SETUP
Put 1 on your starting board in the highest-numbered Wetlands.
PLAY STYLE
While capable of some direct offense, River Surges in Sunlight is best at flooding out Explorers and Towns, displacing them from lands where they might Build or Ravage. The ability to get free Sacred Sites makes a wide range of Powers more useful.
COMPLEXITY
River Surges in Sunlight Official FAQ Entries
SPECIAL RULES
RIVER'S DOMAINYour in Wetlands counts as .
SUMMARY OF POWERS
On most of Spirit Island, the rivers run high during the rainy season, as one would expect. There is one exception: the lingering remains of an ancient curse keep a high ridge shrouded in ice, and when the sun beats down, it feeds a single river with abundant meltwater.
River Surges in Sunlight is a spirit of rushing water, inundation, and bounty out of season.
It gets along well with the Dahan who farm along its banks; they reap the benefit of good harvests, and tend to the health of the river in its drier times. Both gain.
River Surges in Sunlight is one of the greater river-spirits of the island, at least among those moderate enough in their locus of power to still interact readily with humans. (Joining of Three Rivers, for instance, is much larger and more powerful, but sluggish even by spirit standards, and very difficult to contact in any but a few very particular, well-worn ways.) River Surges has a well-established symbiotic relationship with the Dahan, who gain fertile ground from its controlled flooding and gifts of health from its magic; in turn, they tend to the river's needs during times of drought and darkness.
What do we see?
"Push" means "move from the target land to adjacent lands" - you can Push all affected Invaders to the same place, or scatter them among multiple lands. For River's Powers, Pushing represents forced relocation (for Towns) / diversion (for Explorers) due to flooding, but other Powers might Push Invaders to represent "frightening them away", "giving them wanderlust", "making a land uninhabitable/unpalatable", or other such effects. Moving Invaders around with Push and Gather can be useful in several different ways: to get them out of lands where they're about to Build or Ravage, to move them into lands where your Powers are more effective, or to concentrate them together so a particularly potent Power can wipe them all out in one blow.
Massive Flooding isn't River's only way of Pushing Invaders:
Looking across the Power Cards, a few things stand out:
Overall: River Surges in Sunlight works very well with a Plays-heavy, lots-of-small-Powers strategy: it has good ability to gain Power Cards, the Reclaim One bonus spot, cheap Unique Power cards, and powerful higher-level Innate Power effects. However, it can also take a different tack, using its double-Presence placement to blast up the Energy track and grab Major Powers, planning on never triggering anything but the lowest level of its innate until late-game. Which is better will depend on what other Spirits are fighting alongside it, what Adversary is being faced, and initial Power picks.
River Surges in Sunlight/Antistone's Opening[1]
River Surges in Sunlight/Phantaskippy's Guide[2]
Island Avatar
After Growth, choose up to 2 among your lands. Move each of them to any land contiguously connected by your .
Your lands with 4 or more are considered , and have Defend 1.
There are no rulings at this time.