Your first rune

  1. After your cave training, Iona in Archer Village teaches a first rune lesson: bring 20 Jellopy, 1 Phracon, 4 Rune Dust and 350 Zeny and she makes a chisel and a lesser rune of your choice with you. Edda in Payon and the Last Lantern in Al De Baran teach it too, under Rune lessons.
  2. Use the chisel from your inventory, or at a Workshop, and choose the item. A first socket opens; your cards and refine stay as they are.
  3. Use the rune from your inventory, or set it at the Workshop. The rune's effect on that exact item is shown before you agree.

One rune, different uses

The receiving item decides what a rune does. Cinder adds fire damage to a weapon or focus and fire resistance to armor; Rime and Gale do the same for water and wind. Every rune's description and the Workshop list one line per kind of equipment, so a name like Anchor never has to be guessed.

Other runes support recovery, Ward, accuracy or the item's own power and protection. Added elemental damage does not convert your whole attack.

Grow your supply

Rune Dust and ordinary runes drop from monsters everywhere, and salvaging equipment or spare runes at a Workshop gives more dust. At the Workshop, two Rune Dust and a small fee make a lesser rune; three matching lesser runes fuse into a standard one, and three standard runes into a greater one.

From level 100, three matching greater runes and a Faint Echo fuse into a Radiant rune, and from monster level 90 about a quarter of the runes that drop are Radiant. Greater specialties open at level 60 with three seals, legendary runes at level 99 with five; both need an Echo from a monster whose guard you broke (see The Workshop).

Plan the whole outfit

  • Body armor and two-handed weapons can hold two rune sockets; other eligible equipment holds one. A Greater Chisel opens an eligible second socket.
  • Ammunition and middle- or lower-only headgear cannot receive rune sockets.
  • Your equipped outfit can have nine opened rune sockets in total, including two across weapons. Empty opened sockets count toward these limits.
  • At most two different legendary runes can be equipped together. Check the item's level and equipment requirements.

Keep a rune for your next upgrade

Replacing a rune hands the old one back to you for a little Rune Dust: 1 for a lesser rune, 3 for a standard, 6 for a greater and 10 for a Radiant, specialty or legendary one. Taking a rune out without replacing it costs the same. At the Workshop you can do it on worn equipment without taking it off.

Runesmiths no longer make Unbinding Tools. One you already have still takes a rune out for free.