Ill Tidings and the Hourglass

[Longshot11]

Ill Tidings:
"Encounter the top card of the hourglass. If you fail a check against it, banish it... Otherwise, this barrier is defeated."

What would happen if the top Hourglass in NOT in fact a Blessing? What if it's, say, a scenario bane - do you just get to banish the nasty card from your hourglass?

Also, what if I DO succeed in my encounter? Do I get to draw the Blessing or do I have to return it back to the Hourglass? When I encounter a boon - RAW logic dictates I should draw it; on the other hand - I'm *specifically* instructed that I should banish it if I fail the CtA - which should be implicit in the failed boon encounter anyway, so it makes me think there's something fishy going on here...

[Frencois]

Good one.

Actually my first thought is that the fact that it clearly says "banish" and not let the "standard" outcome of an "encounter" to happen is indeed to manage non-boons encounters in the Hourglass (else as your clearly pointed at, "implicit" would be enough).
Which pushes towards saying yes to your first point: RAW if you fail a check against the card (even if villain....), you banish it.
Which raise an interesting collateral effect: you didn't defeat the villain. So hopefully, if a scenario needs you to defeat a villain that may be in the Hourglass, the storybook would be written in a way that overrides the Tidings.

[Vic Wertz]

We think we want this:

Examine the top card of the hourglass. If it’s a boon, encounter it and if you do not acquire it, this barrier is undefeated. Otherwise, this barrier is defeated.

See any problems there?

[Longshot11]

Vic Wertz wrote:

We think we want this:

Examine the top card of the hourglass. If it’s a boon, encounter it and if you do not acquire it, this barrier is undefeated. Otherwise, this barrier is defeated.

See any problems there?

Potentially, if the top card is a Story Bane with a trigger - which would still make you encounter it and potentially banish it (on win), or leave you in limbo (if undefeated), as there's no instruction what to do with undefeated banes NOT from a location (the Trigger makes you fight the actual card, not a summoned copy).

I believe for the above reasons, any similar effects actually target "the top blessing in the hourglass" (or perhaps "boon" in this card's case) - so you expressly start looking down the horglass card by card but WITHOUT examining.

[zeroth_hour2]

Well, you can examine and ignore all triggers associated with it (which is a wording that exists)

[Frencois]

Something wrong with :
Search the hourglass for a boon, encounter it and if you do not acquire it, this barrier is undefeated. Otherwise, this barrier is defeated.
?

[Longshot11]

Frencois wrote:

Something wrong with :

Search the hourglass for a boon, encounter it and if you do not acquire it, this barrier is undefeated. Otherwise, this barrier is defeated.
?

It will pretty much preclude scenarios where a story bane is expected to be in specific place within the hourglass. I seem to remember such scenarios existing ("Put a dragon 5 cards from top, when flipped encounter it, then return it 5 cards from top,,,") but my memory could be wrong.

[Vic Wertz]

If there's a Trigger story bane in the hourglass, we most likely WANT that trigger to go off when you examine it. (But in Resolve the Encounter, we do need to change “shuffle the bane back into its location” to “shuffle the bane back into its stack.")

[Frencois]

That would be a simple fix.