Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds

Frequently Asked Questions

Adversaries
Definitions
Elements and Elemental Thresholds
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...
  • Can a single Action cause a trigger to happen multiple times? Eg, if Heart of the Wildfire's Presence moves to multiple lands in one action, or if The Kingdom of Scotland Level 5+ cascades Blight from one Coastal land to another?
    No. A single action invokes a triggered action exactly once or not at all. If the effects of a trigger are variable, it will say so in the trigger's effects (e.g., "Vengeance of the Dead" deals "1 Damage per (piece) destroyed" rather than a flat amount).
    If Finder of Paths Unseen moves Heart of the Wildfire's Presence to many different lands, "in the land it goes to" is ambiguous and Wildfire's player chooses which land its "Blazing Presence" special rule applies to. If a since Ravage action adds Blight to two Coastal lands (by cascading), "Runoff and Bilgewater" (The Kingdom of Scotland Level 5) adds a single blight is to that board's Ocean; if the two lands were on different boards, "that board's Ocean" is ambiguous and the players choose which it applies to.
    A single action can cause many separate triggers to fire, including separate triggers that come from the same Power Card — e.g., if "Vengeance of the Dead" is Repeated on a land, each use of the power sets up a separate trigger.
    Tags: Triggered Actions, Blazing Presence (Heart of the Wildfire), Kingdom of Scotland, Vengeance of the Dead, 3 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
Spirit Phase
Spirits and Innate Powers