I my running Season 6 Adventure playing as Harsk (Core) I had decided to pick up Aerilaya as an ally, only to later realize, that there are some fine differences in wording, hich make the card almost useless to me at least.
Here is Aerilaya and another Ally 5 card form the curse set for comparison
Aerilaya:
Display. While displayed:
On local combat or Constitution checks, add 1d6.
At the end of the turn, banish.
Bury to explore; you may bury a weapon to reload instead.
Lyrune-quah Moon Maiden:
Display. While displayed:
On all combat and Fortitude checks, add 1d6.
At the end of the turn, recharge.
Discard to examine the top card of your location, then you may explore. This exploration, on all combat and Fortitude checks, add 3.
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Display to get 1d6 on all checks of a turn is pretty standard at that level.
But while the moon maiden gets recharged and can therefore be used multiple times, Aerilaya, gets not discarded or buried, but outright banished. And while Con Checks is a bit broader than Fortitude its not even a better bonus than the comparable card.
Banish hurts especially, given that it is a level 5 card, so even at level 6 I cannot get it back without spending another deck upgrade. I would call that a real ouch, rendering that power completely useless. Or at least I have not dared to use this power until now.
But even the second one is in my reckoning strictly weaker than the Moonseeker.
To fuel exploration you bury instead of Discard. You might decide to bury other cards instead, which means you can probably use it one or two additioanl times, but with a normal amount of healing that is also true for a discarded card. And the buroed weapons cannot be healed either.
And again the Exploration bonur with the moon maiden is actually strictly higher than Aerilaya this time.
Looking at all this together I have mostly just used the card as fuel for my recharge to add 1d6 power and I am seriously consdiering changing it back to a Lower level ally that I can actually use. But before I do that, what is the hidden strength of that card I ammissing here?
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
You aren’t missing anything power-wise; the banish is there for flavor.
Curse of the Crimson Throne story spoilers:
Aerilaya is an enemy in the AP and was one of Kazavon’s court spellcasters before being assassinated by a cousin, turning into a banshee in the process. She haunts Castle Scarwall now and harbors an intense hatred for orcs; this hatred got her exiled from her elven homeland of Kyonin as she went on murdering sprees of half-orcs there. The RPG adventure hints that canny players can use this fact to play her against the other residents of the castle as they assault it, but any such tactics would necessarily only be temporary until she finds out that she has been tricked. While she doesn’t need to be killed in the RPG, it would be exceedingly difficult to make it all the way through Castle Scarwall without her attacking the party at some point in time, and she is quite a dangerous foe to keep around.
