When playing with 5+ players with the Black Goat of the Woods as the Herald, when a gate opens, do you draw 2 monsters + a hexagon monster, 2 monsters + 2 hexagon monsters, or is the 2nd monster drawn a hexagon monster?

An encounter at the train station says, " You overhear the engineer talking. 'I swear to you we hit something just outside of town. Something unnatural. And it weren't dead when we left it!' Draw a monster and place it in the Outskirts ." If playing with Nyogtha, is the monster that appears the tendril? If so, would you simply place the tendril in the outskirts to occupy a spot for the Monsters in the Outskirts limit until another encounter draws it away, or would the tendril just not go to the outskirts? Or do you draw an actual monster to place in the outskirts?

As far as I know, the BGotW rules state:

- When a gate opens, draw a monster from the cup as normal, then draw a second

monster from the hexagon cup and place both monsters on the gate’s location.
- When a monster surge occurs, draw half the monsters from the hexagon cup
(round down).

Neither of these options happened during your encounter, so no hexagon monster therefore.

Regarding the other question: Not sure about this and can't find something official there right now, but I guess you only fight the tendril if a monster appears. In this specific encounter no monster appears but is placed in the Outskirts. There are other encounters that use the phrase "A monster appears".

And even if this is not a good reason, I would still play it like this because it would not make any sense if the tendril was captured in the outskirts. I mean its a substantial part of Nyogtha and if you could knock it out that way … I don't know, I don't like the idea...

Draw a monster and place it in the Outskirts is different than A monster appears! In the first case you never encounter and fight the monster, in the second case you encounter Nyogtha's Tendril.

Musha, your first question is also covered in the FAQ (if you want to check, it's on pag.35):

Q: In a 5+ player game, how many and which types of monsters are supposed to come out of each gate? How many are hexagon monsters?
A: Three monsters: 2 normal, 1 hexagon.

As for your second question: agreed with the others. Nyoghta's wording is pretty clear: when a monster appears. Encounters instructing you to draw monsters and place them in the Outskirts, or to draw and keep a random monster trophy and so on are different, and they are resolved by drawing from the cup.

So you're all saying that only when the phrase, "a monster appears," do you fight the tendril? What about encounters that tell you to fight a monster (and under certain circumstances, to fight a second monster), or encounters that tell you that a monster surprises you?

I've always read the "a monster surprises you" encounters as a variation of "a monster appears" with a slightly change in rules, and I'd rule this case considering the thematical consistency of the two encounters even if the wording is slightly different. Encounters telling you to fight a specific monster are resolved by fighting that specific monster; encounters telling you to draw a monster at random from the cup... well, I'd rule it to draw the monsters from the cup. Wording on Nyoghta is pretty clear, a monster has to appear, but not a gate, so other encounters are safe.

Additionally, in the encounter you mentioned, the Tendril can't clearly go to the Outskirts (forbidden according to the FAQ, pag 26). So? How to rule that card? Probably a "no encounter" card, but the encounter can be solved without changing anything if playing literally Nyoghta.

Just my two cents, anyway

Easy way to solve this: Why are you playing with Nyotha? All the cool kids are fighting Y'Golonac!

Hey, I like Nyogtha!