I have a question about these two cards:

Starfall Merchant
STR 2 ( I ) House Dayne. After you kneel Starfall Merchant to pay an influence cost, discard it from play (cannot be saved). [3 INF]

Fallen and Reborn
Response: After a House Dayne character is killed, kneel 2 influence to put another House Dayne character into play from your hand.

So the obviuos question is here: if I choose to kill Merchant for MIL claim, can I use his INF to pay for fallen and reborn? I ask because normaly you could use it but here it would change the Merchants moribund status from moribund-kill to moribund-discard which is not allowed. So I am asking if it is possible to do this (even thought the character would still go moribung-kill) or I cant event try to do it since changing a moribund state is not allowed.

Rozy said:

I'm not sure, but I think this is allowed. You do not try to discard him, you just pay influence. Then, Merchant's passive effect just fizzle.

Rogue30 said:

Yep, you're right.

You can pay the influence cost of Fallen and Reborn with Starfall Merchant after Starfall Merchant is killed. Discarding Stargfall Merchant is not a cost for using it as influence. It's a passive effect that takes place after you use Starfall Merchant as influence. However, since it's already moribund, Starfall Merchant cannot and will not be discarded. Starfall Merchant will end up in your dead pile since it was killed.

The trick here is that you don't have to discard him to pay the influence, discarding him is a resul t of paying the influence.

His moribund status cannot be changed, and you are not allowed to try to do so by removing him from play a second time. So discarding him will not be successful. But you do not need the discard to be successful in order to pay the influence, so that part still works - assuming he was standing when he died for military claim.