Towering Roots of the Jungle

moderate Nature Incarnate
Towering Roots of the Jungle spirit panel

Towering Roots of the Jungle

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 1 Range Add Presence at Range 1 + Add Presence Add Vitality to Roots Incarnation
3
Gain Power Card Gain Power Card + Add Presence 3 Range Add Presence at Range 3 + Add Presence Replace Presence with Roots Incarnation + Gain 1 Energy Gain 1 Energy

Presence

Energy
1 Energy
1
2 Energy
2
earth element
earth
4 Energy
4
plant element
plant
6 Energy
6
Cards
1 Card Plays
1
2 Card Plays
2
sun element
sun
3 Card Plays
3
plant element
plant
4 Card Plays
4

Special Rules

ENDURING VITALITY
Some of your Actions Add Vitality Tokens (Vitality). (Each Vitality in a land with no Blight prevents 1 Blight from being added, then is Removed.)

HEART-TREE GUARDS THE LAND
You have an Incarna (Towering Roots Incarna).

  • Your Powers get Range +1 if Towering Roots Incarna is in the origin land.
  • Invaders/Dahan/Beast can't be damaged or destroyed at Towering Roots Incarna.
  • Empower Towering Roots Incarna the first time it's in a land with 3 or more Vitality.
  • Skip all Build Actions at empowered Towering Roots Incarna.

Innate Powers

slow SHELTER UNDER TOWERING BRANCHES
Speed slow | Range sacredsite 0 Range | Target Any
1 sun 1 plant
Gather up to 1 Dahan.
1 sun 1 earth 2 plant
Gather up to 1 Explorer.
2 sun 1 earth 3 plant
Gather up to 1 Town.
3 sun 2 earth 4 plant
Gather up to 1 City.
slow REVOKE SANCTUARY AND CAST OUT
Speed slow | Range sacredsite 0 Range | Target rootsincarnainvaders
1 sun 1 moon 2 plant
1 Fear. Remove 1 Explorer/Town.
2 sun 1 moon 3 plant
1 Fear. Remove 1 Explorer/Town.
2 sun 2 moon 4 plant
1 Fear. Remove 1 Invader.

Setup

Put 3 Presence on your starting board: 1 in the highest-numbered Jungle without Blight, 1 in the highest-numbered Mountain, and 1 in the highest-numbered Wetland. Put Towering Roots Incarna, Unempowered (Unempowered Incarna) side up, in the Jungle with your Presence.

You start with your 4 Unique Power Cards and 0 Energy.

Play Style

Incredibly good at protecting everything at its Towering Roots Incarna - and can draw Invaders towards there - but is constrained in when and where it can move its Towering Roots Incarna. Has some ability to Remove Invaders (driving them from the island), but starts off vastly better at guarding the land than at smashing things.

Power Summary

1
offense
3
control
2
fear
5
defense
2
utility

Unique Power Cards

Lore

From the Spirit Panel

Towering Roots of the Jungle is a massive, sprawling tree, mighty and ancient. It predates the Dahan, but its history has entwined with theirs ever since they arrived: as part of the terms of the First Reckoning, it served as one place where Dahan might settle freely. It protected the land from any accidental damage done by the Dahan, and the Dahan from Spirits that wished them ill.

It has never before felt the need to reach out through its offshoots and descendants around the island, but the threat of the Invaders and their heedless destruction has motivated it to grow and change in this new way.

=Design Lore=

When the First Reckoning between the Dahan and the Spirits concluded, the Spirits wanted to keep track of the Dahan and what they were doing…

(…an important digression: I say “the Spirits” as if they were some sort of monolithic, united block.That’s completely untrue: they were (and are) an ecosystem, both figuratively and literally. There were plenty of disagreements among them, plenty of Spirits who took unilateral action according to their natures, plenty of other Spirits who acted to check those Spirits according to their natures, and so on. Many local Spirits never got involved in the first place, not even counting the vast numbers of Spirits who weren’t even close enough to be involved, as initial settlement by the ancestors of the Dahan was mostly confined to one part of the island. Much of this was behind the scenes and not super-evident to the humans involved, and time + the nature of stories have altered the tale enough that most such details wouldn’t have survived anyway.)

With that simplification understood - the Spirits had a variety of desires: to keep track of the Dahan and what they were doing, to understand them better, to support them living on the island, to enforce the terms of the First Reckoning, and more. A number of Spirits got involved in this, and one of the more obvious and prominent ones was Towering Roots of the Jungle.