Vala

### Preamble

The Vala is a norse wise woman who knows the ways of the runes, spirits, trances and powerful chants.

### Acquiring the Vala

The Vala is found at the top 30% of the map (the band where the tundra starts and moves into snow), near a town (within 3 hexes) and have your party at a total of 31 or more levels. The town you are near does not have to be friendly or neutral for this event to trigger.

\*Legends 16.3.0 Event can be triggered near friendly town on winter area.

You must also have a free brother slot to trigger the event. If the Vala dies, she can re-appear the same way past 100 days with the same requirements.

**If you started with a Vala (sisterhood or random starts) you cannot obtain other one unless the current one is dead or dismissed!**

### Combat and levelling

#### Perktree

   Tier 1 - Summon warden, Nine lives, Pathfinder, Recover, Student, Rune sigils; shields

Tier 2 - Malevolent spirits (trance), Fast Adaptation, Colossus, Fortified mind, Backstabber

Tier 3 - Heightened senses (chant), Premonition, Resilience, Rune sigils; helmets

Tier 4 - Chanting mastery, Trance mastery, Alert, Inscription mastery

Tier 5 - Disharmony (chant), Rune sigils; armour, Gatherer

Tier 6 - Threads of fate, Mind over body, Spiritual bond

Tier 7 - Fury (chant), Rune sigils; weapons, Field triage, Alcohol brewing, Perfect focus

## Vala specific perks

**A full review of how the warden works can be found here.**

**Summon warden**  - summons an entity that will serve and protect the Vala. The warden may die but will always reappear at the beginning of the next fight.

* The warden, despite looking ethereal, does not gain the same projectile defence Geists do. However, the warden is also not killed instantly by an attack.
* The warden has two attacks in the form of chilling touch (melee) and a ranged attack. Chilling touch is similar to a puncture attack from a dagger. It will ignore armour and its damaged will be based off the Warden's initiative and the hit chance from the Warden's Melee attack stat.

* The ranged attack is similar but uses Ranged attack as % to hit. It is possible for the warden to friendly fire your brothers by missing with its projectiles.

* The Warden has predictable behaviour; it will always follow the Vala (or get as close as possible to the Vala) and guard her from attacks. It prefers to be adjacent to the Vala and use ranged attacks to harass enemies.

* If the Vala is about to be engaged in melee, the Warden will lose interest in other targets and jump into melee with the Vala. However the Warden often moves between the Vala and her aggressor before this happens.

* The Warden dying does not trigger morale checks.
* The Warden can be improved via spiritual bond.

**Rune sigils; shields**  - enables crafting of shield runes in the enchanter's tent

**Malevolent spirits (trance)**  - enables a trance skill that reduces the defences of enemies afflicted by it. This skill lowers the damage they deal, lowers maximum fatigue and increases fatigue cost for skills on afflicted units.

* This is a trance skill, which means the Vala will use all her AP on that round to cast it. She will drop into a trance where she will be unable to do anything until the trance has completed.
* The duration for the trance to complete is between 1-2 turns. If the Vala takes damage while in this state, the trance is cancelled.
* Malevolent spirits can spread to adjacent enemies within one tile of the afflicted unit, leading to a cascade of debuffed groups against larger parties.
* Malevolent spirits once afflicted on a unit, lasts 2 turns. On each turn of the afflicted unit, it has a chance to spread.
* Malevolent spirits can be improved with trance mastery

**Heightened senses (chant)**  - enables a chant that, when activated, will give bonus ranged and melee defence to both your own units and allies at a maximum range of 3 tiles from the Vala.

* This is a chant skill, which means that the Vala is free to move and perform other actions while chanting.
* A chant lasts one round, but may be chanted again on the Vala's turn.
* The further away an ally is from the Vala while she is using the chant, the less they will gain from it.
* As the Vala is the centre of the chant, she benefits the most from the bonuses
* If the Vala is stunned, she will stop chanting - but any form of damage will not drop her out of the chant.

**Premonition**  - grants a passive skill that allows the Vala a chance at avoiding damage.

* Premonition works as the lucky trait or Lithe perk does - by granting a re-reroll if she were to take damage from an attack.
* Premonition scales with the Vala's level - by 1% per level. Which means at level 11, the Vala will have an 11% chance to reroll a successful hit not not hurt her.
* Premonition stacks with other sources of the same effect, like the lucky trait.

**Rune sigils; helmets**  - enables crafting of armour runes in the enchanter's tent

**Chanting mastery**  - chants build up 25% less fatigue and have greater potency

* Note: does not affect trances

**Trance mastery**  - entering trances builds 25% less fatigue and grants a 50% chance to not be dropped out of a trance if damage is taken.

* Note: does not affect chants

**Inscription mastery**  - creates rune sigils at a faster rate

* Note: does not improve quality of runes created

**Disharmony (chant)**  - this chant disables zone of control for enemies near to the Vala, allowing you to disengage or slip past enemies without triggering opportunity attacks

**Rune sigils; armour**  - enables crafting of armour runes in the enchanter's tent

**Threads of fate**  - adds a stacking debuff to the Vala's staff attacks, lowering hitpoints and increasing the damage taken by the afflicted target

* Threads of fate needs the Vala's staff to be used, no other weapon works.

* The debuff from threads of fate does not dissipate, meaning you can stack it very highly on tough enemies.

**Spiritual bond**  - creates a bond between the Vala and her warden that allows the warden to take damage for her and become more powerful

* Up to 50% of the Vala's damage taken to hitpoints will be transferred to the Warden instead
* The Warden's stats will scale based on the Vala's resolve, which can be checked by hovering over the active effect icon above the Vala's stat card during her turn in battle.

**Rune sigils; weapons**  - enables crafting of weapon runes in the enchanter's tent

**Fury (chant)**  - allies and brothers within 3 tiles of the Vala will receive a scaling damage bonus based off the Val's resolve, any brother hit by an attack (not dodged) will riposte and hit the attacker back with their default chance to hit.

## Stats and their importance

In order of importance;

* **Resolve** - scales with trances, chants and warden. Also enables mind over body to be much more effective.
* **Ranged defence** - archers are the primary enemy of the Vala, in some cases master archers can kill the Vala in only two hits.
* **Melee attack** (if using threads of fate) - needed to land consistent hits on difficult targets.
* **Health** - needed to prevent injuries and being killed quickly
* **Initiative** (if using trances) - a trance will succeed or fail on the Vala's turn, so having more initiative allows her to finish a trance faster.
* **Fatigue** - not as important as resolve, as mind over body is a core Vala perk and points are better spent in resolve than fatigue

(Any stat not mentioned here is worthless)

#### Weaknesses

* The Vala has no armour classes, therefore she is quite susceptible to being killed quickly if not protected.
* The Vala has little to no damage output, and no perks to increase this aside from threads of fate.

#### Strategies

Unless the Vala is using threads of fate, keep her as far away from enemies as possible.

If archers are present, hide her behind your other brothers or behind terrain that blocks projectiles (trees, rocks, etc.)

### Trances & chants

* Trances are skills that make the Vala immobile and pass her turn immediately. if damage is taken while in a trance, it is likely the Vala will fall out of the trance completely.
* Trances, chants and threads of fate require the Vala's staff to be used. The Vala must be wielding the staff to take advantage of these abilities

## Crafting runes

For a list of rune effects, refer here: Rune Sigils

#### How to craft runes

Step 1: have a Vala in your party with at least one rune type unlocked

Step 2: go to your camp and click on the enchantment tent (bottom right), note that this tent will not show up until you have a Vala.

Step 3: click on the tent to open it, you will see a crafting menu identical to taxidermists and the crafting tent.

Step 4: select which runes you wish to craft. You may only craft one rune at a time, but you may put runes in a queue.

Step 5: go to the commander's tent (middle tent) and assign the Vala to the enchanting tent.

Step 6: camp anywhere and the rune progress will increase, at 100% all runes queued have been crafted. Note that if you queue up 5 runes, you will see the crafting progress climb more slowly as it tracks total time to craft all runes in the queue, not just the one you are currently making.

Step 7: when your rune is completed, it will show up in your camp report screen. **IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A SPACE IN YOUR INVENTORY THE RUNE WILL BE DESTROYED ON COMPLETION.**

#### Enchanter's tent upgrade

* Increases the speed and quality of runes produced
* Found in markets but is rare, normally found in very wealthy cities or from completing caravan contracts that give the destination town "well supplied"

### Other sources of runes

Runes can be obtained from a variety of beasts. Humanoid enemies do not have runes on their equipment.

## Trivia

* Valas will always start at level 1, even with recruit scaling enabled
* It is possible to start with two Valas by choosing the random party origin. However the chance of this happening is exceptionally small.
* The Sisterhood start will always give a Vala on day 1, but locks you out of obtaining another.
* If you lose or break the Vala's staff, you can find another by visiting a settlement with a lumber mill, Vala staffs can be sold in the market, if you are lucky.
* The Vala's dress comes in two styles and is the best underlayer in the game - giving 80 armour for no fatigue cost at all.