Some preliminary thoughts on making a Cultist campaign, a redesign of Arkham horror in which baddies attempt to awaken the Ancient One to win:
Set Up
1: Set up teh board.
2: Place a Doom Token and upside down Gate on each Unstable Location to represent a Sealed Gate, along with one Clue Token. A Gate can be unsealed by using 5 Clue Tokens, or some items/spells, you win when all of the Doom Tokens are placed on the Ancient One's card thereby awakening him. Also, there is the possibility of using Personal Story or Mission Cards to achieve this effect.
3: Each player chooses a random Cultist to play, and gathers the usual skills, equipment, etc., and sets sliders to their beginning locations, set Cultist markers in their starting positions on the board. Note that unlike Investigators each Cultist card comes with a Dimensional Symbol. This will influence them in several ways to be determined. Possibly causing them bonuses or penalties with creatures or gates of the same or differing symbols, or problems in teh Outer World.
4: Choose an Ancient One. This will be the Ancient One you are trying to awaken by unsealing the Gates. When a Gate is unsealed the Doom Token is placed on the Ancient One's card (which will resemble a Guardian more than the traditional AO). Place any Spawn monsters in the Monster cup that are listed on the card (Humans and independent races always go in teh monster cup, Spawn monsters listed on the AO card are the minions of rival AO's).
5: Choose an Investigator (this will look like a Herald card). He is the good guy trying to stop the Cultists.
6: A random player takes the first player token, and draws and resolves an Event Card (which will resemble the current Mythos cards). Monsters are generated normally but a Doom token is not placed on the AO's doom track.
Order of Play
Upkeep and Movement are unchanged.
Arkham Encounters are mostly unchanged, but you are only drawn through open gates if you wish to go (Event cards or Location encounters may change this).
Otherworld Encounters are mostly unchanged depending on how your Dimensional Symbol matches that of the Gate you went through.
The Mythos Phase is now called the Investigator Phase. You draw an event card, spawn monsters, place clue tokens, and move monsters. You then read the text of the card and follow it as usual. Then the Investigator attempts to call Allies (other Investigators), represented by more Herald type cards. There is a maximum number of Investigators equal to the number of players. Optionally there can be a mechanic allowing Investigators to reseal opened Gates, and they gain an Ally whenever they succeed in doing this. Once the Investigators equal the number of Cultists, they will have to move quickly to avoid a confrontation (rules to be determined later).
Other than this things are fairly similar, other than martial law being declared if the Terror Track gets too high. Human opponents will have an ability that allows them to be ignored for purposes of the Terror Track. And obviously I would have to redo every single card almost.
Any thoughts on teh rough draft?
