Spirit Island
591 questions players ask about Spirit Island, answered in plain words and graded by where the answer comes from. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-10-23.
591 questions players ask about Spirit Island, answered in plain words and graded by where the answer comes from. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-10-23.
No — any arrangement where the boards physically fit together is legal; the rulebook diagrams are just the standard layouts. The layout nudges difficulty a little: in a 2-player game, joining the boards top-to-top is slightly harder than the standard bottom-to-bottom, and end-to-end is slightly easier. You may also use whichever boards you like in a given layout.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
Yes — the rules only randomize which boards make up the island, not who starts where. Choosing starting boards, assigning them by seating or dealing them out randomly are all fine, and since Spirits are set up after the island is built you may see the board before settling on a Spirit or Aspect.
The rulebook covers this in "THEMATIC BOARD SETUP".
No — you may use whichever thematic boards you like. The per-player-count lists give the definitive geography, and the thematic boards always sit in their fixed positions relative to each other.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2019.
Two — lands never merge, even when matching terrain touches across boards. Each keeps its own number, pieces and board.
The rulebook covers this in "BOARDS AND LANDS".
No — only lands adjacent to the Ocean shown on a board are Coastal. The other island edges are cliffs, so lands there are Inland even though they sit at the edge of the island.
One experienced player's answer supports this; there is no official ruling.
No — each board's Ocean touches only the Coastal lands of that same board.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
Markers are memory and tracking aids (reminder, Fear, Energy, Defend and similar markers) with no rules function of their own. Tokens such as Beasts, Wilds, Disease and Strife are game pieces with effects. So reminder markers are not tokens and are not affected by effects that move or count tokens.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
They track Elements you hold that don't come from played cards or your Presence tracks, for example Elements gained from a Growth option or granted by a Power such as Elemental Boon.
The rulebook covers this in "INVADERS".
Nothing — Invaders and Dahan are not limited by the pieces in the box. Use a substitute, such as a 3-Energy marker under a piece to mean three of it, and keep Exploring, Building and Ravaging normally. The one exception is France, whose loss condition counts Towns in the supply.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
Nothing — each Spirit uses 13 Presence and some printings include a spare. Put it back in the box.
The rulebook covers this in "THE ISLAND AND SUPPLY".
From the Spirit's 13 Presence: place the setup Presence on the island first, then put all the rest on the dashed circles of the Presence tracks, leaving only the leftmost spaces uncovered. Each Spirit sets up on a different island board.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — you start with every Unique Power your Spirit comes with. Spirits such as Many Minds Move as One and Dances Up Earthquakes note on their panel that they start with six.
The rulebook covers this in "MAKING THE INVADER DECK".
There are 15: 4 Stage I, 5 Stage II and 6 Stage III, with no duplicates; the deck uses 3, 4 and 5 of them. The unused cards are meant to stay unknown, so don't look at them.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — Horizons' decks are the same cards with updated wording, so use one set. Bring over the Horizons Spirits with their Unique Powers, and the Horizons island boards if you like.
Spirits may resolve setup in any order, so Sharp Fangs can use a Beast that Lure or Many Minds placed, and Adversary setup comes before Spirit setup. But instructions about your own board, like 'highest-numbered land with Dahan', look only at what was there before Spirit setup.
Yes — all the listed pieces go in that single land; 'Sands' is the terrain's name, not a plural. Overlapping setup instructions stack, so if the highest-numbered Jungle is also land 5, Shadows puts all three Presence there.
Yes — lands are adjacent whenever they touch, even at a single corner and even across different island boards. This mostly comes up at the centre of the standard 4-player island.
No — adjacency means two different lands touching. A land is at Range 0 from itself, but it is never one of its own adjacent lands.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
The players choose one of the tied lands, unless the card gives its own tiebreaker; the effect still happens in only that one land. You may pick whichever tied land suits you, even one where the effect does little. A '(min. 1)' note means a land needs at least one of the counted thing to qualify. An instruction that can't be carried out is simply skipped.
The designer answered this directly in 2019, and it matches the rulebook.
If the choice comes from a Power, the Spirit using that Power decides. Otherwise the players agree together; if they can't, each Spirit decides for lands on its own starting board, and the game's owner settles anything else.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
They add to them by default. An effect only replaces a normal rule when it says so, usually with the word 'instead', or occasionally with wording like 'Don't X; when you would X, do Y'.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
Yes — a triggered effect fires whenever its condition is met, and entering a new phase or step can meet that condition just as another action can.
Each use of a Power is one Action, and each Repeat is a new Action of its own. Each triggered effect is a separate Action, and so is each Growth effect (usually one icon) and each use of a Presence-track ability. Elemental thresholds are not separate: they are part of the Power's Action. Victory and defeat are checked once the Action, and anything it triggered, has finished.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Pieces placed by a Build, an Explore, or any effect that says 'add'. Pushing and Gathering move pieces rather than adding them, and Replacing (for example a Dahan replaced by a Town) is not adding either, so none of those trigger 'when an Invader is added' effects.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
'When' changes the triggering event in the same instant, so it is part of that Action. 'After' happens as its own separate Action once the trigger has finished, so it can benefit from things that apply per Action, such as Badlands.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
Any physical component placed in a land to track the game state: Invaders, Dahan, Presence, Blight and tokens such as Beasts, Wilds, Disease and Strife. Defend markers and other reminder markers are memory aids, not pieces.
Only a reminder of an existing rule. For example, the parenthetical on Predatory Nightmares about Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares adds nothing, so if another Spirit uses that card it deals Damage normally.
It means either or both: '2 Town/City' is any two pieces that are Towns or Cities, so one Town plus one City qualifies, and '1 Damage to each Town/City' hits every Town and every City. In a negative condition it means neither: 'a land without Town/Blight' has no Town and no Blight.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — A outnumbers B whenever there are more A than B, including when there are no B at all, so 2 Dahan outnumber 0 Invaders.
The rulebook covers this in "PRESENCE AND SACRED SITES".
A land where that Spirit has at least one Presence, on any board. After setup, a Spirit has no special tie to its starting board.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2019, and it matches the rulebook.
No — all Spirits act simultaneously within each phase. When order matters, the players pick the order themselves; the only limit is that one Power must finish resolving before another starts.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
Yes — unless the card says the lands must be different, several players may pick the same land.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes. Among them: the Tipping Point Blight Card has been retired, the Event 'Outpaced' was retired as too swingy, Jagged Earth recommends removing the Event 'A Strange Madness Among the Beasts', and Sea Monsters has a revised version. None of the retired or replaced cards come from the base game, so a base-game-only set needs no changes.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Yes — moving a piece to the land it is already in is a legal move and counts as moving. It rarely matters, but it lets Wrap in Wings of Sunlight move Dahan from the target land to the target land to get its Defend, and Bargain of Coursing Paths return pieces where they started.
The rulebook covers this in "WHO DECIDES?".
Generally yes. The exception is where the rules demand the worst outcome for you, notably Invader (and Event) Damage to Dahan, which must destroy Dahan as efficiently as possible.
Yes — any number of Invaders, even one Explorer, makes 'a land with Invaders'. Cards use the plural by convention.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — count pieces: every Explorer, Town and City is one Invader. A slashed group like 'Town/City' counts Towns and Cities together. Effects that care about Health say so.
Yes — effects covering lands across the island act as temporary rules for the turn and follow the current contents of each land. An effect on a single target land is fixed when it resolves and stays there even if the land's contents change. For a few cards either reading works in practice.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
The players choose the order. Resolve one completely before the other; a piece removed or added by the first can change what the second does.
Officially one Aspect per Spirit. Aspects aren't designed to be mixed, so combining them may well be unbalanced, though the designer is happy for groups to do it if they enjoy it. Follow the card exactly — whatever it says it replaces (a Special Rule, an Innate, a Unique Power, setup) is gone, and everything else stays.
An effect worded 'after', or listed as triggered in the FAQ, is a triggered action: it happens as its own Action once the triggering Action finishes, and it can never trigger itself, even indirectly. Anything else that changes how an Action happens ('when', 'instead', 'the next time X would…') is a modifier and acts immediately inside that Action — which is why it can prevent a destruction. Players order simultaneous triggers.
Your own, unless it says otherwise — under the Nature Incarnate errata this holds even for Events that tell each Spirit to destroy or add Presence. The exceptions are effects that say any Spirit's (such as Finder of Paths Unseen's Powers and Draw Towards a Consuming Void). Fear cards and Events that merely check where Presence is still count every Spirit's.
The designer answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
No — every Spirit must choose a Growth option each turn and do everything in it. You may still choose an option you can only partly complete (for example Reclaim with an empty discard pile); anything impossible is simply skipped. You choose the order of the parts.
Yes — the parts of a Growth option resolve one at a time, in any order you like, so a Presence you just placed can be the Range source for the next. Range is a maximum, so a Range 2 placement may also go into a land at Range 1 or 0, including a land you already occupy (handy for making a Sacred Site).
The rulebook covers this in "THE ISLAND AND SUPPLY".
Yes, you can add Presence on any board. The only restrictions are the Range shown and anything printed on the specific Growth option, Power or Spirit, such as 'Jungle or Wetland'. A terrain restriction applies to the land receiving the Presence, not the land you measure from.
Yes, always. First pick a land within the given Range of any of your Presence, then either take a Presence from your tracks or pick one up from the island and put it there — even the very one you measured Range from, leaving everything where it was. This is how you keep using 'add Presence' once your tracks are empty.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
No — it is still adding Presence, even though the disc physically changes land, so 'when you move Presence' effects don't apply. Newer printings of the rulebook word the sidebar this way.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
You may fully resolve the first option and see the result before choosing the second, but you can't interleave parts of the two options, and you must commit to an option before doing any of it.
Growth is normally done simultaneously, and players may draw their Power Cards together and discuss them before choosing, though they can't swap cards. Strictly it happens one Spirit at a time, so when one Spirit's Growth interacts with another's you may choose the order; each Spirit must finish choosing from its own draw before doing anything else.
Take-backs aren't covered by the rules; it's a matter for your table. Many groups allow adjusting a placement you could simply have done later, but changing your Growth choice after seeing new cards changes the game's difficulty. The easy fix is to draw your Power Cards before placing Presence.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026, and it matches the rulebook.
No — Growth is the first step of the Spirit Phase, followed by gaining Energy and playing Power Cards.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
No — all Power Cards, Fast and Slow, are played and paid for in the Spirit Phase, before any Powers resolve. Energy you gain later stays with you for next turn, or for anything that turn that costs Energy outside card plays.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
No — unspent Energy carries over to future turns. That is why Energy gained late in a turn, for example from River's Bounty, is still useful.
The rulebook covers this in "SPIRIT PHASE".
No — you gain Energy from your track in the Gain Energy step, which comes after Growth. Uncovering a number grants nothing on the spot; only Growth icons that give Energy directly give it during Growth.
The rulebook covers this in "ANATOMY OF A SPIRIT PANEL".
Yes — you gain Energy equal to the highest uncovered number and also get every other uncovered icon, such as Elements or Reclaim One. Plain numbers don't add up, but '+1 Energy'-style icons are added on top of the highest number.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — every uncovered icon applies every turn for as long as it stays uncovered; there is no single 'active' space. Track Elements don't pile up across turns, though: you simply have them each turn, and checking thresholds never uses them up.
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
Any time during the Spirit Phase, including before Growth, as long as you're not partway through another action. It can't be used in later phases, so a card played this turn can only be reclaimed in a later Spirit Phase.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
No — Card Plays, Energy and Reclaim from your tracks are only used in the Spirit Phase, so they help next turn. Uncovered Elements are different: they count the moment they are revealed.
The rulebook covers this in "ANATOMY OF A SPIRIT PANEL".
No — destroyed Presence comes off the island and is set aside; it never goes back onto your tracks, so your Energy and Card Plays stay the same.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
'Per player' only scales the total by the number of Spirits, so the group may split the payment however it likes. Effects worded 'each player' are handled by each player individually.
The designer answered this directly in 2017, and it matches the rulebook.
No — any number of Presence from any number of Spirits can share a land, and no other piece has a stacking limit unless a special rule says so. Presence from different Spirits never combines into a Sacred Site.
The rulebook covers this in "PRESENCE AND SACRED SITES".
Yes — a Sacred Site is just a land with 2 or more of your Presence, so anything that works from Presence works from it too.
It comes from your Presence tracks, as an extra on top of Growth, and is added as the Power resolves. If your tracks are empty you may reposition a Presence from the island instead. An Element revealed by taking it off the track counts immediately, even toward that same card's threshold (as with Indomitable Claim).
No — a boost to the Range of your Powers only affects Powers. Growth isn't a Power, so only effects that boost Range in general change Growth placement.
The designer answered this directly in 2023.
It goes to the same pool beside the island, so effects that return destroyed Presence (such as Blazing Renewal) can bring it back. But removing or replacing Presence isn't destroying it, so effects that trigger on destruction don't fire. Presence only leaves the game permanently when a card says so.
Two of that Spirit's Presence. A land holds at most one Sacred Site per Spirit, so an instruction affecting it affects 2 Presence there, however many more are present.
Draw 4 and keep 1, exactly as in Growth, unless the card changes the procedure (Unlock the Gates of Deepest Power, for example, draws 2). If it doesn't say Minor or Major you choose, and gaining a Major means you must also Forget a Power Card. Majors are also drawn 4 at a time.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
Any of your Power Cards: in hand, in your discard, or in play this turn — including the Major you just took. Draw and keep the Major first, then Forget. Forgetting a card in play loses its Elements at once, and if it hadn't been used yet it can't be. You must keep one of the four drawn, but Forgetting it afterwards amounts to taking none.
The rulebook covers this in "GAINING POWER CARDS".
The cards you don't keep go to that deck's shared discard pile, not yours. Every Power Card you gain becomes part of your own cards, so it goes to your personal discard when played and Reclaim All returns everything there — Unique, Minor and Major — until you Forget it.
No hand limit, and no rule about hiding cards — open hands and table talk are fine. You play any number of cards up to your Card Plays (even none) and keep the rest; only played cards are discarded at Time Passes, whether or not you used them.
The designer answered this directly in 2017, and it matches the rulebook.
Shuffle that deck's discard pile into a new deck. In the very unlikely case that the deck and its discard are both empty (possible in big games), no one can gain from that deck until someone Forgets one of its cards.
The rulebook covers this in "FIRST-TIME PLAYERS".
Progressions are an optional aid for first games; any Spirit can gain Powers the normal way, and one player can use a progression while others draft. Either way you start with your Spirit's four Unique Power Cards — the progression only replaces 'draw 4, keep 1' with taking the next listed card.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
Yes — the cards a progression lists are normal Minor and Major Powers and are shuffled into their decks. Only pull them out for a Spirit actually using its progression; effects like Entwined Power or Gift of Power still draw from the normal decks.
Yes — gaining a Major by any means requires Forgetting a Power Card, and the progression cards say so. If the progression runs out, go back to the normal draw-4-keep-1 method.
The designer answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
Not through Powers or Growth — a Forgotten Unique Power goes under your Spirit Panel rather than into a discard pile. The one exception is an Event such as Tell the Old Stories that explicitly returns a forgotten Unique Power, which can bring back any of yours, whoever made you Forget it.
From your hand, into your own discard pile, unless the effect says otherwise.
The rulebook covers this in "WHAT POWER CARDS CAN I FORGET?".
No — a Forgotten card is gone, so it never resolves and its Elements vanish immediately. A card that already resolved keeps its effect for the turn.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
No — the game is balanced around drawing 4 even with the larger combined decks. Drawing 5 is a house rule.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Gaining is the usual draw 4, keep 1 (Forgetting if it's a Major). Taking, a Nature Incarnate keyword, puts the top card of the named deck straight where the effect says — hand, discard or play — with no choice, so effects that trigger on gaining don't apply.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Only if the effect explicitly says so (as Fractured Days' Innate does). Otherwise Reclaim always takes cards from your personal discard pile, including Reclaims from Fear cards or Events during the Invader Phase.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — a Repeat is free unless the effect granting it says to pay, as Powerstorm does. With Powerstorm, Energy it grants is gained before you pay for the Repeat, so it can help cover that payment.
Yes — pay its cost again and it is a brand-new use; a card remembers nothing once it leaves play. The same holds if it ends up in another Spirit's hand and is played that turn.
The rulebook covers this in "ANATOMY OF POWERS".
From any land with your Presence. A terrain or other restriction in the target bar applies to the land you target; restrictions on the origin land, such as 'from a Sacred Site', are printed left of the Range icon.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
When you resolve it. In the Spirit Phase you only play and pay for cards; Range and targets are checked when you use each Power in the Fast or Slow phase. So one Power can create a valid target for another, and if a Slow Power's intended land no longer qualifies, you must pick another target or the Power does nothing.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — within the Fast or Slow phase, all Spirits' Powers (cards and Innates) can be resolved in any order the group likes, switching between players freely. The one restriction is that a Power must be completely resolved before another starts; you can't pause halfway to use a different Power.
No — a Fast Power is used in the Fast phase or not at all, and Powers can't be used during the Invader Phase in response to events. Only an effect that changes a Power's speed lets you move it.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — you may skip a played Power's effect entirely, as if its text box were blank. You still pay its Energy cost when you play it, you still get its Elements from the moment it is played, and it is discarded at Time Passes like any played card. This works even if the card could never have been used, such as Purifying Flame without a Sacred Site.
The rulebook covers this in "GENERAL PRINCIPLE: DO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN".
No — a Power is all or nothing. You may decline to use it at all, but if you use it you must do as much of its text as you can. Only instructions with 'may' or 'up to' (where you can pick 0) are optional, and you can avoid a threshold by resolving the Power as if you had fewer Elements.
Yes — top to bottom, skipping anything you can't do, so a threshold effect comes after the base effect and you can't use the threshold first. The only exceptions are modifiers such as Range or speed changes, which apply when they become relevant, and anything the card itself calls out.
Yes, for a swirly '-or-' between two paragraphs of a Power: you freely choose either paragraph, whatever it contains, even if it turns out to do nothing (for example 'Replace 1 City' in a land with no City); you then do as much of it as you can. A condition inside an option doesn't stop you choosing it. Cards meant to depend on the land are worded 'If X, do this; otherwise, do that' instead. A plain inline choice such as 'Push or Gather 1 Explorer' is different: you must do whichever one is possible.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
No — a Power affects one single target land unless it explicitly says otherwise; the terrain or Coastal requirement only limits which land you may pick. Each Power you use chooses its own target independently. Only Invader cards act on every land of a terrain.
The rulebook covers this in "DO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN".
Yes — any land that meets the target bar is a legal target, even if nothing in the text applies there. Only requirements in the target bar restrict targeting.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes to both — Range is 'up to', so a Range 2 Power can target lands at Range 0 or 1, and 'within Range X' and 'up to Range X' mean the same thing, including Range 0.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
Adjacent lands are at Range 1, but 'adjacent' is fixed — Range boosts never widen it. That is also why boosts don't affect how far you Push or Gather.
Every Power with a numeric Range — played cards and Innates — including Range 0 Powers and a Range written in a Power's text (as on Unleash a Torrent of the Self's Own Essence). They don't affect Spirit-targeting Powers, 'your lands', Push or Gather distance, or the target requirements: a Coastal-only Power can reach farther Coastal lands, but still only Coastal ones.
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
No — Repeats can't be chained: a Repeated Power ignores any Repeat instructions on it, whatever caused the Repeat. So a Repeated Powerstorm only gives its Energy, a Repeated Gift of Twinned Days does nothing, and meeting a card's own Repeat threshold plus Powerstorm gives three uses, not four. Threshold effects that aren't Repeats still happen on the Repeat.
'Repeat this Power' is mandatory and happens right after the Power finishes. A Repeat granted for 'this turn' or 'once this turn' — as from Powerstorm, Gift of Abundance or Vital Strength of the Earth's innate — can be saved and used any time later that turn, including on a Slow Power in the Slow phase. You can only Repeat a Power that is still in play and has already been used.
A Repeat is using the same Power again, not a copy: you may choose a new origin and target (or the same one) under its normal rules unless the Repeat says where, and make different choices, even counting fewer Elements. You don't gain its Elements again, and any modifiers on the Power carry over.
The designer answered this directly in 2019, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — changes made to a Power, such as speed or extra Range, stay with it and apply to its Repeat too.
Modifiers that change speed, Range or legal targets are checked when they become relevant — when choosing or targeting the Power — before its effects resolve. Text that does nothing by itself, like 'this Power may be Fast' or a Range change, doesn't count as using a Power.
The rulebook covers this in "SPIRIT PHASE".
It covers the whole turn: you play all your cards, Fast and Slow, together in the Spirit Phase. Cards played later through an effect (Call on Midnight's Dream, Gift of Flowing Power and the like) are extra and don't use your track's Card Plays.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
Only if it is Fast. Playing a card and using it are separate: you get its Elements at once, but a Slow card played then still waits for the Slow phase.
The rulebook covers this in "TIME PASSES".
At Time Passes. Played cards stay in play all turn, used or not, then go to your personal discard — Unique Powers included — and return only when you Reclaim them.
No — targeting is checked when the Power resolves, so a Slow Power needs a valid source in the Slow phase or it does nothing (Fear included). You keep the card's Elements, and an effect already applied by a Fast Power stays.
The rulebook covers this in "REPEAT".
It depends on the wording. A Repeat that says where to go ('in the same land', 'in an adjacent land') is followed even without Presence. A plain 'Repeat this Power' needs a new legal target, which may be the same land if it is still in Range.
Yes — speed, origin, Range and target requirements are checked once, before the Power resolves; after that you follow its instructions even if they undo what made the targeting legal. Likewise an effect that has already happened, such as Defend, stays for the turn if your Sacred Site later moves or is destroyed, unless the effect itself depends on your Presence.
It depends on the verb. 'Move' has no distance limit, so the Presence can go straight from the land you measured Range from to a distant target. 'Gather' and 'Push' only work between adjacent lands, so gathering Presence into a far target needs Presence adjacent to it.
No — every Power must target a land or Spirit, and without a legal target none of its text happens (you keep its Elements). With a legal target, you can use a Power just for its Fear even where its other parts do nothing.
No — resolve the text one instruction at a time, doing as much of each as you can. Choices made earlier (the target, which land or boards to pick) don't have to set up later instructions to do the most, and later instructions don't depend on earlier ones succeeding unless the card says so or marks a cost. (Fear and Event cards that say 'do X in a land with Y' are the exception.)
The designer answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
No — thresholds only check what you have, so the same Elements count toward every Power and Innate that turn. Elements from Growth or played cards last until Time Passes; only those on Presence tracks are there every turn.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — each Spirit counts only its own Elements: its played cards, its uncovered Presence-track Elements and anything granted to it (such as by Elemental Boon). Cards still in hand don't count, and another Spirit's played cards never give you Elements unless an effect says so.
Yes — Elements count the moment you have them, even partway through resolving a Power, whether they come from a newly revealed track space or a newly played card. Losing them works the same way: Forget or Reclaim a card in play and its Elements vanish at once, which can make you miss a later threshold.
No — thresholds are checked when you use the Power. An ongoing effect keeps the strength it had then, and Elements gained later can't retroactively trigger a threshold or a higher tier of an Innate you already used.
The designer answered this directly in 2017, and it matches the rulebook.
For an 'Any' Element on a Presence track, whenever it first matters during the turn; once picked it stays that Element until next turn. An 'Any' Element granted by a Power is chosen immediately when that Power resolves.
No — paying the Energy doesn't replace the Elements. A level with an Energy cost needs you to meet its Elemental threshold and also pay the Energy, and the cost applies only to that level, not to using the Innate's lower levels.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
Yes — each level is checked on its own, top to bottom. Skip any level whose Elements you lack and still resolve later levels you do meet. You need every Element shown on a level, not just one of them.
The designer answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
Only by counting fewer Elements. When you use a Power you choose which of your Elements to apply, and that choice holds for the whole Power; every threshold those Elements meet then happens. So you can stop short of a top level, but you can't skip a middle level that your chosen Elements satisfy. Each Power, and each Repeat, makes this choice separately.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024, and it matches the rulebook.
No — an Innate Power is one Power, used once, on one target: all levels you meet resolve in that land, top to bottom, as a single Action, and you can't use other Powers in between. Only a level that says to Repeat the Power gets a new target.
The rulebook covers this in "GENERAL PRINCIPLE: ONE LAND! ONE TURN! ONE USE!".
No — each Innate is used at most once per turn no matter how many Elements you have, and gaining Elements after using it doesn't let you use it again. Using two different Innates in the same turn is fine.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025, and it matches the rulebook.
It is added, unless the threshold says 'Instead', in which case it replaces the earlier effects and you do everything on the 'Instead' line. Bonuses from several met levels stack, and '+X Damage' and 'X Damage' in a threshold work the same.
The rulebook covers this in "ANATOMY OF POWERS".
Yes — every card in play counts, including the one with the threshold, along with your other played cards and track Elements. You have a card's Elements from the moment you pay for it, so two cards can enable each other's thresholds.
You do — the Spirit who played the card has it in play, gets its Elements and is the one using it, even when it targets another Spirit. The target gets only what the text gives it.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
Every land of the card's terrain that either contains a Town or City, or is adjacent to a Town, City or the Ocean. Explorers are not a source, so an Inland land next to only Explorers is skipped. A source never runs out — one Town can send Explorers into every matching neighbour — but each land gets just one Explorer however many sources it has.
The rulebook covers this in "3c. EXPLORE".
Yes — a matching land with a source gets an Explorer regardless of what is already there, and there is no limit on Invaders in a land.
No — an Explore is an Action in the land being explored, not in the source land, so you'd have to stop the Explore in each neighbouring land (or cut the adjacency) instead.
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — any Invader at all, Explorer, Town or City, makes a matching land Build, and every Invader Ravages for its full Damage. Only lands with no Invaders skip the Build.
The rulebook covers this in "3b. BUILD".
Exactly one per land per Build, however many Invaders are there: a City if the land has more Towns than Cities, otherwise a Town. The new piece comes from the supply; Explorers don't turn into Towns. A lone Explorer therefore builds a Town, and a lone Town builds a City.
The rulebook covers this in "3a. RAVAGE".
No — Invaders always deal their full Damage (Explorer 1, Town 2, City 3) however much Damage they've taken, and damaged Dahan still deal 2 back. Damage only brings a piece closer to destruction, and it heals at Time Passes.
Yes — each matching land gets its own Action, and the players choose the order. That can matter for victory checks and for effects keyed to 'the first Ravage'.
One card at a time, in the order they arrived, each fully resolved before the next. A land matching both cards acts twice, and pieces added by the first card count for the second (for example for England's Build rule).
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
It is the last step of setup, after Spirits have placed their starting Presence. It works like any Explore: every matching land with a source gets an Explorer (on the balanced boards that is every matching land; on thematic boards some may lack a source). The card then moves to Build, so turn 1 has a Build and an Explore but no Ravage.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
No — the setup Explore is not part of an Invader Phase, so abilities tied to the Explore Step do nothing then.
The rulebook covers this in "GENERAL PRINCIPLE: ONE LAND! ONE TURN! ONE USE!".
Every Ravage there that turn — effects that don't change the board last for the whole turn and apply to each such Action in that land.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
No — once you use the Power, every Invader Action there is skipped. Powers that skip just one Action, such as Infestation of Venomous Spiders, are different: you choose which Action to apply them to and are never forced to use them on the last possible one.
Yes — effects worded around the next normal Ravage (or Build/Explore) deliberately override the end-of-turn rule and wait until that Action actually happens. Other 'the next time' effects from Powers still expire at Time Passes.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
No — a replaced Action never happens, so modifiers to it don't apply; an effect waiting for 'the next Ravage' keeps waiting until a Ravage actually occurs.
The players choose. Both are modifiers applied when the Ravage would happen, so you can apply Infestation of Venomous Spiders first and get its Damage, leaving the other skip effect nothing to skip.
Technically yes — it qualified when the Ravage card began resolving, but with no Invaders it deals 0 Damage. This matters for effects that check whether a Ravage happened there.
The rulebook covers this in "STAGE II ESCALATION".
It triggers the Adversary's Escalation, printed on the Adversary panel, as soon as the card is revealed and before it Explores. Without an Adversary it does nothing.
Every Coastal land on every board. Since each one is adjacent to the Ocean, they all get an Explorer and later Build and Ravage.
Which lands Ravage, Build or Explore is fixed when each Invader card starts resolving. A land that didn't qualify then doesn't act even if Invaders arrive, while Invaders added to a qualifying land that hasn't resolved yet join in. Clearing a land after that doesn't cancel its Build or Explore (a Ravage with no Invaders just deals nothing), and the Ravage card still resolves even if no land ends up Ravaging.
It is the Stage of the top card of the Invader deck, so it can go back and forth if the deck alternates Stages. Cards an Adversary places early (like Brandenburg-Prussia's early Stage III card) don't count: Stage III starts when the first regular Stage III card is on top.
The designer answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
Split it however you like among Invaders in the target land, combining with Damage they already have. You can't deliberately overkill, though: keep assigning Damage to Invaders not yet destroyed until all are destroyed, and you can't choose to deal less than the Power gives if there are Invaders to take it. Only Invader Damage to Dahan has to be assigned efficiently against you.
The rulebook covers this in "GENERAL PRINCIPLE: DO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN".
You destroy the 1 Town. You do as much as you can, the land doesn't need 3 Towns to be targeted, and without 'up to' you must destroy everything you can. You can't swap in a different effect, such as destroying an Explorer instead.
No — each is dealt separately, in printed order. So with '2 Damage. 2 Damage to Towns.' you may spend the first 2 Damage on the only Town even if the Town-only Damage then has nothing to hit. A '+N Damage' on a threshold is likewise its own instruction and a total, not per Invader; the '+' only shows that it adds to the base effect.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
The total. Add up all the Invaders' Damage in the land (City 3 + Town 2 + Explorer 1 = 6), then subtract Defend; Defend 4 would leave 2, still enough to Blight the land. Defend effects in the same land add together, including a repeated Defend Power, and surplus Defend does nothing to the Invaders.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
No — Defend is never depleted. It applies in full every time Invaders deal Damage in that land that turn, including extra Ravages from Powers or Events. (Strife, by contrast, is used up.)
The designer answered this directly in 2017, and it matches the rulebook.
It starts when the Power resolves and lasts until Time Passes, so a Fast Defend covers that turn's Ravage. It reduces only Damage that Invaders deal to the land and Dahan; it doesn't stop Invaders damaging each other or Spirits damaging Dahan. It stays even if you later lose the Presence you targeted from or Forget the card, and you can Defend a land with no Invaders.
Yes — the replacing piece keeps the Damage. A City with 2 Damage replaced by a Town is destroyed at once (giving Fear as normal), and a damaged Town replaced by an Explorer is destroyed too. When one piece is replaced by several, split its Damage among them as you like.
Health modifiers apply to each piece individually, and Health never drops below 1. Health and the Damage a piece deals are separate, so extra Health doesn't make Invaders or Dahan hit harder. A piece is destroyed the moment its Damage equals or exceeds its Health, so lowering Health can destroy an already damaged piece. Both the Damage and the Health changes clear at Time Passes.
Normally no — Damage clears and the bonus ends at the same moment in Time Passes, so a piece goes straight from damaged-with-extra-Health to undamaged. But if something keeps the Damage from healing (Shroud of Silent Mist), the piece is destroyed right then once its Health drops to its Damage, and a Health penalty next turn (All Things Weaken) can likewise destroy pieces that kept Damage.
Yes — Health only matters for Damage. Destroy effects ignore it; only something that explicitly prevents destruction (such as Habsburg's Durable Towns) stops them.
The rulebook covers this in "FEAR FROM DESTRUCTION".
Destroying a Town gives 1 Fear and a City 2 Fear; removing or replacing them gives none. Some effects also trigger on only one of the two.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024, and it matches the rulebook.
Only when an effect specifically adds destroyed Presence, such as Blazing Renewal or A Spread of Rampant Green's special rule. Destroyed Presence sits beside the island, never back on your tracks; once returned it is normal Presence and can be destroyed again. If you have none, that part of the effect does nothing.
No — Damage doesn't lower Health, so a City with 2 Damage still counts as 3 Health. Health modifiers from Adversaries or Events do change the count.
The rulebook covers this in "DAMAGE HURTS INVADERS".
No — Damage from Powers and other effects always means Damage to Invaders unless it explicitly says otherwise. Damage 'in' a land is not Damage 'to' the land.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
No — each Invader in the land takes exactly that much, and no excess carries over to others; River's '2 Damage to each Invader' kills Explorers and Towns but leaves Cities with 1 Health. Plain 'X Damage' is the one you divide as you like.
Yes — a piece saved from destruction loses all its Damage at that moment, whether the destruction came from Damage or a 'Destroy' instruction, and it can't be damaged or destroyed again by that same Action. (A Jagged Earth wording implying otherwise was an oversight.)
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
No — Range only decides which land you may target. Gather pulls pieces into the target land from any adjacent land, and Push sends them to any adjacent land, even if those lands are out of Range or contain your Presence. Range boosts never increase Push or Gather distance, so a Range 0 Power can still Gather from neighbouring lands.
The rulebook covers this in "GATHER AND PUSH".
Yes — each pushed piece may go to the same or a different adjacent land, and each gathered piece may come from a different adjacent land. A rulebook printing that reads as if they can't is a typo. Pieces can never be pushed off the board or into the Ocean (outside Ocean's Hungry Grasp's rules).
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes, if it just says a number: move that many if they are there, or as many as there are. 'Up to X' lets you choose any number from 0 to X, while 'you may Push X' means all X (as many as possible) or none. You still don't have to pick the target land that lets you move the most, and you can always decline the whole Power.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Yes, by separate Powers or separate instructions, as long as each move is legal — and a Power already being resolved keeps going even if the piece has left its Range. A single numbered instruction like 'Push 2 Towns' picks its pieces and moves them all at once, though; it isn't repeated one piece at a time.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
No — 'move to a land within Range' goes straight there without entering the lands between. Effects that say 'move up to 2 lands' (like Call to Migrate or Guide the Way on Feathered Wings) really move land by land, so they can trigger effects in a land they pass through.
The designer answered this directly in 2017, and it matches the rulebook.
No — the Invaders' total Damage (after Defend) is dealt to the land and to the Dahan at the same time, in full to each. Five Damage can destroy two Dahan and still Blight the land, and protecting the Dahan doesn't stop the Blight.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024, and it matches the rulebook.
Both. Total the Invaders' Damage, subtract Defend once, and deal what's left to the land and to the Dahan. With 6 Damage and Defend 6 neither takes anything; with 3 Damage and Defend 2, 1 Damage hits both.
The rulebook covers this in "3a. RAVAGE".
No — Invader Damage to Dahan must destroy as many Dahan as possible: every 2 Damage destroys one, and only a leftover 1 Damage marks a Dahan as damaged. Two Explorers therefore destroy one Dahan rather than wounding two.
Yes — the surviving Dahan deal 2 Damage each as a group, and the players assign it however they like, so one Dahan can destroy two Explorers or 4 Damage can kill a City and an Explorer. Towns and Cities destroyed this way give Fear as usual.
Yes — Dahan respond to the Ravage, not to being hurt. As long as the Ravage happens, surviving Dahan counterattack even if the Invaders dealt 0 Damage.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023, and it matches the rulebook.
No — the counterattack is part of the Ravage Action, so if that Ravage is skipped or stopped, the Dahan deal no Damage and effects that modify their counterattack have nothing to do. Dahan and Invaders never fight outside a Ravage unless an effect says so.
The rulebook covers this in "THE DAHAN".
Only Dahan in the Ravaged land that survive the Invaders' Damage. Dahan destroyed in the Ravage don't strike back, and Dahan elsewhere on the island only deal Damage when a Power tells them to; they don't add to Spirits' Power Damage otherwise.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
No — the counterattack happens immediately after the Invaders deal their Damage, so only Dahan present then take part. Moving Dahan in with a Slow Power sets up next turn instead.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — each Ravage is resolved completely, including the counterattack, before the next one, and Defend applies in full to both.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Because they can be damaged again in the same turn — by a second Ravage, Events or other effects, which mostly come with the expansions. The rule is in the base game so players learn it from the start.
The rulebook covers this in "VICTORY AND DEFEAT".
No — that isn't a loss condition, though it hurts Spirits and Fear cards that rely on Dahan. The only ways to lose are the Blight card running out, a Spirit losing all its Presence, and the Invader deck running out.
No — it means Dahan in the target land have the bonus while they stay there, unless the card says otherwise. Within that land it lasts the turn even if the card leaves play.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
No — Spirits allocate their own Damage to Dahan however they like, even spreading it so none die. Only Invader and Event Damage must destroy Dahan as efficiently as possible.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — non-participating Invaders are ignored for the whole Ravage: they deal no Damage and the Dahan can't damage them. If every Invader in a land sits out, there's no Ravage there at all. Invaders with Strife are different: they still participate (dealing 0) and can be hit.
The number printed for your player count plus exactly 1 extra Blight in total, under an official erratum from early 2021 (printed in later rulebooks, not on the cards). It applies to every game, including base-game-only play and games using the Invader Board's Blight space instead of a card, and doesn't scale with player count: a card showing 2 per Spirit starts with 3 Blight solo and 5 with two Spirits. The extra Blight is added only at setup, never when the card flips.
Exactly the amount printed on the Blighted Island side for your player count. The +1 erratum Blight is a setup-only rule and isn't added again on the flip. Load the card right away and keep playing.
Immediately. The card flips before the added Blight's consequences resolve: take the last Blight from the Healthy side, flip the card and load it, resolve any 'Immediately' effect, then finish placing Blight — further cascading Blight comes from the newly loaded card. Each land's Ravage is a separate Action, so the flip applies before the next land Ravages.
The designer answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
It depends on the wording. 'Immediately' effects (including 'Immediately: On Each Board') happen once, when the card flips. Cards that repeat say so, such as 'each Invader Phase', and resolve at the start of every Invader Phase; a few give ongoing modifiers.
The rulebook covers this in "EFFECTS OF BLIGHT".
Yes — Blight already in a land does nothing to Presence; Presence is only destroyed at the moment Blight is added. The exceptions are effects that forbid it themselves, such as some Growth options of Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island that can't add Presence to a land with Blight.
No — each Blight added destroys one Presence of each Spirit in that land, so a Sacred Site with 2 Presence keeps one. A cascade destroys one in each land it adds Blight to.
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
When Blight is added to a land that already has Blight, that land still gets the Blight, and 1 more Blight goes into one adjacent land the players choose. If that land already had Blight, it cascades again, and so on — even back into the land it came from, and even if every land is already Blighted. Each step adds one Blight to one land.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — a land can have any amount, and every Blight added to an already-Blighted land cascades again.
The rulebook covers this in "3a. RAVAGE".
No — a Ravage that deals 2 or more Damage to the land adds just 1 Blight (plus any cascade), however much Damage there is. Less than 2 Damage adds none, though it can still hurt a Dahan.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025, and it matches the rulebook.
No — unlike Invaders and Dahan, the land only cares about each single instance. 2 or more Damage at once adds Blight; several separate 1-Damage instances never do, while two separate 2-Damage Ravages add Blight twice.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023, and it matches the rulebook.
From the Blight Card (or the Invader Board's Blight space), unless the effect explicitly says the box — including cascades, Powers like Land of Haunts and Embers, and Blighted Island effects. Only the Blight placed on the island at setup comes from the box.
No — setup Blight comes from the box, so the Blight Card starts with its full amount. Blight added during setup also doesn't cascade or destroy Presence.
Back onto the Blight Card, on whichever side is face up, unless the effect says otherwise — including Blight that started on the island from the box. There is no cap, so the card can end up above its starting amount, but it never flips back from Blighted to Healthy.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — Blight stays until an effect specifically removes it, such as a Power, an Innate or an Event. Clearing the Invaders doesn't heal the land.
No — only adding Blight to the island has those consequences. Pushing, Gathering or otherwise moving Blight between lands never cascades or destroys Presence.
Yes — all added Blight follows the normal rules, whatever added it, even your own Power. Those consequences are part of the same Action as whatever added the Blight, and they happen once per addition: adding 2 Blight at once (as Sweden can) destroys one Presence per Spirit and cascades at most once.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
The island counts as Healthy for effects that check it, and removed Blight goes back to the Blight space on the Invader Board as usual.
No — Blight scaling is set at setup. Sinking or adding boards (Cast Down into the Briny Deep, Dream of the Untouched Land) doesn't change the amount on the card or how much is loaded when it flips.
Within limits — you shouldn't know in advance which effect and Blight pool you'll get. Playing without Events, include a card with an ongoing harmful effect. Removing a few cards changes little.
The cascading Blight goes into that cut-off land itself and doesn't cascade further. An earlier ruling had it simply removed from the Blight Card.
The designer answered this directly in 2014, and it matches the rulebook.
No — the game is fully cooperative, so if any Spirit has no Presence left on the island, all players lose together.
Yes — unlike Powers, you can't skip or save a Fear card; resolve it when it's flipped and do as much as it says. Only parts worded 'may' or 'up to' are optional, and if no land qualifies at that moment the effect is simply lost.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
The current one, when you start resolving the card — which may be higher than when it was earned. You use only that level's effect; lower levels are not added. A card already being resolved finishes at its level even if it raises the Terror Level, and a later Terror Level change in the turn doesn't alter Fear effects already resolved.
The designer answered this directly in 2015, and it matches the rulebook.
No — flip the earned stack and resolve the cards one at a time in the order they were earned, oldest first, without looking ahead. Every earned card is resolved in that Fear step.
The rulebook covers this in "FEAR EARNED THROUGH FEAR EFFECTS".
In the same Fear step — put it at the bottom of the stack you're resolving. If the new card revealed a Terror Level divider, the remaining cards use the new Terror Level.
The rulebook covers this in "FEAR AND TERROR".
No — earned Fear cards wait face down until the Fear step of the next Invader Phase. A card earned in the Fast phase is resolved that same turn; one earned during the Invader Actions or the Slow phase waits until next turn. Several can pile up and are all resolved then.
The pool holds 4 Fear per Spirit, and you earn a card each time it empties. Leftover Fear carries over: earn the card, reset the markers, then keep moving markers for the rest — a big burst can earn several cards.
The rulebook covers this in "FEAR FROM DESTRUCTION".
Yes — destroying a Town always gives 1 Fear and a City 2, whatever destroyed it: Powers, Damage, Dahan counterattacks, Fear or Event cards. Removing or replacing them gives none.
The designer answered this directly in 2020, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — the printed Fear and the automatic Fear for destruction are separate, so '5 Fear, destroy 2 Towns' gives 7 Fear.
The rulebook covers this in "WIN CONDITIONS".
No — earning the last Fear card takes you to Terror Level Victory and you win at once, so its effect never happens. With 9 Fear cards, normally only 8 are ever resolved.
Yes — the new Terror Level and its victory condition apply the moment the divider is exposed, even partway through a Power. So a later part of the same Power, such as Threatening Flames' Push, uses the new level, and you may win on the spot.
The designer answered this directly in 2018, and it matches the rulebook.
After each Action finishes, including anything it triggers, at any point in the turn. Each land's Ravage is its own Action, so you can win mid-Ravage before other lands act, and a Fear card or Power that meets the condition wins before the Invader Phase continues. Defeat uses the same timing.
It's a Sacrifice Victory, which counts as a win. Always finish the whole Action — a Power, or one land's Ravage including the Dahan fighting back — before checking; a loss triggered and undone within the same Action doesn't count. If that one Action meets both a victory and a loss condition, the Spirits win a Sacrifice Victory.
Whichever you resolve first. Players choose the order of Ravaging lands and each is a separate Action, so resolving the winning land first wins outright before the losing Ravage. (An older designer intent of calling this a Sacrifice Victory was replaced by this rule.)
A Fear victory (Terror Level Victory). The Fear is earned during the Action that destroys the City, so by the time the Action finishes and you check for victory, the game is already past Terror Level 3.
The rulebook covers this in "VICTORY AND DEFEAT".
You follow the card the moment its last Blight comes off — usually flip to Blighted Island, or lose if the card says so — not only when you later need Blight and can't get it. As with all game-ending conditions, the current Action is finished before the loss takes effect.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
Only when you need to draw an Invader card to Explore and the deck is empty. Until then you can still win, including during that turn's Ravage or Build.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — Fear cards have no Range and can affect any land on the island; only the card's own restrictions apply. 'Each player ... from a land' means one land per player, not every qualifying land.
The designer answered this directly in 2019.
When the Invaders act. It modifies the upcoming Explore or Build, so it looks at the Dahan in each land at that moment — Dahan gathered by a later Fear card count, and it also covers other Builds that turn.
No, as written — each removal must take 2 Explorers or 1 Town from a land with Dahan if any land allows it; a single Explorer is removed only when nothing better exists anywhere. Playing it as 'up to' won't break the game but isn't the rule. At Terror Level III, resolve both parts independently: the Explorer/Town removal in every Dahan land, then a City from each land with 2+ Dahan.
The skipped Build card stays in the Build space while the other cards advance, so the Explore card joins it and next turn there are two Build cards; resolve the older one fully first. They then Ravage together the turn after. If the Build space is empty when the card is resolved, the skip waits for the next Build that actually happens.
No — you skip the Explore without revealing a card, so next turn's Build space is empty and the following Invader Phase reveals an extra card. With an empty Invader deck this can buy an extra turn at Terror Level II. The 'lowest-numbered land' it spares is any land of that terrain, whether or not it would have been explored.
Nothing is built there — the City isn't replaced by a Town. Coastal lands that would build a Town build normally.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It affects every land, but each Town or City only destroys Invaders in its own land; the 'one land' guideline is for Powers, not Fear cards. Towns and Cities destroyed this way still give Fear.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Players may push Explorers into a land with more Towns and Cities (counted together) than the land they leave; a land with none counts as 0, so any land with a Town or City is a valid destination. The Push is optional ('may').
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — players resolve their parts one after another, so the same Dahan can be gathered onward, and each player's effect then happens in its own land. Where the card requires different lands, players can't reuse one.
No — Fear and Event cards have no targeting step. If a land exists where the instruction can be carried out in full, you must pick one; only if none exists do you use a land where it partly works. The exception is a card that first says to choose a land freely (for example 'each Spirit chooses a land'), then do as much as you can there.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
Offense is destroying Invaders (including boosting Damage); Control is moving things around, tokens included; Fear is generating Fear; Defense covers Defend, Blight removal, cancelling Invader Actions and protective tokens; Utility is everything else, such as giving Energy, Elements or cards to others.
For each Air you have, you may make one of your Slow Powers Fast — any Slow Power, including your Innate, not only cards showing Air. It's optional, and a Slow card's own Air counts because you have its Elements as soon as it is played. The same Air also counts for thresholds. If you lose Air mid-turn, you can speed up another Power only while your Air exceeds the number already sped up.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes, it can make Innates Fast (they are Powers) and it can target any Spirit, Lightning included. Making a Power Fast only changes when it resolves — a Power used in the Fast phase isn't used again in the Slow phase.
You gain its Elements when you play each Major Power, and the unused-play Element at the end of the Spirit Phase, choosing them at that moment. Unused Card Plays count from all your available plays (extras included), so a single one left over after paying 2 per card counts.
Yes, for all purposes — including Fear cards like Fear of the Unseen, which any player can resolve there. It is still only one Presence: Blight destroys that one disc, and you don't mark it with spares. The rule is River's alone, so it doesn't make another Spirit's lone Presence a Sacred Site.
No — 'up to 2' lets you Gather none, so if the target already has 2 Dahan you still get the Energy and added Dahan, which go into the target land. Range 0 only fixes which land you target; the Gather still pulls from adjacent lands.
When it resolves in the Fast phase, so it can't fund more cards that turn. It counts only the target Spirit's own Powers, and in solo you get just the 1 Energy, not the per-card bonus meant for another Spirit.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
It costs no Energy: target any Spirit (Earth included), which may once this turn Repeat one of its Power Cards costing no more than the level allows — the higher levels say 'Instead' and just raise that limit (1, 3, then 6). The target chooses the card when it Repeats, so a Slow card can be Repeated in the Slow phase. The Repeat is free, isn't a Card Play, and can't Repeat an Innate.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2018.
Every land where Earth has a Sacred Site has Defend 3, every turn, adding to any other Defend there. It's a static rule: it follows Earth's Presence as it changes and applies whenever Defend matters. It's the same Defend 3 however many Presence are there, and it doesn't apply to lands with a single Presence.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Every Invader Action in its one target land that turn: Ravage, Build and Explore, including extra ones from Events, Powers or England's Escalation. Effects that merely add pieces aren't Invader Actions and still happen, and skipped Actions never come back later.
Yes to both — the target bar doesn't require Invaders, so you can take its Fear, and with 3 or more Dahan its extra Damage adds to the base for 5 in total.
Yes — each 'up to' line allows any number from 0 to its maximum, so you can gather 0 Explorers and just Dahan. Gather only moves pieces in from adjacent lands; pieces already in the target don't matter.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Sunshine removes Boon of Vigor before the game, so it can never be regained; in solo River gets both its target-Spirit and self bonuses. Travel's Defend applies only in lands with 4 or more Dahan — its Sacred Site rule doesn't grant Defend — and with Entwined Power a partner's 4-Dahan land counts only for targeting.
Might's '+1 Damage with each damage-dealing Power' adds once per use of a Power, not per land or Damage instance (each Repeat is a new use); its first level can't play the card it gains that same use. Resilience raises how much Damage it takes to Blight its lands, which also raises thresholds like Sweden's Heavy Mining (10 becomes 14 for the extra Blight).
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021.
No — its Elements come when you play a Major Power in the Spirit Phase; using or Repeating it later isn't playing it.
When you use one of Shadows' land-targeting Powers you may pay 1 Energy to ignore its Range and target any land with Dahan. Everything else still applies: target-land restrictions, and source requirements like needing a Sacred Site or Presence in a Jungle somewhere. It doesn't work on Spirit-targeting Powers and doesn't change the Power's effects. You pay when you use the Power.
Neither. It protects only the Dahan: the land still takes the full Ravage Damage and gets Blight at 2 or more (destroying Presence there), while the Dahan take none, so they all survive to fight back. Its effect stays for the turn even if your Presence there is lost.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
The Push is optional. If the target Spirit pushes, it chooses one of its own lands — any of them, even one with only an Explorer or only a Town — and pushes 1 Explorer and 1 Town from it, as many of those as are there. It isn't Range 0 from the caster.
No — 'now outnumber' just means you check after the Gather, which can be 0 Dahan, so a land already outnumbered still gives the Fear. Count pieces, not Health: 2 Dahan outnumber one City.
Yes, the 2 Fear always happens; the '-or-' only chooses which replacement you make, and you may pick either even if it can't happen. A damaged Town replaced by an Explorer passes its Damage on, so the Explorer is destroyed.
Whenever a Dahan moves out of one of Thunderspeaker's lands — by anyone's Power — she may move one Presence along with it, one per Dahan moved, each time it moves. Other Spirits' Presence never travels with Dahan.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
After a Ravage destroys Dahan: once that Ravage's Blight and cascades have resolved, destroy one of her Presence within Range 1 of that land for each Dahan the Ravage destroyed. It triggers even if no Blight was added, and Presence the Blight already took doesn't count. Dahan destroyed by other effects don't trigger it.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — it's one Power with one target: Gather Dahan into that land (per Air), then Push from the same land (per Sun), in that order. You can't stop between the two to use another Power such as Manifestation of Power and Glory, though you can choose to Push nothing.
1 Town per 2 Dahan in the target land, with no cap; with its higher level also met, both effects apply, so 6 Dahan could destroy 3 Towns and 2 Cities. It's still one use, in one land, per turn.
Each Dahan deals Damage equal to your Presence in the land, so the total is Dahan × Presence. Towns and Cities destroyed this way give Fear as usual.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Every Dahan in the target land after the optional Gather destroys an Explorer, including those that were already there.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
It doesn't stop Blight — it adds its Defend, and then makes the Dahan deal their Damage at the same moment as the Invaders, so Dahan that are destroyed still strike back. The land still Blights if 2 or more Damage gets through. The Defend stays even if Dahan later leave.
No — each gain is separate: choose a deck, draw 4 and keep 1 (Forgetting if it's a Major), then do the second gain, choosing its deck after seeing the first.
Every turn, in addition to its chosen Growth option, it must add a Presence to a Jungle or Wetland within Range 2, before or after the other option. It may reposition a Presence from the island instead, even picking one up and putting it back where it was, so the requirement never forces a cost.
When Green adds Presence during Growth it may use destroyed Presence instead — free while the Blight Card is on its Healthy side, 1 Energy each once the island is Blighted. It's optional, and it doesn't work for Presence added by Power Cards. Without a Blight Card the island never becomes Blighted, so strictly you never pay.
It's optional (the 'may' missing from one printing is errata). Right before a Ravage or Build in a land with its Sacred Site, Green may destroy one of its Presence there to stop that one Action, and it can do so in any number of lands. Stopping a second Action in the same land needs the land to still be a Sacred Site, so it takes 3 Presence there to stop both. A stopped Ravage means the Dahan don't fight back either.
Yes, if you choose that option — 3 Dahan, or all of them if there are fewer. It deliberately doesn't say 'up to', but you can pick the other option or not use the Power.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Yes to both — each Repeat is a separate use with its own target, so Flame's Fury's +1 applies to every use. The bonus Damage keeps the card's restriction and goes to the same single Town or City as that use.
Two — one in the highest-numbered Wetland and one in a Jungle without Dahan (players choose on ties). With 11 track spaces to fill, that uses all 13 Presence.
Madness's Glimpse of the Shadowed Void gives Fear for any Spirit's Presence destroyed, as written (the intent was only Shadows' own, but the designer is happy to play it as written). Reach ignores Range for one of Shadows' own actions, and as a Range modification it carries over to a Repeat.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Each Moon or Fire you have counts as either, chosen per Action, never both. For effects that check Elements printed on cards (Choice Events, some Scenarios), a card with Moon or Fire counts as having both. Frightful Shadows Elude Destruction protects Presence from any destruction, including Ravage Blight.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
No — Raiding Party and the Warrior Incarna only act on Thunderspeaker's own Actions; another Spirit's Power, an Event or a Fear card moving Dahan or Presence doesn't count.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
Each level you meet adds its own Fear to the earlier ones, so all three levels give 3 Fear, not 6. The '+' is just a reminder that it's additional, and you can use a later level without meeting an earlier one.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Bringer's Powers never deal real Damage or destroy anything except Bringer's own Presence. Assign the Power's Damage as usual; each Invader it would destroy instead generates the Fear on Bringer's panel, and Explorers and Towns must be Pushed (Cities stay put). This applies even to Bringer Powers worded as Dahan dealing Damage, and Dahan are never harmed by them.
Players disagree; this is the better-supported reading, with no official ruling.
Within one Power, yes: all its Damage instructions, thresholds included, add up, and they combine with real Damage already on a piece — a City with 1 real Damage is dream-destroyed by 2 more. The dream Damage vanishes when that Power finishes, so two Bringer Powers can't add together, and the real Damage stays.
No — a single Power can't Destroy a given Invader more than once, so you can't push it along and scare it again for more Fear (for example with Tsunami or Talons of Lightning's threshold). A Repeat or a separate trigger, such as a second Vengeance of the Dead, is a separate use and can.
Only Damage and Destroy instructions on Bringer's own Powers are changed. Blight Bringer adds is real and destroys Presence; Remove, Replace, Defend and token effects work normally; and Damage from Dahan counterattacks, Fear cards, Events, Scenarios and other Spirits is real.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
The board isn't destroyed and nothing on it is except Bringer's own Presence there. Invaders that would be destroyed generate Fear and Explorers and Towns are pushed as usual.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
Any face-down Fear card — earned, next up, or deep in the deck. It only reveals the card: it stays where it is and is earned and resolved normally. It's usable only once the Fast phase begins, so Card Plays are already locked in.
Yes — Bringer's Pushes can go into an in-play Ocean, and Ocean's Drowning (its own triggered action) really destroys them, with the normal Fear. Bringer gets no extra Fear for those Invaders unless its Power would have destroyed them first.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Its own Fear counts — the card sets up 'Defend 1 per Fear' before generating it, so you start with Defend 1. Fear that Powers later generate in that land adds more, but the automatic Fear for destroying Towns and Cities doesn't.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
Yes — check the text on the card, threshold and alternate-mode text included, regardless of what you'll resolve or target.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Yes — on any board where Ocean has Presence (anywhere on that board, not necessarily in the Ocean), that board's Ocean counts as a Coastal Wetland for every Spirit's Powers and special rules. Invaders or Dahan any Spirit moves there are Drowned, feeding Ocean's Energy. On boards without Ocean's Presence, or without Ocean in the game, the Ocean isn't a land and nothing can enter it.
No — Ocean's rule covers only Spirit Powers, Spirit special rules and Blight. Invaders never Explore, Build or Ravage in an Ocean, and Fear cards, Events and Adversary effects can't put pieces there or drown them.
Players disagree; this is the better-supported reading, with no official ruling.
Yes — Drowning destroys the piece, so Towns and Cities give their normal Fear when they drown. Trading the drowned pieces for Energy later gives nothing more.
Add up the printed Health of drowned Invaders and trade Health equal to the number of players (Spirits) for 1 Energy, any time, as often as you like — solo, a Town is simply 2 Energy. Health modifiers are ignored. You may save drowned pieces and trade several together. Strictly you can't make change (cash in more Health than you need and keep the rest), though the developer tested it that way and doesn't mind if you do.
Only through an effect that explicitly ignores land restrictions, such as Indomitable Claim. Ocean's rule blocks every way of placing or moving its Presence inland — Growth, Power Cards like Unrelenting Growth or Blazing Renewal, Pushes, and other Spirits' Powers — despite the older wording on the panel.
No — Growth and setup aren't Powers, so 'Coastal land' there means a real Coastal land, and no Spirit can Grow Presence into an Ocean. Ocean puts Presence in the Ocean through its own Growth that names Oceans, and other Spirits only via Powers that add or move Presence. Two of Ocean's Presence in one Ocean do form a Sacred Site.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
In every Ocean where it can — the moves are mandatory but not costs, so you may take the option and skip Oceans where it's impossible. They move only Ocean's own Presence, one per board.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
No — they drown pieces directly in the targeted Coastal land: destroy them and put them on Ocean's panel, using the definition in Ocean's Drowning rule. Pieces merely pushed into a Coastal land with Ocean's Presence don't drown; only pieces moved into an in-play Ocean drown automatically.
'Your Ocean' means an Ocean that actually contains Ocean's Presence — unlike the drowning rule, Presence elsewhere on the board isn't enough. Dahan pushed there then go to a Coastal land — all to one land, though it can be on another board. 'Their lands' isn't Range 0, so Range boosts don't extend it.
The Ocean stops being a land. Dahan and Invaders there go to the nearest legal land; other pieces, such as another Spirit's Presence, are out of play — unusable for anything — until Ocean returns to that board. If that was all of a Spirit's Presence, the game is lost. This 2020 ruling replaced an older one that destroyed everything in the Ocean.
Yes — mostly through cascades, plus the odd Power, Event or Adversary that adds or moves Blight there. It works like any land: added Blight destroys Presence in that Ocean, and it stays until something removes it.
No to both — each board's Ocean is its own separate land, and only the marked Ocean counts; other edges of a solo board are not Ocean. On the thematic map, treat East land 1 as adjacent to the Northeast board's Ocean when both are used.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
The sunk land joins that board's Ocean, which stays one land; other pieces there (Presence, tokens, Blight) stay put, now in the Ocean, and ongoing effects carry over. Lands adjacent to it become Coastal. Invaders never Build there. The change is permanent, though for balance revert it between Second Wave games.
The rulebook covers this in "WIN CONDITIONS".
You win a sacrifice victory: every Invader is gone, which wins, while your last Presence is gone too, which would lose. When one effect causes both, the Spirits win a sacrifice victory.
Only if the remaining boards still touch. In the standard layouts the boards stay linked diagonally, but if sinking a board leaves parts of the island disconnected, treat them as separate with no adjacency between them.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
'This Power' is Call on Midnight's Dream itself. Gaining the Major still requires Forgetting a card as usual; if the card you Forget is Call on Midnight's Dream, you also gain Energy per Dahan and may play the new Major immediately by paying its cost. Forget anything else and the Major simply goes to your hand.
It doesn't use a Card Play — those only limit the Spirit Phase. The Major resolves at its own speed: a Fast one can be used right away, a Slow one waits for the Slow phase. It is targeted when used, so it needn't hit the same land as Call on Midnight's Dream.
For the rest of the turn, both Spirits may use either Spirit's Presence for the Range and targeting of their Powers, Innates included, even to meet a Sacred Site requirement (1 Presence of each colour counts). It does not count for anything else: "your lands", "your Presence" and checks like "if you have 2 Sacred Sites" still mean only your own, and it doesn't pass on the other Spirit's special targeting bonuses.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
Yes — taking one of the Majors the other Spirit didn't keep counts as gaining a Major, so you Forget a card as usual (it may be the Major itself). Giving the other Spirit a Major you already owned is not gaining one, so neither of you Forgets for that.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Only a card the target would discard at the end of this turn — that is, one played this turn, not one already in the discard. Gift of Constancy itself is a valid choice, and if it has already resolved, its effect still happens even if the card is later Forgotten.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2019.
The Spirit using the Power, not the Spirit it targets.
The designer answered this directly in 2022.
Normally no — it must Repeat your lowest-cost Power in play, and if that is Gift of Twinned Days itself, the Repeat does nothing. It only works if Twinned Days leaves play after being used (for example Forgotten when gaining a Major mid-turn) before you take the Repeat.
Yes — each threshold's bonus goes to one of the two target lands, and both bonuses may go to the same one, giving 12 and 4 Damage instead of 8 and 8. The two targets must be different lands.
Exactly +1 Damage in total to the Power's own instructions, placed wherever you choose, however many Damage clauses or lands the Power has. Each time a triggered Damage effect set up by the Power (such as Vengeance of the Dead) resolves, that is a separate Action and gets its own +1 — a 2020 designer ruling that replaced a 2018 answer giving only the first trigger the bonus. Two uses of Flame's Fury on the same Spirit stack for +2.
Top to bottom: replace the City, Town and Dahan with Explorers; then, at the threshold, those Explorers and the Towns/Cities damage each other simultaneously; finally Push Explorers. Per the erratum, that Push moves all Explorers in the land, not just the new ones, into as many different lands as possible — at least one into each land you can, with the rest wherever you like. Damage already on a replaced piece carries over: a City with 1 Damage becomes 2 Explorers, one of which is destroyed.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It has no Range limit — you may target any land.
Do as much as you legally can and skip what you can't. Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds using Absorb Essence would gain the Energy and grant Serpent its Element and Energy, but can't use Serpent's own track effects.
Yes — the card says 'gift', not 'exchange', on purpose; one Spirit may give a card and receive nothing.
Only where the boosted Power's Damage could go — it keeps that Damage's restrictions, so a Power that damages only Explorers and Towns can't send the bonus to a City. When a Power has several Damage instructions you choose which the bonus joins, and the current ruling lets a multi-point bonus such as Gift of Furious Might's +3 be spread across them within a single use.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Add 2 destroyed Presence if you can, or as many as you have — it isn't 'up to', so with 2 or more destroyed Presence you can't choose to add just 1. Its Damage happens as long as at least one was added. The threshold Damage goes into the land where the Presence was placed, and only if Presence was added there.
Probably yes. The designer's provisional answer is that when a Power lets you choose which lands its Damage goes into, you aren't obliged to pick lands with Invaders, but Damage dealt in a land must go to Invaders there. If the land has sunk (for example after Cast Down into the Briny Deep), it is no longer adjacent to anything.
Its threshold Damage is a total divided among the adjacent lands as you choose, not dealt in full to each. It isn't simultaneous between lands: you choose the order in which Ravaging lands resolve, so Invaders in one land can destroy those next door before that land Ravages.
When the Damage happens. Unlike most Defend effects it follows the target Spirit's Presence, so check where that Presence is at the time of the Ravage.
The threshold adds to the base effect: all Explorers, all Towns and 1 City are destroyed, and its 'do not destroy any Dahan' overrides the base Dahan destruction.
Yes, it always adds its Blight from the Blight Card to the target land, cascading if Blight was already there — you can't use the rest of the card and skip the Blight. Its 'perform the above effects again' isn't a Repeat, so it stays in the same land, and that happens before the Blight is added.
All of it goes into the target land: 2 per Blight there plus 1 per Blight in adjacent lands. The threshold's Repeat on an adjacent land only needs that land to be adjacent to the first target — the Range and 'has Blight' restrictions don't apply to it.
No to both. It adds Presence to one of the target's lands, so after destroying your last Presence there is nowhere to add it. And its threshold is checked before the options resolve, so a Sun uncovered by the added Presence doesn't let you do both.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
They can move a Presence already on the island, like any 'add Presence', but they can't use destroyed Presence — only effects that say so can. A Spirit can also put Presence into an Ocean with them when Ocean's Hungry Grasp is on that board.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2018.
Yes, as printed. The publisher considers that a design slip but chose not to issue errata, so it works as written.
With its threshold, Blight can't be added to the target land from any source, including Blight cascading into it, so no cascade starts from it either. All turn-long effects end together at Time Passes, at the same moment Damage clears, so Dahan don't die just because it wears off.
Remove every piece from the target land (no Fear) and add pieces per its setup icons; Presence that wasn't there originally is destroyed. With the threshold, Dahan, Presence and Spirit tokens stay and only non-Invader, non-Blight setup pieces are added.
The target Spirit's — the Presence belongs to that Spirit, so its Range is measured from that Spirit's Presence. 'A land at Range 1' means within Range 1, so Range 0 works too.
The target Spirit may Repeat a Power Card it has in play, paying that card's cost again; with the threshold it may make up to three Repeats, each on a different Power Card. Repeats can come later in the turn, give no extra Elements, and a Repeated card ignores its own Repeat text. Different Repeat effects (say Powerstorm and Gift of Twinned Days) can each Repeat the same Power.
Yes, the Repeat grants a new set of three Elements (the same or different ones, even to a different Spirit), because Elemental Boon grants Elements through its text. But they arrive after Powerstorm's threshold was checked, so they can't help Powerstorm itself.
The designer answered the Repeat part directly in 2019; experienced players agree on the Range part.
The +3 Range applies to the target Spirit's Powers when they target a Coastal land this turn, cards and Innates alike, even those whose target bar says 'Any'. Its speed change can also be used on a Power you already used: make it Slow in the Slow phase, and a 'may Repeat this turn' effect such as Vital Strength's Gift of Strength can then Repeat it.
The threshold's +3 Fear happens before the Terror Level check, as the card says, but its 3 Damage comes at the end, after the removal. A '+' on a threshold adds a new instance of an effect rather than modifying the earlier one.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Its Fear and Damage only happen in a Jungle or Wetland, but it can target any land, and its 3 Animal threshold deals 1 Damage wherever you target, so outside those terrains it only does something with the threshold.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — a land-targeting Power's effects are relative to its target land unless the card mentions the origin land.
To the original target land.
Yes on both — it resolves in order and adds to the base effect: 2 Damage per Dahan in the target land, then Push up to 2 Dahan, then 2 Damage per Dahan in each land you pushed Dahan into, counting every Dahan there after the Push. When the whole Power is Repeated (for example by Vital Strength of the Earth's innate) both parts happen again, because the threshold isn't a Repeat effect.
It lasts the rest of the turn and deals its Damage immediately after each effect that destroys Towns, Cities or Dahan in the land, including Ravage and Dahan counterattacks and Fear or Event 'destroy' effects. A single use can never trigger itself, even indirectly, though two separate uses can trigger each other once each. With its threshold the Damage may be split among adjacent lands.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
10 in each adjacent land — the bracketed effect happens separately in every adjacent land.
3 Damage in total, dealt as you like. It is part of the same Power, so Towns and Cities it destroys count toward the card's Fear (up to its cap).
One experienced player's answer supports this; there is no official ruling.
Yes — any 2 Invaders of any type, as long as both are in the target land.
No — unless a Power says otherwise its effects stay in the target land, so an Invader pushed out heals normally.
The Damage and Defend 2 per Dahan happen as soon as the Power resolves, no Ravage needed, and the Defend stays in the land even if Dahan later leave or die. With the threshold, each Dahan the card pushes carries a flat Defend 2 to its new land (the original land loses 2 per pushed Dahan), regardless of Dahan already there. Dahan moved later by another Power leave their Defend behind.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
No — each Dahan deals 1 Damage to a different Invader of your choice (they can be the same type). If there are more Dahan than Invaders, the extra Damage is lost.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Yes to both. It says Move rather than Push, so Dahan can go to any land, and moving pieces from a land into that same land still counts as a move, so you can Defend 5 where they already stand.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No, by the later ruling — the Defend goes to the land the Dahan are moved to, so moving 0 Dahan chooses no land and gives no Defend; the digital version was updated to match. Earlier, many players read the two sentences as independent and used it as 'Defend 5 anywhere', which is why you'll still see that advice.
Yes — the designer ruled in July 2020 that the target Spirit may choose any of its lands even if no Dahan can be Gathered there, and the Damage then happens per Dahan present. This reversed his March 2020 answer, which followed the strict wording that the Gather defines the land. The same applies to similar Spirit-targeting cards such as Mantle of Dread and Tidal Boon.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
The whole Ravage counts as one time Dahan would be destroyed, so it destroys 2 fewer Dahan than it otherwise would. The prevention happens as the destruction occurs, not after the Action has finished, and a saved Dahan's Damage is cleared.
It targets one Coastal land and destroys Dahan only there. Its threshold then also affects each other Coastal land on the same board, with the reduced effects printed (including 1 Dahan in each).
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
None — it gives the lesser of the number of Towns/Cities and the number of Dahan, and 0 is the lesser.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Every adjacent land — target restrictions apply only to the target land, not to effects in adjacent lands.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Only those it pushes into an in-play Ocean. Its destroy option simply destroys Explorers and Towns — they aren't Drowned — and you may always choose the push instead.
Yes to both — it modifies the target land, so every Invader there has -1 Damage, including ones added later, and it applies to Damage they deal to other Invaders or during Dahan events, not just Ravages.
Used in the Fast phase, it waits for the next Invader Phase — this turn or later — in which no Ravage or Build Action actually happens in the target land (one stopped by Disease or skipped doesn't count). Then, once, add a Beast. With the threshold you get both effects: that one Beast is marked and can push and deal its Fear and Damage every Slow phase, starting that turn. Its Push only applies to Beasts this Power added.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
It's replaced and removed from the game, not destroyed, so it can never return and 'when destroyed' effects don't fire. Its 3 Damage per replaced Presence goes only into the target land (plus Badlands still there, once per Action); pushed Badlands matter only for the threshold's adjacent Damage.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
It Takes them from the top of the deck straight into play (not draw-4-keep-1); you keep them, and they give Elements that turn, though too late for its own threshold. The threshold's extra card needs you to actually remove Presence from your tracks.
No — it creates a separate Ravage Action: pause the Power, resolve the whole Ravage with the Dahan counterattack, then continue. Its Damage isn't the Power's (relevant for Bringer and Ocean). Victory is still only checked once the whole Power finishes.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2019.
No — its replacements are mandatory; if only one of the two can be done, you must do that one.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
In a land with no Blight, 2 Fear and 11 Damage in total, plus the normal Fear for buildings it destroys — and it still adds its Blight, which counts before victory is checked.
Yes — playing at a level applies that level's rules and every lower level's. Level 0 (base level) is just the Escalation and the additional loss condition, which apply at every level. Tiles or cards that list only some levels (like England's High Immigration '3, 4 & 6') mark where the rule changes; it still applies at the levels in between.
Every Stage II card with the Escalation flag triggers it — typically 2 to 4 times a game (the Coastal Lands card has no flag). It happens as soon as the card is revealed, before its Explore, unless the Adversary says otherwise (Sweden's, for example, happens after Exploring).
Top to bottom they are Terror Level I, II and III: 4/4/3 means 4 cards before the Terror Level II divider, 4 more before Terror Level III, and 3 to Fear victory. These numbers are for the Fear deck, not the Invader deck.
The designer answered this directly in 2019.
Each time it triggers, on each board that has any Towns or Cities, add a Town to a land without a Town — any qualifying land on that board, chosen by the players, regardless of terrain or the printed setup icons. It adds a Town rather than Building, so effects that stop Builds or Invader Actions don't affect it.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
For effects that ask which Stage you are in, it counts as Stage II while it sits among the Stage II cards. It is not treated as a Stage II card for England's High Immigration tile when the two are combined.
The Build card also builds in matching lands with no Invaders if they are adjacent to 2 or more Towns/Cities in total (spread across any adjacent lands). It doesn't make non-matching lands build, and normal Builds still happen. Which lands qualify is fixed before that card's Builds resolve, so new Towns don't add lands mid-Build. It applies to every Build card, including High Immigration, and effects that stop Builds in a land stop it too.
It is an extra Build space to the left of Ravage. A card leaving Ravage slides onto it instead of being discarded, and next turn it Builds there first: High Immigration Build, then Ravage, Build and Explore, left to right. It builds in every qualifying land like a normal Build card, but it isn't a 'normal' Build, so effects that skip the next normal Build (Immigration Slows and the like) don't stop it. At level 6 the two cards there are separate Builds, and Towns from the first count for the second.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
On each board, in the land with the most Towns and Cities combined, whatever its terrain and even if it already built this turn; the players pick among tied lands, even one where the Build will be prevented. It is a real Build, so anything that stops Builds there stops it. Boards with no Towns or Cities skip it, and it happens once per flagged card, when revealed.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — only Health goes up. Towns and Cities deal the same Damage when they Ravage and give the same Fear when destroyed, and Destroy effects still destroy them outright.
From the Blight Card, like all Blight added during play. Both Blight are added together as one addition, so Presence destruction and cascading are checked once; if the card runs short, flip it, resolve any Immediately effect, then add them.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Right after the Invaders Explore, in lands they actually explored into that turn (not a turn later, and not the whole board). A land with no Dahan, or where the Explore was stopped, is unaffected. It is meant to apply only to Explores from the flagged card itself.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
After. Spirits place Presence and the initial Explore happens first; then discard the top card of the Invader deck and add the Town as its setup instruction says.
The designer answered this directly in 2019.
When a Ravage adds Blight to a land, add 1 Town to an adjacent land without Towns/Cities — just one even if the Ravage added 2 Blight, and none if every adjacent land already has a Town or City. If the Town lands where a Ravage is still to come this step, it joins that Ravage, but it never creates a new one.
Yes — think of the land as having Health. Sweden's extra Blight and the Habsburg Monarchy loss condition count Damage above that Health, so raising it (for example in a land protected that way) raises those thresholds too.
Yes, but combinations aren't tested: judge the difficulty yourself and tweak anything that turns degenerate (Guard the Isle's Heart with high-level Second Wave or Blitz, for example). Modifier-style Scenarios mix more cleanly than goal-driven ones.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
Explore with the first Invader card, advance it to Build and Build there, then reveal a second card and Explore, then advance both — so on turn 1 the first card is in Ravage and the second in Build.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Only Fast Powers. For a Fast Power Card, it lowers the cost as you play it — so a 0-cost Fast card gives you Energy you can spend on other cards that turn. For a Fast Innate (once per use, however many levels) or a Slow Power made Fast during the Powers phase, you gain it when it is used or becomes Fast, too late to pay for that turn's cards. Effects that use 'its cost', like Powerstorm, see the reduced cost.
Each time an Invader card is resolved for Explore (setup included), add one extra Explorer per board, in one of that board's explored lands of your choice.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
When the card flips to Blighted Island, put 1 fewer Blight per player on it than it shows. The setup Blight (including the +1 erratum) is unchanged.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
No to both. Each Spirit simply takes the top card of the Minor and Major decks, which isn't a 'gain', so you don't Forget a card for the Major. The inner lands are only a Scenario designation; Coastal and Inland work as normal.
You must meet every condition in full: destroy the required number of Presence in the land (a total, so one Spirit may destroy more to cover for another), have the Dahan there, and pay the Energy. As printed nothing stops you performing a Ritual more than once a turn. Fear cards it earns are resolved at the Terror Level you reach; doing it in the Fast phase gets more out of them, while the Slow phase lets you see their results before planning next turn or win on the spot by reaching a new Terror Level.
Not as written — the Scenario replaces the normal Fear-based victory and gives no Terror Level I condition, so you need to reach Terror Level II. Some players argue clearing every Invader should still win, but the printed rules don't support it.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
In the nearest land with Dahan, which can be the very land where the Town or City was destroyed; players break ties. It also triggers on Towns and Cities destroyed by Coordinated Insurrection, and the Insurrection is a separate Action in each land with Dahan. Dahan Damage from the Scenario hits Invaders, not the land.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
There's no printed fix. The designer's suggested ruling is to place the Town or City in the nearest non-Heart land instead, for any non-Spirit effect that would unavoidably add or move one into a Heart land. A City placed there at setup by an Adversary stays by the rules as written.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021, and it matches the rulebook.
Yes — solo players may target themselves with those Powers. You don't get bonuses that only apply when you target a Spirit other than yourself, so Spur On with Words of Fire still lets you play another card but without the +1 Energy, while parts of a card with no such condition apply normally.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Yes — when you target yourself you are both 'you' and the target Spirit, so you get both halves. Entwined Power then gains you two Power Cards (and 6 Energy at its threshold), and cards like Gift of Twinned Days or Exaltation of the Incandescent Sky resolve once for each role.
The rulebook covers this in "SOLO PLAYER MODE".
One — the island always has one board per Spirit, so a single Spirit plays on a single board.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
Yes, in the standard way of playing it. Multi-handed play is technically a house rule, but the usual version changes as little as possible: set up and play exactly as a multiplayer game, with one person sitting in several seats. Fear, Blight and every 'each player' effect use the number of Spirits, and each Spirit keeps its own Energy, Elements and card plays. The special solo targeting rule only applies when there is a single Spirit.
The designer answered this directly in 2024.
Not by design — there is no player-count adjustment. Playtesting found that the extra complexity of larger games roughly cancels out the extra synergy, so a given Difficulty is meant to feel similar from 1 to 6 Spirits.
A win scores 5 × Difficulty, +10, and +2 per Invader card left in the deck; a loss scores 2 × Difficulty and +1 per Invader card no longer in the deck (discards plus the cards in the Action spaces). Either way add 1 per X living Dahan and subtract 1 per X Blight on the island, where X is the number of players. So even a Difficulty 0 win scores points.
Add them together as a rough guide: the Adversary's Difficulty at the level played, plus the Scenario's, plus 3 for thematic maps. The total can exceed 10 and is what people use for scoring, but there is no official formula — some pairings make each other much harder than the sum, others barely interact, and a few (like Guard the Isle's Heart for experienced players) can even make things easier.
By players, as the rules are written; no erratum changes it. Dividing by boards arguably fits better, but the score is only a rough measure anyway.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023, and it matches the rulebook.
No — you win as soon as you meet the current victory condition. Spirits and Adversaries are balanced around the game ending then, so stretching a game for points is a house rule that changes how they play.
Yes — the base rules work with 6 boards, and Jagged Earth adds optional archipelago layouts.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No Explore happens in Coastal lands that turn — not just that the Ocean stops being a source. At Terror Level III, Invaders also take no Actions in lands with Disease, which makes those lands valid Explore sources again, so it isn't strictly stronger than Level II.
No — each Beast acts only in its own land, like all tokens, so you can't pool Beasts from around the board to hit one land. Damage from Beasts goes to Invaders unless the card says otherwise, and you assign it as you like.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
No — unlike Wilds, Disease and Strife, Beasts stay unless an effect explicitly removes them (as Beasts Attack does). When an effect removes only the Beasts that deal the destroying Damage, you can arrange the Damage so only one Beast finishes the job.
On each balanced board, Disease in land 2 and Beasts in the lowest-numbered land without setup icons, from the unlimited supply. Placement only looks at the printed icons, so Adversary setup changes don't move it, and you place them even without Events. On thematic boards follow the land icons instead of adding the extra Beasts and Disease.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
No — it adds no net Difficulty, so a game without an Adversary or Scenario is still Difficulty 0. The one change is that thematic boards add +1 instead of +3, since their setup includes extra tokens.
The next Build Action in its land for any reason — Build cards, England's Escalation or extra Builds, Event Builds — after which the Disease is removed; it isn't optional. It stops only one Build, so a second Build that turn happens. It doesn't stop effects that merely add a Town, and it stays if another effect already skipped the Build. You may steer tied choices into a Disease land to use it.
The next Explore that would add Explorers to its land, whatever is already there — including the setup Explore, so a Wilds already in a land at setup blocks it. The token is then removed and isn't optional. It stops only one Explore Action (a second Explore card that turn goes ahead) and doesn't block effects that simply add an Explorer.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
No — every Disease token is ignored for that turn (not just new ones) and stays in its land; Invaders Build as if it weren't there. Other effects tied to Disease, like Quarantine's, still apply.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
An Invader with Strife deals 0 Damage the next time it would damage the land or Dahan, then loses one Strife. It still takes part in the Ravage, so the Dahan still fight back and can hit it. Strife works on any Invader Damage to land or Dahan, not just Ravages, but not on Invaders damaging each other or on Event Damage the Invaders don't deal. An Invader can carry several Strife.
The designer answered this directly in 2017.
If another Invader replaces it, the Strife moves to the new piece — to only one of them if several replace it (you split multiple Strife as you like). If it's replaced by something that isn't an Invader (Dahan, Beasts) or is removed or destroyed, the Strife goes back to the supply.
Each Invader anywhere on the island loses 1 Health per Strife on itself, to a minimum of 1, and penalties from several such cards stack. It's a temporary rule: if the Strife is removed, the Health comes back. Lowering Health isn't Damage, but a piece already carrying enough Damage is destroyed at once.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
At Terror Level II, each Invader takes 1 Damage per Strife on itself, island-wide. At Terror Level III, every Invader with Strife anywhere deals its normal Damage (City 3, Town 2, Explorer 1), split among the other Invaders in its land, all simultaneously — so a Strifed Invader deals its Damage even if another destroys it.
No — Defend only reduces Damage that the Invaders deal. Event or Disease Damage with no Invader source ignores it, unless the card says Defend applies (as War Touches the Island's Shores does, for both the land and the Invaders). Event Damage to Dahan doesn't Blight the land either.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
No — it's 2 Damage in total; per-piece Damage always says 'each'. Event (and Invader) Damage to Dahan must destroy them as efficiently as possible, so this normally destroys one Dahan.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Neither — the group makes one choice for everyone (unless the card says otherwise) and must take one of the options. You may pick an option even if it does nothing right now, as long as you pay any listed cost, and the Spirits can split a cost however they like.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It reduces only that option's Energy cost: each matching Element you have in play counts 1, each matching card discarded from hand counts 2, and each matching card Forgotten counts 4; Energy paid counts 1. A card counts once, and a card Forgotten from play loses its Elements immediately (though effects it already resolved stay). It never affects thresholds.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
No — under the rule introduced with Jagged Earth (recommended even with Branch & Claw alone), flip and discard the first Event without resolving it, which keeps the deck's timing for things like France's Slave Rebellion. Older rulebooks resolved it, or only its lower part.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — 'a land' means one land per board, chosen by the players; 'each land' is used when every qualifying land is meant.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Each separate Event on a card (main, token and Dahan events) is its own effect. 'For each board' or 'each Spirit' parts become one Action per board or Spirit, and win and loss are checked after each of those as well as after the whole Event.
Only the parts that are Invader Actions. An Event that says to Ravage or Build causes an Invader Action, which skip effects cancel — and you may choose such a land for it. An Event that adds or replaces pieces, or deals Damage itself, isn't an Invader Action and still happens.
Pieces can be pushed or gathered across boards. Nothing is simultaneous: first determine everywhere the Event applies, then resolve those places one at a time in your chosen order — later results don't change where it applies, but each step uses the board as it is then.
Strange Madness is taken out by the Jagged Earth rules, and Outpaced has since been retired. War Touches has no errata, though the designer had the digital version leave all three out as too swingy; removing it is optional. There's no official way to trim the deck further — to drop Events, use Jagged Earth's no-Events option.
The group picks one option for everyone. With 'Guard Them Yourself', go land by land through Sacred Sites with Invaders: pay 3 Energy (aided by Fire, paid jointly) to deal 2 Damage to Invaders there, or destroy 1 Presence of each Spirit there. You may pick it even if no land qualifies, and then nothing happens.
The Ravage card stays in its space; during the next normal Ravage, Invaders Build in all its lands instead, then the usual Build and Explore follow and the cards advance normally. A Disease there stops the first Build in that land. The card has not been retired, though the official FAQ says it will be replaced in a future expansion and you may drop it early.
With 'Allow the Attacks', on each board take the top card of the Major Power deck, discard it, and use its Energy cost (at least 1) as the Damage, dealt both to the Invaders and to the land itself in whichever Coastal land holds the most Towns/Cities (players break ties); Defend reduces it for both. That can Blight the land, and destroyed Towns/Cities give Fear.
It's now retired, but if you use it: each Spirit handles each of its played Slow Power Cards in any order — pay to keep it for the Slow phase, or take the other choice (such as discarding it for Energy, which can fund the next card). It never forces a Power to resolve early, doesn't touch Innates or the card from Aid from Lesser Spirits, and a discarded card's Elements are gone.
Choose one option for all boards. If you let the Beasts rampage, they destroy Dahan in their lands. If you guide them, first decide how many Beasts to keep, then pay 3 Energy per kept Beast — a total cost, minimum 3, that the Animal element aids — and remove the rest. Jagged Earth recommends removing this card.
'Push 2 Dahan on each board' can take them from different lands, since Events have no target land. 'Create Unnerving Distractions' lets you skip one matching land per board for each Ravage card, choosing the land again for each card.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Pick a terrain not shown on any Invader card in play — Coastal isn't a terrain, and a just-discarded card doesn't count as shown — and do a full Build in that terrain: only its lands with Invaders Build. If every terrain is shown, nothing happens. Its 'after advancing Invader cards' part waits until that point in the Invader Phase.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — choose a Sacred Site on each board, Gather if you can, and add the extra Explorer regardless. Boards with no Sacred Site are unaffected.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
You must move a Town from a Coastal land if any can be moved, 1 or 2 lands inland, and each step must take it farther from the Ocean (distance measured as the shortest path) — no sideways steps along the coast.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
Only Ravages from the first Ravage card resolved in the next Ravage step — not Ravages caused by Powers, Adversaries or Events. It's used up then even if that card causes no Ravages; it waits only if the Ravage space is empty.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
One land per board of your choice among those that actually explore — even with two Explore terrains it's once per board. If Wilds stops an Explore, that land can't be chosen. The eligible lands are fixed before the Explore, so the new Town doesn't spread Explorers.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Each Spirit's card goes straight into play, not your hand, as if played at no cost and with no Card Play, and stays there for every turn. You get its Elements immediately and it counts as your Power (your Presence for targeting, Bringer's rule applies). A Fast one gained after the Fast phase can't be used that turn.
It starts the turn after it flips, so the Blight that flipped it is unaffected, and from then on a land is Blighted by 1 Damage instead of 2 for the rest of the game (still never by 0 — modifiers like Earth's Resilience adjust it). Each Blight addition counts once: 2 Blight added together (as with Sweden) is one, while each step of a cascade is separate.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No — on each board, once when it flips, destroy 1 Beast from any land and add 1 Blight to a land with a Town/City; they needn't be the same land.
Nothing more — do as much as you can; there's no other penalty. Ocean isn't forced to cash in drowned Invaders to pay.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2021.
Yes — an optional Branch & Claw rule lets a solo player redraw a Blight Card with only 2 Blight per player on its Blighted side. It doesn't cover Still Healthy cards, which came later.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Whenever a land becomes Keeper's Sacred Site, however that happens (including moving Presence), Dahan there are pushed out. Afterwards, Fear cards and other effects may move Dahan back in, and adding Dahan there (rather than moving them in) is never restricted.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
It's a cost: pay that much Energy to take the option, for all of its parts — if you can't pay, you can't take it. It isn't a discount on Power Cards. You can take a cheaper Growth option first to gain the Energy.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
The land must be within Range 3 of your Presence and contain Wilds or your Presence, so you can reach a distant Wilds land. Indomitable Claim doesn't lift these Growth restrictions.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — levels resolve in order on the same target, and each level's condition is checked when you reach it, so pushing out the Explorers lets the 'no Explorers' level add Wilds. Towns or Cities don't block that level, and 1 Plant alone can add Wilds to a land without Explorers.
Count every matched Sun-and-Plant pair you have — not just the extras — and add that much Damage to the first level's 2; 3 Sun, 2 Fire and 3 Plant gives 5. The Damage may be split between the target land and another of your lands.
No — Gather, then Damage, then Push, top to bottom in the target land; the Gather and Push are 'may', and you can use a later level without an earlier one. Beasts may be pushed to different lands, and targeting isn't rechecked if the Beast leaves.
Replacing a Presence with a Beast costs nothing and can use any of its Presence on the island. Its other Growth adds Presence to a land that is a Jungle or has Beasts, within Range 3; the condition is on the destination. Call Forth Predators is used during the Spirit Phase.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
In any land with Beasts anywhere on the island, including other boards — Adversary setup comes first, so a Beast Russia adds counts. Solo with no other Beasts, that is the Jungle with your first Beasts.
Reduce the supply before setup; starting Towns come from it and destroyed or replaced Towns return to it, while Towns that left the island don't count. You lose only when you must place a Town and none is left — pushing or drowning it afterwards doesn't help.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
No — Frontier Explorers says 'Except during Setup', and the initial Explore is part of setup, so it doesn't apply there. After that, after each successful Explore every explored land that had no Town/City gets the extra Explorer. Use the current 'After Invaders successfully Explore' wording.
It applies after a Build, but not where Disease stopped the Build. The Towns that replace Explorers are replacements, not additions, so 'when a Town is added' effects like Call to Guard ignore them.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
After resolving it, draw another Event, then put Slave Rebellion back under the top 3 cards of the Event deck so it comes round again. Its Damage resolves as a separate Action in each land, so Badlands in a land boost that land's Damage once.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — it happens after the Explore step on every board, whether or not anything was explored there, in any land of the shown terrain (even one where Wilds stopped the Explore).
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
The first game is normal. For the next, flip the same Blight Card back to Healthy with 2 Blight per player +1 on it, taken from the Blight set aside; Blight removed from the game stays gone. Leave one of each Spirit token type per player on the board, and don't place printed setup tokens, Blight or Dahan.
Only the one Power set aside from the immediately previous game carries over. It's used once, as if the earlier Spirit played it: it costs no Energy, uses no Card Play and gives none of its printed Elements, though its text still resolves. The designer's suggested rule is to treat the earlier Spirit as having 2 Presence in each land for targeting and resolution.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
No Adversary is required. A Sacrifice Victory is a victory, so continuing is the suggested approach. Base the difficulty on the Adversary you face, nudged ±1 for how the previous game went.
The extra costs are paid when the Power is used, once per Power, so Repeats are free; players order them with other substitution effects (Bringer still pays, treating its effect as real Damage). Discoveries last the rest of the game unless marked 'now' or 'next turn', and a found Power can be held for later.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Searches happen whenever their conditions are met, even partway through a Power, and the players choose the order if Dahan and Invaders would search at the same time.
The Spirit benefit is a move to any other Sands, not a push, and Heart of the Wildfire really does deal Damage each time it uses it. With the Invader benefit, Invaders in any Sands count as being in all Sands for Explore and Build, so as written an empty Sands can even build a City.
No — ignore the Terror Level victory conditions. You can't win at Terror Level I; from Terror Level II on, the only way is a Warding Pattern in every Coastal land. Patterns may go in any land, but with 4 markers per player most need to be on the coast.
The face-down card costs 0 to play and counts as no card type (so it isn't a Major). Its Slow effect targets one land, chosen then, and you pay 2 Energy per Blight and per Town/City in that land at that moment. Only its face-down side is available.
No — the condition is checked when you reach that line of the Power, after its Gather, and the effect then stays even if the Beasts move away.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2022.
Only until Time Passes — 'next' just means it fires once that turn. It's a triggered effect that waits for the destroying Action to finish (so a Ranging Hunt's Push happens first), and two copies on one land resolve one after the other.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
No — a piece already in the land isn't gathered. If no adjacent Beast can be gathered, you take the 'otherwise' result and add a Beast, without the Push.
The designer answered this directly in 2018.
Yes — its Fear needs no Invaders, and you don't have to push anything to get it.
Count Beasts when it resolves. You choose which Invader Actions to skip as they come up, in any order, and needn't use them all.
Not as intended — treat Terror Levels II and III as 'remove up to': choose a land with Beasts and remove what you can there, or optionally an Explorer from an adjacent land instead.
Onto any Invaders in the target land — not necessarily the ones they came from, and even a City that Bringer 'destroyed' — and returning them counts as adding Strife.
Jagged Earth includes a revised Sea Monsters that replaces the Branch & Claw original; it caps the Beast-based Fear (at 8), which the original didn't.
They're on the Dahan's side for the turn: the Dahan don't damage them, they don't count toward Event conditions about Invaders, and Invader Damage boosts don't apply to them. Towns and Cities still deal their own bonuses to the Dahan side. Their Damage comes from the Ravage, so it's real even with Bringer.
Yes — both Wilds then go there. Damage is dealt only in the target land, counting Wilds in and adjacent to it, and the threshold doubles it.
Badlands stay in their land. In each Action that deals at least 1 Damage to Invaders there, add 1 more per Badlands token, and separately the same for Damage to Dahan — whatever the source: Powers, Ravage, Dahan, Beasts, Events. They never add Damage to the land, and they add nothing if no Damage is actually dealt. In a Ravage the bonus is part of the Invaders' Damage, so it is still assigned efficiently to Dahan; a Spirit's own Damage to Dahan you assign as you like.
Once per Action per Badlands token: a Power with several Damage lines, or '1 Damage to each Invader', still gets just +1 in total per token. Separate Actions each get it — two different Powers, each Repeat, a triggered effect like Vengeance of the Dead, or a Ravage.
Yes, within the boosted Damage's restrictions. Under the errata you choose which Damage in the Action it boosts (not just the first), and it can go to any Invader that Damage was allowed to hit — so plain '1 Damage' plus Badlands can kill two Explorers, while '1 Damage to 1 Town/City' puts all of it on that one piece.
For Spirit actions only, players may treat Thieves as Explorers, piece by piece — so your Powers can damage, push or Strife them. Invader, Adversary, Fear and Event actions never treat them as Invaders. A Thief can only be destroyed, removed or replaced in a land with no Towns/Cities and at least 2 Dahan; anywhere else such an effect pushes it instead (Bringer can only move them).
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
They're added only on Explores after setup, not the setup Explore. They move every Ravage step — there is always a Ravage step even if every Ravage is skipped or converted — and each move must bring them closer to the Ocean. Pour Time Sideways doesn't change their movement.
Only the Power that targets that land gains its corner Elements, for its own thresholds — even ones it already shows — and they never join your Elements for Innates or other Powers. One land per Power use: with two targets (Fire and Flood) you pick one, effects in other lands don't count, and each Repeat gets only its own target's Elements. Check after any Weave, since thresholds are checked when they matter.
No — only Invader cards check whether a land qualifies. An Event or Power that directly causes a Build or Explore in a land skips that check, so it can build in an empty land. An effect that creates a whole new Build or Explore step in a terrain (like Fortification) uses the normal check.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Jagged Earth's no-Events option replaces them with Command the Beasts: the Spirits may command the Beasts twice per game, once during Invader Stage II and once in Stage III, during the Fast phase. Each Beast acts once per command.
No — under the Jagged Earth Ravage rules, a bonus to a land's Ravage Damage (such as Habsburg's Far-Flung Herds) applies only if the Invaders' combined Damage before Defend is at least 1. Branch & Claw's older timing allowed it.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Gaining Time moves a Presence from your tracks or the island onto the special rule; spending Time moves one back onto a track. Track spaces uncovered this way take effect. Covering a Card Play space after cards are played doesn't take any back. If no track space is free for returned Time, that Presence is destroyed.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2020.
Do that part that many times, choosing freely each time — for example some Time and some Energy (up to 6 Energy from three 2-Energy picks).
Gaining a Major from them still requires Forgetting a card, but the set-aside cards themselves aren't in your hand, play or discard, so they can't be Forgotten. Boon of Reimagining on Fractured Days lets it keep 2 and set aside 2 of the unkept cards.
Its first use each turn costs no Time however many levels you meet; each later use costs 1 more Time than the last. Using a Power 'now' doesn't make it Fast, and a Slow card resolved early doesn't resolve again later. A card reclaimed and replayed is a new Power, losing earlier speed changes.
On one board, each Invader Action (each Ravage, Build or Explore in a land) and each 'each board' action during the Invader Phase — Adversary Escalations included — happens one fewer time; on another board, one more time. It doesn't affect Actions outside the Invader Phase. Its Time cost is paid when you use it, not when you play the card.
The land is a hole in the board until Stasis ends: it can't be targeted and Range can't be counted through it, so you must go around. Pieces can't move into it.
No looking — the discarded card stays unseen. 'Specially placed' cards are those an Adversary's setup text moves into a set position (for example Russia's early Stage III cards or Scotland's moved Coastal Lands), not the deck orders listed as reminders.
Each Town must move to an adjacent land farther Inland (farther from the Ocean), even onto another board. Only if it can't, and it's on its board's eastern edge, does it leave onto the Scenario panel; otherwise it moves to an equally Inland neighbour. Split Towns evenly among eligible lands, extras to the northernmost first; moves in one range band are simultaneous, so a Town isn't moved twice.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
No extra Explores in setup — the Scenario's extra Explores happen only in the Invader Phase. Adversary rules such as France's levels 1 and 2 do apply to the Scenario's extra Explores and Builds.
The designer answered this directly in 2026.
It's printed as +3, but the designer has said he thinks it should be +4, possibly +5.
The designer answered this directly in 2022.
Choose the target land first, then discard Minor Powers until one targets a land (any Power not targeting a Spirit counts) and resolve its text there, ignoring its Speed, Range and target bar. Conditions written in its text still apply. You must decide which Elements you're using at the start of the Innate, before the card is revealed.
No — it triggers only when one of Trickster's Powers adds Strife, once per Power (if that Power added Strife in several lands, pick which to measure Range from), and the Strife the rule adds isn't from a Power. Being a Special Rule rather than a Power, it isn't extended by Power-only Range boosts and doesn't target a land.
Its last Growth gives 1 Energy per Card Play shown on your track (not bonus plays). The 'Push 1 Dahan' track space is usable once every Spirit Phase from any of your lands, starting the turn it's uncovered. The Any Element is chosen each turn, whenever it matters, and holds for that turn.
The Invader and the Dahan damage each other simultaneously, so both can be destroyed; Badlands don't extend it past 1 Invader and 1 Dahan. Its 3 Moon 'may be Slow' is checked in the Slow phase, so it can be used Slow if you have 3 Moon then and haven't used it yet.
No — Destroy and Remove are different, even when the piece ends up in the same place.
Against Durable Towns, a Destroy instruction becomes 2 Damage to each Town it would destroy; those amounts can be pooled on one of those Towns but not given to Towns the effect couldn't have destroyed. Durability ends once the land has Blight, so a Town with 2 Damage dies when Blight arrives. Bringer can push damaged Towns into Blighted lands to finish them.
After the whole Build step, every land matching any Build card — whether or not it built or has Invaders — Gathers 1 Town from an adjacent land that matched none. It's a separate Action in each land, and players choose its order against other 'after the Build step' effects.
Over the whole game, keep a running total of Blight taken from the Blight Card by Ravages that deal the threshold Damage to a single land — per Ravage in one land, never summed across lands — cascades and Sweden's extra Blight included. Blight from a flipped Blight Card's effect or other triggered actions doesn't count. It uses the number of players, not boards.
Its reminder card counts as revealed when it becomes the top card of the Invader deck after cards advance, not when glimpsed earlier. Then add a Town to the three Inland lands with the least Blight, even if some of them have Blight; players break ties but must place all three.
For the rest of the turn, Invaders don't Explore in the Isolated land at all (even with its own Town or City), and for Invader purposes it isn't adjacent to anything — so it can't be an Explore source and adjacency rules can't reach it. You decide per Action whether to apply each adjacency cut. It isn't used up, so a Wilds there stays unless you choose to spend it.
No — it only changes how Invader pieces treat adjacency. Powers target and count Range normally, Dahan still move, Blight still cascades, Spirits may still push Invaders out, and a Coastal land stays Coastal (an Ocean can be Isolated, but that doesn't make lands Inland).
Choose at the start of the Ravage step which Explorers (up to its limit) to ignore; they take no part in that step at all — they deal no Damage, the Dahan can't hit them, and they don't count toward whether a land Ravages, which can stop Russia's 3-Explorer Ravage. It also applies to Ravages outside the step, such as one caused by Manifest Incarnation. It only covers Ravages, not other actions.
It isn't a misprint: the replaced Explorer is what the Innate then lets you Gather into Lure's lands (adjacent lands with its Presence, split as you like). Only Explorers created by that replacement can be gathered. The Fear depends only on a Town/City remaining. It can replace a Thief.
2 per qualifying token (Badlands, Beasts, Disease, Wilds) in the target land, with no overall cap. Its Fear counts Explorers actually destroyed, so one Russia saves doesn't count.
Range can pass through any lands — the Inland restriction is only on the destination. Lure's rule stops adding or moving Presence into Coastal lands, so Presence already in a land that Weave Together the Fabric of Place makes Coastal can stay; when the Weave ends, pieces count as moved, so it must return to the Inland land.
You choose per Action whether each Sacred Site counts as one Beasts token; it stays Presence too. A land has only one Sacred Site however many Presence are there, so 4 Presence is still one Beast, and removing that Beast removes 2 Presence.
When Many Minds' Powers Gather or Push Beasts, they may come from or go to lands up to 2 away from the target instead of only adjacent ones; gathered Beasts must end in the target land. The Power's Range still only decides which land you target.
The Defend from its starting Power comes from each Presence, so it moves with that Presence. A Dreadful Tide lets you decide as each Invader Action comes up, and you're never forced to skip. Beset and Confound the Invaders is fixed when used: moving the Beasts away later doesn't reduce its Defend, nor do new Beasts raise it.
While on the island they count as Beasts and help; once destroyed they're just Presence again and don't count as destroyed Beasts for Russia.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
The first time each Action would destroy Explorers, one of them is pushed instead (if a push is possible), with 1 Fear. One Explorer per Action: one use of a Power is one Action even across several lands or instructions (a Repeat or triggered effect is a new Action), and one land's whole Ravage, Dahan counterattack included, is one Action. The saved Explorer can't be damaged or destroyed again by that Action. If it can't be pushed — Isolate can block every route — it's simply destroyed. Loops can't form, because an Action never triggers itself.
Sometimes. The affected lands are fixed before resolving any of them, and each land is its own Action. With 'in each land with Beasts', a lone Explorer pushed into a Beast land that hasn't resolved yet can be hit again there, fleeing for Fear each time. With a condition like 'each land with Beasts and Explorers' or 'with 2+ Invaders', a land that only qualifies after the push isn't on the list.
Drowning destroys, so Russia's rule saves one Explorer each time: a lone Explorer drowned by a Power is pushed out instead (1 Fear). If a Power pushes Explorers into the Ocean, the drowning afterwards is a separate triggered Action, so one escapes back to a Coastal land with another Fear; the chain then stops. A saved Explorer can be pushed into the Ocean only when the saving modified a Spirit Power — not an Event, Fear card or Ravage.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Each Ravage card also matches lands with 3 or more Explorers, checked when that card starts resolving; with two Ravage cards each is checked in turn, so such a land can Ravage twice. With no Ravage card nothing happens. Lands matched this way count as matching the Ravage card for other effects.
On each board where no Blight was added during the Ravage step, from turn 2 on — even if there was no Ravage card or the Ravage became a Build. Blight from a Blight Card flipped during the Ravage step counts as added. It's an Adversary Action, so 'skip Invader Actions' effects don't stop it.
On each board, add 2 Explorers among lands with Beasts — it isn't an Explore, so no source is needed. With no Beasts on the island it does nothing, and losing all Beasts isn't a loss by itself (though Events can bring new ones).
A card revealed during the Build step is placed in the Build space and Builds after the current card; one revealed during Explore moves on to Ravage and never Builds. An Escalation card triggers its Escalation the first time it's resolved, wherever that is.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Scotland works with just the base game, as it uses no tokens. Habsburg Monarchy needs a stand-in for its level 5+ reminder card. Russia needs Beasts tokens, so it requires Branch & Claw or Jagged Earth.
Memory spends markers only for its own Actions, and each spent marker gives its Element for that one Action — so a threshold met with markers doesn't carry to a Repeat, and one marker can't serve two Powers. They are discarded once spent and aren't limited by components. They can count toward Event costs that use Elements.
Yes — they're ordinary Elements for the target until the end of the turn, usable for any number of checks. Only Memory's own spending of markers is limited to one Action. Another Spirit holding the card can prepare and use markers too.
After each Action in the target land, if its pieces changed at any point during that Action — even if they changed back — prepare one Element marker of your choice, up to three this turn; triggered actions like an added Disease count. It ends at Time Passes.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Yes — a gained Major goes to your hand first, so its special rule can discard it rather than Forget it. Players also allow discarding to cover an Event's 'Forget a Power Card' cost, since the rule isn't limited to gaining Powers.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Yes, every Spirit Phase once uncovered, even after later spaces are uncovered. A space uncovered outside the Spirit Phase can't be used until the next one; only the small icons offset to a space's upper-left are one-time gains.
No — the revealed card gives no Elements; your own Elements decide its thresholds. You set which Elements apply at the start of the Power and are locked in, even if the revealed card would change your mind. Its 'or'-to-'and' only affects capitalized OR choices between instructions, not a lowercase 'or' inside one (such as 'Gather or Push 1 Explorer').
Whenever Shroud's Presence would be destroyed, it may be pushed instead if possible — from any source, including Blight Cards, Events, or Rampant Green's Choke the Land (whose prevention still works). Only the Presence actually chosen for destruction is pushed. Pushed Presence isn't destroyed, so 'when destroyed' effects (like Volcano's) don't trigger, though you may pick protected Presence to satisfy an Event's 'destroy Presence' option.
It adds no Range. While targeting, you may Gather 1 of your Presence into the target land or a land adjacent to it, which lets a Range 0 Power effectively reach one land farther; you can do this even if already in Range and move any Presence, but the target must still be legal afterwards, and it doesn't help 'in target Spirit's land' requirements. After the Power has started, moving Presence away doesn't undo it.
The designer answered this directly in 2022.
Shroud keeps Damage on Invaders in its lands through Time Passes; if a Health bonus ends while Damage stays, the piece is destroyed then, and you may count damaged Invaders for its Fear/Energy before or after effects wear off. Gaining a Power without Fire gives Energy at the moment it's gained, usable to play that very card.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — resolving a Power targets its land even if nothing happens; only declining it entirely doesn't. Damage that must go to different Invaders is capped by how many Invaders are there. Unnerving Pall counts Presence when it resolves.
With 'Growth (Pick #)' each choice must be a different option. A '+1 Energy' Presence space gives Energy once, when you add Presence from it. 'Make 1 Power Fast' works on Power Cards or Innates, and 'Reclaim Half' reclaims half your discard pile instead of all of it.
Its Presence goes in the land on your starting board that has setup Blight — no extra Blight is added; on thematic boards pick a fitting land (the Jagged Earth rulebook has a sidebar for this). Gather the Scattered Light of Stars can Forget itself, since a Power keeps resolving after it's Forgotten.
Once used, for the rest of the turn, whenever Blight would be added to one of Stone's lands, Stone may pay 2 Energy per Blight to take it from the box instead — choosing which of the incoming Blight to pay for. When Blight would destroy Stone's last Presence in a land, you choose the order of the two modifications, so the innate can still apply.
Stone's special rule isn't optional, so another Spirit can't decline it to have its Presence destroyed. Presence saved from destruction was never destroyed, so effects that trigger on destruction (like Vengeance's Disease) don't happen. Destroying Presence to stop an Event is direct destruction, which its top innate level covers.
Once used in the Fast phase it lasts the turn, whatever happens to Stone's Presence there, and triggers every time Invaders deal Damage to that land (each Ravage). Repeated on the same land, the two effects stack (each with its own Badlands bonus); a Repeat never repeats again.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
After the Presence is placed — removing it from the track and placing it is one step. Each uncovered '+1 Card Play' adds a play on top of the bottom track's number.
Yes — Range increases add together and apply to every stated Range, card text included, but not to 'in one of target Spirit's lands'. Explosive Eruption's ranges can't be boosted, because the Power itself forbids it.
The kept Major may be played at once for free (optional), gaining all its purely elemental thresholds whether you want them or not — though thresholds needing other Elements still check what you have. To keep it afterwards pay half its cost; otherwise Forget it at end of turn, which you may do earlier for something else. Forgetting another card for the Major is allowed but not required. A Repeat doesn't give its Elements again.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Fertile Wetlands adds a separate Build after every Build that actually happens there (any Build, including England's and Events'), so if Disease stops the first there's no second. Sands always cascade when Blight is added, even with no Blight already, and cascades chain normally.
Whenever Disease would prevent a Build on a board where Vengeance has Presence (anywhere on that board, not that land), Vengeance may let the Build happen and gain 1 Fear — once per Build Action, however many Disease are there. If an effect says to ignore Disease, the Disease prevents nothing and gives no Fear; but under 'Disease doesn't prevent Builds' effects like Lingering Plagues you choose the order and can still take the Fear.
Your Growth, Presence-track bonuses, Power Cards and Innates, and triggered actions set up by your Powers or special rules. Events, Fear cards, Blight Card effects and other Spirits' Powers that move or add your Presence aren't. Presence destroyed by Blight your own Power adds is part of your Action, so it isn't replaced with Disease. Blight treated as Badlands is never used up, and Hazards Spread Across the Island can copy it into a real Badlands.
Savage Revenge's levels are cumulative: all three give 6 Damage. Epidemics Run Rampant deals its Damage per Disease once to Invaders and separately the same amount to Dahan, which Vengeance may assign inefficiently.
After filling its tracks it has 3 Presence left: put 2 on the island as instructed and set 1 aside as destroyed. If the only Blighted land is also the only Wetland without Dahan (board E), both go in that land. On thematic boards without a fitting land, choose freely or start it elsewhere.
Destroy any number of your Presence in the origin land — the counts on each level are thresholds, not caps, and even 1 Presence with no Elements gives the collapse Damage. X is the Presence destroyed in that single use. You may destroy all of it there (Range was checked at targeting); if that leaves no Presence on the island, you lose, possibly as a Sacrifice Victory.
No — it's an action modifier, so its Damage happens immediately as part of whatever destroyed the Presence. That means Badlands boost the whole thing only once, and Flame's Fury doesn't add to it (it isn't a Power). Explosive Eruption's own Damage and the collapse Damage are separate amounts.
Only an effect that explicitly ignores land restrictions, like Indomitable Claim. Volcano's Presence may only be added or moved into Mountains, whoever moves it, so Blazing Renewal and Traveler's Boon still obey it.
A '-2 Energy' on an Innate level is a cost: meet the Elements and pay it to use that level. A card with an extra cost to use can be played for its Elements, but its effect needs the payment when it resolves. Powered by the Furnace of the Earth's 'gain a Power Card' costs 2 Energy and is a normal gain; its top level returns up to 2 destroyed Presence to the rightmost uncovered track spaces.
It deals 1 Damage to every Town, every City and every Dahan in the land. Damage from Volcano's Powers to Dahan can be spread inefficiently — only Invader and Event Damage must destroy Dahan efficiently.
It's one land with both lands' traits: Coastal if either part was, and it matches either terrain but Ravages or gets an Explorer only once. It is not adjacent to itself — an earlier ruling said it was and was reversed. Effects on either land, such as Defend or Isolate, apply to the whole.
Not when joined — weaving isn't moving, so pieces sit there safely, though anything pushed or gathered in during the turn drowns. When the Weave ends in Time Passes, pieces are placed into one land or the other and count as moved, so you may move them into the Ocean to drown them. Adjacent lands become Coastal, and the joined land stays a land even if Ocean later leaves the board.
At Time Passes, Damage clearing and all expirations happen at once, so every piece is split back simultaneously and triggers like drowning or Blazing Presence resolve afterwards. Effects that also end then, such as Call to Guard, can't trigger on that movement. If both lands are illegal for a piece, choose either.
No — Jagged Earth includes all the tokens and rules its Spirits need. Branch & Claw adds more Fear, Event and Power cards, and the Jagged Earth rulebook says to leave out its revised Sea Monsters if you don't own Branch & Claw.
Scale Blight by boards: 2 per board plus the +1 erratum (5 for one player on two boards), and the Blighted side's amount by the starting number of boards. Scenario 'per player' setup or loss values are read as per board too. Adversary loss conditions that say 'players' stay per player.
Apply the supporting Adversary's Invader Deck modifications first, then the leading Adversary's, so the leading one has the last say. With France (level 2+) in a combined game, add 1 Town per player to its pool for each level of the other Adversary.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Under Jagged Earth's multiple-islands option, Coastal lands on different islands count as Range 2 from each other. Which Oceans face each other is up to the players — coasts along the same coastline are reasonable.
Four of them use no tokens: Shroud, Fractured Days, Shifting Memory and Starlight (the last two need the Element markers, and Fractured Days has many unusual effects). Grinning Trickster and Many Minds need Branch & Claw's token rules but nothing else from Jagged Earth. Page 3 of the Jagged Earth rulebook lists what works with the base game alone.
Nothing officially — Vitality was cut from Jagged Earth. The designer suggested optional uses: remove a Vitality instead of adding 1 Blight, or have it absorb the first 3 Damage to the land from each Action. (Nature Incarnate later introduced its own Vitality rules.)
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It counts only Volcano's own Fire to set the Energy split between the two Spirits. Its +1 Range applies to any Power the target uses with Range measured from Presence in a Mountain, not just Powers requiring a Mountain origin, and stacks with other Range bonuses.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Officially it requires the base game and Jagged Earth, and its rulebook assumes the Jagged Earth rules. In practice much of it works without: the Habsburg Mining Expedition, many Aspects, most Blight and Fear cards, Dances Up Earthquakes, Hearth-Vigil and both Scenarios, with proxies for Badlands, Wilds or Strife unlocking more.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
While on the island an Incarna is one of your Presence, so effects that move Presence can move it, and an 'add Presence' can relocate it (taking it from where it is). It counts as 1 Presence — with one more Presence it makes a Sacred Site — and an add-Presence effect can't bring a destroyed Incarna back.
Whenever one of its Powers would directly damage or destroy the only Invader in a land — any amount of Damage counts, so 1 Damage abducts a lone City. Check at the start of each Damage or Destroy instruction: an Invader left alone by an earlier instruction can be abducted by a later one, but not one left alone partway through the same instruction. Powers worded as Dahan dealing Damage (Veil the Night's Hunt) are still Breath's. Abduct effects printed on cards need no lone Invader.
The players choose which replacement applies; either way the Explorer isn't destroyed, so the other doesn't happen. Abducting a lone Explorer works, since Russia's rule only cares about destruction.
The designer answered this directly in 2022.
Only Breath of Darkness's land-targeting Powers, which may target it ignoring Range, without needing Presence there — though they still need any origin requirement met. It isn't a land, so other Spirits can't target it and Finder can't make it adjacent. When Breath targets it, the Power's 'target land' effects happen there.
Any piece there — Invaders, Beasts and other tokens, Presence, the Incarna; Strife just travels with its Invader. Per errata, escaping pieces may go to different non-Ocean lands with Breath's Presence or Incarna; with no legal land you lose. Letting pieces escape in Growth isn't a cost: release what's there and carry on.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
They can't Remove Invaders there (Breath gets 1 Fear instead), but Damage, Destroy and Replace — including Downgrades — still work, and a downgraded piece keeps its Damage, so it may be destroyed. Breath's own Powers remove pieces there normally.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Abduct up to 2 Presence from any Spirits — Breath's own included, in any mix — into the Endless Dark. For the rest of that turn every Spirit gets +1 Range per Presence of its own there, counted whenever it checks Range (including Presence left there from earlier turns).
Its Growth may 'move' the Incarna to the land it is already in. The empowered Incarna's abduct can be used before or after a Power, never in the middle of one.
Once an Impending card holds its full cost, it is played as if from hand, during the Spirit Phase when you gain Energy, without using a Card Play, and resolves at its normal speed. A card can be made Impending face-down for Ward the Shores.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
Earth Shudders, Buildings Fall's first target needs a Quake token at Range 0, but its second level can hit any lands with Quakes and Invaders, and removing a Quake depends only on choosing that land. Impending cards entering play let you have more cards in play than your Card Plays.
Its 'discard a Fire card' Growth isn't a cost and can be done before gaining a Power. The once-per-game Growth option is used whole — empower, move and Reclaim together — in place of a normal choice. Empowered, Stomp can be used twice a turn, and the Incarna can still be pushed between them.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
No — in a Mining land the Build card causes a Ravage Action, so Build skips (and Prey on the Builders) don't apply; Ravage skips do. Disease stops that whole Ravage and is removed, unless no Invader would participate at all. Salt Deposits in the Build slot builds only in non-Mining lands that still have Invaders. Level 5's '(Build normally in a Mining land)' is reminder text.
On each board — early printings left out 'on each board'. Its Escalation Explores in 2 lands needing no source; you may pick a land where Isolate or Wilds stops it (choosing which effect does), and the Coastal card never limits its picks.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Keep Watch for New Incursions triggers on Builds and Explores, since both add Invaders. Its Presence-track gather-Dahan bonus is optional. On a thematic board with no Dahan, pick two lands on your board and add 1 Dahan to each.
Relentless Punishment's Repeat must come right after the Power, with nothing in between. Each Repeat is a new Action (Badlands apply again), its extra cost counts every earlier use that turn including other Repeats, and a card that leaves and is played again counts as a new card, so the cost resets.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
Scorching Convergence's first level deals 1 Damage in total to a Town or City. The double-Energy Growth doubles the printed amount; bonuses like Back Against the Wall are added afterwards.
Replacing a Presence with the Incarna sends that Presence to destroyed Presence; nothing moves. Revoke Sanctuary and Cast Out needs a target land with both the Incarna and Invaders. Pieces at the Heart-Tree can't be damaged, but Ravages there still damage the land, so Blight can still destroy Presence, the Incarna included.
Isolate doesn't affect whether Dahan are adjacent to its Incarna. Moving the Incarna into the land it's in still counts as a move, so it can add Strife. Mind-Shattering Song deals 1 Damage per Sun in total, not to each Invader. Its first Growth has no Range limit. Energy paid to Turmoil's Touch goes to the supply, and the target decides whether to Take before you choose to do likewise.
In one Action you must move at least one Invader and at least one Dahan into your lands (any kind of movement), with your Presence already there at the start of that instruction; then Downgrade, at most once per Power in total. An Invader can only be downgraded twice if a Dahan arrives with or after it each time. A Bargain of Coursing Paths' triggered moves count if Wounded Waters used the Bargain.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2025.
No — Healing markers never count as Elements for any purpose; they only track the healing path you've chosen. (Separately, Blood Water and Bloodlust's origin land needs both your Presence and Blight.)
Pieces at the Lair (the Incarna's land) can't move — Towns can't migrate out in The Great River, Events can't push Lure's Presence away, and Powers can't move the Incarna, though Growth can reposition it as an 'add Presence'. When Weave ends, unmovable pieces are cleaned up into either land without counting as moved. Its Innate's 'Gather any Invader' means one Invader.
You still prepare Element markers and keep them; Intensify only changes how they're spent. Each marker boosts an effect the Action is already actually performing — the Action must already do that effect there. Air is the exception: it lets a Minor Power be used once in the Fast phase without making it Fast, spent when you use the Power. Elements from Elemental Teachings last the turn.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — it becomes their Power permanently. Markers prepared partway through an Innate come too late for that use's higher levels.
A Bargain's ongoing effect lasts the rest of the game, and its debt is permanent: each turn, Energy you gain from any source pays off that turn's Bargain debt first, and only the rest is yours. The card itself is discarded and reclaimed as normal, and each play of Bargain of Coursing Paths marks 2 more lands (not necessarily new ones).
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It waits for the next Explore card actually revealed, so on the following double-Explore turn it affects only the first of the two cards.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2023.
'Each Spirit Phase' is once per round, not each Fast and Slow phase. On thematic boards without Beasts, its second Presence goes in a land with Beasts on another board.
The Repeat must target the Incarna's land and resolves there once, even for two-land Powers (the current tentative ruling). It is a triggered action that can't repeat itself, directly or indirectly. The Incarna may be the Presence it loses, though losing ordinary Presence usually suits Deep Slumber better.
It applies to your own Actions — Growth, Powers and special rules, Blazing Presence included whoever added the Presence — not Events or others' Powers. A destroyed Town becomes 2 Explorers, which you push; being saved clears all Damage, and the new pieces are safe from the rest of that Action.
No — since 2020 the designer treats it as Wildfire's own triggered action, resolved after the Action that added or moved the Presence finishes. So its Damage is real even when Bringer's Power added the Presence, it can't trigger itself (for instance through a Blight Card that adds Presence), and when one Action moves or adds several Presence it resolves once. Early 2018 answers that treated it as part of the same Action were replaced.
Blight added by Spirit effects — Powers and special rules (any Spirit's), their cascades, and Spirit-initiated scenario rituals — doesn't destroy Wildfire's Presence, though it destroys other Spirits' Presence normally. Blight from Ravages, Events, or a Scenario's own actions destroys Wildfire's Presence as usual.
It's added from the Blight Card and cascades normally if the land already has Blight. Its Damage goes only to Invaders, never the land. Wildfire's 2 starting Blight don't cascade, since setup Blight never does.
When a single instruction adds or moves several Presence at once — Unrelenting Growth adding 2, Blazing Renewal returning 2 — Blazing Presence resolves once, using the Fire revealed by all of them. Separate additions in different Actions each trigger it.
You target one land, then at the threshold may split the total Damage between it and any of your lands with Blight — choosing how many lands, without having to spread it to maximise Damage. A Range boost lets the target be farther, and include one land without your Presence. Its top level adds 1 Blight, which cascades if the land already has Blight.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
Yes, by design intent — although its adjacency check doesn't involve Invaders and a strict reading says otherwise, the designer intends you to get the Fear when the target is Isolated. Its Push must go to adjacent lands without your Presence; if there are none, you still get the extra Fear but push nothing.
Yes — the Promo Pack 1 Spirits work with just the base game. The claw icon on Blazing Presence is the Beasts token, so without Branch & Claw just ignore that part. Heart of the Wildfire may also pick its Reclaim Growth with an empty discard, for example to avoid adding Blight.
Serpent can never have more Presence on the island than the lowest number showing on its Deep Slumber track — a hard cap even for Indomitable Claim. Only Presence on the island counts, so destroyed Presence frees room. At the limit, an add-Presence effect may reposition a Presence instead (but needn't); effects returning several Presence add only what fits.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It takes one of the target Spirit's Presence from the island (not its panel) onto Serpent's Deep Slumber track. In solo, Serpent absorbs its own Presence, and Serpent Wakes in Power's bonus for 'other Spirits' doesn't apply to it a second time.
Its lower levels affect only the target land, but its top level really does affect every land on the island (sometimes for 0 Damage). The '-10' on its top level is a cost to pay, and it should be 7 Energy — 10 is a misprint.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
It moves one of Serpent's own Presence already on the island up to Range 1 from where it is — moving 0 is allowed. It isn't the rulebook's reposition-instead-of-adding option. When Serpent picks two Growth options they must be different.
The target Spirit gets them and chooses which option to take. Elemental Aegis gives Defend 2 plus 1 per absorbed Presence, in its land and adjacent lands, locked in when it is used.
Yes — their only new rule is Isolate, which needs no extra components, and Promo Pack 2 includes a rules sheet explaining it.
During the Fast or Slow phase, each 2 Water you have gives one use: gain Energy or Repeat one of your own land-targeting Power Cards in play — never a Spirit-targeting card. Uses can be mixed, and you may Repeat one card several times. A Repeat keeps the card's speed; making it Fast makes every use Fast.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Yes — discarding is a Growth effect, not a cost, so discard as many as you can (even none) and do the rest. The same goes for its reclaim option with few cards in hand.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Beside the island with your destroyed Presence, so Gift of Abundance or Blazing Renewal can return it — but it isn't destroyed, so effects that prevent destruction can't stop the removal and 'when destroyed' effects don't trigger.
It targets Downpour, so it applies in every land with its Presence, all or nothing (count fewer Elements for less). In each, Defend and the reduction of the Dahan's total counterattack scale with Downpour's Presence there — 1 per Presence per level — not per Dahan, and Defend from other sources doesn't add to the reduction.
The designer answered this directly in 2021.
'You' is always Downpour, the Spirit using the Power, and 'either you or target Spirit may' means only one of you. Downpour's Sacred Sites count as Wetlands for Spirit actions, which rules out Powers that can't target Wetlands there.
Finder's own Actions that destroy Invaders or Dahan, or that directly cause their destruction by moving them — pushing them into an in-play Ocean or into Melt Earth into Quicksand, for example. It applies once per Action. Moving pieces into a land that later Ravages doesn't count: the Ravage destroys them, not Finder.
No — a Power's effects are the Action of the Spirit using it, even if Finder makes the choices, so another Spirit's Power used on Finder costs Finder nothing (and Finder pays for its own Powers played on others). Events, Fear cards and Scenario triggers aren't Finder's Actions. Finder adding a Spirit's Presence that then triggers that Spirit's rule (like Blazing Presence) doesn't count either.
Two of Finder's lands become truly adjacent, not just for Invaders, which also shortens Range and can make an Inland land Coastal (only if linked to an Ocean, which needs Finder's Presence there). For one Action it adds just one extra adjacency.
Between any two Actions — before each Power, Growth icon, Presence-track action, Event, Ravage, Build or Explore, even after an Invader card is revealed but before it resolves — keeping only one pair at a time. It can help other Spirits' Growth placements. It can't change during an Action. Temporary adjacency can cause or prevent a Scotland loss.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
They cover all of Finder's own actions that use Range, Growth placement included. Source requirements like a Sacred Site still apply. A track bonus can't help the placement that uncovers it.
The designer answered this directly in 2020.
Finder's Powers can move any Spirit's Presence, though a Spirit's own placement limits (like Volcano's) still apply. 'Move to a land' sends everything to one land, needing no adjacency, and Offer Passage Between Worlds can move Dahan in either direction. On push-up-to-half effects each piece type is its own 'up to', so you can move only Invaders if you like, and they can push Cities.
Finder may take Presence from its tracks in either direction. Energy is the highest plain number showing plus every '+X' space, so uncovering a lower plain number adds nothing (though it may give an Element). Track moves can't go into or out of the Ocean, but Presence already in an in-play Ocean can be used normally while it stays in play.
Each moving Presence may bring an Invader, a Dahan and a Beast, but they must come from the land that Presence left. 'Up to' lets the target move fewer Presence, or none.
When a Coastal land matching the Explore card is explored, add a Town there instead of the Explorer — at most 2 per board, a limit that only bites with the Coastal Lands card; if Wilds blocks one coastal Explore, the others still get Towns. Other Explore modifiers (extra Explorers) still add their pieces.
Coastal Towns only decide which board escalates — the players choose on a tie, even when no board has any. The Towns then go on that board into the lands with the fewest Towns (zero counts), filling the lowest count first, Inland lands included. It's a single-board effect, so Pour Time Sideways doesn't change it.
After each Ravage Action that adds any Blight to a Coastal land, add 1 Blight to the Ocean — once per Ravage, however many Blight or cascades. That Blight never cascades and isn't from a Ravage, but in an in-play Ocean it destroys Presence normally. It makes the Ocean count for Blight only, so Powers still can't target it unless Ocean's Hungry Grasp is in play; Downpour can remove that Blight only with Presence there.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2026.
After the whole Ravage step, each Inland land matching a Ravage card (including through Russia's rule) and within Range 1 of a Town/City gets a Town, once per land. With Coastal Lands in the Ravage slot it almost never applies.
Several experienced players agree; there is no official ruling.
Its loss counts Coastal lands with a City, not Cities, so a second City in the same land doesn't bring you closer; solo on one board, a City in all three Coastal lands loses. In its Invader deck order 'C2' means the Coastal Lands card plus another Stage II card, so there are four Stage II cards; 4/4/3 is the Fear deck. Its level 2 City goes in land 2 of every board.
A publisher representative answered this directly in 2024.
Yes — treat that Ravage card, resolving as a Build, as a Build card, so its Coastal adjacency rule applies.