Growth Through Sacrifice

Frequently Asked Questions

Elements and Elemental Thresholds

• If you gain presence during the turn (after Growth) and uncover the "any" or another element, can you then use it for other powers?
  Yes, you can start using elements as soon as you gain them. (p. 14) Similarly, if you are able to play a card mid-turn, you get the effects of its Elements immediately.

  (And if some effect were to cover an Element by returning Presence to your track, or destroy a Power card in play, you'd immediately lose access to the elements.)
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: "Any" element, Elements, Adding Presence, Indomitable Claim, 13 more...

Power Cards

• If you target yourself with Growth Through Sacrifice and remove your only Presence on the island, is that land still considered "your land"? (So you could re-add a Presence to avoid losing?)
  No - "your land" / "your lands" are checked when you reach that instruction in the text. When it comes time to add a Presence to one of your lands, you have no lands and cannot do so.

  This logic doesn't apply to Moving or Repositioning your only Presence, however - in those cases, there's never a point in time when the Presence is off the island, so you still can measure Range or have a valid "your land".
  Tags: Adding Presence, Repositioning Presence, Move, Presence, 2 more...
• What is the exact timing of "you may do both?" on cards like Growth Through Sacrifice?
  It's checked at the moment you need to know, so as soon as you must choose A ~or~ B.

  For Growth Through Sacrifice, you check the threshold as soon as you face the choice between "add a Presence" and "remove a Blight" (to see if you can do both). If you don't have 2 Sun at that point, it doesn't matter if you get 2 Sun by adding a Presence, the time for checking "can you do both?" has passed. (Note that the ordering of the two options is irrelevant to this.)

  For Unleash a Torrent of the Self's Own Essence, the choice comes at the very start of the card, so if you have the threshold at that point, you still get to do both even if Forgetting a card (from play) for the first option drops you below the threshold for the 2nd option.
  Tags: Timing, Growth Through Sacrifice, Unleash a Torrent of the Self's Own Essence
• Does an "or" line on a power divide the entire card?
  No. The "or" line only applies to the clauses immediately above and below the line, without extra whitespace.

  For example, if you use Crops Wither and Fade, you always gain 2 fear and then you may choose whether you are replacing a City or a Town. On the other hand, on Tormenting Rotflies, you either choose everything above the "or" or everything below it.

  To be explicit, the following cards have clauses that are not part of the "or" choice (separated by whitespace): Crops Wither and Fade; Growth Through Sacrifice; Sacrosanct Wilderness; Gift of the Primordial Deeps; Gift of Flowing Power; Call to Guard; Vanish Softly Away, Forgotten by All; Thickets Erupt with Every Touch of Breeze
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Crops Wither and Fade (Shadows Flicker Like Flame), Growth Through Sacrifice, Sacrosanct Wilderness (Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds), Gift of the Primordial Deeps (Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island), 15 more...

Range and Targeting

• Do Range buffs apply to Powers that affect "a land with your Presence" or "one of your lands"?
  No. "A land with your Presence" specifies a requirement for the land you're affecting (similar to, eg, "a land with Dahan" or "a land with Blight"), not a numeric Range. While it is usually the same in practice as "a land at Range 0", when using effects that modify Range the distinction matters.

  For powers like Punish Those Who Trespass or Firestorm that have a base effect with normal range and a further effect referring to "lands where you have presence", the range on the base effect can be extended, but the further part cannot.

  For instance, if you reach all the thresholds of Punish Those Who Trespass and have extended range, you can use the base effect to deal damage in a distant land and use the further part to deal damage where you have presence (without extension).
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Range, Presence, Targeting, Reaching Grasp, 10 more...

Spirits and Innate Powers

• When Ocean's Hungry Grasp is in play, can Blight, other Spirit Presence, Beasts, or other tokens end up in the Ocean?
  Yes, the Ocean is a Coastal Wetland for many purposes, and Blight and any of the tokens from Branch & Claw can end up there. Spirit Presence from other spirits cannot be placed there during the Growth phase, but can end up there as a result of cards like Indomitable Claim or Flow Like Water, Reach Like Air. So long as Ocean has Presence on the board, non-human pieces in the Ocean continue to behave normally and are considered "in play" - so a Disease would count for an Event which checks if the board has Disease, for instance, even though that's an Event Action.

  Invaders will never take actions there, so many of the tokens will have no effect.

  See also What happens to items left in the ocean if the last Presence of Ocean's Hungry Grasp is removed from the Island Board?.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Ocean's Hungry Grasp, Indomitable Claim, Growth Through Sacrifice, Unrelenting Growth, 6 more...

~ Expansions, Promos, and Publishing

• What game items have been retired or replaced in expansions?
  Replaced with new cards:

  • Sea Monsters (Major Power in B&C) - new version in JE (capping Fear)
  • Draw Towards a Consuming Void (Major Power in JE) - new version in NI (wording - no functional changes)
  • Growth Through Sacrifice (Minor Power in B&C) - replacement Minor in NI (Roiling Bog and Snagging Thorn)

  Retired:

  • Outpaced (Event in B&C) - retired as of NI
  • War Touches the Island's Shores (Event in B&C) - retired as of NI (which has a new Event with similar theme)
  • A Strange Madness Among the Beasts (Event in B&C) - retired as of JE/NI
  • Tipping Point (Blighted Island Card in B&C) - retired as of NI

  Farmers Seek the Dahan for Aid has not yet been replaced, because that replacement would best be done as part of a Dahan-centric expansion.

  It's fine - but not required - to retire game items "early" (ie, without buying the expansion which officially says they're retired). That's awkward for replacing game items - since you need the replacement - though some players opt to omit Growth Through Sacrifice, finding the elemental distortion from its absence to be less impactful than it seeing use in play.

  Outpaced, War Touches, Strange Madness, and Tipping Point were all retired for an overly swingy play experience. Original Sea Monsters was so good with Many Minds that it trivialized the game. Growth Through Sacrifice was nearly always game-warpingly good. Draw Towards a Consuming Void was one of the very few things that moves other Spirits' Presence without explicitly stating so, and Nature Incarnate had space on the card sheet, so we printed a replacement.
  Tags: Retired or Replaced Game Items, Sea Monsters, Draw Towards a Consuming Void, Growth Through Sacrifice, 5 more...