After reading the explanation of Shadow Soul in the Altar of Despair rules, I want to clarify something. I asked it on bgg but that forum is largely dead. Here's what the rules say:

At the start of its owner’s
turn, the Shadow Soul’s owner may either:
A) Swap places with the Shadow Soul,
B) Move the Shadow Soul to an empty space adjacent to
the owner, or
C) Do nothing with the Shadow Soul.

Am I correct in assuming that C) Do nothing with the Shadow Soul really means 'The Shadow Soul can move anywhere he wants with his 5 movement points"? I'm sure that's how it is, but if you interpret the rules a certain way, it makes it sound like the Shadow Soul can never be farther than 5 spaces away from his owner, at least not by moving on his own.

Of course you can move the Soul away as far as you like - five spaces after each of the owner´s turns, even if he picks A) or B). That´s one of whole points of that familiar - moving it behind enemy lines and then jumping into their backs!

Think of it this way:

The rules state that familiars move and take their turn after the hero who controls them. This particular ability of Shadow Soul is done at the start of the hero's turn, but it doesn't overwrite SS's normal turn afterward. The regular movement happens after the hero moves, regardless of which option is chosen here.

What Steve-O said exactly.

Veinman said:

That's odd; in my experience, questions posted there usually get a prompt response, and there's typically several threads per week. Also, I can't find your question there. Where/when exactly did you post it?

It's in the Altar of Despair forum, which sees quite a bit less activity than the JitD forum. I bumped an older thread about the shadow soul.

That's a problem on BGG, because if you bump an old thread, it doesn'tshow up on the game's main front page by default. Threads remain sorted by the date of the first post, unless you change the sorting to "Active". To get an answer there, you need to post in a recent thread or start a new one.

I heartily recommend ignoring the expansion forums and just posting questions in the JitD forum, even if they pertain to an expansion. Unless there's some official BGG policy prohibiting that.

Separating posts by expansion isn't really useful, because there's too much overlap; and even if it were, there's not enough total activity to justify that many divisions.

EDIT: Blah. Need to read faster.

ack. Itchy triggger finger. Forgive my double-postage.