Relentless Gaze of the Sun

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SETUP

Put 2 and 1 on your starting board, in the lowest-numbered Sands.

You start with your 4 Unique Power Cards and 0 Energy.

PLAY STYLE

Uses stacks of 3 and high Energy income to hammer the same lands with repeated Power Cards. Because of its single-mindedness, is better at dealing with large problems than smaller ones.

Harms the land and while smiting Invaders unless it successfully changes its nature (by expanding into new Elements), which may mean partially foregoing the Sun and Fire that form the core of its initial strength.

COMPLEXITY

HIGH

Relentless Gaze of the Sun Official FAQ Entries

Part of the Nature Incarnate Expansion.

GROWTH

Always	PLUS PICK ONE:
+ 2 Add a Presence	Reclaim Cards + 1 Add up to 3 Destroyed Presence Together	Gain Power Card	x2 Gain Energy an Additional Time 3 Move up to 3 Presence Together

PRESENCE

Energy/Turn 2, Sun 3, Fire Sun 4, Any 5
Card Plays 1 2 Sun 3 Reclaim One 4

SPECIAL RULES

RELENTLESS PUNISHMENT
After using a Power Card, if you had at least 3 in the origin land, you may Repeat it any number of times on the same target land(s) (ignoring origin, Range, and target requirements) by paying both:

the Energy cost of the Power, and
1 Energy per previous use of the Power this turn

each time you Repeat the Power.

(You may Repeat each Power Card multiple times, but its 1st Repeat costs 1 extra, its 2nd Repeat costs 2 extra, etc. Check if the origin has at least 3 when you target it the first time.)

SCORCHING CONVERGENCE

SPEED

RANGE

TARGET LAND

1

ANY

2

Move all of your

from origin land directly to target land. 1 Damage, to

/

only.

3

1

3 Damage to Invaders. 3 Damage to

. Add 1

without cascading.

4

2

1

3

if this Power destroyed any Invaders.

5

3

2

1 Damage per remaining

of yours in target land.

CONSIDER A HARMONIOUS NATURE

SPEED

RANGE

TARGET

YOURSELF

3

1

When your Powers would Add

, you may Destroy 1

instead (there or elsewhere).

3

1

Your Powers don't damage or destroy

.

3

1

Choose another Spirit. They Add 1

to one of your lands.

3

1

Give up to 3 of your Energy to the chosen Spirit.

SUMMARY OF POWERS

Offense	Control	Fear	Defense	Utility

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From the Spirit Panel

Relentless Gaze of the Sun is an imperious Spirit, brimming with wrathful power that scorches the land barren beneath its focused regard. For long centuries, it viewed all others as beneath it, unworthy of consideration.

Yet since being thwarted during the Years of the Relentless Sun, it wonders if its pride deceives it - perhaps it should work with some Spirits and humans, rather than indulging in indiscriminate destruction?

It is still considering this idea. Regardless, the Invaders offend it by making the land fragile, forcing it into the intolerable choice between dimming its majesty and unintentionally scorching the land.

Design Lore

There are many Spirits of the sun and sun's light - some are gently beautiful, some are nourishing, some are aloof and barely touch the island at all. Relentless Gaze of the Sun is none of these things: it is a blazingly imperious Spirit that blasts the land with relentless heat. The tropical sun is something to respect and even fear.

The Spirit was not always like this - long ago, something happened that swelled its pride, turning its satisfaction at shining with bright and brilliant constancy into more and more of an obsession. It came to see the wilting of the land beneath as evidence of how amazing and powerful and important it was, rather than a sign of growing excess. It required rest between these bouts of intense activity, but the number of decades - and, eventually, years - between scorching bouts grew shorter and shorter, and the duration of the scorching-times grew longer and longer.

Some seaside Dahan villages figured a way to distract it, buying respite: every year before and during the dry season, they would send well-crewed boats out with shards of obsidian or reflective shell to flash the sun's brilliance back upwards, pulling the Spirit's attention slightly offshore with the apparent signs of an upstart contender for its brilliance. This held off disaster for a couple hundred years - and even after the growing hunger of the Ocean made such trips more dangerous, several Spirits of sky and heavens managed to keep the Sun's attention elsewhere... for a time.

But when its attention did return to the island, it was full of the wrath and built-up power of centuries. So began the Years of the Relentless Sun, when the Sun shone such power down on the island that it came near to devastating immense swaths of it. Several Spirits of moon and night tried to oppose it, but withered beneath the uncompromising assault; it was not until Shadows Flicker Like Flame took an interest that the Sun was effectively checked. Both Spirits came out of that confrontation somewhat the worse for wear, and are not nearly so powerful now as they were then - though perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. If they were as great in might and scale as they used to be, they would likely not be fast and nimble enough now to fight the Invaders effectively.

While it is still destructive, Relentless Gaze of the Sun has been at least somewhat tempered, and its motivations seem to be in the midst of a change. It used to act out of a sort of impersonal contemptuous fury, scourging low all who came under its gaze as an affirmation and manifestation of its power - not in an insecure way, or out of hatred, as a human might, but simply because that was its nature: to strike down those who dared raise themselves before it. But even Spirits with the constancy of Sun or Earth can change, over time, and grappling with a Spirit as shifting and protean as Shadows Flicker Like Flame may have accelerated that process. It is still a destructive Spirit, breaking down and burning up those upon whom it focuses its gaze, but it seems to be exploring the idea that 'those outside of itself' are not some homogenous mass, and that perhaps it ought to focus its contempt and fury on those actively opposing it? It is once again willing to communicate with other Spirits, and given that it's not actually trying to rule anything or boss anyone around, most Spirits are content to shrug and speak to it respectfully (if they speak to it at all), or just work around it - it is not a Spirit of great subtlety or connivance.

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Important note: If playing as Relentless Gaze of the Sun, you start the game with these Unique Power Cards in your hand.