Vagabond (Harrier)

The Vagabond is unlike any other faction on the board. You have no territory, no buildings, and no warriors — just a single wandering figure picking through the forest for useful items and forging quiet alliances with whoever is winning. Where others fight over clearings, you slip between the battles and collect the spoils.

The Harrier is the most mobile face of this wandering life. Where other Vagabonds trudge from clearing to clearing spending precious boots, the Harrier soars. Your signature ability — Glide — lets you exhaust a Torch to move your pawn to any clearing on the entire map at once, ignoring adjacency and paths, even landing in a Hostile clearing without paying the usual extra cost. No other character in the game moves like this.

Because boots are not part of your starting kit, Glide is your primary means of travel from the very first turn. You begin with a Coin, a Torch, a Sword, and a Crossbow — a combat-ready spread that makes you a credible threat anywhere you land. The Harrier is not a slow builder; it is a hawk that descends exactly where it wants to be.

You score points through several independent channels, and the Harrier's mobility lets you chase all of them simultaneously:

• Complete quests by reaching a matching clearing and exhausting the required items; each finished quest scores VP or draws you extra cards.
• Aid other factions by giving them a card that matches a clearing you share; this improves your relationship with them, and hitting higher relationship tiers scores VP directly.
• Remove enemy buildings and tokens in battle — unlike most factions, you score VP for this, rewarding you for picking fights.

What sets the Harrier apart is that distance is never an excuse. A quest in the far corner of the map? One Glide away. A weakened building ripe for a quick battle? One Glide away. You can pivot to whichever scoring channel is most lucrative on any given turn without spending multiple actions repositioning. The constraint is Torches: every Glide costs one, so you need to keep your Torch supply healthy or earn more from ruins.

Your turn runs on item exhaustion, and Glide shapes every decision you make. Moving across the map costs a Torch via Glide rather than a chain of Boots; most other actions — Aid, Quest, Battle, Craft — cost the relevant item. After you act, exhausted items sit face-down until your Refresh step, and hits taken in battle damage items rather than removing your figure.

Because you start without boots, your opening game depends entirely on Glide for movement. This is powerful but comes with a cost: each Glide spends a Torch, and Torches also unlock ruins. Balancing when to fly across the map versus when to walk using boots you acquire later is the central skill of piloting the Harrier well.

Your starting Sword and Crossbow make you combat-capable from turn one. You can descend on weakly defended buildings, strike a warrior with the Crossbow, and depart — all in the same turn. Relationships still matter as much as for any Vagabond: a Hostile faction can attack you freely, but the Harrier's ability to teleport away limits how long you remain in a dangerous spot.