Towering Roots of the Jungle

Frequently Asked Questions

Definitions

• When you "Remove 3 Health worth of Invaders," can you Remove 3 damaged Towns?
  No, the Health of an Invader doesn't change when it takes Damage. Damaged Towns still count for 2 Health each.

  A few effects (e.g., Kingdom of England Level 5, or some Event/Fear cards) modify Health, which does affect how many Invaders you can Remove. But Damage does not reduce Health. (Health is simply the total amount of Damage it takes to destroy something.)
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Damage, Health, Seek Safety, Belief Takes Root, 16 more...

Effect Rules

• How does Vitality interact with effects that add two or more Blight at once (e.g., Kingdom of Sweden Level 1)?
  Each Vitality prevents 1 Blight. Depending on the number of Vitality relative to the number of Blight added, this may or may not prevent all of the Blight.
  Tags: Blight, Vitality, Kingdom of Sweden, Towering Roots of the Jungle, 3 more...
• What does Vitality do in lands with Blight?
  Nothing, aside from existing for effects that check how many Vitality tokens are in a land, like Heart-Tree Guards the Land. If the Blight is later moved or removed, the Vitality can be used for its normal function.
  Tags: Blight, Vitality, Towering Roots of the Jungle, Enduring Vitality (Towering Roots of the Jungle), 2 more...
• If both a Beasts and something that counts as a Beasts (e.g., a sacred site of Many Minds Move as One) are in the same land and something destroys a Beasts there, can you choose which one is destroyed?
  Yes. Even if there are two ordinary Beasts tokens in a land, players get to choose which one gets destroyed – it just doesn't usually matter which one you pick.

  Similarly, if a Presence and an Incarna are both in a land and something would destroy Presence there, the Spirit can choose whether to destroy the Presence or the Incarna.
  Tags: Counts As, Incarna, Many Minds Move as One, A Joining of Swarms and Flocks (Many Minds Move as One), 8 more...
• When Blight is added to a land with Vitality, does it destroy Presence?
  Not if there's enough Vitality to prevent all of the Blight from being added.

  Sufficient Vitality will also prevent extra effects of Blight being added, including those from Mining Rush (The Kingdom of Sweden Level 5), Irreparable Damage (The Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony) Additional Loss Condition), Runoff and Bilgewater (The Kingdom of Scotland Level 5), Fragile Sands (Varied Terrains), and All Things Weaken (Blight Card).
  Tags: Blight, Vitality, Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony), Kingdom of Sweden, 7 more...
• If your Incarna and 1 of your Presence are in the same land, is that land a Sacred Site for you?
  Yes, if you choose to count your Incarna as Presence for that action.
  Tags: Sacred Sites, Counts As, Incarna, Ember-Eyed Behemoth, 4 more...
• What happens if a Power that references an Incarna is used by a Spirit that doesn't have that Incarna (e.g., if it's transferred via "Entwined Power")?
  Resolve the Power exactly as written. Though an Incarna is associated with a particular Spirit, it's still a piece that other Spirits can interact with — they just don't normally have a way to do so.
  

  Depending on the Power and Incarna in question, this may be weaker than when used by the original Spirit. For example, while "Frightful Keening" can still push the Incarna of Wandering Voice Keens Delirium, and still generates Fear if pushing into a land with Invaders, only Wandering Voice Keens Delirium can use that Power to add Strife via "Keening Spurs Grievances."
  Tags: Transferring Power Cards, Incarna, Entwined Power, Blazing Intimidation (Ember-Eyed Behemoth), 7 more...

General Play

• What happens if a piece winds up in a place or state it's not allowed to be?
  If the place still exists, then:

  • Pieces representing humans (Dahan / Invaders) are cleaned up to the closest legal land — this is not considered a move, is not an action, and does not trigger anything, it is simply a correction of the game state. This happens only once you are not in the middle of an action, and there are no pending triggered actions (i.e., after each action tree), just before checking for victory/defeat.
  • All other pieces remain where they are, but are considered out of play unless/until they're no longer in an illegal state.

  On the other hand, if the place was destroyed and pieces within it somehow survived the destruction, they all get cleaned up.

  This sort of thing can happen if pieces survive the sinking of a board (like Dahan via Infinite Vitality with threshold or Explorers via the Tsardom of Russia's A Sense for Impending Disaster), if an Ocean stops being a land (by Ocean's Hungry Grasp losing its Presence there) while other Spirits' Presence is there, or if Invaders/Dahan are left in the Ocean after an action but manage not to Drown in some way.

  If the nearest legal land is unclear, use your best judgment, based on physical distance if necessary. If there is literally no legal land to put the pieces in, return them to the supply; this is still considered cleaning up (not an action, not a move/remove/destroy, does not trigger anything).
  Tags: Pieces, Illegally placed pieces, Victory and Defeat, Action tree, 12 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...

Power Cards

• What happens if you give a Range boost to someone who's used Bargains of Power and Protection? Does it matter if they played Bargains on that turn or an earlier turn?
  In either case, for the turn the Range boost is active, it increases the "within Range 1 of your Presence" at which that Spirit affects Dahan. The boost wears off at the end of the turn, even though Bargains of Power and Protection doesn't.

  This includes range bonuses to "your Power Card" (e.g., Volcano Looming High), but not bonuses specifically for targeting.

  If a Range boost only increases the Range for a single Action (e.g., the Reach Aspect ignoring Range), then the farther-afield Dahan only grant Defend for one action of your choice (usually a single Ravage in one land).
  Tags: Range, Range Boosts, Bargains of Power and Protection, Reaching Grasp, 9 more...

Presence and Sacred Sites

• What happens to Presence when it gets removed or replaced?
  If it is replaced during play, it goes to the destroyed Presence pile in the supply unless the particular effect says to put it elsewhere. From there, it can be restored by any effect that returns destroyed Presence to the island.

  Anything replaced during setup is out of the game.

  As of the release of Nature Incarnate, only four Presence-removing/replacing effects send the Presence somewhere special: "Transform to a Murderous Darkness," "Call Forth Predators" (Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves special rule), and both Bargains remove replaced Presence from the game. (Though Bargains put the Presence on reminder cards, this is just to help players track how many times they made the Bargain; Bargains scale with the number of times they are made, not the number of Presence on the reminder card.)
  Tags: Replace, Presence, Remove, Bargain, 13 more...

Setup

• When setting up a Spirit, what happens if the setup instructions are impossible (e.g., adding Presence to a land with Blight when that board has no Blight).
  Either don't start that Spirit on that board or follow the instructions as best as you can, choosing freely when no lands meet the criteria given. [Jagged Earth Rulebook p. 6]

  When choosing freely, use theme as your guide — if you're in this situation, you're likely playing on the thematic map, after all!
  Tags: Thematic map, Spirit setup, Vengeance as a Burning Plague, Starlight Seeks Its Form, 7 more...

Spirits and Innate Powers

• What happens if 1 or more Invaders/Dahan moved into the Ocean aren't successfully destroyed by the Ocean in Play special rule?
  Push them to non-Ocean lands (as part of the same action). If the Push also fails somehow (perhaps due to Isolate), the pieces will be left in an illegal state and cleaned up to the nearest land after all triggered actions complete – human pieces cannot remain in the Ocean between "action trees" (a primary action and all other actions following from it). Regardless, Ocean's Hungry Grasp does not get Energy for them.

  This isn't formally specified on Ocean's panel because it's virtually never relevant with just the core game, and spelling it out would both take up a lot of space and needlessly increase complexity / confusion-potential for players who only have the base game. However, it becomes very relevant when playing vs. The Habsburg Monarchy Lvl 4+ (Jagged Earth), which blunts "Destroy Town" effects; see this FAQ if you need details.

  The fact that the Push is part of the triggered action means that it can trigger further actions – e.g., "Melt Earth Into Quicksand" or "Call to Guard" in the land Pushed to – which cleaning up illegally placed pieces does not do.

  As a very specific edge-case, if the Ocean is also a normal land due to "Weave Together the Fabric of Place," humans can hang out there without trouble (until end of turn when the effect expires).
  Tags: Illegally placed pieces, Triggered Actions, Push, Durable, 13 more...
• Can Towering Roots of the Jungle replace Presence with its Incarna even if its Incarna is already on the island?
  Yes. The Incarna leaves whichever land it was in and ends up where the Presence used to be.

  This doesn't count as adding or moving the Incarna.
  Tags: Replace, Incarna, Heart-Tree Guards the Land (Towering Roots of the Jungle), Towering Roots of the Jungle, 0 more...