Changed rulings

Frequently Asked Questions

Blighted Island cards

• With the Event Outpaced, do you need to pay for a card from Aid from Lesser Spirits?
  No, you cannot pay for it to be sped up, nor can you discard it for Energy.

  It is "used as if played", but is not a card you played.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Changed rulings, Outpaced, Aid from Lesser Spirits

Event Cards

• If Invaders do extra damage in a land where all Invaders have Strife, what happens?
  Changed answer (as of Jagged Earth): The damage boost does not apply. (JE, p. 7) Per-land damage boosts only apply if the Invaders manage to muster up at least 1 Damage prior to Defend, so empty lands which manage to Ravage, lands where all Invaders are Strifed, or lands full of Explorers that are affected by Mesmerized Tranquility don't get per-land damage boosts. This is a change from pre-Jagged Earth, as noted on the JE rules p. 7.
  

  If you wish to play with the old rule, you can, but the game will be harder.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Strife, Damage, Changed rulings, Destroy the Unnatural!, 9 more...

General Play

• What is the timing of Victory / Defeat?
  Check Victory/Defeat after each action tree is entirely complete – i.e., when you're not in the middle of an action, and there are no pending triggered actions. Example: if a Ravage action destroys a Spirit's last Presence, you still finish the Ravage action (which might involve a Dahan counterattack), plus any actions it triggers (eg: Blood Draws Predators), but you do not resolve any further Ravages from the same Ravage Card.

  This is a slight rules change; the intent is that it be formally published in a future expansion, but FAQs will treat it as true starting immediately. (The core game rules say to check after each and every action, which could be in the middle of a tree of actions - eg, between the Ravage action and Blood Draws Predators.)

  For loss conditions which key off of "you try to do something but can't" (e.g: The Kingdom of France's loss condition, when you are unable to add a Town), the loss is noted as soon as that happens, but you may play out the rest of the action tree to see if you achieve a Sacrifice Victory. Other loss conditions, like The Kingdom of England, are only checked when the tree is complete.
  Tags: Victory and Defeat, Sacrifice victory, Changed rulings, Ravage, 2 more...

Power Cards

• When you use a Power outside of its normal phase (eg, during the Invader Phase via the Rouse the Spirits event), if Repeats have been granted to you (eg, from Gift of Strength), can you use them then?
  Changed answer: No. Unlike Lightning's Boon or Sky Stretches to Shore, you're not actually changing the Power's speed, you're just using it (once) ignoring speed. Repeats can happen in the phase matching the Power's actual speed.

  The first-pass answer was "yes" based on the idea that these things changed the Power's speed, but that proved the wrong direction.

  Note that this only applies to granted Repeats, like from Gift of Twinned Days or the like. It does not apply to Powers which have "Repeat this Power" as one of their instructions; those can and must be Repeated immediately as an action triggered by the initial use. (After any other triggered actions.)
  (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Repeat, Events, Timing, Changed rulings, 8 more...
• If you use Encompassing Ward ("Defend 2 in every land where Target Spirit has Presence"), then the target Spirit moves some of their Presence, does the Defend move/change?
  Changed answer: Yes. The Power modifies the target Spirit so it provides Defend 2 in any lands where it happens to have Presence at that moment.

  This is for consistency with other effects that alter an entire class of things, mostly on Fear Cards and Event Cards. Powers that affect a single land, or a land and its neighbors (e.g., Bloodwrack Plague; Prey On the Builders) – check state at the moment they resolve.

  This is entirely for ease of play. For a single-land effect, it's much easier to check prerequisites at the moment of resolution and not have to remember, e.g., "oh, I need to leave a Beasts in this land to cancel the Build". For widespread effects, it's much easier to remember a general rule like "Invaders skip actions in lands with 2 or more Dahan" than it is to note and remember every single land with 2 or more Dahan at that moment, and keep that memory until the Ravage happens.
  Tags: Defend, Changed rulings, Encompassing Ward, Bargains of Power and Protection, 2 more...
• If two lands are joined using Weave Together the Fabric of Place, is the conjoined land considered adjacent to itself?
  Changed ruling: No. (The old ruling was creating waaay too many weird edge cases.)
  

  The original ruling was made because the definition of "Coastal" is "adjacent to the printed Ocean", and a Coastal land Woven together with an in-play Ocean should definitely still be Coastal. Turns out it's much better to just rule that that's how it works.
  Tags: Land Types, Push, Move, Gather, 4 more...

Scenarios

• When are Scenario Markers / Element Markers considered pieces?
  Nearly anytime they're placed on the board. The only exception is if they're purely a visual reminder, like in The Great River, or if used to mark Inner Lands for Guard The Isle's Heart. (JE p. 35, "Piece")

  This might be revisited if future content results in weird situations, as some of the cases are kind of borderline (eg: Rituals of the Destroying Flame), but for now the simplicity of "always" wins out.

  Element Markers placed on the board for Elemental Invocation are not considered "pieces" - the first printings of Jagged Earth considered them as pieces that were basically non-interactable (since they're not in any land); it's cleaner to just not count them as pieces at all.
  Tags: Element markers, Pieces, Changed rulings, Despicable Theft, 9 more...

Spirits and Innate Powers

• What happens to items left in the ocean if the last Presence of Ocean's Hungry Grasp is removed from the Island Board?
  Pieces not representing humans physically remain where they are, but are considered out of play until/unless that Ocean returns to play. Invaders and Dahan are cleaned up to the nearest legal land (though it's rare for this to be relevant, since they're also cleaned up to the nearest legal land every time you complete a primary action.)

  This answer used to be different, but Jagged Earth development resulted in general-case rules for what happens to pieces left in an illegal state/location.
  Tags: Illegally placed pieces, Changed rulings, Ocean's Hungry Grasp, Ocean In Play (Ocean's Hungry Grasp), 0 more...
• Can Lure of the Deep Wilderness win the game in Terror Level 1 by using Enthrall the Foreign Explorers?
  Changed answer: No. Lure's ability effectively means "do not participate in Ravage", and pieces not participating in Ravage aren't ignored for Victory / Defeat.

  It would be better phrased as, "For each of your Presence in a land, up to 2 Explorer do not participate in Ravage."

  See also Pieces that "do not participate in Ravage" are ignored for all purposes. Does this include checking for victory?.
  Tags: Victory and Defeat, Changed rulings, Enthrall the Foreign Explorers (Lure of the Deep Wilderness)
• As Volcano, when destroying your own Presence for Explosive Eruption, can that Presence be saved (by, e.g., Flowing and Silent Forms Dart By)?
  Yes, but not usefully. It doesn't count towards the eruption thresholds (because they check the # of Presence actually destroyed) or for Collapse In a Blast of Lava and Steam (because "destroy" gets replaced with "push" before the rule "when your Presence is destroyed, deal damage" kicks in).

  Prior to the ruling that cancellation/replacement always happens before changes/additions, you could decide on the ordering, and apply Collapse In a Blast of Lava and Steam's damage before Flowing and Silent Forms Dart By's substitution. but this is no longer true.
  Tags: Saved From Destruction, Action Modifiers, Presence, Destroy, 4 more...