Elements

The **Elements** are the six forces that players can infuse the battlefield with and consume in order to use different abilities, mostly by ranged spellcasters such as the Spellweaver.

## The Six Elements

### Air

Yep, it's that mostly nitrogen gaseous mixture with a tint of oxygen. Also for some reason lightning...even though lightning is caused by negatively charged Ice droplets and positively charged Earth but iunno. I'm just trying to put some incentive for someone to change this page.

### Dark

Ah yes, dark. The absence of light. I dunno why this an element to be honest. It's probably like when physicists just call whatever they think is funky dark matter.

### Earth

Okay, there's like dozens of elements in Earth so I'm not sure why it's classified as one, but hey gotta distinguish Earth carbon from Moon carbon.

### Fire

This straight up isn't an element. Cool combustion/oxidation reaction though.

### Ice

It's water. But solid. Also the only molecular compound to increase in size while freezing. So that's neat.

### Light

Not sure if this an element but there was like a big argument about whether this was matter or energy and I don't wanna dip my toe into that nonsense.

## Board game application

### Infusion

Some abilities and items have an elemental affinity associated with them. If an ability with one of the elemental symbols is played, it will infuse the battlefield with that element at the end of the turn. In the case of infusing Any Element, the player can select any element to infuse. If a monster card has an Any Element infusion present, the element is chosen at random.

When an action or item with an elemental infusion is used, the element will appear in the element tracker in its infusing state. Only at the end of the character's turn will the element infuse into the Strong state. As such, it is not possible to infuse an element and then consume it within the same character's turn - but may be consumed by anyone later in the initiative order of the same round. At the end of the round, Strong elements become Waning, and Waning elements become inert and are no longer available to consume.

### Consuming

Elements in the Strong or Waning state can be consumed to add effects to and augment certain actions.

A consume is represented by one or two elemental symbols each accompanied by an arrow before a colon and an augmentation or ability, indicating that the consumption of those elements is the cost to be paid to yield the effect after the colon.
If an element is consumed this way it is made inert and removed from the element tracker, regardless of whether it was Strong or Waning.
For player characters, use of consumes is optional. Monsters always consume elements for their actions if they can. In the case of Any Elements, they select one from those available at random.

### Official FAQ

These are questions and answers from the official board game FAQ.

**If an Attack has an attached element consumption that grants an effect plus XP (ex: Consume Ice, Stun 1 XP) can you skip the effect and still get the XP? What if the monster dies as part of the Attack?**
**Before you attempt the attack, you chose whether to do the consumption as part of the attack. If you do, you also chose if you want to include the effect as part of the consumption. If you decide to consume the element, you will gain the XP (it is mandatory), even if the monster dies or you decided not to include the Stun.**

**If I consume an element in the strong column, does it go down to waning or all the way down to inert?**
**Whenever an element is consumed, it always moves down to inert, no matter where it started.**

**Can you explain the timing of elemental infusions?**
Yes, the main take-away here is that any elements you create on your turn do not get moved to the strong column until the end of your turn. This means that you cannot create an element (that wasn't already present) and then consume it on the same turn because it won't be available to be consumed until the end of your turn. On the up side, this also means that if an element is already strong or waning at the start of your turn, you can create the element again with your first action, consume the existing element with your second action, and then the element will still go up to strong at the end of your turn even though you just used it.

**If an element consumption is attached to an attack, when can I chose to consume the element?**
Before the attack

**When do you chose which actual element is infused for multi-color element abilities?**
At the end of the turn, when the element is actually infused.

**When a monster's initiative comes up and the monsters consume or infuse an element as part of their ability card, do they each consume/infuse an element as they take their individual turns or do they consume/infuse the element as a group?**
**They consume/infuse the element as a group when the 1st monster takes their turn, with all the currently revealed monsters of that type gaining any benefit. However, if new monsters of that type are later revealed, they would need to consume the element again to gain the benefit (assuming it is available).**

**If a monster's element consumption is attached to another ability (typically Attack) and doesn't perform that ability, is the element consumed?**
No

1. ↑ Gloomhaven Digital Game - How to Play - Elements - Infusing Elements.
2. ↑ Gloomhaven Digital Game - How to Play - Elements - Consuming Elements.