Nightmare

Legend of the Five Rings card from The War of Spirits

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Card Text

Reaction: After a Fear action from one of your cards is targeted: Its effects will not be negated by traits.

Focus Value

3

Legality

Four Winds (Gold), Hidden Emperor (Jade)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• Does not automatically cause Fear to bow Personalities. It overrides immunity, not the rule that Fear only affects Followers. [VRD, 8 November 2000] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 26

Rules Q&A

• Q: In a message dated 3/22/01 5:20:53 PM Atlantic Standard Time, writes:
  When I first saw Nightmare I thought this was a card that would allow a player to play fear against a Naga or Shadowlands player. Am I incorrect? Did I misread the card?
  IF you somehow produce a Fear effect that gets applied to Personalities, and IF said Personality is "immune to" or "unaffected by Fear", then, yes, Nightmare will override the immunity. It will not allow normal Fear to bow Personalities.
  If a Nightmare fear does not bow personality immune to fear what "affect" does it have on that personality? Losing it immunity to Fear attacks?
  A: Fear targets one unit and then affects all Followers below a certain force in that unit -- that's how it's defined in the rulebook. That unit's Personality, his Spells and Items, the Personality next to him, the Stronghold of the second player to your right, and all sorts of other things aren't "immune" to that Fear in the game's definition of "immune". Fear doesn't try to bow them in the first place because of how Fear works, not because of text that says "card X is immune to Fear".
  So again, I say: IF you somehow produce a Fear effect that gets applied to Personalities (and there are ways of doing this), and IF said Personality is "immune to" or "unaffected by Fear" (there are also ways of accomplishing this), then, yes, Nightmare will override the immunity. But such situations rarely occur. Jeff Alexander, "Rulings for 24 March 2001", 29 Mar 2001
• Q: Nightmare at first glance seems to make a card that is immune to fear now vunerable to fear. At second glance it appears to say that fear action now does affect the cards immune to fear. Thus a fear 4 with nightmare targeting a unit contianing naga warlord and naga token would bow both of them. However a unit contianing elite light infantry (which is immune), spearman (which is not immune) and Matsu Gohei (who is not immune) targeted by fear 4 with nightmare would bow the spearman and the elite light infantry but not Matsu Gohei. Am I reading this right?
  Nightmare's effects are in addition to the normal effects of Fear.
  I'm sorry I poorly phrased that question. Nightmare says that the Fear it reacts to now affects personalities and followers immune to fear. Fear affects things by bowing them. Does this override the fact that personalities can't be bowed by fear?
  A: No. That's not immunity. Immunity is something explicitly granted, beyond the normal state of affairs. Small Farms are not "immune" to duels, for example, and in that exact same way, Personalities are not naturally immune to Fear. You have to find some other way to make Fear affect Personalities -- then and only then, if that Personality is "immune" to Fear (say, due to being Undead, or being controlled by a Sepulcher of Bone player), will Nightmare matter. Jeff Alexander, "Rulings for 22 January 2001", 25 Jan 2001
• Q: Nightmare at first glance seems to make a card that is immune to fear now vunerable to fear. At second glance it appears to say that fear action now does affect the cards immune to fear. Thus a fear 4 with nightmare targeting a unit contianing naga warlord and naga token would bow both of them. However a unit contianing elite light infantry (which is immune), spearman (which is not immune) and Matsu Gohei (who is not immune) targeted by fear 4 with nightmare would bow the spearman and the elite light infantry but not Matsu Gohei. Am I reading this right?
  A: Nightmare's effects are in addition to the normal effects of Fear. Jeff Alexander, "Rulings for 18 January 2001", 22 Jan 2001
• Q: According to this: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=77154&p=1013374&hilit=Flanked#p1013374 About the "Armor of Heaven's" part.
  The Rules Team says it won't work because it says "another player's target".
  What about Blessed Tessen? It says "another player's ACTION". Does it works?
  A: Yes, Blessed Tessen can react to Flanked by Nightmare's targeting. Unlike Armor of the Heavens, Tessen cares about whose action it is, not who does the targeting. Brook Cunningham, "Flanked by Nightmare vs. Blessed Tessen", 17 Oct 2009