Board Games
How to play Spirit Island
Cooperate as spirits to drive off Invaders before Blight, lost Presence or the Invader deck defeats the island. Fast and slow timing makes planning essential.
What you need
Core spirit panels, island boards, powers, Presence, Invader/Fear decks, Dahan, Invaders, Blight and energy
Set up the game
- Use one balanced island board per spirit and printed starting pieces. Follow each spirit’s Presence/power setup. Choose low-complexity spirits and no adversary initially.
- Prepare the base Invader deck and nine Fear cards as the book specifies, then initial Explore. Without a Blight card, use five Blight per player plus exactly one extra total, per erratum.
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Playing Spirit Island
- Spirit Phase: growth, energy, then choose/pay powers within card-play limit. Played elements enable innate powers and are not spent.
- Resolve fast powers in a useful agreed order. Check range/targeting when resolving.
- Invader Phase: applicable Blight effects, earned Fear cards, then Ravage, Build, Explore and advance cards.
- Resolve slow powers after Invaders. Time Passes clears temporary effects/damage and discards played cards as instructed.
- Immediately win at current Terror: no Invaders at I, no towns/cities at II, no cities at III. Earning the last Fear card wins by Fear.
A slow push prevents a future build
Explore places an explorer in an empty mountain. Your slow power pushes it to a neighboring land, leaving that mountain empty. If mountains Build next turn, the empty land builds nothing. You earned no destruction Fear, because nothing died, but movement still prevented a settlement.
Damage and defeat
Explorers/towns/cities deal 1/2/3. Two-plus damage to land adds one Blight; already-Blighted land also cascades to a neighbor. Added Blight destroys one Presence of each spirit there. Dahan have two health and survivors deal two each. Lose if any spirit has no Presence, the Blight instruction causes defeat, or Explore requires drawing from an empty Invader deck. There is no competitive score target.
Beginner decisions
- Preventing one build can save more effort than fighting its later city. Look a terrain card ahead.
- Coordinate across board seams; a neighbor may solve a land more efficiently and free your card plays elsewhere.
Common rule mix-ups
- Spending elements like energy.
- Moving a slow effect before the Invader action it should follow.
Questions about this game
Do Dahan absorb land damage?
No. Ravage damages land and Dahan separately; survivors counterattack.
Does one Blight lose?
Not normally. Exhausting the applicable supply/card effect can; a single token is usually a setback.
Sources and edition notes
Core cooperative Spirit Island, introductory board without adversaries/scenarios/events; includes official extra-Blight setup erratum.
Sources and stated format checked October 14, 2026. This records a document check, not a claim of hands-on testing.
- Greater Than Games: core rulebook
- Official FAQ: important errata
- Greater Than Games: game/rule resources