Spirit Island Blight: Managing the Clock You Can See

Welcome to Level 3. At this level you stop reacting to the Island and start managing it, and the first thing to manage is Blight. Most groups treat every Blight as a failure. Strong groups treat Blight as a budget: a fixed amount of damage the Island can absorb, spent on purpose where it hurts least.

The rules, in brief

From the core rulebook:

• Blight on the Island comes from the Blight Card, which starts Healthy side up. Removed Blight goes back to the card, on whichever side is face up.
• At setup, place the Blight the card shows, plus exactly 1 more, per the rulebook’s erratum. If you play without a Blight Card, use the printed Blight space on the Invader board the same way.
• When the last Blight leaves the card, follow its instructions. Some cards say you lose. Others flip to a Blighted Island side with new Blight and a lasting effect.
• A flipped card never flips back. The Island cannot heal from Blighted to Healthy during the game.
• If the Blighted side runs out too, you lose.
• After setup, every Blight added to a land destroys one Presence of each Spirit there, and cascades if the land already had Blight.

The Blighted Island

When a Blight Card flips, follow its Blighted Island side. Every Invader Phase begins with a Blighted Island step, before the Fear step, so effects that last the rest of the game happen there. The rulebook suggests putting a Blight from the box on the Earned Fear Cards space or the Ravage space as a reminder.

These effects hurt. The core rulebook shows one example card, Downward Spiral, whose Blighted side makes each Spirit destroy one of its own Presence at the start of every Invader Phase. A flipped card does not end the game, but it taxes every turn that follows.

Count your budget

At the start of each Invader Phase, two numbers matter:

1. Blight left on the card.
2. Lands that will Ravage this turn with 2 or more Damage, after your Fast Powers.

Each of those lands adds at least 1 Blight. Each that already has Blight adds 2 or more, because of the cascade. If the second number, counted with cascades, is as big as the first or bigger, the last Blight leaves the card this turn: it flips, or you lose.

Then look a turn ahead. The Build card’s lands will Ravage next turn. Count what they will add if you do nothing.

Where Blight hurts least

When you cannot stop every Ravage, rank the lands by what a Blight there would cost:

• Cheapest: a land with no Blight, no Presence, and no plans. The Blight sits there and does nothing more.
• Costly: a land with your Presence. Each Spirit there loses one Presence for good, and that is growth you never get back. Losing a Sacred Site can switch off Powers that need it.
• Most costly: a land that already has Blight. The new Blight cascades, the cascade may cascade again, and each step can destroy Presence.

So if two lands will Ravage and you can only save one, save the one with Blight already in it or Presence on it, and let the clean, empty land take the hit.

Steering cascades

A cascade adds Blight to one adjacent land of your choice. The rulebook’s own example makes the point: send the cascade into an empty land rather than one with Presence. Three habits help:

• Know your exits. Before a Blighted land Ravages, find the adjacent land with no Blight and no Presence. That is where the cascade goes.
• Avoid Blight clusters. Two Blighted lands next to each other let a cascade chain. Break up clusters by removing Blight from one of them when you can.
• Clean before the second Blight. The rulebook’s basic strategy says it plainly: clean up a land before a second Blight is added. The first Blight in a land is a cost. The second is a chain reaction.

Removing Blight

Some Powers remove Blight. Removed Blight returns to the Blight Card, which buys back budget. Use these Powers where they do the most:

• In a Blighted land about to Ravage, so the next Blight there does not cascade.
• In a land where Blight blocks a Power. Some Powers can only target lands without Blight.
• Late in a game where the card is nearly empty, to stop the flip or the loss.

When to accept the flip

Sometimes the Blighted side is the price of winning. If your table is one or two turns from a Terror Level victory and saving the Healthy side would cost the Powers you need to win, letting the card flip can be right. Read the Blighted Island effect first, and make sure the Blighted side holds enough Blight to survive the turns you need.

A Blight checklist

• Say the Blight count out loud every turn.
• Know which lands will Ravage, and which of those already have Blight.
• Keep Presence out of lands you cannot protect.
• Pick cascade lands before the Ravage, not during it.
• Count how much Blight the next two turns will add if you do nothing.

The endgame lesson later in this level puts Blight together with the other two clocks, the Invader Deck and the Fear Deck, to plan a finish.