Eyeless

Attack
 Passive

## General

**Eyeless** is the main Dredge antagonist in the second part of *The Banner Saga*. A Sundr, she looks like a gigantic Stonesinger, with different coloring, wearing a stone mask and wielding two monstrous stone scythes. Her power lies in possessing the bodies of the fallen.

## Story

Eyeless is first encountered by Bolverk's caravan, the Ravens, in the underworld caves during Chapter 11 where they barely manage to escape her with the aid of Zefr and her young apprentice, Nikels. Eyeless catches up with the Ravens caravan once more at the Old Ford, where a climatic battle is fought at the bridge at the end of Chapter 13. Eyeless starts this battle possessing the body of Nikels, to demoralize the Ravens; in this form she has access to two active abilities: Mend and Breeze, and Infected Strike passive described below.

If she is not killed in the second game, Rook/Alette's caravan has to fight a Warped Eyeless during the siege of Arberrang by the Warped.

## Passive Ability: Infected Strike

A stronger version of Stonesingers' Disease Strike, Infected Strike does regular Strength attack damage applying the "Infected" debuff and a Knockback of 5 tiles. The "Infected" debuff makes the unit lose 1 Strength point at the beginning of each of its turns; finishing a move on a tile adjacent to an ally unit transmits the debuff.

#### Mechanics Ambiguity

* Killing Eyeless does not consistently remove the "Infected" debuff from afflicted heroes.
* The "Infected" debuff seems to propagate also through Skulkers, although it does not damage them.
* Knockback can throw the target through other units, causing extra damage and possibly transmitting the "Infected" debuff.

## Active Ability: Possess

Eyeless dematerializes (disappears from the board) and inhabits the body of any dead unit, friend or foe, taking immediate action. The possessed unit does not have its full stats (as in the start of the battle) and is marked with a dark aura and a blue flame flaring on top of its head. When the possessed unit is knocked out, Eyeless re-spawns in a random location on the board and is ready for another action or re-possession. She will typically not possess the same body twice, but this restriction has not been confirmed.

#### Turn Order Ambiguity

Possess seems to behave strangely with respect to the turn-queue:

* A freshly possessed unit might take two consecutive turns instead of one, thus doing double damage.
* When the possessed unit is knocked out, Eyeless reacts (takes a turn) immediately, instead of taking the turn-queue slot of its latest fallen avatar.

It is not clear if these are intended behavior or bugs.

## Active Ability: Shatter

Shatter renders Eyeless invulnerable (she becomes transparent and is *untargetable*) while she casts a spell: At the start of her next turn, shards explode from any Dredge unit on the board with less than 7 Armor, doing equivalent Break to any foe in their vicinity.

* **Notes:** Exploding Dredge lose all their Armor (but do not die) and cause equivalent Break damage to adjacent units. Shatter is not used very often by Eyeless, so this mechanic has not been confirmed.

## Strategies

* Eyeless has very high stats and can easily one-shoot many Heroes.
* When a possessed unit is (re)slain, she spawns in a random unoccupied location on the board, possibly in the back lines of your Heroes, and takes immediate action! Be sure to protect your weak Heroes from this unlucky event.
* One of the most efficient strategies to deal with Eyeless is letting her possess a weak unit (e.g. a Dredge Grunt, a Slinger or a Skulker) until the rest of the Dredge are cleared. In this way, all Heroes can concentrate on her, during the Pillage round.