Hearth-Vigil

moderate Nature Incarnate
Hearth-Vigil spirit panel

Hearth-Vigil

Growth (Pick One)

1
Reclaim All Reclaim All + Add Presence 0 Range Add Presence at Range 0
2
Gain Power Card Gain Power Card + Add Presence 3 Range Add Presence at Range 3 with Dahan
3
Add Presence 2 Range Add Presence at Range 2 + Gain 3 Energy Gain 3 Energy

Presence

Energy
Gather 1 Dahan from 1 Land
Gather Dahan
Cards
0 Energy
0
›
1 Energy + sun 1
1 +sun
›
2 Energy
2
›
3 Energy + animal 3
3 +animal
›
4 Energy
4
›
5 Energy + sun 5
5 +sun
Special
1 Card Plays
1
›
2 Card Plays
2
›
air element
air
›
3 Card Plays
3
›
animal element
animal
›
4 Card Plays
4

Special Rules

ROOTED IN THE COMMUNITY
Blight added in your lands does not Destroy your Presence if Dahan are present. (Ravage Actions Destroy Dahan before added Blight destroys Presence and cascades.)

FORTIFY HEART AND HEARTH
Dahan have +4 Health (each) while in your lands. Event and Blight Card Actions don't damage, destroy, or replace Dahan in your lands. (Ravages are not Event Actions even if caused by Events.)

LOYAL GUARDIAN
When all Dahan leave one of your lands, your Presence may Move with those Dahan. (Each Dahan can Bring any number of Presence.)

Innate Powers

fast WARN OF IMPENDING CONFLICT
Speed fast | Target Yourself
2 sun 1 earth
In one of your lands, 1 Dahan deals Damage before Invaders during Ravages. (Choose a land when Invaders Ravage there.)
3 sun 1 earth
In that land, another Dahan deals Damage before Invaders during Ravages.
4 sun 2 earth
In that land, all Dahan deal Damage before Invaders during Ravages.
5 sun 3 earth
Instead, all Dahan in all of your lands deal Damage before Invaders during Ravages.
fast KEEP WATCH FOR NEW INCURSIONS
Speed fast | Range sacredsite dahan 1 Range | Target Any
Gather up to 2 Dahan, from your lands only.
1 sun 2 air
Once this turn after Invaders are added or moved into target land, 1 Damage per Dahan in target land, to those added/moved Invaders only.
2 sun 3 air
Repeat this Power.

Setup

Put 3 Presence on your starting board: 1 in the highest-numbered land with Dahan and 2 in the lowest-numbered land with at least 2 Dahan. Add 1 Dahan in each of those lands (additional survivors of the Invaders' diseases).

You start with your 4 Unique Power Cards and 1 Energy.

Play Style

Very good at protecting Dahan in its lands, not so great at stopping Blight. In keeping with its nature, largely brings Dahan to its Presence (or vice versa); getting Dahan elsewhere may require a bit of forethought with Keep Watch for New Incursions.

Very reactive, with reliable ways to deal with Invaders as they Ravage and Build, but has trouble handling established City that aren't Ravaging.

Power Summary

3
offense
1
control
2
fear
4
defense
4
utility

Unique Power Cards

Strategy

General Strategy

Links to Guides

Lore

From the Spirit Panel

Hearth-Vigil is a Spirit of neither fire nor cooking - it is a watcher and guardian, a protector who keeps vigil over common-hearths. In the dry season, it smothers rogue blazes; in the wet season, it fortifies the health of older Dahan suffering from wheezelung; in all season, it intensifies the hearth's powers of wellness and community-strength. It's friendly to speak to, though most grown Dahan don't usually distract it without cause.

Historically, its aid was first sought during the bloody conflicts of the Servant Cults, due to the threat of mass poisonings. As those agreements affected its nature, it became able to offer more than simple vigilance.

=Design Lore=

A game of Spirit Island does not open at the very instant the Invaders show up: the first tall ship landed at the island around 8 to 10 years before game start, the first colonists arrived maybe 4 to 6 years back. The opening acts of the eventual conflict are presumed to play out similarly each time, so are left invisible: the initial settlements, the Dahan reaching out to the colonizers, the Invaders failing to heed Dahan warnings about proper behavior, the first Blight, larger Spirits being caught by surprise at the speed of the Invaders… and Invader-borne diseases ripping through the interconnected Dahan population.

It is horrifying that the mortality rate among the Dahan - around 20 to 30 percent - is substantially less than what was historically suffered by many Indigenous communities in the face of such pathogenic onslaughts. Most Dahan communities benefited from close relationships with some smaller Spirits able to provide quick palliative assistance, and perhaps blunt the severity of an illness.

However, most Spirits capable of more dramatic aid were unable to react in time or to bring their full power to bear - events unfolded extremely quickly, from their perspective, and these illnesses were novel, unfamiliar.

Hearth-Vigil, however, was able to help a great deal more, being a Spirit both of vigilance and of health, already existing among the Dahan. Communities with a close relationship to Hearth-Vigil are accustomed to bringing their ill or poisoned to it for aid, and this allowed many to survive who otherwise would not have.

(A side note on language: Spirit names attempt to capture feel in addition to literal meaning. “Hearth” is the closest English word in meaning + connotation to the Dahan word for the shared communal space around common pit ovens over which Hearth-Vigil watches - just like Shroud of Silent Mist uses “shroud” due to its connotations in the English language, even though the Dahan don’t generally use burial-shrouds and their name for the Spirit doesn’t reference fabric at all.)