I'm making print-and-play versions of the aspects, and this language from one of Earth's aspect cards (Incarnation of the Earth's Might) struck me:
- "[1 Plant] You may play an additional Power Card by paying 1 Energy plus its cost. Its elements apply for the rest of this Innate Power's thresholds (Normally, they wouldn't)" (this is the language I'm interested in)
- [additional elemental thresholds follow]
Why wouldn't they normally apply? I can't think of one off-hand, but if I were to play a Power Card which gave me additional elements, or which allowed me to place a Presence which gave me additional elements, don't those additional elements immediately come into play, and therefore could be used to satisfy the additional thresholds on the Power Card, because it wouldn't be an "interrupt"?
Is it because it involves playing another Power Card, and that makes it an "interrupt"? But in this case, isn't the playing of the additional Power Card part of this particular power? I envision the whole thing working as a couple of nested executions (apologies to the true coders out there for the bad ersatz sorta-code I'm using):
- [BEGINNING OF POWER - INCARNATION OF THE EARTH'S MIGHT]
- 1 Plant is present, so go to...
- (Play power card for 1 Energy plus cost; finish all of new Power Card's effects, including their threshold effects, if any)
- Additional elemental threshold effects for Incarnation of the Earth's Might
- 1 Plant is present, so go to...
- [END OF POWER]
This is one of those rules corners currently under discussion and likely to change; don't take that aspect to seriously. Indeed you would (at least currently) get the elements immediately; here's the FAQ: https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!.9v5kcmx
I believe Eric forgot about this ruling when writing that text.
Also, playing a power card is not the same as resolving its effects. It just means that the newly played card can be resolved normally at some point during the fast/slow phase, just as if it had been played during the spirit phase. So in particular, its effects would not interrupt the power that let you play it (or let you resolve a slow power during fast phase), and in fact you can resolve other powers in between.
Yup. And I didn't realize all the Aspects in testing were getting released to reviewers, so you got to see 'em in all of their various-stages-of-development (ie, half-done, on average) glory. :)