Vengeance as a Burning Plague

Frequently Asked Questions

Definitions
  • What are "your Actions"? (e.g., for "Responsibilities to the Dead" or "Spread Tumult and Delusion")
    As a general guideline, anything done by your Spirit Panel or Power Cards, including any consequences directly following from the game rules (e.g., destroying Invaders/Dahan that have taken Damage equal to or greater than their Health, earning Fear from destroying Towns/Cities, destroying Presence / cascading when adding Blight).
    In particular, the following are your Actions.
    • Using one icon in a Growth option during the Spirit Phase [*]
    • Gaining Energy from your Presence track during the Spirit Phase
    • Playing and paying for all of your cards during the Spirit Phase
    • Using one Presence Track icon during the Spirit Phase [†]
    • Using one Power, whether the original use or repeating that Power (even if other Spirits make choices as part of resolving that Power)
    • Performing a triggered Action set up by one of your Powers (e.g., "Vengeance of the Dead") or Special Rules (e.g., "Ocean in Play")
    • Using a special rule that has an immediate, stand-alone effect (e.g., Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves replacing its Presence with "Call Forth Predators")
    • Doing something a Power grants you the option to do later at your discretion (e.g., adding a Disease with "Scream Disease Into the Wind," dealing Damage with the stone Beasts created by "Unearth a Beast of Wrathful Stone")
    Note that some special rules refer to "your Powers", which is more restrictive than "your Actions".
    [*] If a Growth icon has an "xN" (e.g., for Fractured Days Split the Sky) it means that you have N copies of that Growth icon; each one is its own action. If a Growth icon does something in "each" land that meets a condition (e.g., for Ocean's Hungry Grasp), it's one action in each of those lands.
    [†] Passive bonuses on Presence tracks, like Elements and Range bonuses, are always available; there is no action to gain them.
    Tags: Actions, Presence track, Triggered Actions, Responsibilities to the Dead (Finder of Paths Unseen), 10 more...
Effect Rules
Elements and Elemental Thresholds
General Play
  • 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...
  • Is there an ordering or priority for action modifications? It seems weird that you can get a benefit from something being destroyed even if you save it from destruction.
    Yes:
    The practical upshot of this is mostly "you can't both prevent something from happening and do extra stuff because it's happening" – e.g., if Volcano Looming High's Presence would be destroyed, but it's saved somehow, you don't get to deal damage.
    If a modifier cancels just part of something, modifiers to that part don't apply. Eg: "Entrap the Forces of Corruption" doesn't stop Blight from being added, but it does stop it from cascading, so another modifier which changed how cascades worked wouldn't apply.
    As before, if you have multiple modifiers with no clear order, you get to pick which happens first. For instance: you play "Infestation of Venomous Spiders" with threshold on a land with Dahan about to Ravage. A Fear Card says "Invaders do not Ravage in lands with Dahan". When that Ravage would happen, there are two different "skip this Ravage" modifiers. You get to decide which one to do first, so can choose it to be the Venomous Spiders. This wouldn't be true if the entire Ravage Card got skipped, or if it were changed to match different lands – those happen before you ever reach the individual Ravage Action – but as of Jagged Earth, the only Fear cards that work this way are "Explorers Are Reluctant" and "Immigration Slows", levels 2 and 3.
    This is an addition to published rules – the intent is that it will be included in the rulebook of a future expansion.
    Tags: Action Modifiers, Skipping Actions, Pour Time Sideways (Fractured Days Split the Sky), Entrap the Forces of Corruption, 26 more...
Play Options
Power Cards
Scenarios
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