Roiling Bog and Snagging Thorn

Frequently Asked Questions

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...

~ 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" (i.e., 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, Expansions, Sea Monsters, Draw Towards a Consuming Void, 6 more...