Collapse in a Blast of Lava and Steam (Volcano Looming High)

Frequently Asked Questions

General Play

• Is there an ordering or priority for action modifications? It seems weird that you can get a benefit from something being destroyed even if you save it from destruction.
  Yes:

  • First change quantity (eg: "Pour Time Sideways");
  • Then do any canceling or replacement (eg: "Flowing and Silent Forms Dart By" / "A Year of Perfect Stillness");
  • Finally do any other sort of additional or altered effects (eg: threshold on "Instruments of Their Own Ruin").

  The practical upshot of this is mostly "you can't both prevent something from happening and do extra stuff because it's happening" – e.g., if Volcano Looming High's Presence would be destroyed, but it's saved somehow, you don't get to deal damage.

  If a modifier cancels just part of something, modifiers to that part don't apply. Eg: "Entrap the Forces of Corruption" doesn't stop Blight from being added, but it does stop it from cascading, so another modifier which changed how cascades worked wouldn't apply.

  As before, if you have multiple modifiers with no clear order, you get to pick which happens first. For instance: you play "Infestation of Venomous Spiders" with threshold on a land with Dahan about to Ravage. A Fear Card says "Invaders do not Ravage in lands with Dahan". When that Ravage would happen, there are two different "skip this Ravage" modifiers. You get to decide which one to do first, so can choose it to be the Venomous Spiders. This wouldn't be true if the entire Ravage Step got skipped, or if the Ravage Card were changed to match different lands – those happen before you ever reach the individual Ravage Action – but as of Jagged Earth, the only Fear cards that work this way are "Explorers Are Reluctant" and "Immigration Slows", levels 2 and 3.

  This is an addition to published rules – the intent is that it will be included in the rulebook of a future expansion.
  Tags: Action Modifiers, Skipping Actions, Pour Time Sideways (Fractured Days Split the Sky), Entrap the Forces of Corruption, 26 more...

Spirits and Innate Powers

• Can Volcano just decide to destroy Presence with Explosive Eruption without triggering any of the other effects (for the benefit from Collapse in a Blast of Lava and Steam)? Can it destroy more than it needs to?
  Yes.

  Formally, "Destroy X [Presence]" is just a part of the innate that doesn't require any elements. Doing so counts for the Power to have been considered "used", for things like Scream Disease Into the Wind, even if you Destroyed just 1 Presence (the minimum for that Power).
  (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Resolving Powers, Explosive Eruption (Volcano Looming High), Collapse in a Blast of Lava and Steam (Volcano Looming High)
• When Volcano uses Explosive Eruption, it deals damage both via destroying its Presence and the Innate Power. Does Badlands apply twice?
  No, because the damage from destroying its Presence isn't a separate action.

  The Special Rule says, "When your Presence is destroyed...", which means the damage is done as part of whatever action destroyed your Presence.

  (If it were instead a triggered action, it would say "After your Presence is destroyed".)
  Tags: Actions, Action Modifiers, Badlands, Explosive Eruption (Volcano Looming High), 2 more...
• If Finder of Paths Unseen causes Heart of the Wildfire to place Presence, destroying Invaders, does Finder need to pay for Responsibilities to the Dead? What if Finder destroys some of Volcano's Presence?
  No for Wildfire. Yes for Volcano, assuming the damage from destroying Volcano's Presence destroys 1 or more Invaders/Dahan.

  When placing Wildfire's Presence, Finder's action itself did not cause any destruction. It "directly triggers" the destruction (via Wildfire's special rule), but it did so by adding Presence, not by moving Dahan or Invaders. (Earlier printings of Wildfire incorrectly said "when" instead of "after" for the Special Rule; see the errata / clarifications on triggered actions.)

  Collapse in a Blast of Lava and Steam is phrased as a modifier - when Volcano's Presence is destroyed, it modifies the current action to also do 1 Damage. If that action is Finder's, it's Finder dealing the damage. (This would have worked more thematically if Collapse in a Blast of Lava and Steam had been a triggered action, since then it would have been Volcano dealing the damage.)
  (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Triggered Actions, Finder of Paths Unseen, Responsibilities to the Dead (Finder of Paths Unseen), Blazing Presence (Heart of the Wildfire), 3 more...
• When Volcano uses Explosive Eruption vs Russia 2+, can it Push 1 Explorer from the origin land (when it does damage by destroying Presence) then destroy that Explorer using the thresholds of the innate which deal damage to nearby lands? Does it Push the Explorer again?
  No, and no. Powers can't destroy Invaders that were saved from destruction earlier in that same action, so the runaway Explorer is safe. And all the damage is part of a single action, so you only Push them (and generate Fear) once.

  The damage from destroying your Presence is part of the same action because the Special Rule says "When you destroy your Presence..." - it modifies how other actions work while they're happening.
  Tags: Destroy, Saved From Destruction, Action Modifiers, Explosive Eruption (Volcano Looming High), 2 more...