As introduced in the “Domains” section of chapter 1, your active domain cards grant you special abilities or spells. Unless a domain card states otherwise, you can use it as many times as you wish, for as long as it remains in your loadout.

Loadout and Vault

You can have a maximum of five active domain cards in your loadout at any one time. Your subclass, ancestry, and community cards don’t count toward that limit and are always active. At lower levels, you won’t have enough cards that you need to make selections, but once you have six or more domain cards, you need to choose which to keep in your loadout and which to store in your vault.

Cards in your loadout can be held in your hand, placed on the table next to your character sheet, or made accessible through other means. Do whatever makes it easiest to use them. Any cards in your loadout are considered active, and you’re free to use them during play.

Your vault holds any domain cards that are inactive and not currently in your loadout. Vault cards should be kept somewhere out of the way, but close enough that they’re available if they need to be accessed during a session if you want to swap them into your loadout. A few features require you to permanently place a card in your vault. When this happens, that card is removed from play. You can’t move such a card back into your loadout by any means, nor can you choose it again when you gain a level.

Swapping Cards

When you start a rest, you can swap cards between your loadout and your vault. You must do so before you use any downtime moves. If you have fewer than five cards in your loadout, you can add cards from your vault to your loadout until you have five active cards.

When you’re not resting, you can still swap cards into your loadout, but it’s stressful to do so! To immediately switch a card from your vault to your loadout, mark a number of Stress equal to the vaulted card’s Recall Cost (located in the top right of the card next to the lightning bolt symbol). When you do, switch it for another domain card in your loadout and place that card into your vault. If you currently have fewer than five domain cards in your loadout, you can pay the Recall Cost and place a card from your vault into your loadout without trading out a card for it.

Swapping When You Level Up

If your loadout is full when you level up and gain a new card, you can immediately move one of your active cards into your vault and add the new card to your loadout at no cost.

Usage Limits

Some domain cards have an exhaustion limit that restricts how often you can use that card (for example, once per long rest). If you use that card, you’ll need a way to remember that it’s temporarily unavailable. You might choose to take that card out of your hand and place it face down on the table, turn it on its side or upside down, or any other method to remind yourself that you’ve already used it. If a card allows for a certain number of uses, you could add a token to it each time you activate it to keep track of how many times you’ve used it.

Adding Tokens to Cards

A feature might ask you to add a number of tokens to a domain card. When you do, put the card on the table, grab the appropriate number of character tokens, and place them on the card. These tokens are used to track certain effects, but they don’t affect your ability to add tokens to your roll to represent your modifiers, or anything else you might need to use them for. If you still have tokens on your card at the end of a session and aren’t told to clear them, ensure you track the number you have left to place back on that card at the beginning of the next session.

Tip: Some spells or abilities remain in effect once you activate them. Unless stated otherwise, this does not prevent you from activating another spell or ability—you can use two (or more) at the same time.