Vagabond (Thief)

The Vagabond is a lone wanderer — a single figure drifting through a forest torn apart by bigger powers. You hold no clearings, command no army, and answer to no one. Instead, you make yourself useful (or dangerous) to whoever suits you in the moment.

Everything you do flows through your items: boots carry you across clearings, swords let you fight, torches light up ruins, hammers let you craft, and coins, bags, and tea expand what you can carry and do. Your item tray is your entire engine — keep it healthy and you can do almost anything; let it get choked with damaged and exhausted items and your turns grind to a halt.

The Thief is the roguish face of the Vagabond — quick-fingered, unpredictable, and deeply annoying to play against. Your starting item spread sets you up for an aggressive, mobile early game, and your signature trick lets you reach into an opponent's hand and pull out whatever catches your eye.

You score points through several independent channels, all of them gradual — your game is about stacking small gains rather than one explosive engine:

• 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.

Reaching Allied status with a faction unlocks powerful combined actions and makes that faction a genuine partner. The trick is juggling all three income streams at once — no single one will carry you to 30 on its own.

Your turn runs on item exhaustion. Moving between clearings costs a boot (more in rugged mountain clearings); most other actions — Aid, quest, battle, craft with hammers — cost the relevant item. After you act, exhausted items sit face-down until your refresh step, and any hits you take in battle damage items instead of removing your figure.

Building your item pool is a priority in the early game. Explore a ruin by spending a torch when you're in a clearing that has one, and you pull out whatever item is hidden inside. More items means more actions per turn and more flexibility about what you do with them.

Relationships with each faction start at Indifferent and slide up toward Allied — or down toward Hostile if you fight them too often. A Hostile faction can attack you freely and you pay extra to operate in their clearings, so managing those dials carefully is just as important as managing your item tray.