Blight

Frequently Asked Questions

Adversaries

• If a Ravage caused by the Habsburg Mining Expedition (Level 1+) would add a Blight to a land with Blight and no Explorers/Towns, what happens if there are no pieces to Upgrade (e.g., because only Cities are participating in that Ravage)?
  Nothing — neither upgrade nor cascade.

  Avarice Rewarded doesn't check if an upgrade is possible before it replaces the cascade.
  Tags: Upgrade, Blight, Action Modifiers, Habsburg Mining Expedition, 0 more...
• For Scotland Level 5+, the oceans are in play for purposes of Blight only. How does that interact with Powers, Special Rules, Events, etc. that deal with Blight?
  Powers, Events, etc can add, remove, or move Blight into/out of the Ocean, or count / check it (for, e.g.: The Land Thrashes in Furious Pain). If something messing with Blight in the Ocean also does other stuff, that other stuff doesn't happen. If an Event tells you, "Do X in a land with Blight", unless X is adding more Blight, you have to choose somewhere else.

  There are currently no abilities which transform Blight, but if one existed, the resulting piece would be in an illegal state and follow those rules.
  Tags: Blight, Illegally placed pieces, Kingdom of Scotland, The Land Thrashes in Furious Pain, 7 more...
• Does cascading Blight contribute to the loss condition of Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony)?
  Yes, as long as the original Ravage Action in a land caused 8+ damage.
  Tags: Ravage, Blight, Victory and Defeat, Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony), 0 more...
• Both Russia 1 and All Things Weaken can make Blight destroy Beasts. Which takes precedence?
  Russia 1 does, if its conditions are met (the Blight is from a Ravage). If a Ravage Blight destroys multiple Beasts in a land, only one of them goes to the Russia panel (since the others were destroyed due to All Things Weaken).
  Tags: Blight, Blighted Island, Beasts, All Things Weaken, 1 more...
• Does the cascade replacement from Habsburg Mining Expedition Level 1 apply to cascades caused by something other than adding Blight to a land with Blight *(e.g., the Sands effect of Varied Terrains)*? How about adding Blight to another land in a way that isn't called a “cascade” *(e.g., Scotland Level 5)*?
  Yes and no, respectively.

  If it's from a Ravage and called a “cascade,” Avarice Rewarded turns it into an upgrade. If it's either not called a cascade or not from a Ravage, resolve the effect normally and don't apply Avarice Rewarded.
  Tags: Combining Adversaries, Blight, Kingdom of Scotland, Varied Terrains, 1 more...

Blighted Island cards

• Why does Burn Brighted Before the End have the option to remove Presence instead of adding Presence? Isn't adding Presence always better?
  In most instances, yes, adding Presence will be better. However, Heart of the Wildfire is often in a position where adding Presence to one of its lands will not only add more Blight, but also cascade – rather punishing for a Blighted Island card with so little Blight. Hence, there's an option to remove Presence from tracks instead.
  Tags: Blight, Blighted Island, Burn Brightest Before the End, Blazing Presence (Heart of the Wildfire), 1 more...
• If there's only 1 Blight on the Healthy Island card, and you need to add 2 at once (eg: Sweden 1), what do you do?
  Immediately flip the card; any Blight that was on it is added to the newly created Blight pool. If the Blight Card has any immediate effects, resolve them. Then add the 2 Blight to the board.

  Immediate effects of the flipped Blight card are nested actions - you resolve them completely (including anything they trigger) before returning to what you were doing.
  Tags: Blighted Island, Nested Actions, Blight, Timing, 1 more...
• When the Blight card is flipped to the Blighted Island side, how much Blight gets added?
  If the new side says N Blight per player, you add N Blight per player more. The total amount of Blight on both sides will then be N+2 Blight per player, plus one Blight more (following this erratum).

  The amount of Blight on the base board is roughly balanced with the Blight cards - your total Blight pool is smaller, but you have no negative effect. However, it is slightly easier to play with - first, because the certainty of knowing exactly what will happen makes some decisions easier / clearer / less risky; second, because with ongoing-effect Blight cards, there's an early-game pressure to not let the island go Blighted (as the earlier it happens, the worse it is), whereas with the base blight space it doesn't matter when Blight is placed, only whether it empties.

  (The early-game pressure is also present with immediate-effect Blight cards and the Event deck from Branch & Claw, as some Events key off the island being Blighted.)
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blight, Blighted Island
• If All Things Weaken is out, can the third level of Hold the Island Fast with a Bulwark of Will (Stone's Unyielding Defiance) save adjacent Presence from destruction?
  No. That innate threshold specifies "When a ... Blight card directly destroys Presence". All Things Weaken changes the rules for how Blight destroys Presence, but does not directly destroy Presence itself, it's adding Blight which does so.
  Tags: Blight, Adding Presence, Hold the Island Fast with a Bulwark of Will (Stone's Unyielding Defiance), All Things Weaken, 0 more...
• How does All Things Weaken interact with Stone's Unyielding Defiance's ability to protect Presence from destruction?
  If the conditions of Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock are met, no Presence is destroyed, either in that land or in an adjacent land. (All Things Weaken modifies how much and where Presence is destroyed, but Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock says "Presence is not destroyed", which makes those modifications irrelevant.)

  Blight still destroys Beasts tokens as usual for All Things Weaken. Note that Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock only applies when blight is added to a land with Stone's Presence, so Blight added to an adjacent land might destroy one of Stone's Presence.
  Tags: Blight, Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock (Stone's Unyielding Defiance), All Things Weaken
• How does All Things Weaken interact with Heart of the Wildfire? When Wildfire places Presence, does it then destroy its own Presence?
  No. All Things Weaken modifies how Presence destruction from Blight works, but doesn't change the source of the Blight, so Wildfire is still protected from Blight added due Spirit actions. This also applies to the portion which reads "...and 1 Presence in an adjacent land": if you choose Wildfire's Presence as the 1 Presence to destroy, it will survive if the Blight was added due to a Spirit Action.

  While Volcano Looming High isn't protected from Blight added by Spirit Actions in general, it does have similar protection from Blight added by its Explosive Eruption Innate Power. In that one particular case, all of the above applies to Volcano Looming High as well.
  Tags: Actions, Blight, Blazing Presence (Heart of the Wildfire), All Things Weaken, 3 more...

Effect Rules

• What does Vitality do in lands with Blight?
  Nothing, aside from existing for effects that check how many Vitality tokens are in a land, like Heart-Tree Guards the Land. If the Blight is later moved or removed, the Vitality can be used for its normal function.
  Tags: Blight, Vitality, Towering Roots of the Jungle, Enduring Vitality (Towering Roots of the Jungle), 2 more...
• What happens to Blight that is replaced with another piece?
  Any Blight replaced during play goes to wherever removed Blight goes: the Blight Card or Blight space.
  Tags: Replace, Blight, Transforming Aspect (Heart of the Wildfire), Ravaged Undergrowth Slithers Back to Life, 0 more...
• When Blight is Added, what order do you perform all of the effects of Adding Blight? If you were in the middle of a Ravage, do you finish the Ravage first?
  Do the ‘Immediately’ effects on the Blight card, and then finish resolving whatever caused the card to flip (whether it's a Ravage or something else).

  More precisely, the order is:

  1. Take Blight off the card. If this empties the card, flip it, refill the Blight pool, and resolve any ‘Immediately’ effects on the card as a nested Action.
  2. Actually put the Blight in the land.
  3. Destroy Presence and do anything else that cares “when” this happens, like Kingdom of Sweden Level 5, Tsardom of Russia Level 1, or the Blight card All Things Weaken.
  4. If Blight was already present, cascade (returning to Step 1 in that adjacent land).
  5. Finish resolving the Action (usually the Ravage) that caused the Blight card to flip.
  6. Perform any Triggered Actions that care about Blight being added, like Kingdom of Scotland Level 5.

  In particular, if more Invaders are added to the land being Ravaged (e.g., with Promising Farmlands), they don't deal more damage, as that step has already happened; however, they are susceptible to a Dahan counterattack, and any new Dahan (e.g., with Unnatural Proliferation) would participate.
  (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blighted Island, Timing, Nested Actions, Blight, 13 more...
• When Blight is added to a land with Vitality, does it destroy Presence?
  Not if there's enough Vitality to prevent all of the Blight from being added.

  Sufficient Vitality will also prevent extra effects of Blight being added, including those from Mining Rush (The Kingdom of Sweden Level 5), Irreparable Damage (The Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony) Additional Loss Condition), Runoff and Bilgewater (The Kingdom of Scotland Level 5), Fragile Sands (Varied Terrains), and All Things Weaken (Blight Card).
  Tags: Blight, Vitality, Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony), Kingdom of Sweden, 7 more...
• How does Vitality interact with effects that add two or more Blight at once (e.g., Kingdom of Sweden Level 1)?
  Each Vitality prevents 1 Blight. Depending on the number of Vitality relative to the number of Blight added, this may or may not prevent all of the Blight.
  Tags: Blight, Vitality, Kingdom of Sweden, Towering Roots of the Jungle, 3 more...
• Does "you can't destroy the same Invader twice in one action" also apply to Presence destruction?
  Yes — a single action can't destroy the same Presence more than once.

  This can happen with Flowing and Silent Forms Dart by in concert with anything that adds Blight one after another in multiple lands, like cascades or Volcano's Explosive Eruption.
  Tags: Destroy, Saved From Destruction, Blight, Presence, 4 more...

Event Cards

• Does damage to the land from War Touches the Island's Shores carry over to future ravages?
  No, partial damage to the land is ignored, just as for multiple ravages (B&C rulebook p. 15, base rulebook p. 9)
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Ravage, Blight, War Touches the Island's Shores
• When War Touches the Island’s Shores does Damage in a land where Rising Heat of Stone and Sand has exactly 2 Presence, can you take advantage of the Health penalty from Blistering Heat to Destroy Invaders?
  Yes. There is no point at which Rising Heat's Presence has already been destroyed by the Blight, but Invaders haven't yet been checked for taking enough Damage to destroy them.

  This also applies to Far-Off Wars Touch the Island against Durable Invaders.
  Tags: Blight, Timing, Health, Durable, 5 more...

General Play

• Is Blight component-limited?
  No.
  Tags: Still Healthy Island, Blight, Stone's Unyielding Defiance
• Does Damage to the land accumulate? If something does 1 damage to the land, and later on something else does another 1 damage, does it Blight?
  No, each instance of Damage to the land is evaluated separately; if it does at least 2 Damage, you add a Blight, and otherwise the Damage is ignored. (core rulebook, p. 9)

  This never happens in the base game, but some Events can cause this to happen.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Damage, Blight, Heart of the Wildfire
• On p. 28, the Jagged Earth rules say, "The bad effects of Blight happen each time Blight is added to a land, regardless of the quantity of Blight." Does that mean once per *action* that adds Blight, or literally every time you put Blight down?
  Literally every time you put 1 or more Blight into a land, including when you cascade. Presence destruction and cascading happen immediately, as a part of placing 1 or more Blight, they're not triggered actions. What this is saying is that the general rule works just like The Kingdom of Sweden Lvl 1: if you add 2 Blight at once, you only destroy Presence once and cascade if there was already Blight there. If you add 1 Blight, then anytime later add another Blight - eg, if you were to cascade out of a land, then back in - the bad effects of Blight happen again.
  Tags: Blight, Kingdom of Sweden
• If you manage to create a land with no adjacent lands, how do things like Blight cascades or Push work? Can you target it from lands Range 2+ away?
  

  • There are no adjacent lands to add Blight to, so Blight does not cascade.
  • Push can't Push anything (unless you can Push to a land 2 away - eg, Many Minds Move as One - and there's a land 2 away, see below).
  • Whether you can target the land depends on whether you can measure Range from your Presence to it. If you made a disjoint land via Cast Down into the Briny Deep + Absolute Stasis, yes, because the land is Range 2 from other lands. But if you completely wall off a land via Repeats of Absolute Stasis, then there's no way to measure Range to it, so the only way to target Powers there would be to either have Presence in the land or the ability to ignore range (eg, Finder of Paths Unseen).

  Note that Isolate is NOT usually sufficient to generate any of these situations, since it only affects adjacency for Invader pieces (JE rules, p. 10).
  Tags: Island Boards, Push, Range, Targeting, 2 more...

Invader Actions

• If Invaders Ravage twice in the same round and deal 1 damage to the land each time, do you add a Blight? How does Defense work?
  

  • Defend Powers apply each time the Invaders do Damage in a land.
  • Each time the land itself is Damaged is separate - it does not accumulate Damage during a turn the way Invaders and Dahan do. Only add a Blight when a single instance of Damage is enough to cause Blight.
  • Similarly, Blight can be added to a land multiple times in a turn. Check each time it takes Damage.
    Tags: Ravage, Blight

Power Cards

• Can you choose a land protected by Infinite Vitality as a place to add Blight? (Due to cascade, Power, Event Card, etc.)
  Yes, you can.

  Infinite Vitality only changes what happens when you would add Blight to a land. It doesn't restrict in any way your ability to choose the land as a place Blight is added to.
  Tags: Blight, Infinite Vitality

Presence and Sacred Sites

• Can you place Presence into lands with Blight?
  Yes. Blight destroys Presence only when it's added.

  If a Spirit is so sensitive to Blight that it has trouble adding Presence to lands having any, its Growth choices will explicitly reflect that. (eg: Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds, Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island.)

  To draw a parallel: if you're in a house when it catches fire, you can die. But if you move into the half-charred ruin a year later, you don't suddenly burn to death.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Presence, Blight, Growth
• Can cascading Blight kill Presence twice?
  Yes, it can. Each time you add one or more Blight to a given land - including cascades - destroy 1 Presence from every Spirit there. (p. 15)

  So if you had a hideously bad cascade that added Blight to 4 different lands, in each of those 4 lands you'd destroy a Presence from each Spirit.

  In the very odd case that you decided to double-back a Blight cascade to hit the same land a second time, you'd again destroy 1 Presence from every Spirit there then continue cascading. This is nearly always a terrible idea.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blight, Presence
• When Blight is moved into a land, does it destroy Presence or cause cascades?
  No, Blight only destroys Presence when it is added to the board, not when it is moved from one land to another. Likewise, moving Blight does not cause cascades. [B&C p. 15, JE p. 28]
  (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Presence, Blight, Absorb Corruption, Flow Like Water, Reach Like Air, 8 more...

Scenarios

• Between waves of the Second Wave, if returning the island to Healthy, the Scenario says to put 2 Blight per player onto the Healthy side. Should that be "2 Blight per player +1"?
  Yes - it's meant to re-create a normally-set-up Healthy Island card, so it follows the setup errata for Blight.

  To be clear, that's +1 Blight from the Blight that was in the First Wave - you do not add +1 Blight from the box for every Wave!
  Tags: Blight, Second Wave

Setup

• Does Blight added during Setup come from the box or from the Blight Pool?
  All Blight added during Setup comes from the box. Unless specifically stated otherwise, the Blight Pool does not start out depleted.

  This applies to Blight added due to printed icons on the board (p. 6), an Invader's setup (like Sweden level 6) or a Spirit's setup (like Heart of the Wildfire).
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blight, Kingdom of Sweden, Heart of the Wildfire

Spirits and Innate Powers

• When Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares adds Blight, does that destroy Presence?
  Yes.

  Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares can add real Blight, and it's the Blight that destroys the Presence.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blight, Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares, To Dream a Thousand Deaths (Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares)
• When Rising Heat of Stone and Sand has exactly two Presence in a land with a Durable Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony) Town that has taken one Damage, what happens with Blight is added to the land?
  The Town is destroyed.

  To lay out the steps in detail:

  1. Heat has two Presence. The Town has 1 Damage and 3 Health.
  2. Blight is added. The Town has 1 Damage and 1 Health.
  3. Destroy one Presence (Blight was added) and the Town (it took Damage equal to or greater than its Health).
     Tags: Blight, Timing, Blistering Heat (Rising Heat of Stone and Sand), Rising Heat of Stone and Sand, 1 more...
• Can Stone's Unyielding Defiance use Hold the Island Fast with a Bulwark of Will (to take Blight from the box) even if the Blight being added will destroy their Presence?
  Yes.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blight, Hold the Island Fast with a Bulwark of Will (Stone's Unyielding Defiance)
• If 2 Blight is added at once (eg: Sweden), can Stone's first innate pay for just 1 of it to come from the box? Or is the choice all-or-nothing?
  Yes, you can pay for just 1 of the 2 Blight to come from the box.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Blight, Hold the Island Fast with a Bulwark of Will (Stone's Unyielding Defiance), Kingdom of Sweden
• How does The Kingdom of Sweden Level 1 interact with the Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock special rule of Stone's Unyielding Defiance?
  The two Blight from Sweden 1 are added simultaneously, not sequentially, so Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock checks against the final Blight total.

  Sweden's rule that the second Blight cannot destroy Presence or cascade is just a reminder of the general rule that Presence destruction and cascades happen if Blight is added, not on a per-Blight basis - it's not a special ability granted to Sweden's second Blight to make it uniquely less harmful. (In the base game, Sweden 1 was the only was the only way 2 blight could be added simultaneously, so the rule was printed on the Adversary.)
  Tags: Blight, Kingdom of Sweden, Bestow the Endurance of Bedrock (Stone's Unyielding Defiance)
• When Breath of Darkness Down your Spine targets The Endless Dark with a Power, which effects don't work there?
  Effects that can't resolve:

  • Anything that interacts with adjacent lands, including Push and Gather (since there are no adjacent lands);
  • Invader Actions;
  • Anything conditional on having a particular terrain or being Coastal;
  • Anything that references the board that target land is on.

  Effects that do resolve, but generally not in a useful way:

  • Defend and other Damage penalties to Invaders;
  • Isolate;
  • Skipping Invader Actions.

  All other standard effects (Fear, Damage, Destroy, Remove, Replace, Add, Upgrade, Downgrade) work as they normally would, albeit with the exception that adding Blight doesn't destroy Presence or cascade, since the Endless Dark isn't a land. (Thematically, there isn't a real ecosystem to damage.)

  The Endless Dark counts as "target land" for the purpose of resolving any of the Power's effects, since that's meant to refer to the place you are targeting rather than being an additional check if that place is a land.
  Tags: Blight, Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine, The Endless Dark (Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine), Shadow-Touched Realm (Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine), 0 more...