- For rune references in other Dragon Age titles, see Runes.
Runecrafting is a skill that allows the creation of weapon runes and armor runes. These runes can be inserted into Weapons and Armor to give a bonus to that item. It is only available to characters in the Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening expansion.
Tiers[]
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The character has learned basic techniques of lyrium inscription, allowing the creation of simple runes. | ||
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The character has discovered more precise methods for tracing ancient symbols, allowing the creation of intricate second-tier runes. | ||
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The character has delved deeply into the histories of early Tevinter images, allowing the creation of powerful third-tier runes. | ||
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The character has become one of Ferelden's foremost scholars on iconography, allowing the creation of exacting fourth-tier runes. |
Tracing acquisition[]
The following table outlines where to find/purchase the rune tracings for each rune type.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bug: Masterpiece and Paragon level Hale and Dweomer Runes are erroneously classified as Armor Runes, however resistance bonuses are still granted normally.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Bug: Masterpiece and Paragon level Cold Iron and Silverite Runes are erroneously classified as Armor Runes. These effects do not trigger as Armor Runes, making them useless.
| Hybrid Rune Tracing Acquisition | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tracing | Type | Location |
| Intensifying | Weapon | Bartender at The Crown and Lion. |
| Momentum | Weapon | Blackmarsh |
| Menacing | Weapon | Glassric |
| Elemental | Weapon | Kal'Hirol |
| Evasion | Armor | Cera |
| Endurance | Armor | Yuriah (+1 upgrade) |
| Amplification | Armor | Octham |
| Diligence | Armor | Blackmarsh |
Crafting cost and raw materials[]
Most runecrafting materials can be bought from Cera in the throne room of Vigil's Keep.
The following table breaks down the materials needed to craft runes from scratch, by tier. Note that only the Journeyman Dweomer Rune crafting requires an Etching Agent. None of the other Journeyman runes have that requirement. The table has an additional column to account for this special case. It will take a player 32 Novice Runes, 63 Blank Runestones and 56 Etching agents to create a Paragon rune from scratch.
| Rune Crafting Materials Needed | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Novice Runes | Blank Runestones | Etching Agents | Etching Agents - Dweomer |
| Journeyman | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Expert | 2 | 3 | 2 | |
| Master | 4 | 7 | 3 | 7 |
| Grandmaster | 8 | 15 | 10 | 18 |
| Masterpiece | 16 | 31 | 25 | 41 |
| Paragon | 32 | 63 | 56 | 88 |
| Rune Crafting Costs | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tracing | Novice | Journeyman | Expert | Master | Grandmaster | Masterpiece | Paragon |
| Hale | 63 25
|
63 80
|
1 28 15
|
2 83 25
|
6 2 25
|
12 49 5
|
25 51 45
|
| Flame | 66 0
|
66 55
|
1 33 65
|
2 94 25
|
6 24 25
|
12 93 5
|
26 39 45
|
| Frost | 66 0
|
66 55
|
1 33 65
|
2 94 25
|
6 24 25
|
12 93 5
|
26 39 45
|
| Lightning | 66 0
|
66 55
|
1 33 65
|
2 94 25
|
6 24 25
|
12 93 5
|
26 39 45
|
| Cold Iron | 66 0
|
66 55
|
1 33 65
|
2 94 25
|
6 24 25
|
12 93 5
|
26 39 45
|
| Tempest | 66 0
|
66 55
|
1 33 65
|
2 94 25
|
6 24 25
|
12 93 5
|
26 39 45
|
| Dweomer | 71 50
|
80 85
|
1 62 25
|
3 51 45
|
7 38 65
|
15 21 85
|
30 97 5
|
| Silverite | 77 0
|
77 55
|
1 55 65
|
3 38 25
|
7 12 25
|
14 69 5
|
29 91 45
|
| Slow | 88 0
|
88 55
|
1 77 65
|
3 82 25
|
8 0 25
|
16 45 5
|
33 43 45
|
| Immunity | 88 0
|
88 55
|
1 77 65
|
3 82 25
|
8 0 25
|
16 45 5
|
33 43 45
|
| Paralyze | 1 10 0
|
1 10 55
|
2 21 65
|
4 70 25
|
9 76 25
|
19 97 5
|
40 47 45
|
| Reservoir | 1 10 0
|
1 10 55
|
2 21 65
|
4 70 25
|
9 76 25
|
19 97 5
|
40 47 45
|
| Stout | 1 32 0
|
1 32 55
|
2 65 65
|
5 58 25
|
11 52 25
|
23 49 5
|
47 51 45
|
| Hybrid Rune Crafting Costs | |
|---|---|
| Tracing | Cost |
| Intensifying | 1 51 25
|
| Menacing | 1 74 35
|
| Momentum | 6 13 25
|
| Elemental | 2 94 25
|
| Evasion | 6 24 25
|
| Endurance | 2 14 50
|
| Amplification | 4 10 85
|
| Diligence | 2 49 70
|
Notes[]
- If you can generate enough money (see exploits below), buy several Manuals of Focus, and re-distribute your main character's skills to rune crafting as soon as you can. Store all of your items in your personal storage chest, and buy up all the blank runes and etching agents. Then, choose which runes you would like to have, buy all of the novice runes you can, and craft your paragon or masterpiece runes until you have as many as you need to cover all of your equipped weapons and armor, and a few extra as you acquire more party members. Then, use a manual of focus to redistribute your skills since you won't be needing rune crafting anymore. It is a time consuming process, but makes the game much easier even at higher levels.
Barrier Runes[]
Barrier runes as well as their tracing are very rare in-game with the exception of Sandal in the Apprentice Quarters in Witch Hunt DLC who is selling unlimited quantities of Novice Barrier Runes. For 
users there are several workarounds. See here for more information.
Exploits[]
Profit Margins[]
- Elemental Rune: 2
55 75 - Intensifying Rune: 2 23 75
- Diligence Rune: 1 75 30
- Menacing Rune: 1 28 15
- Endurance Rune: 85 50
Intensifying Runes[]
This is the easiest and most profitable method to gain gold per batch. With an empty inventory and 90 75 0, buy 60 Novice Cold Iron Runes, 60 Novice Lightning Runes, 180 Blank Runestones, and 120 Etching Agents. Make 60 Journeyman Cold Iron Runes and 60 Journeyman Lightning Runes. Then, make 60 Intensifying Runes and sell for 225 0 0, for a profit per batch of 134 25 0. This will also earn much higher money before reaching Ambassador Cera's inventory limit.
Diligence Runes[]
Diligence Runes provide an excellent way for farming gold. Diligence Armor runes sell for 4 25 0 while the materials only cost 2 49 70 at Vigil's Keep, and it is easy to craft batches of 60 at a time (assuming 125 inventory space) for a profit of approximately 105 per batch. This is easily done by first buying 60 Novice Immunity Runes and 60 Novice Silverite Runes along with Etching Agent and Blank Runestones, and crafting them into 60 Menacing Runes. Buy 60 Novice Tempest Runes (along with more Etching Agent and Blank Runestones) and craft the runes into Diligence Armor runes. However, if your main character does not have the Runecrafting skill, then it may be less time consuming to craft the runes in batches of 40 by first buying all the ingredients (40 Novice Immunity Runes, 40 Novice Silverite Runes, 40 Novice Tempest Runes, 80 Blank Runestones and 80 Etching Agents), exiting the keep with a party member who does have the skill, crafting the runes in one go, and entering the keep and selling the runes for a profit of 70 12 0.
Menacing Runes[]
A slightly faster option is to just make the intermediate rune, Menacing Rune, instead of the Diligence Rune. If materials are purchased from Cera in the Keep, the Menacing Rune costs 1 74 35 and sells for 3 2 50. This results in a profit of 1 28 15 per rune sold back, for a margin of 73.5%. The sale of a Diligence Rune nets 1 75 30, which is 70.2% of its 2 49 70 purchase price. As crafting a single rune takes less time, this option is more efficient, but at the cost of reduced overall profit possibilities (see warnings below).
Warnings[]
- Selling too many items to one storekeep will corrupt a savegame. This is similar to the Potent Lyrium Potion bug, but has a higher limit. If the inventory storage slot count exceeds 1000 for all items, the store will not display, preventing all further sales and purchases. Normal stacking rules apply (stacks of 99 crafting items occupy a single slot, all else occupies one slot per item), save that for Cera, the infinite stacks of 99 novice runes occupy a single slot each, whereas normal runes occupy one slot per rune. Thus, if one purchases Cera's lyrium potions, she can be sold a total of 985 runes. The finite nature of rune sales means that using only Menacing Runes, while slightly faster, will not be more profitable overall than using Diligence Runes. Using only Cera's store, one may accumulate a profit of 1262 27 75 by crafting only Menacing Runes, or a profit of 1726 70 50 by crafting Diligence Runes. More can be made by selling to other storekeeps in the Awakening world, of course, but will be limited by how many other items they already have. Granted a great deal of patience and a desire to maximize profit, one may purchase all inventory slots that cost less than 1 75 30 and destroy the items (by dragging them out of one's inventory) to make room for more Diligence Rune sales.
- Before creating a rune type to masterpiece or Paragon, be sure to make a save of before and after the event. It is recommend to not craft more than 25 Paragon runes as it may corrupt the save file.