Keywords & Glossary

Card Ability Keywords

ACTION | The ACTION keyword is always followed by either a card ability or an Achroma effect. If the gameplay ability on a card has the keyword ‘ACTION:’ before it, this ability triggers and concludes just once, immediately after the card is Deployed. ‘ACTION’ effects on cards have priority over other active abilities on the Canvas and therefore trigger first. ACTION effects on cards are mandatory unless it is stated that ‘you may’ resolve the effect.

CLAIM | Take the target card from another player’s Canvas and place it on your Canvas under your control. If the CLAIM effect gets removed, ie. the claimed card gets Erased, the claimed card returns to its owner’s dregs. When a player is removed from the game ie. they have no Shards left in their Shard bank, all CLAIMED cards on their Canvas return to their original owner’s Dregs.

CURSE | Choose a card on any Canvas to CURSE and turn it sideways, it is now Cursed. While the CURSE keyword itself does not have an effect, there are many cards that interact with "CURSED" cards and provide benefits as a result.

DEFEND | When another Character on your Canvas is targeted for an attack, a Character with DEFEND may intercept the attack, replacing them as the target. A Character with DEFEND may DEFEND as many attacks as it can in a turn, providing it has not been defeated in combat.

DIG | Search your Dregs for a specific card and put it into your hand.

DISPOSE | Erase the card with the word DISPOSE. Once Erased, action the ability on the card. If this is during your turn, you may do this at any time.

During an opponent's turn, each time they declare they are Deploying a card, using an ability (from a card on their Canvas) or declaring an attack, you may use DISPOSE once as Reaction. Once you have declared you're using your DISPOSE, the DISPOSE effect happens first, then the original Deployment, ability or Attack (If it can still happen). When choosing to React in a multiplayer game, declare and resolve each use of DISPOSE in turn order, ending with the original player's Deploy, ability or Attack. (If it can still happen). The original player cannot re-react to their own card being reacted to.

If by using DISPOSE as a Reaction, a new card would be Deployed (E.g. Alchemists Tincture), the new card only gets played after all other Deployments, abilities and attacks have concluded.

DIVERT | Once per turn, when any Action or ability targets a card on your Canvas, as a Reaction it can be Diverted to this card provided this card is a legal target.

FIND | Search your Palette for a specific card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your Palette.

FREEZE | Choose a card to become FROZEN. A FROZEN card cannot GAIN, DRAIN, STEAL or PREVENT until unfrozen. Cards unfreeze at the end of their controller’s turn.

HUNT | Once per turn you may choose a Character on another player’s Canvas to HUNT. If both the target Character and card that initiated the HUNT are both still on the same Canvases they were on when the HUNT was initiated, at the start of your next turn resolve the HUNT effect. If either card is Erased, RESTRAINED, or CLAIMED then the HUNT is not resolved.

INFEST | When you play a Character with INFEST, you may choose to either pay the full Shard Value to play it as a Character on your own Canvas, or only pay 1 Shard to INFEST another Character on any Canvas; attaching the INFEST Character to another Character. While attached the INFEST card does not take part in combat.

An INFESTED card loses all Achroma effects and its ability is replaced with the INFEST ability from the INFEST Character and gains the INFEST Character’s Achroma Effect if it has one.

Cards with INFEST may only INFEST other Characters unless stated otherwise.

When an INFESTED Character is Erased, the attached INFEST Character is Erased too, even if it has PROTECTION or cannot otherwise be Erased.

INFEST abilities are only used by the INFESTED card.

You may not attach Objects to INFESTING cards.

MENAGERIE | If you have 3 or more unique Character Types present on your Canvas at the same time, you may trigger MENAGERIE abilities once at any point during your turn. The MENAGERIE effect on cards with 'ACTION: MENAGERIE:' may only trigger once immediately after the card is Deployed providing you have 3 or more Character types Deployed.

MOUNT | During your Main step, you may attach this Character to an unmounted Dragon or Drake on your Canvas. When attacking and defending, the rider and mount combine Strength and Shards and act as one Character card but still remain as 2 separate cards, ie. you must Erase both cards to get rid of either card. Removal action cards that target single cards still target either the Dragon or Rider. You may only attach 1 Dragon rider per Dragon/Drake.

REVEAL | Turn over the top card(s) of your Palette one at a time, face up. Once you have revealed a card that meets the criteria specified by the ability/action, put that card into your hand. Put the overturned cards back into your Palette and shuffle.

POISONOUS | Erases any card on a Canvas it deals any damage to through attacking. POISONOUS ignores PROTECTION and GUARD.

PREVENT X | PREVENT is an Achroma effect that specifies a certain amount of Shards that can be blocked from leaving your Shard Bank through opposing Drain and Steal effects once per player turn.

PROTECTION | A Card with PROTECTION cannot be Erased, damaged or Drained of any Shards by another player. This includes by Actions, Abilities and during Attacks, unless the opponent has POISONOUS cards (see above).

If however you are forced to choose one of your own cards to Erase, or play an ability that Erases cards including your own, PROTECTION will not protect the card(s).

RAGE | A Character with RAGE can attack one additional time each turn. You must complete your first attack before you can attack again with any RAGE. The RAGE ability is stackable so a Character can be given RAGE as many times as possible during their turn, allowing it to do further attacks. It is important to note that a Character with RAGE still keeps any damage taken in previous attacks until the end of their controller’s turn, so you may only attack as many times as the Character’s Shard Value allows you to.

RESEARCH X | Look at the top X cards of your Palette. You may pay 1 Shard per card to put it in your hand. Put any cards you don’t pay to keep facedown on top of your Palette in any order.

RESTRAIN | Choose a target card on any other Canvas and place it under the card with RESTRAIN. The target card can’t be used, resolved, affected, or counted for in any way by other actions whilst RESTRAINED, as a RESTRAINED card is not considered ‘on the Canvas’. If the RESTRAINING card is Erased, the RESTRAINED card is returned to its owner's Canvas and is able to attack the turn they return to the Canvas. ACTION effects on RESTRAINED cards do not repeat when a card is freed from being RESTRAINED.

SACRIFICE | Erase a card from your Canvas. The keyword SACRIFICE is always followed by a game ability which, in order to activate, you must Erase a card from your Canvas (SACRIFICE).

SECRET | Without looking at it, hide a card from the top of any Palette underneath this card. This card is now the Keeper of that card. Immediately at the very start of your turn, you may erase the Keeper, flip the hidden card(s) and Deploy them for free in any order. If you choose to Erase the keeper and reveal a secret, you must Deploy it.

SHIELD WALL X | When an opponent’s Character declares an attack on a Character on your Canvas, that Character gets X additional Shard Value until the end of your turn. This effect only triggers once per turn, per character. If you DEFEND the attacked character, the new Defender receives the additional Shard Value instead. SHIELD WALL can stack if you have more than one card with SHIELD WALL on your Canvas..

SPLAT X | You may give another card on any Canvas [+(gain) X] as an Achroma effect until the start of your next turn. Once resolved, the SPLAT is removed. (Watch the video.)

SQUISH X | You may give another card on any Canvas [–(Drain) X] until your next turn. Once resolved, the SQUISH is removed. (Watch the video.)

TRADE | Discard a card from your hand and add Shards to your Shard Bank equal to that card’s Shard Value.

TRADES that are a part of your Start and End step have a limit to how many Shards you may receive from TRADING. Read about this limit in the ‘Start step’ section.

Character Types

To differentiate Character Types we will be using a comma to show the difference between two individual types and a single type that has two words. Any type that has no comma such as Elder Dragon is a single character type and any types that have a comma between them are two or more individual types.

Any cards that interact with a specific Character Type also interact with two word types as long as the targeted type is within it. An example is that cards which interact with Pixies still interact with Mechanical Pixies as it has Pixie in the overall type.

All multiple word types:

All these Character types listed are the single character types made of multiple words from all sets released so far.

  • Salum

    • Magus Elite

  • Draco

    • Achrom Drake
    • Draco Monk
    • Achrom Elder Dragon
    • Elder Dragon

  • Spirata

    • Mechanical Pixie
    • Mechanical Creature
    • Forest Spirit

  • Norso

    • Samr Troll
    • Lacringi Troll
    • Samr Jotunn Troll
    • Lacringi Jotunn Troll

Glossary

Attributes | Card information such as card type and faction.

Achrom | A corrupting dark energy. Represented in-game by Black Achrom Shards found in the Hex. A card featuring at least 1 of these Achrom Shards can be considered an Achrom card.

Achroma Effect | In the Resolve step some cards on your Canvas may allow you to Gain, Drain or Steal Shards, this is referred to as a card's 'Achroma effect'. Achroma effects can be found in the top right corner of a card or in the gameplay text at the bottom of a card.

Action | A single-use card type or ability. Action cards can be played any time during a player’s own turn and are Erased once resolved. The ‘ACTION:’ keyword found on Character, Location or Object cards represent abilities triggered and resolved once, as soon as the card is Deployed.

Attached | When an Object is carried and used by a Character or when a card is joined onto another card.

Attack | A move intended to weaken or Erase a Character.

Canvas | The play area in front of each player where cards are Deployed and your Palette, Dregs and Shard Bank are located.

Card ID | The Sequence of numbers in the bottom left of an Achroma card that refer to the number of the card within its chapter.

Character | A card type usually representing heroes, villains or creatures. Characters are capable of attacking and defending.

Choose X | If a card allows you to ‘Choose 1:’ this is something you must do when Deploying that card and cannot be changed (Unless it specifically says ‘Once during your turn, Choose 1:’).

Chroma | A source of energy, power and life in the Five Realms. Each coloured Chroma Shard represents a different Chroma element. A card featuring at least 1 of these Chroma Shards can be considered a Chroma card.

Controller | The Controller of a card is the player who has that card Deployed on their Canvas. They may resolve that card's Achroma effect and resolve abilities, the only exception being Objects deployed onto other Canvases (see Objects section).

Copy | When copying a card, everything about the target card is copied over apart from the Shards in the Hex. The Shards remain the same as the card performing the copying ability. If the card being copied has the ‘HEROIC’ sub-type, that’s copied too.

Damage | The act of reducing a card's Shards.

Deploy | Moving a card from a player’s hand and placing it on the Canvas, thereby bringing it into play.

Drain | Removing a number of Shards from a player’s Shard Bank (If it is an Achroma effect) or from a card’s centre Hex (If an ability determines this).

Draw | The Player takes the top card from their Palette and places it in their hand.

Dregs | A player’s discard pile where Erased, discarded and TRADED cards are found.

Erase | A card is sent to its owner’s Dregs. You can Erase a card by attacking or using an action card or game ability that either specifically states you may Erase a card, or drains Shards from a target card. Some cards cannot be Erased, meaning they can not take Shard damage.

Gain | Add the specified number of Shards to the player that controls the card with the Gain effect’s Bank.

Give | If a card uses the term ‘Give’ before a Keyword, for example: ‘Give a Character PROTECTION’, then that PROTECTION is a persistent effect even when the original card with ‘Give’ is Erased unless otherwise specified.

Hand | The cards a player holds. There is no limit to the number of cards you can hold.

Hex | The hexagon in the middle of a card that holds its Shards and displays a card’s Strength value.

Location | A card type that has no Strength value and is not capable of attacking. Locations may not be attacked unless otherwise specified.

Object | A card type. Once Deployed, it must be attached to a Character on the Canvas. Objects lend their Shard Value to attacks and take damage before an attached Character. If a Character has an attached Object and is Erased, the Object is also Erased.

Owner | The Owner of a card is the player who physically owns that card; the player who brought that card to this game in their Palette.

Palette | A player’s deck of cards from which they draw during the game.

Pay X Shards | You must pay the Shard(s) cost as determined by the card to use the ability that follows. When you can do this is down to the ability you are paying to use. You may only do this once per turn per card with ‘Pay X Shards’.

Reaction | An opportunity to use the keywords: DEFEND, DISPOSE or DIVERT during another player's turn.

You may React only after an opponent has either: Declared they wish to Deploy a card, use an ability (of a card on their Canvas) or declared an Attack.

Each other player may only React once per opportunity.

Realm | A parallel world, with its own unique geography, creatures and cultures.

Replace | Replace the card that has been Erased with the card that has been selected based on the ability of the card being played. A card being replaced does not count as being Deployed, so ACTION would not be triggered.

Resolve Abilities | Resolve abilities are card gameplay abilities that are triggered in the resolve step. These could be abilities such as Gaining for however many of a certain type of card you have on your Canvas.

Shard | A segment within the Hex that can be full or empty. A life energy and a currency used to Deploy cards from your hand. A full Shard can be defined as either Chroma or Achrom.

Shard Bank | Where a player’s Shards are stored and tracked.

Shard Value | The number of Shards a player must pay from their bank in order to Deploy a card. Shard Value is also a measure of a card's Strength and life. Shard Value is determined by the number of filled Shards in its Hex.

Swap | When you Swap a card with another card, they immediately take each other's place on their respective Canvases. 'ACTION:' effects and other abilities that trigger upon Deployment of cards do not trigger again as swapping does not count as a Deployment. Once a card has been swapped, it is controlled by whoever’s Canvas it is on.

Steal | A player removes Shards from one player’s Bank and adds that amount to their own.

Turn | A player’s turn consists of five steps. A complete game turn is when all players have completed a player turn.