Ember Eyed Behemoth

Frequently Asked Questions

Adversaries
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...
  • If a Spirit's Presence counts as Beasts (say, due to "Settle Into Hunting-Grounds"), and a "destroy Beasts" effect destroys their Presence, is it still considered destroyed Presence? More generally, if Piece A also counts as Piece B, and a "destroy/remove Piece B" effect destroys/removes it, does it go to the supply for A or B?
    It's considered destroyed Presence. When a piece is removed from the board, it goes to the supply (or other destination) for that physical type of piece.
    Tags: Presence, Pieces, Counts As, Beasts, 15 more...
  • Do powers have to be resolved in order, or can you choose to do the effects in the order that's most convenient for you?
    Powers must be resolved in order from top to bottom. If a Power has thresholds, resolve all thresholds you hit, in the order they are listed (skipping over the ones you don't hit).
    There are a small number of exceptions:
    If a Power changes its own Speed, Range, or Targeting, those changes (and corresponding thresholds / costs) are checked when relevant during targeting, not during normal Power resolution. Examples:
    • "You may pay 1 Energy to make this Power Fast." ("Dry Wood Explodes in Smoldering Splinters")
    • "Increase this Power's Range to Range 1." ("Sap the Strength of Multitudes")
    • "This Power can target lands with Blight." ("Inspire the Release of Stolen Lands") – but note that the rest of this threshold effect still resolves at the end, like normal.
    (By the time you're resolving the rest of the Power text, it'd be too late for these modifiers to do anything!)
    If a threshold modifies how an earlier part of the Power resolves, that modifier applies at the sensible time. Examples:
    • "Do not destroy any Dahan." ("The Jungle Hungers")
    • "Damage from this Power may be dealt into adjacent lands." ("Vengeance of the Dead")
    Technically, every use of "Instead..." in an innate power works this way; it's pretty simple for human minds to understand the intent, but the formal specification is messier. Note that a "+" in a threshold effect (like "+2 Damage" in "Walls of Rock and Thorn") is not a modifier, but rather a new Damage instruction – this is occasionally relevant for timing purposes.
    If a Power specifies that something happens later, do it at that time (remembering that these ongoing effects expire when Time Passes unless specified otherwise). Examples:
    • "Once this turn, target Spirit may ..." ("Powerstorm")
    • "After the next time Invaders are destroying in target land: ..." ("Blood Draws Predators")
    • "At end of turn, ..." ("Gift of Constancy")
    "Repeat this Power" as a threshold also falls into this category, since it's short for "After resolving this Power and all Actions triggered by it, Repeat it."
    If a Power explicitly specifies to resolve part of a threshold earlier in power resolution, follow that order. Examples:
    • "+3 Fear, before the Terror Level check." ("Twisted Flowers Murmur Ultimatums")
    • "Before Pushing, Explorers and Towns/Cities do Damage to each other." ("Dissolve the Bonds of Kinship")
    • "First, Gather up to 3 Dahan." ("Wrap in Winds of Sunlight")
    Also related: A Power that is 100% internal modifiers doesn't do anything, so can't be targeted/used for things like "Scream Disease Into the Wind."
    Tags: Resolving Powers, Range Boosts, Speed (Fast/Slow), Targeting, 59 more...
Power Cards
Setup
Spirit Phase
  • Do I have to do everything shown in a Growth option I pick?
    Yes. You must do everything shown if possible, though you can do it in any order.
    Usually, there's no downside: Reclaiming, gaining Energy/Power Cards, and adding Presence are almost strictly good. (You can always reposition a Presence already on the island when adding Presence [p. 14], so "running out" isn't a concern.) Spirits with "Move a Presence up to Range N" Growth effects can Move it 0. However, a few Spirits do include things you'll have to work around, including:
    • Ocean's Hungry Grasp often requires you to Push or Gather Presence;
    • Heart of the Wildfire often adds Blight along with Presence, so being required to add Presence can be dangerous;
    • Downpour Drenches the World and Ember-Eyed Behemoth both discard Power Cards as part of one of their Growth options;
    • Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine must let pieces escape the Endless Dark.
    • Several Spirits have Growth options that add Presence to particular land types, which could force Presence outside of that land type to be repositioned accordingly in the unlikely case where the Spirit has no Presence left on Presence tracks and no Presence on the island is already in that land type (else it could be repositioned into the land it's already in). Note that "a land with your Presence" can't cause this problem, since that allows any Presence to be repositioned into a land its already in.
    If you can't do something in a Growth option, do as much as you can and skip the rest – you're free to pick Growth options where you can't successfully complete all of the instructions. (E.g., if you Push Presence from each Ocean, and there's a board where none of your Presence is in the Ocean, you simply don't Push Presence on that board.)
    Nevertheless, you can't skip paying an explicit "cost" for a Growth option, which must be paid in full order to pick that option and perform the associated actions.
    (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Growth, Repositioning Presence, Ocean's Hungry Grasp, Heart of the Wildfire, 15 more...
Spirits and Innate Powers