Peril racks Spirit Island. The invaders are more numerous and more capable than ever before. As hope begin to fade, defense of the island falls to those spirits more in tune with the danger and chaos of the natural world. Will you be able to harness their power to protect the island or will it fall to the persistence of the invaders? Whatever the outcome, Spirit Island will never be the same after the time of Jagged Earth!
All that you need to play Spirit Island: Jagged Earth is the core game of Spirit Island! While some spirits, adversaries, and cards do use tokens and rules introduced in Branch & Claw, all needed components and rules are included, making everything playable with just the core game and Jagged Earth.
Of the 10 Spirits in Jagged Earth:
- Two require only rules from the core game (one has a way of interacting with the Event Deck, which is simply ignored if playing without it)
- Two use concepts or components new to this expansion, but don’t require anything from Branch & Claw
- Four use one or more of the tokens introduced in Branch & Claw (also included in Jagged Earth), some of which also use new rules and components
- And all 10 of them bring fun and interesting gameplay options to the table, not seen in Spirit Island before!
Aspects are new ways to play the existing four low-complexity Spirits. They swap in a new Special Rule or Innate Power, replacing one of the standard Special Rules or Innate Powers of that Spirit. You’re still playing the same Spirit — you use its Spirit Panel and Unique Power cards – but you’re exploring a different aspect of its nature, which changes up its dynamics… sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
Some Aspects are direct replacements (e.g., swap one Innate Power for another), while others replace a Special Rule with an Innate Power or vice versa, or use other changes to make them balanced.
Here is a short video that goes into more detail:
Badlands are a 5th type of token that can be placed onto the board by Powers and other effects, much like the 4 types of tokens from Branch & Claw (Beasts, Wilds, Disease, & Strife). Badlands tokens indicate lands hostile to long-term human habitation: this could represent “no fresh water”, “everything is poisonous”, “way too much lava”, or any other constant hazard you can’t readily avoid even once you know it’s there.
Mechanically, after an effect other than a Badlands token damages humans (Invaders or Dahan), each Badlands token in that land does 1 damage to the type of human damaged.
Badlands are great for helping take care of lands with lots of Invaders – or just in general for helping out Spirits that have multiple smaller damage-dealing Powers. However, they do make Dahan more vulnerable, so they are not without risk and should not be used lightly!
For more detailed information regarding Badlands and the other new mechanics, check out this update.
Spirit Island: Jagged Earth introduces players to the stories of the following EIGHT new island Spirits:
- Volcano Looming High
- Grinning Trickster Stirs Up Trouble
- Vengeance as a Burning Plague
- Lure of the Deep Wilderness
- Shroud of Silent Mist
- Fractured Days Split the Sky
- Shifting Memory of Ages
- Stone’s Unyielding Defiance
Jagged Earth includes two new adversaries! The Russian Empire and The Hapsburg Monarchy! We will talk about the stories and mechanics for these two new fearsome foes in updates over the course of this campaign!
Jagged Earth comes with 2 new island boards, for more variety and 5-6 player support.
“Crab” – a central island with two pincers coming off of it – is a standard board setup for a 5-player game.
“Double round” – two round regions (as per the 3-player layout) joined together – is a standard board setup for a 6-player game.
However, the Play Options section of the rules will give other island layouts, along with some guidance on how certain arrangements may be easier or harder with specific spirits, adversaries, or scenarios.
