Relics are artefacts that you mages can carry. Those relics provide various bonuses and at the beginning you might be confused where those bonuses coming from - they might seem quite random sometimes.
But in reality, every relic affinity has a pool of potential traits. I will explain the logic behind them in this guide.


You are getting relics by graduating students, promoting students to apprentices, hiring students as staff and by retiring staff members. If the ritual says "Manifests a relic" - you will get a new one.

Another way of getting relics is to fight battles via crystals that pop up from the fog sometimes or appear when you push fog away. That is not an easy thing to do early in the game.

Relics gain experience when they are attuned to the mage. As they gain experience they start providing bigger bonuses.

Every relic has a Max Level which is determined by the Trial XP of the mage that manifest that relic as well as other factors. Check out the tooltips to understand how to maximize the potential of your future relics.

There are 52 Relic keywords in this game.

The keyword describes the bonus relic provides.
For example "Energized" relic will give the mage 3 speed and 10 hp per relic level. A "Crackling" relic will increase a Lightning cap level for a mage (ranged from 1 to 3 based on the level + some extra shards for higher relic level), etc.



A mage cannot attune 2 relics that have the same keyword.

Each mage can have from 3 to 5 relic slots. Each slot has a symbol that represents the affinity of the relic that can be attuned in that slot.

There are 7 affinities corresponding to the magic elements.
There are 5 affinities corresponding to the races of the mages.
And there are 4 rare affinities.

Every mage will always have exactly ONE slot that corresponds to their race and exactly ONE slot that corresponds to their wand element. If you have summoned a Human mage with Fire wand - they will guaranteed to have a Human relic slot and a Fire relic slot. Other slots are random.

By default at the beginning you mages will have 3 slots at start (and 2 of them will be predetermined).
If you summon a Gifted mage - they will get a 4th slot.
You can get 5th slot when you choose to make an apprentice from a gifted student for a particular elements combination.


Each affinity have a fixed pool of possible relic powers.
Usually there are 2 or 3 different affinities that can roll with a certain keyword.
Let's dive in and discover which relic affinities correspond to which attune powers. I will list "can also be rolled in" column to indicate additional affinities that can roll the same keyword.

All elemental relic affinities have a keyword that increases a skill cap in that element:

There are various breakpoints based on the relic level. They are the same for every element so here is a full list for a Nature one as an example:

All elemental relic affinities has a keyword to increase conviction for 4 hours after working with that element:

There are various breakpoints based on the relic level. They are the same for every element so here is a full list for a Water one as an example:

Every elemental relic has a keyword that speeds up certain tasks associated with that element.
Fire element got 2 separate keywords for Hunting and Cooking. All others got one.

All those attune power can also be found in at least one Rare affinity and one Racial affinity.
To put it another way, if you summoning a lot of Human Fire mages you will quickly get a "Gourmet" power (see below)

The values scale as well, here is an example for Alchemist

There are some unique powers for each element that are not linked to the skills associated with that element.
Here they are

This is a great option for your dedicated teacher staff!


I wish I could give it to every mage!

This one is useful mostly in the endgame when enemies can inflict various ailments and you don't have a water mage to wash them away during the combat.
It is also useful for Nature mages who will be able to tend to Sporeshrooms and Voidshrooms without getting debuffs.
I could never understand why would I pick that, perhaps there is a viable strategy for this...
This bonus is smaller than the one you get from other similar relics but it is a flat unconditional increase.

You could see mentions of race affinities in the sections above, I am not going to repeat them here.

Additionally, the race affinities is where you get the most of the attributes increases for your mages. Attune powers that increase HP, Mana, Speed or Power are mostly found among race-specific affinities (as well as rare ones).

Here is a diagram explaining the logic behind attribute-related powers and races.

What that means is that all attributes-related powers for Vivified affinity will have HP as their main scaling attribute. Wolfkins will have speed, Humans will have mana and Cultists will have power. Shattered are in the middle because they will have "balanced" powers that scales 3 attributes out of 4 but to a lesser extent. Think of them as a middle ground between the rest.

Attribute-related powers scale linearly. For every level of the relic the attributes will increase for the same amount (rounded up if the increase is not a whole number).
Here is a detailed breakdown of the keywords for Level 10 relic to easily indicate how those values scale.

All of those keywords also appear in the Rare affinities. I will mention them in the tables below.

Rare affinities have the largest pool of keywords but for the most part those keywords are shared with some other affinities - elemental or racial.

When in comes to the attribute-related powers the logic behind the affinities can be seen in this enhanced diagram


You can see that in the Race Affinities section above. Diligence-related keywords have mana increase, Exubernace increases speed, etc.
There are just 4 unique keywords that correspond to the rare affinities. They represent the biggest scaling potential of their corresponding attribute. Here they are (as of Level 10 relic)



This knowledge allows you to spot a good affinity combinations for you students. Human fire mage with Diligence rare slot can have a lot of mana potential. Shattered with Tranquility slot can ramp up their HP very significantly and became a front-line tank due to free armor they get.

Knowing what affinities correspond to which attune powers can help you grind for a particular effect.

Students will produce a relic with affinity randomly used from one of their relic slots.
If you lack "cooking" power, for example - hire more Fire mages. If you have a lot of Gnosis Shards - make those fire mages human, because Gourmet drops for both of those. By turning initiates into apprentices and then staff you get an additional "rolls of a dice" to get relics for those affinities.

Later in the game there is a way to get almost full control over types of relics you have. After you unlock Nexus you will eventually find Altar Of Fate, which allows you to pick a keyword for your relic within its affinity. By this time you will have all the affinities you want and therefor you will be able to custom build your mages.

As a fun example - here is a monster Shattered with 1000 HP (which becomes armor at the battle start) which I made by tinkering with Altar Of Fate (3 different HP boosting relics)



Hope you enjoyed that guide! Have fun!