Disney Lorcana Explains Location Cards

Disney Lorcana has a new kind of card, adding a new mechanic and more strategy to the game. Yesterday, Ravensburger hosted a Discord Q&A session with Steve Warner, the lead game designer of Disney Lorcana, to explain the basics of Location cards. Location cards will make their debut in Disney Lorcana's third set Into the Inklands, bringing iconic Disney locations to the game. Only one Location card has been revealed so far – the Forbidden Mountain – Maleficent's Castle seen below, which features a few new symbols that hadn't appeared on any other Disney Lorcana set yet. 

Location cards are "glimmers," meaning they they have an ink cost like any other card in Disney Lorcana, and they immediately enter play "exerted" and active. Each Location has a Move cost (shown on the left-hand side of the card, a 1 in the case of Forbidden Mountain) that a player can pay to move one of their Characters to that Location. Notably, a Character doesn't need to be "dry" in order to move to a Location (so a player can play a Character and immediately move it to a Location) nor does moving a Character to a location exert it. While Forbidden Mountain doesn't have any additional effects that would give a Character benefits to moving there, some Character cards in Into the Inklands have abilities that are triggered by moving to a Location, while some Locations provide additional benefits to Characters that are on that Location.

Location cards also have a specialized Lore symbol located on the right-hand of the card that players earn automatically at the start of their turn. So, the more Location cards a player has in play, the more Lore they gain automatically. Players do not need to have a character at a Location to earn that Location Lore at the start of a turn – it is generated automatically.

Every Location also has a Willpower amount, which represents the amount of damage it can take before its banished. Locations can be challenged like Character cards, but they don't deal any damage to the opposing character during the challenge. Characters who are at a Location when it's banished in a challenge don't face any consequences – for instance, they aren't banished alongside the Location. Warner also pointed out that earlier Disney Lorcana cards were built with Locations in mind, which is why some rules specifically mention Character cards (such as Bodyguard characters) while others do not (such as Reckless characters.) 

While Locations will be a feature of Into the Inklands, Warner mentioned during his Q&A session that they won't be limited to just this set. We'll also likely see more Locations and cards that interact with Locations in the coming weeks as Into the Inklands starts its spoiler season. 

Into the Inklands will be released starting in February 2024.