Runes

A rune is a small tablet you thread onto your Cord. Each one does one simple thing, and a spell is simply the runes in its sockets, read from left to right. There are 756 of them.

The four families

Every rune belongs to a family, and you can tell the family from the tablet’s shape:

Family	Tablet	What it does	Examples
Shape	Round	Decides where the spell goes and who it touches. Starts a new group.	Self, Bolt, Beam, Burst, Zone, Orbit, Domain
Effect	Eight-sided gem	Decides what happens to whatever the shape hit.	Fire, Heal, Freeze, Blink, Stasis, Swap
Modifier	Rounded square	Changes the closest rune on its left that it can change.	Amplify, Extend, Widen, Split, Homing, Rapid
Link	Hexagon	Ends a segment: everything after it happens later or somewhere else.	On Hit, Delay, Echo, Pulse, On Hurt, Combo

A rune’s colour tells you more: shapes are teal, modifiers gold, links violet, and each effect wears its element’s colour. How the families fit together is on How a Spell Is Read.

Tiers

Runes come in four tiers. A Cord can only fire runes up to its own tier, so better runes need a better Cord.

Tier	Needs	How you get them
I	any Cord	Crafted from a Blank Rune and a few items
II	a Copper Cord or better	Crafted, plus 2 Lapis Lazuli and a Gold Ingot
III	an Amethyst Cord or better	Crafted, plus a Mana Crystal and a Diamond; tier III runes shimmer
IV	an Echo Cord	Never crafted: from bosses, dungeon vaults and rare structures; tier IV runes pulse with light

Learning a rune

A rune item is only a tablet until you learn it: hold it and use it (right-click) to add it to your Codex. Once learned, it’s yours for good, and you can thread it into as many spells as you like. A spare copy is still useful: trade it to a Runesmith, or rank it up at the Fusion Altar.

Finding runes: the Catalog

There are a lot of runes. To find the one you need, open the Rune Catalog from your Cord screen: click Catalog at the right of the chips row, or press Ctrl+B.

• Search: just type (or press Ctrl+F). It finds a rune by its name, element, category, family and use. Words of four letters or more also match the text you can already read. A rune you haven’t read yet is found by its name and hint only.
• Filters: Family, Element, and Use (Combat, Support, Farming, Fishing, Mining, Building, Exploring, Travel, Passive). Show picks the runes you know, every rune, only those your Cord holds, or those you’re still reading. Runes you haven’t learned show only their hint.
• Sort by group, name, tier or cost. Turn pages with the arrows, the mouse wheel or Page Up/Page Down.
• Pick a rune to see its text and what it’s for. Goes well with lists shapes, effects, modifiers and links from your Codex that make a spell with it, by the same rules the Cord uses: a modifier is listed only if it works on that rune. Click one to look at it. Show in Cord (or a double-click) takes you back with the Codex searched for it.

The Catalog keeps your search and filters until you close the game.

The whole guide, with every filter and key: Rune Catalog.

Runes for everyday life

Not every rune is for fighting. Six everyday packs (hearth, Tide, farmstead, delving, Wayfarer’s and support) help with farming, fishing, mining, building, exploring and looking after your friends, and none of them deals damage. See Everyday Rune Packs for what each pack does and where to find it. The Catalog’s Use filter finds them too. Some examples:

• Farming: Berrybless ripens berry bushes, Compost fills a composter from your pack, Bakehouse bakes bread and pie, and Barnwarmth heals your farm animals and pets.
• Fishing: Angler’s Lure halves the wait for a bite, Bobber Bell rings when a fish bites, and Bait Blessing gives you Luck for better catches.
• Mining: Deepsound tells you the nearest ore below and how deep, and Deepwarn warns you of lava below or a long drop ahead.
• Building: Chalk Line measures the length and rise from you to a point.
• Exploring: Starchart tells you where you are and how far spawn is, and Ruin Sense points you to the nearest trail ruins.
• Support: Beastguard protects your pet, mount or a farm animal, and Air Pocket refills your air.

Modifiers can fit these runes to the job: Magnetic pulls items to you, Sowing plants seeds on bare farmland, and Ore Sensing makes nearby ores glimmer.

Passive runes can sit in a passive slot and work on their own, without casting. Deepwarn is one. In the Catalog, pick Use: Passive to see them all.

Fishing for runes

Runes come up on a fishing line too. In open water, about 4 treasure catches in 11 are a rune (Luck of the Sea makes treasure likelier), mostly runes of water, frost and storm, and now and then Tidehook or Current, two runes found nowhere else. Where magic runs strong at the bobber (under a mana storm, on a ley line, in a thunderstorm) a rune can come up tangled in the line on top of your catch. The whole guide, with every chance: Fishing.

Special runes

• Runes of the World: 53 runes that can’t be crafted, each found only in its own places.
• Fused Runes: 55 runes made at the Fusion Altar, one for every pair of elements, and 16 signature fusions, each made from two particular runes.
• Innate Runes: 10 runes that wake in a caster’s heart; you get exactly one.
• Knots: a whole spell tied into a single rune at the Fusion Altar. See Knots.

Reading a rune’s entry

Each rune on these pages shows:

• its tier, element and what it’s for (helps allies, harms enemies, moves you or works on the world),
• its mana cost (for a modifier, how much it multiplies the cost of what it changes),
• which Cord it needs,
• what it does, with the numbers at normal strength (Amplify, charging and your Heart Circles make it stronger),
• how to get it, and
• which modifiers work on it.