The Locals

My take on this set: This is a fine set that represents the misshapen hybrid people inhabiting Innsmouth. In terms of flavor, it reminds me of the Dunwich set, which also did a great job of providing some context for the people living in the village. Thankfully, we also got an actual villager as an enemy card this time around, something i was missing in the Dunwich set.
This set focuses on making life worse for seekers, as all of them interact with intellect, parley or clues in some way. Clearly the Innsmouthers (Innsmouthians? Innsmouths? Whatever, Fishpeople!) do not appreciate us snooping around in their town and the cards reflect that.

What it does: Innsmouth Troublemaker spawns at the location with the most clues and starts hunting the players from there. The stat line is reminiscent of what we’ve seen on Deep Ones: Low evade, but competent fighters. They also deal a good amount of damage. For an action, the hybrid can be parleyed with. This does not require a test, but the player has to drop a clue on their location. Troublemaker will then exhaust for two turns. This parley ability can even be used from a connecting location.

My take: A chunky enemy that can be a drain on your actions if you are not too careful. Using the parley costs basically two actions, one of them to pick the clue back up. Since the parley is not a regular evade, but a “double evade” instead, this can absolutely be worth it, though. It’s going to depend on how easy it is to get the clue back, so location shroud might play a role in the decision.
He hits hard enough that letting him hunt into you is not really something you want to see. If it’s early in the game, you will probably also want to kill him right then instead of having him follow you around all scenario.
This is a cool enemy, with good tension between wanting to defeat him, evade him or just run from him. The design team really knocked it out of the park with their enemies in the Innsmouth cycle.

Threat level: Medium. A burly enemy that requires attention.

Dealing with it: As mentioned, the decision between defeating and evading this guy is going to depend on several factors. Among them: How deep are we into the scenario? How important are those clues right now? How easy is it going to be to pick those clues back up?
Aside from dealing with the Troublemaker in the usual ways, there are also two Guardian cards that are great all throughout the Innsmouth campaign and can shine here again: Handcuffs can permanently disable him easily. And for the less subtle among us, there is always Dynamite Blast.

What it does: Innsmouth Look is put into a players threat area where it stays until they spend an action and succeed at a willpower test. While affected by this card, the investigator loses 1 sanity and 1 intellect. They also gain the Deep One trait.

My take: As with Curse of Yig, i am still waiting for that payoff for the changed investigator trait. Maybe something’s still coming up later… In any case, this is the latest card following the template of Curse of Yig and Dreams of R’lyeh, and much of what was said there goes for this one as well. Due to their focus on grabbing clues from many locations under time pressure, losing intellect can be a real pain in the scenarios that are using this card, depending on who gets stuck with it.

Threat level: Medium. This is a bit hit or miss depending on who gets it, but the potential for this to be a huge annoyance is certainly there.

Dealing with it: If a pure enemy handler gets stuck with this, they can probably just ride it out without having to do anything about it. It kind of mirrors Curse of Yig in that regard, which was somewhat irrelevant for seeker types. Remember that anyone at that location can help out with that test, so if for example Trish isn’t able to shake it off, maybe have someone with a bit more willpower get rid of it for her.

What it does: The player has to pass an intellect test. If they fail, Furtive Locals is put into play and the investigator takes one damage. But even if they passed the test, they still need to pick one of those two things to happen.
Furtive Locals is discarded at the end of the turn (unless there are multiples, in which case only one is discarded). While in play, investigators can not parley.

My take: This doesn’t seem bad at all? Not being able to parley for a turn doesn’t strike me as much of a problem and neither does suffering a damage. As far as results from the Mythos phase go, any of these effects are absolutely okay and even when taken together they are still on the low end of what to expect. Not terribly impressed by this card so far, although i suppose that bad timing can make it situationally awkward when you are just about to parley with a unique enemy in Vanishing or trying to stop a Troublemaker from hunting your seeker. During In Too Deep, the location abilities that tear down barricades also count as Parleys, so those would also be affected. The ability on the act that allows spending clues to remove barricades does not count as a Parley though.
I do like that template of “on fail do both, on sucess pick one”, though.

Threat level: Low. Only situationally relevant.

Dealing with it: There’s not a whole lot to do about this card in terms of preparations or special precautions. It’s only rarely relevant in the first place, so just deal with it when it shows up. Worst case, it can lead to having to engage and defeat an enemy you were going to parley with. During In Too Deep, it might force you to spend some clues to remove barricades instead of using a location ability, so keep a few clues in your back pocket for that occasion. You should do so anyways, for emergencies.