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Nowhere Prophet - Guide Book

By jaeger   /   Jul 20, 2019     Guides
Nowhere Prophet - Guide Book

This is a 1:1 copy of the in-game rule book. You can not reference the in-game rule book without returning to the main menu, so I have created this guide for easier reference. I hope this guide will help you survive the wastes.


To reach the Crypt you will have to travel across the dangerous face of Soma. Your goal is to reach the next milestone on the map.

Travelling Costs

Each day of travel costs food and hope. This means that it's important that you keep your stock of food and your level of hope in mind. Food you get is automatically added to your stores, but to increase hope you need to make camp and share luxury items with your followers.

If you run out of resources you can still travel, but with every step your followers will starve and desert you and your prophet will take damage.

Make note of the difficult terrain (desert, mountains or swamps) on the road. These regions are indicated on the map by the colored roads.

Travelling further from the center road means you're more likely to discover new routes and places or rare equipment. This goes double for difficult terrain: few others have braved these tough areas and there are rare dangers and great rewards to be found there.

Damage & Healing

Damage suffered by your prophet or wounds taken by your followers remain even after combat. To heal you will have to find campsites and other places to rest.

Here you can spend food to heal your followers or your leader, but be aware that each camp only has a limited opportunity to heal available. You will have to decide whether to heal yourself or your followers.

Map Nodes

The map shows the nodes on your journey and what they promise:


Crossroads are the basic nodes. Here anything can happen.


Safe places to quickly rest and heal - here no surprises, bad or otherwise, await you.


These are spots where food or trade goods can be found.


Here a strong enemy has made their home. Crossing through there will get you into a fight, and a tough one at that. If you prevail you will get more experience and better rewards.


Villages, trading posts and other places. Here you can sell your valuables or buy new resources and equipment.


These places are safe and have other amenities to help you recuperate. Go here to heal your people.


Gurus and saints can teach you more about your technopathic abilities. Reach a teacher to learn a new card for your prophet.


These places are great sources to find new followers. Go here to recruit new people to your cause.


These locations are mysteries. They are often dangerous but you can travel here to discover their secrets.


These are important places on your journey. They are good places to rest and restock before undertaking the next leg of your pilgrimage.


These are rare and always triggered by events in the game. They mark the next step in a special mission.


As you travel you will inevitably run into trouble. Maybe it's bandits holding up your caravan, or a mysterious transmission from a machine mind. Whatever it is, you're the convoy's leader so you decide what to do.

Events can lead to fights and they can change your convoy. Your followers may be wounded or healed, you can be rewarded with resources, equipment or new recruits. Some rare events will even unlock new starting convoys or prophet classes to start the game with.

Risking Followers

Some events will ask you to risk your followers. These actions have a chance to succeed based on the follower. Rarer followers have a better chance, and in some cases specific keywords improve the chance even more.

If such an action fails the follower usually takes at least a wound, if not worse.


To decide what to do during an event, simply select one of the available options. Some options have costs that need to be paid and can only be selected if you have appropriate resources.

Other options are only available if your convoy fulfills specific conditions, such as a minimum number of followers or of a specific mindset.


A Mindset represents the general attitude and culture within the convoy.

Decisions and actions you take can increase or weaken your convoy's belief in a certain mindset. If your score in a mindset is high enough it will allow you to select special options in some events.


This shows how giving and open your convoy is.


This shows how spiritual and religious your convoy is.


This shows how much your convoy is driven by curiosity and their desire to understand.


The prophet is the leader and heart of your convoy.

If your leader falls to 0 health, then the game is over. Your followers will abandon your cause and your caravan will disband.

Cards & Leader Deck

To prevent an early demise, your prophet has a set of cards that make up your Leader Deck. These cards are mostly action cards that give you access to special effects. For example: They may allow you to directly damage enemies, strengthen your own units or draw cards.

Leader cards can also contain construct units as well. These are units that are put into play like followers but can't attack or move, featuring special abilities instead.

The starting leader deck is defined by the class of your prophet.

Levelling & Experience

As you travel and fight your prophet will gain experience points. Once you have earned enough experience points you can spend batteries to level up. This will increase the health of your prophet and allows you to both add a new card to your Leader Deck and remove one.

The cards available are dependent on the class and level of your prophet. As your level rises the available cards get progressively rarer. The rarity of a card can be seen in the little wedge underneath the cost.

  • Common (White)
  • Rare (Blue)
  • Legendary (Purple)
  • Mythic (Gold)

Once your prophet has reached level 10 no further levelling is possible.

Equipment, Powers, & Effects

Your prophet can also carry useful items into battle.

Outside of battle you can freely equip and unequip items. Each item equipped grants special powers and effects to your leader.

However your prophet only has a limited set of item slots available but as you level up this number will increase. There are two different kinds of items:


Tools are items that have a very active impact on combat. When equipped, these weapons and other items grant access to active powers.

An active power can be used once each combat but it exhausts your leader. So even if you have access to multiple powers you can only use one of them each turn. Also note that scrapping exhausts your leader as well.


Gear are pieces of equipment that play a more passive role. These items grant passive effects while equipped.

A passive effect is applied directly to your leader at the start of combat and their duration can vary. Higher level items often provide more durable effects.


You can also dismantle equipment instead of using it. This adds the card contained within the piece of equipment to your leader deck.

To do this simply open the item details and click the dismantle button.


Followers are the lifeblood of your convoy.


Deck Building



Recruiting & Rarities





Wounds & Death







Fights are resolved through a turn-based card game. Both sides have a leader that brings the cards with them. The goal is to reduce the opposing leader to zero health.

Playing Cards

When it's your turn, you can play cards from your two decks (Convoy Deck and Leader Deck). To play a card you have to pay its Energy cost, which can be found in the blue hexagon on its upper left.

You start each fight with 3 convoy cards, 2 leader cards and 3 Energy.

At the start of each following turn your maximum Energy increases by 1 and is refilled. You also draw one card from each deck. You can h old a total of 6 convoy cards and 4 leader cards. Cards and other effects can increase or reduce your Energy and make your draw or discard cards.

If you would draw a card when the relevant deck is empty, you lose 2 health. If you would draw a card while your hand is full, then nothing happens.

Using Units

To win your fights you will have to put your followers into play.

Playing a convoy card (or some leader cards) will put a unit on the battlefield. All units have two values: Attack and Health. Attack is how much damage that unit does when attack, Health is a measure of how much damage they can take before they are destroyed.

Exhausted & Refreshed

When a unit enters play it starts out exhausted. Exhausted units cannot move or attack. This means that units that have just entered battle cannot act immediately.

At the start of your turn all your units are refreshed. They can now act. Refreshed units all show a yellow triangle so you can quickly tell which ones can act. After a unit has acted it becomes exhausted again until the start of your next turn.

Attacking & Moving

During your turn your units can act in any order.

You can move any of your units to a new position. Simply drag the unit onto a free tile on your side. The unit does not need a free path to the target tile and there's no maximum move distance.

If the unit is the first in its row (seen from the center of the battlefield) then it's in the frontline. This means it can attack instead of move. to attack, drag the unit onto the enemy leader or onto a legal unit target.

If your unit attacks the enemy leader, it simply deals damage equal to its attack to that leader. If it attacks an enemy unit, then both attacker and target do damage to each other.

Positioning & Targeting

A unit's position on the battlefield determines whether it can attack or be attacked.

Only the first unit in each row, starting from the center of the screen, is considered to be on the frontline. These units can attack or be attacked by enemy units. Units that are in position to attack show a set of spikes at the front of their circle. This helps you identify threats more easily.

Units that are hidden behind other units or obstacles are protected from direct attack by other units. Be aware that attacks from leader cards are not restricted by these targeting rules. They can target any unit on the battlefield.

While placing a unit, all the tiles that would cause this unit to be in the frontline show a crossed swords icon.

Object Types

There are different types of targets found on the battlefield:


Followers are the men and women following you on your pilgrimage. This is the most common type of unit. Followers are normally created by cards from the convoy deck, but there are other conditions that may create them.

There are also special groups of followers, like Beasts and Drones. These behave just like regular followers but some cards may refer to them specifically.


Constructs are non-living creations, either fashioned through technopathy out of pure energy or useful equipment brought on your journey. Constructs cannot move or attack but usually have some special ability to make up for that.


Obstacles are just that: Obstacles. These objects are on the battlefield but are not controlled by either side. Most obstacles have no special abilities and simply provide cover, tighten the battlefield or prevent frontline access.

But there are obstacles that can be hazardous or provide advantages: Some deal damage to neighboring tiles when damaged others may provide a positive boost when destroyed...


Trigger Keywords

These keywords are present on u nit cards and describe effects that are triggered when certain conditions are met.


The effects of this card are triggered when the unit is played onto the battlefield.


The effects of this unit are triggered whenever its owner plays a leader card.


The effects of this unit are triggered when the unit is destroyed.

Effect Keywords

These keywords describe effects caused by cards.


A unit affected by blackout loses all keywords, card text and applied status effects.


Move unit to the front of its row and move any other affects units in this row one step backwards.


Move unit to the back of its row and move any other affected units in this row one step forward.


A stunned unit loses the Stun status instead of refreshing at the start of their next turn. While stunned a unit does not deal damage in retaliation.

Follower Keywords

These keywords are special abilities of followers and other units.


When attacking: Deal 1 damage to all the target's neighbors. This unit can target empty tiles.


The next time this unit would take damage remove the Barrier instead.


Unit can attack or move immediately after entering battle.


The unit immediately behind a frontline unit with Cover can attack unobstructed.

First Strike

When attacking with enough damage to kill the target, the first strike unit doesn't suffer retaliation damage.


When attacking an enemy unit, all damage beyond the target's health rolls over to the next unit in the row, or the leader if no unit is present.


Destroys followers damaged by this unit.


If unit attacks and destroys its target follower, refresh rage unit.


If unit would be killed through damage and can be moved back one tile, it will be moved and healed back up to 1 health instead.


Unit cannot be targeted by enemy leader cards.


Unit can attack, even if it is not in a frontline position.


Unit can't be attacked by enemy units and can attack all enemy units regardless of position. Lasts until this unit takes damage.


When this unit's effect triggers, it suffers -0/-1.


Unit becomes the exclusive target for enemy attacks as long as it's in a frontline position.

Targeting Keywords

These keywords describe how and what an effect targets on the battlefield.


A target is anything on the battlefield: A leader, a follower, a construct, or an obstacle.


A unit specifically refers to a follower or construct.


This refers to an individual slot on the battlefield, whether someone or something is placed within it or not.


A row is the horizontal line of tiles on one side of the battlefield.


A column is the vertical line of battlefield tiles.

Neighboring Tiles

The up to four tiles to the top, bottom, left and right of a tile are considered its neighbors.

Strategy Tips

A few handy pointers to help you succeed.

Travel Tips

Plan ahead to ensure you don't run out of food. Fights against beasts are generally a great source of food.

Card Management

Card replacement at the start of a fight can be vital. Think about your first few turns with the cards ahead of you and replace anything that's either not very good or immediately usable.

As the combat continues don't forget that you can scrap a card each turn. That will discard the card but it will allow you to potentially draw more useful cards quicker.

Your leader hand has only room for 4 cards. It quickly fills up, then no new cards will be drawn. If you hand is full consider playing a cheap card so you can redraw next turn.

Combat Positioning

Positioning is key in combat. There are a few ways to use this to your advantage:

Units that have passive effects (such as constructs) are best placed behind cover. This makes it harder for the enemy to get rid of them.

Hide a stronger unit behind a weaker one to force the enemy to attack the weak one first. And even if the weak on survives into your turn, you can move it away or sacrifice it in an attack to allow the stronger unit behind it to come out and attack.

Place a unit behind an obstacle. Then during your next turn, when the unit can act, destroy the obstacle in front of it to allow it to attack the enemy.

Deck Building

When adjusting during your Convoy Deck, you may want to rotate out important wounded followers, so you don't run the risk of losing them.

Keep the different costs of your cards in mind. If it trends too far downward you will not be able to play strong cards in the later phases of combat. If it trends too far upwards you are likely to have nothing to play at the start of a combat.

You can also try to adapt your Convoy Deck to the expected length of the fight. For shorter fights, about 15 cards are a good size. With a smaller deck you are more likely to get the cards you actually want. However, if the fight goes longer, you run the risk of running out of convoy cards.

Try to adapt your Convoy Deck to your leader cards. Look for combo potential between those two and recruit or dismantle accordingly.
Written by jaeger.