[X]bound Keyword Ability. This minion is disabled while not occupying a certain type of location. For example, a minion with Waterbound is disabled while not occupying a water location, etc.
Adjacent Refers to the card’s own square, and the squares that it shares a border with.
Airborne Keyword Ability. This minion may fly while on the surface, gaining the following benefits:
When taking a step this minion may move diagonally and can only be intercepted by other units if they have Airborne or Ranged.
This minion cannot be targeted by attacks, unless the attacking unit has the Airborne ability.
Ally/Allied A unit that you control (including your Avatar).
Banish Remove from the game.
Body of Water A contiguous cluster of adjacent water sites.
Broken Broken cards are artifacts that can be found in any cemetery.
Burrowing Keyword Ability. This unit can be safely summoned to, exist in, and operate normally underground. When taking a step, it can instead move from the surface of a land site to the underground level there, or vice versa.
Cardinal Directions When a card talks about a cardinal direction, it includes all of the squares in the direction indicated on the card to the front, rear, left and right.
Carrying Units Some units can carry other units. A unit with this ability, picks them up or drops them in the same manner and time as it would artifacts (see page 26). Units that have Airborne, Burrowing, Submerge, or Voidwalk confer those abilities to units they are carrying while they are carried. A unit being carried may still cast spells or activate abilities as normal. If the carried unit moves to a location that the carrying unit doesn’t occupy, the unit ceases to be carried.
Charge Keyword Ability. This unit can tap, or be tapped, to pay for costs associated with any ability on the turn it is summoned.
Conjure When a card is conjured, put it directly into play.
Damage and Life Loss Generally, units take damage from fighting and from the effects of spells and abilities. Damage dealt to minions accumulates until the end of turn when it is healed, while damage dealt to an Avatar causes them to lose life instead. Sometimes an Avatar will suffer life loss directly from things like a site being successfully attacked. When a minion has damage on it equal to or greater than its power, it dies. Note: When an Avatar is at death’s door, only damage will deliver a death blow.
Dead Dead cards are minions that can be found in any cemetery.
Death Blow When an Avatar is at death’s door, any damage dealt to them is a death blow, signaling their defeat.
Death’s Door When an Avatar’s life is reduced to 0, they are now at death’s door and can no longer gain life. At that moment, the Avatar becomes immune to damage for the rest of the current turn. After that brief and desperate window, any damage dealt to the Avatar is a death blow, ending the game.
Deathrite Keyword Ability. When this unit dies, do what is stated before placing it in the cemetery.
Dies, Destroyed, & Killed When a card dies, is destroyed, or is killed place it in the cemetery.
Disable/Disabled While disabled, a minion loses all abilities (including basic abilities like Move and Attack), doesn’t strike when fighting, can’t cast spells, and can’t take any action granted by another card or effect (ie. strike, shoot a projectile, take a step, etc.).
A disabled minion can still be forcibly moved or tapped by effects.
Elemental Threshold
A minimum affinity for an element required to cast a given spell, or trigger or activate some abilities.
Elite
You may include two copies of a card that has the keyword "Elite" in its type line.
Enemy
A unit (including Avatars) that is controlled by an opponent.
Exceptional
You may include three copies of a card that has the keyword "Exceptional" in its type line.
Fight
When two units fight, they strike each other simultaneously.
If more than two units are involved in a fight, the controller of each side may allocate their units’ damage among the enemy as they wish.
Flooded
A flooded site becomes a water site and thus also increases the controller’s water affinity by one (W) if it was not already a water site. It still provides any other elemental affinity it did before.
Genesis
Keyword Ability. When this card enters the realm, do what is stated.
Ground Movement
Ground movement is any step that a unit takes between the surface of two sites (except Airborne).
Here & There
Some cards will talk about something that is here or there contextually. When a site is referenced, here or there means both of a site’s locations, surface and subsurface. When anything else is being referenced, it means that thing’s same exact location.
Immobile/Immobilised This card cannot move itself, and cannot use the Move and Attack, Intercept, or Defend abilities.
Lance A minion with the Lance keyword enters play carrying a lance artifact token. They could use it for themselves or give it to another minion. The first time a unit strikes while carrying a lance, it deals an extra damage and strikes first (see page 23) if in a fight. Then the lance breaks. Lance tokens are artifacts for all intents and purposes. They can be picked up and dropped (and stolen), just like other artifacts. When they are broken, they are removed from the realm like other tokens.
Land Sites All sites that are not water sites are considered land sites, including sites with no element icons and Rubble.
Lethal Keyword Ability. Any strictly positive amount of damage this card deals to a minion is enough to kill.
Life Life represents the amount of damage that your Avatar can endure before it is placed on death’s door. As your Avatar incurs damage, its overall life will decrease accordingly.
Location The exact location of a card is determined by its square and by the region that it occupies.
Mana Mana can come from several sources, but sites are the most common. When they first come into play as well as at the start of your turn, sites provide one mana each. Other cards might add to this total. You use this mana to cast spells or activate abilities. At the end of your turn, any remaining mana is lost, whether or not you used it that turn.
Movement +X Keyword Ability. This unit may move up to X additional steps when using the Move and Attack or Defend basic abilities. To move multiple steps at once, choose a destination and a path to it then traverse that path one step at a time. You may need to resolve automatic triggers (or apply "always on" passive abilities), some of which may prematurely stop the motion of the unit.
Moves Freely
When this unit uses the Move and Attack or Defend abilities they spend no steps when moving, as long as the starting and ending locations of the step satisfy the moves freely condition.
Nearby
Refers to the card’s own square, and all squares that surround it, including those diagonally.
Ordinary
You may include four copies of a card that has the keyword "Ordinary" in its type line.
Projectiles
A projectile’s flight begins at the shooting unit’s location and travels within the same region in a cardinal direction. Its flight continues until it either reaches the edge of its region or it reaches the first unit ( enemy or ally ) along its path, ignoring any allies at the projectile’s starting location. Different projectiles will have different effects, but will most often deal damage to the impacted unit.
In the event of multiple valid units, the player that fired the projectile chooses which unit the projectile hits.
Ranged X
Keyword Ability. This unit has "Tap → Shoot a projectile that stops after 1 (or X) steps. Strike the impacted unit". This unit may also intercept Airborne units flying over them.
Range of Motion
Anywhere a card is allowed to move legally is considered within its range of motion.
Realm
The realm includes all the squares in the game zone.
Region
There are four distinct regions in the realm: surface, underground, underwater, or in the void.
Rubble
A site that has been destroyed is placed in its owner’s cemetery as normal, but rather than reverting back to the void, the site is instead replaced with rubble. Rubble is a neutral land site that no player controls, and provides no mana or threshold.
Note: Use Rubble tokens or a face down site to represent rubble on a square.
Sacrifice Sacrificing is removing something you control from the realm and placing it directly in its owner’s cemetery. A player may be forced to sacrifice something if an effect instructs them to do so. When a minion is sacrificed, it does indeed die, and its Deathrites trigger, if applicable. If something is sacrificed to pay the cost of an ability, it is not placed in the cemetery until after that ability has resolved. A dying unit cannot be sacrificed. When a site is sacrificed, it is replaced by rubble. Even indestructible things can be sacrificed, if a cost or effect otherwise informs you of the need to sacrifice something.
Silence/Silenced A card that is silenced loses all printed and granted abilities. Avatars cannot be silenced.
Span of Land A contiguous cluster of adjacent land sites.
Spellcaster Keyword Ability. This card may cast spells. Some spellcasters may only cast spells that match a specific element. For example, Fire Spellcasters may only cast spells that have a Fire threshold icon (marked with (F)).
Square One grid square in the realm, that includes all cards present there.
Stealth Keyword Ability. Minions with Stealth cannot be targeted by spells or abilities from your opponents, they cannot be attacked, intercepted, or defended against, and projectiles cannot hit them. Stealth is tracked with a stealth token. Minions lose Stealth after they activate a special ability, deal damage, or attack. When this happens, remove the Stealth token.
Step A step is the minimum unit of distance between two adjacent locations.
Storyline (see page 31) A sequence of events that is currently resolving. A unit that casts a spell, or activates an ability will start a storyline and add events to it. Triggered abilities can insert events into a storyline during its resolution, interrupting future events.
Strike A unit deals damage equal to its power.
Strike First Units that strike first resolve their strikes before their target can resolve theirs. If multiple units in the same fight are able to strike first, they all strike at the same time. Then any surviving units without that ability make their strikes.
Stronger, Strongest, Weaker, and Weakest Some effects compare the power of two units:
- Stronger: Strictly more power than.
- Strongest: Strictly highest power.
- Weaker: Strictly less power than.
- Weakest: Strictly lowest power.
In the case of ties, the active player chooses.
When comparing a minion with split power, add the two power values together and then divide that in half to determine their comparative value.
Submerge Keyword Ability. This unit can be safely summoned to, exist in, and operate normally underwater. When taking a step, it can instead move from the surface of a water site to the underwater level there or vice versa.
Summon When a card is summoned, put it directly into play.
Tapping a Card Cards in the realm can be tapped as a cost to activate various abilities. A player may also need to tap a card as a cost related to other spells or abilities on other cards.
To tap a card, turn a it 90° to the right, from an upright position. Only untapped cards and tokens in play can be tapped. All of your cards in play automatically (and necessarily) untap at the start of your turn.
Target Sometimes you will need to target things in the realm. Spells and abilities can only target things within the Spellcaster’s or referencing card’s same region.
Transform When a card is transformed it is considered the same game object as its previous version and therefore does not suffer from summoning sickness when it comes into play. If one card transforms into another card, the original card is removed from the game after the transformation.
Underground The lower level of a land site is part of the underground region.
Underwater The lower level of a water site is part of the underwater region.
Unique You may include one copy of a card that has the keyword "Unique" in its type line.
Units Units are a collective term that includes Avatars and minions.
Void A square without a site is a part of the void region. Avatars can never enter void locations. Minions there are banished unless they have Voidwalk.
Voidwalk Keyword Ability. This unit can be summoned to any void location and safely exist and operate there. When taking a step it can move into an adjacent void, or out of the void and onto the surface of an adjacent site (or directly to the subsurface if they can operate there).
Water Sites Water sites are identified by the water icon marked with (W). All other sites are considered land sites, including sites with no threshold icons and rubble.