Blistering Heat (Rising Heat of Stone and Sand)

Frequently Asked Questions

Definitions

• When you "Remove 3 Health worth of Invaders," can you Remove 3 damaged Towns?
  No, the Health of an Invader doesn't change when it takes Damage. Damaged Towns still count for 2 Health each.

  A few effects (e.g., Kingdom of England Level 5, or some Event/Fear cards) modify Health, which does affect how many Invaders you can Remove. But Damage does not reduce Health. (Health is simply the total amount of Damage it takes to destroy something.)
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Damage, Health, Seek Safety, Belief Takes Root, 16 more...
• When an effect reduces the Health of a piece (or it loses a bonus to Health), and it has already taken damage equal to its new health, is it destroyed immediately?
  Yes. (Branch & Claw rulebook p. 16)

  Invaders and Dahan have Health and take Damage. As soon as they have taken as much Damage as their Health, they are destroyed, whether that comes from taking more Damage or having their Health reduced.

  Unlike in some other games, doing Damage normally doesn't reduce the Health of the Invaders; there are two separate totals.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Health, Damage, Farmers Seek the Dahan for Aid, Years of Little Rain, 7 more...

Effect Rules

• If an Invader or Dahan is in a land where it has a Health bonus, takes Damage equal to its normal Health, and then gets moved into a land where it has no Health bonus, where is it actually destroyed? (E.g., for *Vengeance of the Dead*)
  The Invader/Dahan is destroyed in the destination land.

  There's no “in between” state where it loses its Health bonus for being out of the first land, but hasn’t yet arrived in the second land; it’s either in the first land and has a Health bonus or in the second land and doesn’t have a Health bonus.

  Moving a damaged piece into a land where it has a Health penalty works similarly.
  Tags: Health, Damage, Triggered Actions, Durable, 16 more...

Event Cards

• 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

• When a piece or the land has both a bonus and a malus to Health, can players benefit from the standard "min. 1" limit on the malus by applying all of the penalties before the bonuses?
  No, the restriction that Health can't go below 1 applies to the final Health at the end of the computation, not on any intermediate state where only some of the Health modifiers have been applied. Apply all of the bonuses and maluses at once to get the final Health value, and then apply the "min 1." limit at the end.

  This mostly comes up when there are multiple maluses at once or when a single malus is -2 or more. For example, if the land is under the effect of "All Things Weaken" (-1 Health), "Depleted Soil" (-1 Health in lands with Towns/Cities), and "Anchor the Land's Resilience" (+8 Health in Sacred Sites of Vital Strength of the Earth's Resilience Aspect), the final total is 2−1−1+8=8 Health for the land, even though applying the penalties "first" made the Health 0 in the middle of the computation.
  Tags: Health, Durable, All Things Weaken, The Land's Bounty Exhausted, 19 more...

Spirits and Innate Powers

• If Rising Heat of Stone and Sand has a Sacred Site in a land for targeting purposes due to "Entwined Power," do Invaders there have -1 Health from its "Blistering Heat" Special Rule?
  No, the Spirits can use each other's Presence for targeting only, not for any other purpose (even in the period of targeting).

  To expand on the situation, a land contains one Presence from Rising Heat of Stone and Sand, one Presence from another Spirit, and a Town with 1 Damage. "Entwined Power" is used between the two Spirits, and then Rising Heat uses a Power that requires a Sacred Site there for targeting. Even though targeting the Power is legal by "Entwined Power," the land only counts as a Sacred Site for Targeting, not for the Special Rule "Blistering Heat."
  Tags: Counts As, Rising Heat of Stone and Sand, Blistering Heat (Rising Heat of Stone and Sand), Entwined Power, 0 more...
• 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 Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares destroy already-damaged pieces by moving them into/out of lands that affect their Health? (Eg: moving a Dahan that has taken 2+ Damage out of a land where it's getting a Health bonus from Promises of Protection.)
  Yes. The Power itself isn't performing any damage or destroy effects, which is what To Dream a Thousand Deaths modifies; it's just changing where a piece is. From that, the game's core rules cause the piece to be destroyed.

  The destruction does still happen within the scope of the action (Power), so triggered actions like Vengeance of the Dead will trigger after the action (Power) is complete.
  Tags: Damage, Health, To Dream a Thousand Deaths (Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares), Infinite Vitality, 3 more...