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Haha, better not put all your eggs in one basket

Thank you so much! Glad you were able to dig into the faction so much! Also, I'm glad they're easy to follow, I'm sure some of the wording could be cleaned up, but it's great to hear they're easy to comprehend!

Yeah, I was hoping calamity could prove difficult for others to deal with too, and that maybe if the flock player planned ahead a bit and knew they were about to enter calamity, they could use it to set back a competitor at the same time. Yes! I need to spend some more time testing them to make sure they play smoothly, hopefully the star will align and I'll have a group to test them at the same time as I have time to test them!

Yeah, you're right that their scoring de-incentivizes policing at a certain point, but I think of it as a curve - early game (or just post calamity) their scoring is ramping up and each warrior is precious. Then, eventually, they need to slow down their own rapid and automatic warrior gain or they will trigger calamity. I can see them trying to police through battle and hoping to take just the right amount of hits to ride the high scoring sections of their track without tipping into calamity for one more turn!

The art is beautiful, and the theme of frightened ducks really shines through!

I do worry a little that they never need to move - all their warriors appear at spaces with a nest, and then are removed from the same spaces to score. I wish they would need to somehow flee across the board, as as it stands, they seem to just want to wait until they get as many warriors as possible in their nest spaces, so they can cash in large numbers for points and still have enough to defend their nest after scoring,

Thank you so much! I appreciate your feedback and taking the time to read and understand it so thoroughly!

You're absolutely right that it would be 1 visionary card if you have 2 or fewer warriors. Though whether they'd be in any position to resolve the order you intended them to resolve is anyone's guess!

Glad you like the mechanics! Yeah, I think it'd be a fun dynamic, with almost an element of bluffing - the balance between getting rid of an action you don't like and fearing an even worse action below it! And of course it helps people interact with its mechanics if they can try to do a little planning around it.

Also, on a sidenote, as a relative newcomer to this community, the work you've done on the root database is nothing short of astonishing, and really useful! It's truly incredible, and from all of us just joining this game now, thank you so much!

Wow! Yes, those are small, but definitely there, my bad!

Cool concept!

I have a question about the Queen's command step in Daylight - it says to do that step once, plus one for every bee you have showing, yet I don't see any bees or tracks with bees on the faction board. What does that step/symbol mean?

I think this is one of my favorite jam factions! Starlings are an inspired choice and they fit the theme so well, especially when combined with the "recruit 10" action! The musters are evocative of acolytes and look elegant, but work completely differently and need to be filled to function. Taking lower die on attacks is the sort of feature that at first glance makes you think "what?" and then you realize how well it works with the rest of the faction's design by filling musters, and that they have a workaround for dealing hits when they really need to (spending cards).

I do have a few questions - 

First - can musters be used in any order?

Second - it seems as though there's an optimal order in the daylight actions that's reachable after the first turn, so it makes the mechanic of changing the order of actions seem unnecessary, especially with the freedom of muster actions happening in any order (assuming my question 1 answer is "yes"). Is there any reason not to switch "Act with Musters" and "Fly" on turn 1, and then keep it that way for the rest of the game? You have fly directly after recruit, and directly before retreat so you can ensure consistency filling the musters you need, and then you have battle directly afterwards either to fill less high priority musters or as a way to fill your essential musters if you've been policed to much to have a favor on the board.

Third - Favors seems like to almost work? I'm not clear what a favor is when it's on the board, and as the esteemed MrMirz has mentioned, the bird one seems very valuable. I guess I'm wondering what they represent when they're on the board. The fact that they are basically the only way the starlings score, and yet they are one of the main ways they can deal hits consistently is a tension that is good, but I worry about the speed of their scoring. I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say here, only that it seems difficult for the starlings to score, given that both need to have their muster filled, and their favors on the board in order to make it happen, and that makes them less able to fight should they need to.

Again, fabulous work!

Oh awesome! I was sure I must have missed something. You're right that counterfeit can help with the consistency and make the justice more useful so long as it shows up in your hand after those first turns. Also, I'm realizing I misunderstood when you reshuffle, so that'll help a lot with consistency! Given you don't reshuffle the deck until it runs out, and never collect your revealed cards, your judge can just lurk out on the table between rounds and you can keep banishing/drawing with counterfeit for that time. I guess that makes the weakest point for the faction just after their first reshuffle, and then any point where they would draw and can't because the stack is empty, triggering an immediate reshuffle. The rounds after that they'll struggle with consistency because their "library" of actions on the table has been discarded.

What were you considering for the counterfeit nerf?

The banishing mechanic is super cool and useful for a deck builder, so if this faction continues building decks, I hope it survives!

Also, I don't think I've stressed enough how unbelievably cool your art is! It all looks great!

Also, I forgot to mention it before, but LOVE your art! it's incredible!

This is incredible! The weather dependent actions are so thematic! Also an Inca fan, so I love that you chose to draw inspiration from there. Some very cool ideas here! Also moths were a fabulous choice! Weather and favor are excellent mechanics.

I do have a question about moving with temples - do you move from a clearing adjacent to the temple to another clearing adjacent to the same temple?

Love the artwork, and the free cardboard that's hostile to everybody is very cool!

I was wondering about their draw power and how the Bearcats get any cards from the shared deck. They draw three per turn, plus one per bulletin, but only from their own propaganda deck. Is there any way for them to get cards from the shared deck into their hands? It seems as though they will never draw standard cards, and so will also be unable to craft items or cards from the standard deck, as they won't draw them (outside of the Bearcat Justice card I guess).

That also makes me wonder what the purpose of bulletins is. If they never draw anything to craft, they aren't useful as crafting pieces. They are great to increase draw power (since it seems the bearcats basically take one action per card they start their turn with) but seem potentially very punishing to lose as they could banish a necessary action from the game.

I love the idea of deck building, but since a good deck in most deckbuilding games is consistent and gives the actions needed reliably every turn, keeping the Bearcat deck small (or matching your draw limit rather) seems most advantageous. However, the swarm deck will only grow over time as other players discard their propaganda cards, and you as the Bearcat player have no way to control which cards are removed from it, short of the bearcat justice, something they may not even draw consistently to begin with. Then you may not draw it on the same round that you play a card you want to remove from play! Then there's the random chance of losing this vital card to a destroyed bulletin! Since it seems to be both the only way to control their own deck building and the only way they can get any cards from the shared deck, it seems like an incredibly valuable card that won't be able to be used often enough to give the deck the consistency it needs to be effective.

Having said all that, I love the idea here! The theme is unique, the separate deck and action mechanics are cool, and I love the deck builder idea as it's something we don't really have yet in Root! Also the bad press tokens are inspired and give the Bearcats another way to increase their scoring consistency. I think this is a very cool faction!

These are all great suggestions! Thanks!

You're right, the order of the berries should be reversed. The reason the "enemy player" line is there is because during calamity you'd end up removing your own clutches, though I suppose that wouldn't matter as calamity would only trigger if there are no visionaries to resolve... So I think you're right, it's totally unnecessary!

I think all your wording changes are good ones, I get so in the weeds with a design that sometimes I end up missing easy spots to simplify, so thank you! I think the only thing I'd add to your changes is in the visionary card slot I'd clarify that you only place your visionary cards there whenever you set your pecking order, so we don't have people placing already discarded visionary cards in that slot between turns. Basically 'Place your visionary cards here in any order during Set Pecking Order, face up so only the top card is visible.'

Excellent work! I agree with Danimal85 both in regards to how cool your theming is and how many cards are in the spore deck - I know it's better to not run out of them, and as the game goes on more and more will make their way into the shared deck, so perhaps it's better to be safe than sorry?

The inhaled spore effects are very good! Since the rot within chooses the replaced piece, and since it happens on another player's turn, I worry it has too much potential to mess with their plans and scoring - perhaps if the person who drew the card chose what warrior they replaced it would feel less punishing and more manageable?

You've given it some really cool unique mechanics which are both evocative of other root factions and yet not too similar to them - adding to the deck makes me think of frogs, yet it's more unique and organic than what frogs are doing and gets gradually added in rather than shuffled in from the start. The choice between scoring and shuffling the discard pile into the deck feels very tactical and fun!

Power wise, I'm not sure if this faction feels too strong or not strong enough! Filling the deck with spore cards will take time, and their warrior recruitment is quite slow, which is hard as that's their method of building as well, so it really is imperative that they fill the deck with spores to fill their recruiting needs. I think it'll be a slow to start faction, but also very difficult to stop once it gets going. I look forward to seeing it played at some point, because you're exploring some interesting ideas and design spaces very elegantly and cohesively!

Thanks so much for your detailed feedback! It's really complimentary!

So re your calamity/pecking order rules questions - I think what you missed is in the pecking order rules at the top of the board. Whenever an enemy player removes a clutch, the top pecking order card is discarded. This means that you can end up with fewer than 6 visionaries in the pecking order, and can trigger calamity with fewer than 19 warriors on the board. If you suddenly have fewer visionaries in the deck than actions you can perform, you'll trigger calamity when you try to resolve them on your turn.

This also allows other players to manipulate your pecking order, and forces the flock player to think carefully about their order - if they put their most essential action on top of the deck, to guarantee they'll have access to it next turn, other players can destroy a clutch to discard it, putting that visionary out of action for the round. Alternatively, the flock player can bury the actions they want several cards down the order, but risk not being able to use them if too many of their warriors get removed. I think it's both an interesting layer of tension and allows enemy players to have some say in when calamity occurs - do they risk destroying a bunch of clutches knowing that that will make it calamity more likely next turn?

As for where the visionary cards are - At the end of our turn you set your pecking order and all 6 end up on the slot on your board in order. Then, if during opponent's turns any are discarded, they are moved off the stack and off your faction board - they cannot be resolved in your next birdsong. In birdsong, you resolve the remaining cards in order from the top down. If you're ever asked to resolve a visionary by the coop track and no visionaries remain to be resolved, you trigger calamity.

I hope this helped clarify your questions! I'm sure there are clearer ways I could have worded some of these interactions. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks again for your feedback! Glad you find the coop track effective (though I should clarify somewhere that the coop track here takes the place of the supply for warriors)! The idea of an automated farmer stomping around the board is really fun!