Aspects
Aspects are alternate spirit panels introduced in Jagged Earth and expanded in Nature Incarnate + Feather & Flame Promo 2. Each aspect re-skins a spirit’s innates, unique cards, and sometimes growth options — shifting the spirit’s archetype, difficulty, and matchup profile without changing its name or core identity.
When should I suggest an aspect in a group? This is the question Brett explicitly flagged. The answer is archetype-coordination: aspects let you shift a spirit into a different archetype mid-pairing without swapping the spirit. That’s enormously useful for mixed-skill tables or dahan-hostile adversary coordination.
Aspects inventory (31 total across expansions)
Jagged Earth (6)
- Pandemonium (Lightning) — strife + fear hybrid.
- Wind (Lightning) — mobility emphasis.
- Sunshine (River) — Sun-heavier; earlier Level 2.
- Madness (Shadows) — deeper fear-strife combination; community-consensus #1 aspect pick.
- Reach (Shadows) — extends range on powers.
- Resilience (Earth) — more defend + dahan preservation.
Feather & Flame / Promo Pack 2 (5)
- Immense (Lightning) — bigger, slower plays; single-target annihilation.
- Travel (River) — mobility + range extension.
- Amorphous (Shadows) — unusual mobility; experimental.
- Foreboding (Shadows) — additional fear mechanics.
- Might (Earth) — hybrid into direct damage.
Nature Incarnate (20)
- Regrowth (Green) — heavy blight-removal focus.
- Tangles (Green) — terrain-control emphasis.
- Enticing (Bringer) — pull/lure mechanics added.
- Violence (Bringer) — damage output at cost of some fear scaling.
- Transforming (Shifting Memory) — transformation mechanics.
- Spreading Hostility (Keeper) — viral adversary disruption.
- Sparking (Lightning) — chain-damage across lands.
- Lair (Fangs) — beast-home mechanic.
- Deeps (Ocean) — extended ocean reach.
- Haven (Ocean / River) — support-oriented; dahan protection.
- Locus (Serpent) — shifts presence-placement mechanics.
- Dark Fire (Heart of the Wildfire) — darker tonal shift.
- Encircle (Fangs) — positional-Beast focus; tighter clustering.
- Unconstrained (Fangs) — mobility emphasis; Beasts move freely.
- Intensify (Many Minds) — aggressive Beast deployment.
- Mentor (Thunderspeaker) — buffs dahan scaling.
- Stranded (various) — isolation-themed variant.
- Tactician (Thunderspeaker) — complex dahan positioning.
- Warrior (Thunderspeaker) — dahan damage + mobility.
- Nourishing (Earth) — dahan-focused; multiplayer pick.
When to suggest an aspect
Archetype coordination
Your table already has a Thunderspeaker player handling dahan-rush. You want to play Earth, but default Earth is pure Defend & Outlast. Suggest Nourishing Earth — it shifts Earth toward dahan-support, complementing Thunderspeaker’s scaling.
Adversary-specific
Playing against France (Plantation Colony)? Suggest Mentor Thunderspeaker aspect — the dahan-protective mechanics soften France’s capture strategy.
Matchup gap-filling
Your table has strong damage (Lightning) but no fear output. Suggest Pandemonium Lightning — Lightning stays the damage-dealer but adds strife + fear to outputs.
Experienced player wants depth
A veteran has played base Shadows 20 times. Suggest Madness Shadows — it’s a more complex variant that rewards the existing skill.
New player flexibility
A teachmate picked Shadows but is struggling with fear-rush abstractly. Suggest switching to base (no aspect) — aspect complexity adds, it doesn’t subtract.
When NOT to suggest an aspect
- First-time player: aspects add cognitive load. Base spirits only for first 2–3 games.
- Quick-teach session: same reasoning.
- You don’t know the aspect yourself: don’t recommend aspects you haven’t played.
- Tournament / structured play: unless agreed up-front, default to base.
How to evaluate an aspect
- What archetype does it shift toward? — see the table below.
- What matchups get stronger / weaker? — the spirit chapter’s Aspects section covers this.
- Does it add complexity? — most aspects do; some reduce difficulty.
- Win-rate delta — covered in Aspect Power Deltas statistics (stub, M4).
Aspect archetype shifts (partial — per Brett-priority spirits)
| Spirit + Aspect | Archetype shift |
|---|---|
| Shadows — Madness | Fear-Rush intensifies; more strife scaling |
| Shadows — Reach | Fear-Rush with extended range |
| Earth — Resilience | Defend & Outlast even more defensive |
| Earth — Might | Shift toward Direct Damage |
| Earth — Nourishing | Dahan-Rush support |
| River — Sunshine | Earlier Level 2; slightly faster close |
| River — Travel | Terrain Control emphasis |
| Lightning — Pandemonium | Hybrid Direct Damage / Fear-Rush |
| Lightning — Wind | Mobility emphasis |
| Green — Regrowth | Blight-removal focused |
| Green — Tangles | Terrain Control emphasis |
| Bringer — Enticing | Pull/lure added |
| Bringer — Violence | Hybrid Fear / Direct Damage |
| Thunderspeaker — Warrior | More aggressive dahan damage |
| Thunderspeaker — Mentor | Support + dahan-fear amplifier (multiplayer) |
| Thunderspeaker — Tactician | Complex dahan positioning |
| Fangs — Encircle | Positional Beast density |
| Fangs — Unconstrained | Beast mobility |
| Keeper — Spreading Hostility | Hybrid into adversary-disruption archetype |
| Ocean — Deeps | Extended ocean reach |
| Ocean — Haven | Dahan-protection multiplayer pick |
| Ocean — Shoreline | Coastal-focused |
| Serpent — Locus | Shifts presence-placement mechanics |
Aspects in multiplayer
The most valuable aspects are often the ones that complement a partner’s archetype:
- Thunderspeaker Mentor pairs spectacularly with Bringer — Mentor buffs dahan fear-scaling; Bringer’s cards consume the fear.
- Earth Nourishing + Thunderspeaker = double dahan coordination.
- Ocean Haven + Fangs = dahan protection on coast + Beast on inland.
The anti-pattern: both partners take aspects of similar archetype (Shadows Madness + Bringer Violence = double-fear-heavy; fragile if fear-suppression adversary).
Per-spirit deep dives
Each aspect will eventually get a section in its spirit’s chapter. For M2, the aspects above are documented at their spirit-chapter pages’ Aspects section; this page aggregates the full list.
Cross-references
- Aspect Power Deltas statistics (stub, M4) — win-rate data.
- Spirits Index — each spirit’s chapter lists its aspects.
- Archetype Index — which aspects shift which archetypes.
Last revised: 2026-04-19