Spirit Island Adversaries and Scenarios

Winning without an adversary is a milestone. It is also where Spirit Island starts to open up. The base game includes three adversaries and four scenarios, and both are optional. Add them when your group is ready for more, one step at a time.

How an adversary works

An adversary is a specific colonial power, with its own panel. Choose it before setup, because some adversaries change how the game is set up.

Every adversary has a base level with two parts:

• An Escalation effect, triggered by the flag icon on most Stage II Invader cards. It happens as soon as the card is revealed, before the Explore, unless the adversary says otherwise.
• For some adversaries, an extra way to lose.

Above the base level are numbered levels, 1 to 6. They stack: at level 3 you also use the rules from levels 1 and 2. Each level also tells you how many Fear Cards to use and how to split them into the three groups of the Fear Deck. If an adversary changes how Ravage, Build, or Explore works, put its reminder tile under that space on the Invader board.

The three kingdoms in the box

The Kingdom of Brandenburg-Prussia is the rulebook’s recommended first adversary. It has few new rules, and most of its changes happen during setup. Its theme is speed: the Invaders do everything sooner, and the two-terrain cards arrive earlier, often before the Spirits are ready. It is harder for Spirits that need time to develop.

The Kingdom of England is about buildings. It starts slowly but keeps pushing its borders outward, and it pushes hard to found a capital during Stage II. The rulebook says it is easier for Spirits good at wrecking Towns, like Lightning’s Swift Strike, and harder for Spirits that rely on moving or destroying Explorers, like Shadows Flicker Like Flame.

The Kingdom of Sweden makes Ravages more dangerous, and it tries to assimilate the Dahan where the Invader population is large. It is easier for Spirits that can prevent Ravages, like A Spread of Rampant Green or Vital Strength of the Earth. Sweden can add Blight during setup; Blight added during setup neither cascades nor destroys Presence.

Reading the difficulty chart

The rulebook gives every adversary level and scenario a Difficulty number. Each point is a noticeable step up.

The four scenarios carry their own numbers: Blitz and Guard the Isle’s Heart are 0, Rituals of Terror is 3, and Dahan Insurrection is 4. Playing on the thematic map adds 3.

You can play an adversary, a scenario, or both. Add their Difficulty numbers together for a rough estimate of the combined challenge. When the two disagree on a rule, the scenario wins. The rulebook suggests raising Difficulty by 1 at a time, or by 2 if you keep winning so easily that the Blight Card never flips.

Scenarios

Scenarios change the situation the Spirits face, or what the Spirits can do. Some change the victory conditions or add requirements on top of the usual one. Each scenario panel shows its Difficulty in the upper right corner, on a scale from 0 for no change to 10 for very hard.

A Difficulty 0 scenario is a good way to try new rules without making the game harder.

The thematic map

The back of each Island board shows the thematic map: the Island as the story imagines it, with terrains clustered the way real geography would place them. The rulebook aims these boards at experienced players. Terrains are harder to spot at a glance, and some boards have more lands and more starting Invaders.

The thematic boards have fixed layouts. For two players, use West and East, touching on the side opposite the Ocean. Three players add Northeast above East. Four players use West, East, Northwest, and Northeast. Some lands show setup icons for tokens from the Branch & Claw expansion; ignore them if you only have the base game.

Keeping score

The rulebook includes optional scoring to compare your group’s games:

• Victory: 5 times the Difficulty, plus 10, plus 2 for each Invader card left in the deck.
• Defeat: 2 times the Difficulty, plus 1 for each Invader card out of the deck, counting the discard and the cards on the Invader board.
• Either way: plus 1 for every X living Dahan, minus 1 for every X Blight on the Island, where X is the number of players.

Faster wins score more, and so do harder ones.

Where the expansions fit

Each expansion adds Spirits and at least one new adversary. On the publisher’s pages:

• Branch & Claw adds two Spirits, France as an adversary, four scenarios, new token types, and Events that bring the Island to life during the Invader Phase.
• Jagged Earth adds ten Spirits, two adversaries (the Habsburg Monarchy and Russia), more scenarios, and Island boards that take the game up to 6 players.
• Feather and Flame collects the two promo packs: four Spirits, Scotland as an adversary, two scenarios, and Aspect cards that give familiar Spirits a new twist.
• Nature Incarnate adds eight Spirits, the Habsburg Mining Expedition adversary, two scenarios, and many Aspects. Its page lists both the base game and Jagged Earth as required.

The base box alone holds three adversaries with six levels each, four scenarios, and the thematic map. Our guide on when expansions are worth it can help you decide whether your group needs one yet.