GEOPHAGE (Mandatory, Main Player Only) Zach Gaskins

You have the power to devour planets.

[Offense Only, Resolution] When you are the offensive player and successfully win an encounter in another player's home system, use this power to move the planet tile partially underneath another planet tile in your home system. All ships that were on the "devoured" planet go to the warp; your ships and those of offensive allies establish a colony on the "devouring" planet.

[Defense Only, Reveal] When you are the defensive player involving one of your planets that has "devoured" one or more planets, use this power to add 10 to your total per devoured planet tile, after encounter cards are revealed.

[Affects All Players] A colony on a planet that has other planet tiles underneath it counts as a home colony for purposes of maintaining powers for each one of the tiles that is one's own color, and a foreign colony for each of the tiles that is not one's own color. A planet with multiple tiles is treated as a single entity (owned by the Geophage player) with regards to other planet-affecting powers and effects.

Wild [Main Player Only, Resolution] : When you win an encounter, you may retrieve one ship out of the warp or draw one card for each ship the opposing main player lost in the encounter.
"you learn how to digest opposing ships for nutrition."

Super [Offensive Ally Only, Resolution] : You may devour planets as an ally (taking the offensive player and allies with you as usual).

"It wasn't that the planet's surface seemed to ooze like the flesh of a deep-sea creature. Nor was it the notion that the Geophage's ships seemed to use some sort of corrosive enzyme as their primary weapon. It was the horrific slurping sound they made as they slowly engulfed everything in their path: OM NOM NOM NOM...."

might wanna make this guy a bit weaker, cause the more planets he eats, the more defence it'll give him, and in this game winning attacks isn't hard, but i haven't played with this guy so what do i know? P.S you should just call him unicron (transformers fans will get this joke)

grim_reaper_zig said:

Well, considering he is built on increasing defensive totals only, any weird mathematic power (Antimatter, Loser, Calculator), or one that wins by strategic card play (Pacifist, Human) can easily get past the OM NOM NOM...and considering you simultaneously obtain colonies on all the planets that planet has eaten, you stand to gain quite a lot if you can get past that massive defense (or just zap it and give Geophage some serious acid reflux!)

Wait... does the Geophage only win foreign colonies as an ally (card trick, etc.)? If every time he wins as the main offensive player, the target planet gets moved back to his own system and his colony then becomes a home colony, he can't win foreign colonies during his turn unless he's zapped so the planet isn't devoured? Or am I misunderstanding something?

Oh, and did you consider "Galactus," or was the fear of Marvel's lawyers too much for you?

MarkHB said:

Both Galactus and Unicron came to mind when I was thinking of it (over dinner, as a matter of fact, so I was in a devouring mood)...I decided to be all bookish and create a new word, and also introduce a well-known internet meme, demonstrated here: http://www.omnomnomnom.com/

(You may want to make the noises when you use the power, though drawing googly eyes and teeth on your planet tile is a bit much.)

As for your question, say Geophage is Red, and devours a Blue planet. He puts the blue planet under one of his red planets. Now, when ANYONE's ships are on that planet, they are considered to have colonized both a Red and a Blue planet. To Geophage, having even just one ship on that planet counts as having both a home colony, and one foreign colony. If he later devours a Yellow planet and puts it under the same Red planet, one of his ships there will count as TWO foreign colonies (since there are two non-Red planets in its "belly"). While this makes the defensive bonus a whopping +20, it also makes it a great target for others to take because it will likely give them two foreign colonies as well (Red, and a second color that isn't theirs). There is a balance to it, but not necessarily completely balanced. It all depends on what other powers are in play. As with other seemingly imba powers (Virus, etc.), all it takes is a couple of exceptions, or a collaborate effort to restore the balance of power; you just play around the apparent elephant in the room.

(hehe....OM NOM NOM NOM...)

And.... it's on The Warp now, my man: http://redamedia.com/warp/anypower.php3

You can search for yourself under Author... and under theme, it is now one of a nice growing number of "Planet" powers... as soon as I unearth Toomai's, it will be one more... I suspect it was posted here on the FFG forum (cuz it rings a bell)... still searching!

The Warp said:

(double-posting to stop the above post from exploding somehow)

Although I put a typo in Frature's power description; I intended for it to work once per each of his encounters, not his turns.

I appreciate it! Oh, I get so much bloody spam, it's ridiculous... I'm usually pretty good at picking out stuff with "Cosmic Encounter" in the subject title... but not always. Once I get an email, though, I create a rule for that person, so it will always end up in The Warp folder from that point on (or whatever folder is appropriate).

I think the problem is that I have been too cavalier about putting my email address on my sites... and now they get sucked up by every spammer on the planet. Sigh.