Event
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In the Core Game, the Invaders are perfectly predictable, save for what lands they will next be interested in. But in truth, all living things - the Invaders, the Dahan, and Beasts of the wild - sometimes act in unanticipated ways. To represent this, each Invader Phase, after any Blighted Island effect and before resolving any Earned Fear Cards, draw and resolve one Event Card. (See Sequence of Events for the full Turn Order.)
If you have trouble remembering to apply a Blighted Island effect first, put a Blight 
from the box atop the Event Deck as a reminder.
Event: An unforeseen development (on an Event Card), resolved before Earned Fear Cards each Invader Phase after the first turn.
Event Card: A card from the Event Deck with an Event. Some have choices (see Choice Event), but usually have
- One primary Event with two possibilities depending on game state (Healthy/Blighted Island, Terror Level I-II-II, Invader Stage I-II-III)
- Two potentially good Events: Tokens (
, 
, 
) and Dahan.
Event Deck: The deck of Event Cards drawn from to resolve Events.
Choice Event: Some Events offer a choice between something bad and something less bad (or even good); often this has a cost of Energy. The Energy cost can be paid by any player(s). Energy costs can sometimes by reduced by being Aided By an Element.
Aided By (Element): A Choice Event's Energy cost can sometimes be reduced by Power Cards with the required Element. The following can be done any number of times:
{|
|-
| Energy
Aided || Requirement
|-
| +1 || For each Element in play (any source)
|-
| +2 || Discard a Power Card (from hand to discard)
|-
| +4 || Forget a Power Card (from hand, play, or discard)
|}
=Gameplay= Most cards show two possible primary Events, both either neutral or bad (see examples, below). Which you perform will depend on either:
- The Health of the Island (Healthy/Blighted, as shown on the Blight Card);
- The Terror Level (I, II, III); or
- The Stage of Invasion (I, II, or III). The current Stage is shown by the top card of the Invader Deck.
- Exception: If playing against Brandenburg-Prussia Level 2+, treat the early Stage III Card as if it were Stage II.
Most Event Cards also have two potentially good Events: #
, Disease , or Strife .- Dahan Event: Dahan take action or tend to their community.
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Just like with other effects, when resolving Events, unless otherwise specified:
- Perform as much of the card’s instructions as you can, moving from top to bottom and skipping anything inapplicable or impossible.
- Effects which don’t change pieces on the board last only until the end of the current turn.
- Pieces only affect their own land unless explicitly specified. I.e., if a token or Dahan causes Fear/Damage/Destruction, it does so in the land that it’s in.
Players make any necessary decisions. When an Event says, “On Each Board: (do this OR that)”, you may select differently on each board. You are permitted to read the entire Event Card before making any decisions, but you don’t have to if your playgroup would rather think about one thing at a time.
Like other effects, when Events deal Damage unless otherwise specified, the Damage is done only to Invaders. Some Events modify Invader Damage, or do Damage to the Dahan (see Health and Damage, page 16). Events are only considered Spirit Effects (for, e.g., Heart of the Wildfire) if the Spirits pay a cost to make something happen (see Choice Events, below).
Choice Events
As seen below, some cards are Choice Events. These describe a situation and give the Spirits two courses of action to take with differing consequences. Usually, the choice is a joint decision, and players must reach consensus over which path to take. If no consensus can be reached, the first listed option is always the default.Often, one choice has a cost: usually some amount of Energy per player in the game. The cost is paid jointly however the Spirits like; it does not need to be evenly divided. It could be paid entirely by one player.
Aided By (Element)
If a cost says it is “Aided by a particular Element” it means that Spirits:- May Forget one or more Power Cards (from hand, play, or discard) with that Element to count +4 Energy towards the cost per Forgotten card.
- May discard one or more Power Cards (from hand to discard) with that Element to count +2 Energy towards the cost per discarded card.
- Count +1 Energy towards the cost for each of that Element they have in play (from Power Cards, Presence Tracks, or other effects).
A Power Card may only be used for one of these bonuses. If you discard a Power Card, you cannot also Forget it. Also, a Power Card Forgotten from play no longer provides any Elements. The “Aided by” Energy is only for the purposes of paying the cost - you cannot get real Energy out of it!
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Meaningless Choices. If you are playing with the Scenario “Blitz”, the Choice Event “Outpaced” is guaranteed to be irrelevant, as there is no Slow Phase. If this happens - or if future Adversaries/Scenarios make a particular Event irrelevant or senseless - discard that Event Card and draw a replacement.
=Game Setup= Follow Branch and Claw setup changes for Events:
=Invader Phase= After Blighted Island and before Earned Fear Cards:
Draw and resolve one Event Card.
=List of Event Cards=
=FAQ=
Adversaries
Definitions
Event Cards
Fear and Fear Cards
General Play
Invader Actions
Power Cards
Spirits and Innate Powers
~ Expansions, Promos, and Publishing
Going item-by-item:
Scenarios: Are fine to use. Most of these are in the expansion purely because they use the expansion's Scenario Tokens.
Adversary: France can be used at Level 1 and below without any trouble. Level 2+ will be harder without Strife tokens and the Event Deck. (Though you can fix the latter by just resolving Slave Rebellion every 4 turns.)
Events: Most of them should be usable by skipping the token Event... but this will make the game harder. New Fear Cards: There are about half a dozen fear cards that don't reference tokens. (They're in the expansion because of new rules, or just to keep effect distribution even.) Including just those 6 will slightly skew the effects of the fear deck, but not in any way that you're apt to notice unless you're a very experienced player.
New Blight Cards: The expansion Blight cards don't have a negative ongoing effect, because the Event deck handles that: About 1/3 of the Event cards involve adding Blight / destroying Presence if the island is Blighted. So using the new Blight cards without the Event deck lowers the incentive to keep the Blight Card from flipping early, which in turn slightly lowers difficulty / early-game tension. Doing so also makes the small-pool Blight cards better (especially "Back Against the Wall" / "Aid from Lesser Spirits") because they're less risky.
Spirits: Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds needs Wilds tokens. It may have a slightly harder time of it without the possibility of players gaining Minor/Major Powers that add Wilds, but is probably fine. Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves needs Beasts tokens to function well, and Beasts need Event Cards to be good; without Events, Sharp Fangs is almost certainly underpowered.
New Power Cards: Adding only a subset of new Power Cards is likely to change the distribution of different types of effects, and near-certain to change the elemental distribution (both how often each element appears, and how often each pair of elements appears). The game will absolutely still work, but some Spirits will be invisibly penalized / rewarded (because Power Card draws will on average be lousier/better for their elements), and it may skew strategy depending on what types of effects get added to the deck. This isn't apt to be a big deal if you're just adding a few cards, but if you're adding half the new cards it could be more pronounced. Also, some Major Powers are in the expansion because they shouldn't be part of a small Major Power deck.
And finally, "Everything except the Event Cards": If you omit the starting Disease from each board, and don't use the "Aid from Lesser Spirits" / "Back Against the Wall" Blight cards, my educated guess is that using everything but the Event Cards wouldn't mess with game difficulty too much - Beast tokens will be much worse (mild difficulty boost), and the Blight Card changes will make things slightly easier. (You could also use Event Cards for token Events only, in which case you're probably making your game easier by 1 or 2 Difficulty?) It's totally untested that way, but if you want to give it a shot, please go for it - and if you have a chance, post to BGG or the >G forums to let me know how it went!
=Errata= <strong>Errata for the "Blight Spreads" Event on the card headed by "Tight-Knit Communities"</strong> Branch & Claw - 2nd and 3rd printings
"Add 1 Blight to a land with Blight" should read "Add 1 Blight to a land adjacent to a land with Blight".
The "Blight Spreads" event appears on two Event Cards; the other one (headed by "Well-Prepared Explorers") is correct.
A corrected version is planned for Errata Pack (Core 4th/5th, B&C 3rd).