Root Vagabond Strategy: Items, Aid, Quests, and Hostility

The Vagabond is one pawn against whole armies, and that is his strength. He cannot rule a clearing, but he also cannot be removed from the map. He can move no matter who rules a clearing. He plays every side of the war, trading favors with one faction and picking fights with another, and he scores from both.

This lesson covers his items, the three base characters, and the two big decisions: whom to help and whom to hurt.

Items are your actions

The Vagabond acts by exhausting items, flipping them face down. Damaged items cannot be used until repaired. Each item does a job:

Three items also sit on tracks and change your engine. Tea refreshes more items each Birdsong: three, plus two per tea. Each coin draws one more card each Evening. Bags raise your item limit, which is six plus two per bag. Items beyond the limit are removed in Evening, so a bag is what lets your pile grow.

In Birdsong you may also Slip for free into an adjacent clearing or forest. It is the only way into a forest, and resting in a forest at the start of Evening repairs every damaged item.

Choosing a character

The Thief starts with tea and a sword, so he refreshes well and can fight from turn one. The Tinker can craft and carry more. The Ranger starts with two ways to hurt enemies and a built-in way to recover.

Getting more items

Early turns are about growing the item pile.

• Explore ruins with a torch. You take the item hidden beneath and score 1 point. In the base game, only the Vagabond can clear ruins.
• Aid a faction to take an item from their Crafted Items box, if they have one.
• Craft with hammers. Your clearing must match all of the card’s suits, and you keep any item you make.

Aid, relationships, and alliances

To Aid, exhaust any item and give a card matching your clearing to a player with pieces there. Then you may take an item they have crafted.

Aid also improves your relationship with that faction. Each step on your Relationships chart takes a set number of aids in the same turn, and each step scores the points printed there. Reach Allied and every later aid to that faction scores 2 points. You may also move their warriors along with you, and when you attack, count their warriors in that clearing as your own.

The walkthrough’s advice: aid factions that are struggling. You can also give a player cards that make items, if they promise to craft those items for you. Promises in Root are not binding, so choose partners with care.

Quests

Three quests sit face up. To complete one, stand in a clearing of its suit and exhaust the two items it lists. Then choose: score 1 point for each quest of that suit you have completed, this one included, or draw two cards. A new quest replaces it. Because each quest in a suit scores more than the last, sticking to one or two suits builds bigger payouts.

Hostility and battle

When you remove a warrior of a faction that is not yet Hostile, that faction becomes Hostile. From then on, removing their pieces in battle on your turn scores an extra point each, called Infamy. But entering any clearing with their warriors costs an extra boot, and the walkthrough warns that turning Hostile early is risky: the only way back is a coalition.

In battle, you can roll at most as many hits as you have undamaged swords. Each hit you take damages an item of your choice. With no undamaged swords, you are defenseless and take an extra hit.

Coalitions

The Vagabond can never win with a dominance card the normal way. Instead, in games with four or more players, he can activate one (with at least 10 points, like anyone) to form a coalition with the player in last place. He stops scoring, and if that player wins, he wins too. A coalition can even reset a Hostile faction to Indifferent.

Coalitions are also where the Vagabond meets kingmaking, which the table talk lesson covers at Level 2.