Boons are cards you may be able to acquire and put into your hand or deck for future use. The following are common features of boons:

Type: This is the boon’s type (weapon, spell, armor, item, ally, or blessing).

Check to Acquire: This describes the requirement for acquiring the boon (see the Encountering a Card section for more details). You only attempt the check to acquire when encountering a card, not when drawing it from your deck or playing it from your hand. Some boons list actions other than checks that you may take to acquire the card.

Powers: Each power is presented as a complete paragraph. Powers allow you to perform a specified action to cause an effect, such as discarding the boon to add to a check. When you perform an action with the card to cause an effect, you are playing it for its power. (See the Playing Cards section for more details).

If a power doesn’t require you to play the card, do whatever it says at the appropriate time; this does not count as playing the card. For example, if a paragraph says “After you play this card, if you have the Divine skill, recharge it instead of discarding it,” and you have the Divine skill, you must recharge the card after you play it; this does not count as playing the card.

If a card tells you that you may treat it as if it has the same powers as another boon, include only powers that require you to play the card. The following are general descriptions of each type of boon.

Weapon: Weapons can usually be played to modify your combat check. Most weapons have either the Melee or Ranged trait or both; characters that have a skill matching that trait will generally be able to make better use of that weapon than other characters.

Spell: Spells have a wide variety of effects. Spells have the Arcane or Divine trait or both; characters that have a skill matching that trait will often be able to make better use of that spell than other characters.

Armor: Armors generally reduce damage suffered by characters (see the Suffering Damage section for more details).

Item: Items have a wide variety of effects. Many help with non-combat checks.

Ally: Allies usually help with local checks, and most can be played to let you explore again on your turn.

Blessing: Blessings can usually be played to explore or to bless checks by adding dice (see the Bless section for more details).

Blessings also have an effect that happens when they are the hour (see the Advance the Hour section for more details). This has no effect at any other time; you cannot play the blessing for this effect.