take.