Vagabond (Ranger)

The Vagabond is unlike any other faction on the board. You hold no clearings, field no army, and answer to no lord. You are one figure moving through a forest being torn apart by bigger powers, collecting items and weaving alliances wherever it suits you.

The Ranger is the most combat-ready and self-sufficient variant of this wandering life. Where the Thief steals and the Tinker crafts, the Ranger endures. Your starting kit — Torch, Boot, Sword, and Crossbow — is built for aggression: you can fight your way into contested territory, strike surgically without committing to a full battle, and explore the wilderness all from day one.

Your signature move is Hideout: once per turn during Daylight, you may repair three damaged items at once, then immediately close the phase. That single ability reframes the whole game for you. Where other Vagabonds dread a bad battle, you treat it as a temporary setback — hit the factions hard, absorb their counterattack, then hole up and emerge next turn at full strength.

Your scoring channels are the same as every Vagabond's, but the Ranger's combat-forward kit tilts the board toward fighting:

• Complete quests by reaching a matching clearing and exhausting the required items; each finished quest scores VP or draws cards.
• Aid other factions by giving them a matching card while sharing a clearing; this advances your relationship with them and scores VP at each relationship tier you reach.
• Remove enemy buildings and tokens in battle — the Vagabond scores VP for this directly, making every skirmish a VP opportunity other factions cannot match.

The Ranger's path to 30 usually runs hot through battle VP and quest completions, padded by steady Aid gains along the way. Hideout makes you a sustainable fighter: you can pick fights that would leave other Vagabonds item-depleted for turns, recover in a single action, and get back on the offensive immediately.

Your whole turn runs on items. Each action costs one or more items from your tracker: moving costs a Boot, fighting costs a Sword, exploring a ruin costs a Torch, precise strikes cost the Crossbow. When you take hits in battle, your items get damaged rather than your figure being removed — and a damaged item is dead weight until you repair it.

The Ranger's Daylight is built around controlled aggression. Your Strike action (Crossbow) lets you eliminate a single enemy warrior or building without rolling for a full battle, making you a precise threat that factions cannot ignore. Your Battle action (Sword) initiates full combat and scores VP for every building or token you remove. And when the fighting has cost you, Hideout lets you repair three items at once and end Daylight early — banking your position rather than grinding through a depleted rack.

Managing relationships is still vital, even for a fighter. Going Hostile with a powerful faction means they can attack you unprovoked and force extra Sword costs on every move through their territory. Pick your targets carefully: fight factions you can afford to antagonize, and keep aid flowing to factions you rely on for safe passage.