Villain Profile: Taniwha

This week we introduce another of the villains from the Realm of Runes Card Game. Today's villain brings the vengeance of the natural world, with all the empathy and restraint of a natural disaster. Prepare for extreme weather and primal magic!

Taniwha

Taniwha is a powerful druid bent on the destruction of civilization itself. He's got an animal companion, which always joins him in every game. His control over the weather is also felt in every game. His remaining henchmen are a mix of primal creature and druidic magic. Taniwha is a melting pot of a lot of the ideas found throughout the other villains. Putting all of those disparate ideas together makes for a play experience that feels distinct but has echoes of the familiar.

Extreme Weather

Two of Taniwha's henchmen are set aside at the beginning of the game, assigned to all heroes as group henchmen. These henchmen represent the weather conditions that Taniwha enforces on the battlefield. One is a thunderstorm. Its powerful rain dampens any energy damage that heroes try to use, and lightning strikes deal energy damage to heroes in return. The other is a tornado. Its powerful winds make using ranged damage more difficult, and its swirling vortex can force players to discard cards from their hand at random.

These weather cards are under Taniwha's control, and he frequently activates one of their special abilities using his own start and end of round abilities. Divine intervention cannot activate them, however, at least not directly. If a card from the deity deck activates henchman special abilities, it only activates Taniwha's other henchmen. If it activates the villain special, however, he uses his own special to activate both weather cards at once.

Primal Allies

After separating and displaying the weather cards, Taniwha also separates Niho Roa, his animal companion, before randomly determining the rest of his henchmen. This is to ensure that Niho Roa is always present, regardless of the number of henchmen actually being used based on the player count. Only Taniwha's creature allies prevent him from being a target to the heroes. However, whereas most henchmen give the heroes a benefit for defeating them, defeating Taniwha's henchmen only makes him angrier. Each defeated henchman permanently increases the damage Taniwha deals. He's also particularly protective of Niho Roa, and deals retributive damage against any hero that dares to hurt his beloved animal companion.

Druidic Magic

Not all of Taniwha's henchmen are creatures, however. These other henchmen represent druidic abilities. They do not prevent Taniwha from becoming a target, but they also cannot be defeated themselves. These effects include goodberries, granting extra healing to Taniwha and his primal allies, woodland critters that get in the heroes' way, or a potent menhir that blocks certain spells from being played. These henchmen do not deal any actual damage to heroes, but their presence adds a different sort of challenge and always ensures that henchman special effects can always be activated by divine intervention, regardless of the state of the game.

Epic Regeneration

In addition to all of his other tools, Taniwha also boasts potent regenerative capability. He recovers Hit Points during the cleanup step of each and every hero's turn, regaining health equal to the number of players. Although this does not typically come into play until after all of his primal allies have already been defeated, it makes getting through the villain himself a tricky prospect. Once you start dealing damage to Taniwha, any turn in which you do not deal at least that much damage gains you negative progress. Hopefully, by the time your party has gotten through his primal allies, you have developed the combos you need to deal good damage consistently!

A Force of Nature

With all of his tools together, Taniwha is as relentless and overwhelming as nature itself. It's a challenge just to weather the constant battering of his storm, let alone bring him to defeat. Yet Taniwha is not insurmountable, and the resilience and resourcefulness that allowed civilization to encroach upon the wilderness can be leveraged to bring this protector of the green to heel. So... are you ready to stop beating around the bush? Next time we return to the Tome of Whispers to continue our exploration of vehicle combat, so stay tuned!