Runes are items that can be found through treasure chests or purchase within the Mushroom Shop. Runes, by itself, are rather worthless. They do paltry amounts of damage, and have sub-par effects. However, when utilized in crafting, they can turn a good weapon, into a godly weapon.

So far, I've found a total of 5 runes:

• Aether
  
• Fire
  
• Ice
  
• Poison
  
• Vigor

And they all do different things when crafted together, but I'll go over those in the Runestone Weapons section. For now, here's what they all do respectively...

Aether Rune

Damage: 1
DPS: 0.7
Range: 18
+5 Damage against Fire foes (D).

Fire Rune

Damage: 1
DPS: 0.7
Range: 18
+5 Damage against Ice foes (D).

Ice Rune

Damage: 1
DPS: 0.7
Range: 18
+5 Damage against Poison foes (D).

Poison Rune

Damage: 1
DPS: 0.7
Range: 18
+5 Damage against Vigor foes (D).

Vigor Rune

Damage: 1
DPS: 0.7
Range: 18
+5 Damage against Aether foes (D).

Pretty crappy, right? Well, head on over to the next section to find out how to improve it and your weapons.

Runestone Items are a result of mixing Runes and Stone Wands + Other Materials. In your crafting book, they simply call it a Runestone Item, but in reality there are 6 types of Runestone Items, one for each Rune type and one for Stone Items themselves. When you craft a Runestone Item, you will see a letter indicating what it does in the top left of the item box. Below is an example of an item and it's effects.


Vigor Staff (aL); Also known as a Vigor Runestone Staff (aL).

So what do the letters indicate? I actually haven't found a difference between an uppercase or a lowercase version of the item; so here it is below.

• Aa = Armor
  
• Dd = Damage
  
• Ff = Fire
  
• H = Healing
  
• Ii = Ice (applies Chill)
  
• L = Lifesteal (inaptly named); see later sections.
  
• Pp = Poison (also inaptly named); see later sections.
  
• U = Unmake

Armor: Armor allows you to create a shield that generates overtime to the maximized value specified on the item. This is only applied on things with a base armor value, which includes weapons that requires a shield to be crafted; i.e. War Hammer.

Damage: Damage gives a boost to the base damage (and in turn, also increases DPS) to a specific type of enemy. This is only applied to things that do not have a base armor value.

Fire: Fire applies x damage over time (DoT), depending on the rarity/star level of your item.

Healing: x% chance to heal x amount when receiving damage. This is only applied on things with a base armor value.

Ice/Chill: Slows down the movement speed and attack speed of the enemy by a certain amount.

Lifesteal: This is inaptly named. You would think that you would heal for a % of damage dealt; as that is how it is usually defined in other games. In this game however, you do not heal for a % of damage dealt. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not. In this game, lifesteal grants you x% to heal for 1 HP on hit.

Poison: As mentioned before, this is also inaptly named. You would think that you would deal a % of max HP DoT; as that is how it is usually defined in other games. In this game however, you do not have a DoT. In this game, poison reduces your enemy's damage value per stack. Max stack varies depending on who is the user.

Unmake: Unmake is x% chance to instantly-kill your enemy. I'm not sure if it works on bosses or not, I have yet to test it out.

So what does this all mean for you? Well... It just simply means that if you want to get a specific effect, like an Aether Sword (dU), you have to craft a certain way, otherwise you might get an Aether Sword (D).

Originally posted by Osmiux:

UPDATE: Well it seems like the first theory was disproven, and that's okay. This is why we do rigorous testing and methodology. The next thing that I could think of testing is if what DAY it is affects what is crafted, as many things change along the time change. So, for now we need to see if it changes depending on the numbered day or the weekday just as a theory.

Stone Wand + Aether Rune = Aether Wand (du)
Stone Wand + Fire Rune = Fire Wand (df)
Stone Wand + Ice Rune = Ice Wand (di)
Stone Wand + Poison Rune = Poison Wand (dp)
Stone Wand + Vigor Rune = Vigor Wand (dL)

Aether Rune + Stone Wand = Aether Wand (D)
Fire Rune + Stone Wand = Fire Wand (df)
Ice Rune + Stone Wand = Ice Wand (di)
Poison Rune + Stone Wand = Poison Wand (dp)
Vigor Rune + Stone Wand = Vigor Wand (D)

Originally posted by Dave~:

i just spent an hour messing around with my system date and crafting things, i can safely say that the date DOES impact the crafting of AT LEAST runestaves.

DISCLAIMER: Remember that this is all a theory. The game is not only in early access, but also no one else has worked on the advanced crafting portion of their guides as well. It may work like this, it may not.

Now that you've reached the end, you can follow any one of these links to the other guides that I've made.

Crafting Book Recipes

Potion Brewing

Runes & Advanced Crafting (You are here!)