Blur the Arc of Years (Fractured Days Split the Sky)

Frequently Asked Questions

Effect Rules
General Play
  • When using a Power, can you ignore parts of its effect that you don't want to use (e.g., not adding Blight), or use a weaker version of them (e.g., Pushing only 1 Town with a "Push 2 Towns" instruction)?
    No, if you're using a Power at all, you must use all of it, and you must resolve the effects at the amount printed.
    That being said, players still have a lot of discretion for using Powers in ways were some of the effects won't happen or won't happen at full strength:
    • Spirits can target a land where some effects or possibly all of them won't do anything. (e.g., a Power with a "Push 1 Town." instruction doesn't need to target a land with Towns.)
    • If an effect is explicitly optional, it can be ignored. (e.g., "You may instead Remove 1 Blight." doesn't need to remove Blight even if there is Blight in target land.)
    • If given a choice for how many pieces to affect (e.g., "up to 3"), 0 pieces is a valid number unless a minimum amount is specified. (e.g., "Push up to 2 Dahan." can Push 0 or 1 Dahan even if 2 Dahan are present.)
    • If an effect checks how many Elements you have – usually as part of an Elemental Threshold requirement – you may choose to apply fewer Elements so long as you're consistent for the entire Power. (e.g., if you choose to use 8 Fire for a "1 Damage per Fire" effect, you also meet and must use an "If you have 7 Fire" threshold. But you could alternatively use only 6 of those Fire for the Power in order to deal 6 Damage and ignore the 7 Fire threshold.)
    • If a threshold requirement includes an Energy cost, you may choose not to pay it in order to skip that threshold. (e.g., "If you have 3 Fire and pay 2 Energy" does not require you to pay 2 Energy even if you have 2 Energy to spend and are using 3 Fire for the rest of the Power.)
      Tags: Elements, Resolving Powers, Firestorm (Heart of the Wildfire), Heart of the Wildfire, 72 more...
  • How are ties handled when checking for the "most," "least," or "fewest"? How about if there's an all-way tie for 0?
    Players break ties every time there's a check for most, least, or fewest. So, for example, if there are multiple lands that tie for "the land with the most Invaders," the players choose which single land land counts for this specific effect. If they later have to check again for the land with the most Invaders, they are not required to break the tie in the same way.
    Unless an explicit minimum is given, 0 is a valid amount for both "most" and "fewest." So when "Ports Sprawl Outward" (Escalation of The Kingdom of Scotland) checks for "the single board with the most Coastal Towns/Cities," players could break the tie in favor of a board with no Coastal Towns/Cities if none of the other boards have any Coastal Towns/Cities either.
    In the less common case where an effect checks for multiple things ranked in a particular way, keep choosing things until you have the requisite number, breaking ties as needed along the way. So for example, when "Wave of Immigration" (Level 5 of The Habsburg Monarchy Livestock Colony) checks for "the 3 Inland lands with the fewest Blight" on a board where 2 Inland lands have 0 Blight and 3 Inland lands have 1 Blight, the Adversary affects:
    • Both lands with 0 Blight, since one of them is the land with the fewest Blight and one is the land with the second-fewest Blight (though it doesn't matter which is which);
    • One player-chosen land with 1 Blight, since the remaining lands are all equally-valid choices for having the third-fewest Blight.
    That is, it affects 3 total Inland lands, prioritizing lands with fewer Blight, rather than affecting Inland lands that are mutually tied for the fewest Blight (max. 3 lands). In the rare case that you don't even have enough items to rank (in this case, having fewer than 3 Inland lands), affect all qualifying lands.
    Tags: Stage II escalation, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Sweden, 22 more...
  • If an effect says that you may X to Y (e.g., paying Energy to gain a Power Card, Destroying Presence to skip an Event on a board), are you allowed to get the second half for free if you can't do the first half?
    No, the second half is gated behind paying the cost in the first half. Similarly, "you may Y by X" requires paying the cost in the second half to get the effect in the first half.
    While this tends to be pretty obvious when the cost is paying Energy, it's less clear if the cost is performing some other effect, like discarding a card or removing Presence.
    While you must be able to pay the cost in order to get the bonus, ongoing effects can alter the final result of the cost being paid. For example, you can successfully pay the cost of "Destroy 2 Presence" even if "Flowing and Silent Forms Dart By" will end up saving that Presence from destruction if you do so. On the other hand, you can't attempt to pay the cost with Presence under "Absolute Stasis," since that Presence only exists for Victory/Defeat – it doesn't exist as far as the Event is concerned.
    Tags: Action Modifiers, Absolute Stasis (Fractured Days Split the Sky), Turmoil's Touch (Wandering Voice Keens Delirium), Water Nourishes Life's Growth (Downpour Drenches the World), 11 more...
Invader Actions
Power Cards
Range and Targeting
Scenarios
Spirits and Innate Powers