The RuneShift Codex
The library.
Every hero, creature, item, and mechanic. Find the details for your next adventure.
Development-build reference. Includes discoverable characters, bosses, and items; browsing may reveal spoilers. Progress and unlocks remain in the game.
158 entries
Aegis Shard
You start every battle behind a barrier that takes 4 damage before your HP does.
Affinity & Aversion
Your hero pulls the board toward one element and pushes another away, so you see more of the first and less of the second from the opening rune. Thor draws Lightning and thins Earth, Skadi draws Frost and thins Fire, Sinmara draws Fire and thins Water, Freyr draws Earth and thins Frost.
Amber Bead
Your Lightning matches deal 10% splash damage to every other enemy.
Andvaranaut
Each rising block has a 10% chance to carry 2 gold. Match one to claim it, and a random block is cursed for 10s. Tap to hurl every coin and curse on the board at one enemy: 50 Sun damage per coin, 70 per curse.
Andvari
A dwarf-king of the old age, robbed once by clever gods and forced to part with his hoard beneath the Andvarafors waterfall. He keeps a stash still, and resents every traveller who finds him. Visit politely. Leave the ring.
Ash Wraith
She never swings at you. She waits for fire to gather on your board, draws it into the folds of her cloak, and lets it all back out at once.
Aurora's Breath
Tap it to sweep every freeze, ignite and curse off the grid in one gust.
Barrier
Barrier soaks up damage before any of it reaches your HP. Items like Aegis Shard hand you some at the start of every battle, and whatever you spend stays spent until the next fight begins.
Bedrock Sigil
Your Earth matches deal +2 damage per rune cleared.
Berserker Helm
Tap to rampage for 8s. Blocks clear and fall faster, every match links into one running chain, and each match extends the rampage by 0.1s per block. You take 50% more damage while it lasts. Outside a chain, each match has a 1% chance to refresh a charge.
Bless
Dawn's light turns one of your blocks into a healing block. It goes to an afflicted block first and cleanses whatever was on it, and to a block picked at random when nothing on the grid is afflicted.
Bloodspark Rune
Every point of damage you take feeds +0.4 Ability charge.
Boar-Hide Wrap
Basic strikes from Elites land on you for 12% less.
Boss
The foe waiting at the end of a realm. Every boss is an Elite, so it shrugs off part of every debuff you land on it and pays out richer loot when it falls.
Bottled Storm
Uncork it and Lightning falls on every enemy left standing.
Boulder Hound
A slab-jawed beast that runs the scree slopes in packs. It is heavy and it is fast, and it lands the first hit before you have finished reading the board.
Brigand
A road-thief who has made a career of it. Scale-mail over leather, a heavy sword he swings with both hands, and a scar for every man who took him for a beggar.
Brine Sigil
Your Water matches deal +2 damage per rune cleared.
Brokkr
Dwarven smith of legend — Brokkr's hammer shaped Mjölnir at Sindri's forge while a stinging fly bit his eye. He's seen worse customers. Pick something, traveller.
Burn
You've set them alight. A burning foe loses HP every second until the fire goes out, and you don't have to do anything to keep it going.
Carrion Tithe
You take back 4 HP every time an enemy falls.
Chain
Clear a match and the blocks above it fall. When they land in a fresh match on their own, with no swap from you, that's a chain, and every link in it hits harder than the one before. The running total above the board counts them as they go.
Chain Lightning
Thor's bolt arcs through every Lightning and + Healing block on your grid before it lands on the foe. Each Lightning block it touches adds to the damage, and the bolt scours freeze, ignite and curse off whatever it passes through. Each Healing block heals you and adds to the hit as well.
Channelling
A foe is holding an ability open, pouring a healing beam into a wounded ally. They do nothing else while they channel, and the beam keeps flowing until you cut them down.
Cinder Focus
Fire runes come up on the rising row more often.
Cinder Imp
A scrap of fire with teeth, and delighted about it. Fast, fragile, and every bite it lands leaves one of your runes smouldering.
Cinderbloom
Your Fire matches have a 10% chance to burst, shattering the blocks around them.
Combo
Clear more than three blocks in one match and you have a combo. Match four at once and it's a 4-combo, five is a 5-combo, and up from there. The bigger it is, the harder it hits, and some items pay out more the further you push it.
Common
The rank and file you cut through in waves. A common foe wears no marker on its nameplate, so a bare plate tells you it is exactly what it looks like.
Crag Jotun
A lesser giant hewn out of the mountainside. It heaves slabs of rock with a slow, crushing patience, and stone creeps over whatever it hits.
Cursed
Purple corruption is creeping over one of your blocks, and the cloud thickens as its timer runs down. Match the block before the corruption takes hold and the curse breaks harmlessly. Let the timer run out and it damages you and takes the block with it.
Daily Streak
The number of days in a row you have finished the daily challenge. Play today's to keep it climbing; miss a day and it starts over.
Dark Boar
Gullinbursti's shadow, the golden bristles gone to slate. It charges without joy, and what it gores turns to stone.
Draupnir
While your Ability bar is full, 100% of the charge you keep earning banks into the ring instead, up to one full bar. Tap to pour it back into your Ability.
Drench
The tide rises and turns one of your runes to Water. If that rune was alight, the water puts it out. Frozen, cursed and healing blocks are left where they are.
Driftwood Totem
Your Water matches have a 15% chance to Drench another rune.
Earth
Berkano (ᛒ), the green rune. Freyr is built on it. He sees more of it than anyone, Gullinbursti feeds fastest on Earth runes, and his sword strikes with it. Jotunheim is the realm of stone, where the foes turn your blocks to stone and shrug off Earth damage in return.
Echo
A dark reflection of one of the old gods, still standing in a realm long after the god has gone. It waits among the ordinary battles on the map with nothing to mark it out, and it hits far harder than anything else you meet on the road to a boss. Beat one and it gives up a hero or a relic. They only begin to appear once you have cleared a realm, and if you keep walking past one, or it puts you down, it comes looking for you.
Echo of Freyr
A hollow cast in the shape of the Vanir lord, drained of his summer. Dark boars run at his heels, every cold swing of Sumarbrandr turns your runes to stone, and what he has petrified he comes back to harvest.
Echo of Thor
A shadow left standing in the void where the Thunderer once stood. It holds the hammer the way he held it and carries none of his warmth. The storms it gathers now come down on you.
Eir's Blessing
Healing runes surface more often while you carry it.
Eldgrim
Son of Muspell, called the Forge-Warden. The hammer in his hands is older than any forge a mortal will ever see. He swings slowly, and every swing lands like a falling anvil. While his brothers stand, he stands in front of them.
Elite
The dangerous rank: bosses, mini-bosses, and the echoes of the old gods. An elite shrugs off part of every debuff you land on it, and pays out richer loot when it finally goes down.
Ember Coal
Your Fire matches have a 10% chance to set the enemy Burning.
Ember Sigil
Your Fire matches deal +2 damage per rune cleared.
Fáfnir's Avarice
+25% gold gained. For every 10 gold you carry you deal 1% more damage and take 1% more.
Fafnir's Whelp
A hatchling of Fáfnir's brood, curled on the hoard it was born to covet. It breathes molten gold across your runes and waits to see what you do about it. The teeth are as real as the treasure.
Fire
Kenaz (ᚲ), the red-orange rune. Sinmara is built on it. Pyre-Heart spawns Fire blocks already alight and gives her hits a chance to leave a foe Burning, and both feed Leváteinn's Edge, which cuts hardest through blocks that are already burning. The foes of Muspelheim fight with Fire of their own.
Fire Wraith
A burning revenant out of the southern marches. Every hit it lands sets one of your runes alight, and the fire bites back when you drag that rune out of the way.
Freyr
Lord of Vanaheim, god of the fertile earth and the good harvest. He gave up his sword for love and it fights on at his side anyway, with Gullinbursti running the field beside him. Keep the matches coming and the blade turns back to guard you.
Frost
Isa (ᛁ), the teal rune. Skadi is built on it. Her charge builds faster off Frost matches, Winter's Hold gives her hits a chance to leave a foe Frostbound, and she hits far harder into anything already held. Frost Arrow gathers every Frost block on the board into one shot and always binds what it strikes. The foes of Niflheim turn the same ice on your grid.
Frost Jotun
A lesser giant of the frostlands. Every blow it lands shuts one of your runes inside a cage of ice, and it keeps swinging.
Frost Pup
The runt of a frost-wolf litter. Its bite is cold, and it never hunts alone.
Frost Sprite
A splinter thrown off an Iceshaper's working. It stings for almost nothing on its own, and its maker keeps making more.
Frost Vial
Frostbounds every enemy for 5s, freezing their strike timers. Elites are only affected for 60% of the duration.
Frost Warden
A sentinel spirit bound to Skadi's service. Every bolt it throws locks one of your runes in ice, and it goes on throwing them for as long as she stands.
Frost Wisp
A shard of living ice drifting through the high passes. One is brittle. A drift of them will bleed you.
Frost Wyrm
The apex of Niflheim's wild kin. It is slow and it is patient, and when it finally exhales your whole board goes under the ice.
Frostbound
You've locked a foe in frost. Their strike timer stops dead until they thaw, so the swing they were winding up sits there unspent.
Frozen
Ice has locked one of your blocks. You can't match it, but you can still swap it out of your way, and it thaws on its own over time.
Frozen Tear
Your Frost matches have a 6% chance to leave the enemy Frostbound.
Giant's Heart
You carry +15 maximum HP for the rest of the run.
Ginnungagap Shard
Tap into the Void for 12s. While empowered, you are able to swap blocks vertically and all damage becomes the Void type. Each row you raise has a 7% chance to refresh a charge, though never while the window is open.
Greater Crag Jotun
An elder of the stone-giants, as old as the roots of the mountains. Every blow it lands comes down like a rockslide.
Greater Frost Jotun
An elder of the Jötnar, vast and patient and very cold. Where a lesser giant ices over a single rune, this one takes a fistful.
Gullinbursti's Effigy
Each match has a 15% chance to loose a boar at the frontmost enemy for 100 Earth damage. Tap to start a 10s stampede: every match looses a boar, and each boar that kills during it heals you 20 HP.
Hag's Heart
Healing blocks give you +2 HP each.
Hailshard Focus
Frost runes come up on the rising row more often.
Halo Sigil
Your Sun matches deal +2 damage per rune cleared.
Hard Mode
A realm you have already cleared can be run again on Hard. Enemies carry more health, hit harder, and their strike timers come round sooner. The realm adds a hazard of its own to your board, and the road to the boss runs longer with its echo planted where every route has to cross it. That one cannot be turned down, and there is no free retry waiting if you fall — a defeat ends the run. Beat the boss and you keep a bronze key on top of the usual spoils.
Healing Block
The green '+' block. Match it and you get HP back, and you never need three of them: any match you make touching one clears it as well.
Healing Potion
Drink it to close your wounds.
Hrym
King of the frost giants and herald of Ragnarök. He leaves the hexing to his Rime Coven and keeps for himself the heavy blows and the flash freezes that take your whole board at once.
Iceshaper
A frost-mage who never lifts a hand against you. She paints your board over in ice and lets her splintered conjurings do the hunting.
Ignited
Fire has taken one of your blocks, and it can't be matched while it burns. Swap it and you smother it back into play at the cost of some HP, otherwise it burns itself out over time.
Iron Skin Tonic
Grants a 30 HP barrier for the rest of this battle.
Iron Troll-Nail
Your matches hit Elites for 8% more.
Jotunheim
The giants' homeland — sheer wet-granite cliffs and frozen scree under a grey, pressing sky. The mountains here do not move for anyone... except those who learn to route around them.
Kindling Chime
Every foe you slay feeds your Ability 4% of a charge. Summons ring it for nothing.
Leváteinn Splinter
Tap to open a 10s window where every match also clears the four blocks around it, each adding 10 Fire splash damage. Each Fire block you clear has a 4% chance to refresh a charge.
Lightning
Thurisaz (ᚦ), the yellow rune. Thor is built on it. Chain Lightning arcs through every Lightning block on your grid, and Storm-Caller splashes his Lightning matches across the whole enemy line, then calls a bolt down on a deep chain to turn another rune Lightning. Lightning Focus and Thunderhead lean the build harder still.
Lightning Focus
Lightning runes come up on the rising row more often.
Lightning Rod
Every 4 seconds it arcs lightning into a random enemy, and every Lightning rune you match makes that arc bite harder for the rest of the run.
Lucky Stone
Your Earth matches have a 10% chance to raise a little stone barrier around you.
Magma Hound
A pack hunter forged in a furnace and let off the leash. It closes fast, and every bite it lands leaves one of your runes burning.
Marauder Captain
A plated mercenary officer who holds the field so his men can work. Everyone fighting alongside him swings faster while he is still shouting.
Minion
A guard posted beside a boss: a Rime Witch with Hrym, a Stone Sentinel with Thrym. A minion outlives its master, so you have to cut it down yourself, and the fight isn't clear until you do.
Molten Wyrm
An ancient fire-serpent whose hide is barely thick enough to hold the forge inside it. When it draws breath your whole board blooms in flame, and here and there a rune refuses to cool afterwards.
Mongrel Cur
A starved, mangy thing that runs with the pack. On its own it is a nuisance. It is what comes in behind it that bleeds you.
Muspelheim
The southern fire realm — a furnace under your feet. Fire burns through the board fast: matches clear quicker here than anywhere else, so the window to land the next link of a chain closes sooner. Set your cascades up before you commit them.
Múspelir
Son of Muspell, called the Sky-Burner. Tallest of the brothers and the one who keeps his distance. He calls embers down out of the sky and walks away while they fall.
Naudiz Brand
Every match curses one random block for 10s, dealing 2 damage if it detonates. Clearing a cursed block multiplies that match's damage by 2×.
Niflheim
The northernmost realm — a frozen waste where time crawls and every breath plumes. The cold gives a new player room to breathe and learn the rhythm of matches and chains.
Petrified
One of your blocks has turned to stone. You can't swap it, but you can still match it by working the blocks around it, and a match right beside it cracks it free. Clear below it and the stone drops like anything else. Left alone it crumbles away by itself.
Platinum
The currency that carries from one journey to the next. You spend it on loot chests for new charms, and a duplicate pull levels up a charm you already hold. Finishing a journey earns a little, and clearing a realm refines your unspent gold into more. Echoes carry it, treasure rooms keep their own share, and the Achievements screen lists milestones worth chasing.
Plunderer's Purse
You pocket +10 gold every battle you clear.
Predator's Gaze
Your matches lock onto the toughest enemy on the field and stay there until it falls. Tap for a 10s window where all damage dealt to the target is increased by 20%. Each chain step landing on it has a 4% chance to refresh a charge.
Pyre Brute
A walking forge. Slow to swing and brutal when it does, and the embers it trails set your board alight the moment it arrives.
Relic
The signature item of a journey, and you carry exactly one. Most relics give you a tappable active that spends a charge, and each relic builds its charges off a different action. You choose a starting relic before you set out, and boss kills and elite encounters unlock more for the journeys after this one.
Reroll
Rerolling swaps all three shop offers for a fresh set. It costs gold, and the price climbs each time in the same shop. You can also trade a charm you are carrying for rerolls instead.
Reroll Stone
You get +1 free reroll at every shop before prices kick in.
Resistance
Every foe has elements it shrugs off. Match one of those runes and the hit lands soft. Tap a foe's name to see what they resist.
Rime Sigil
Your Frost matches deal +2 damage per rune cleared.
Rime Witch
One of Hrym's coven, robed in ice and posted at her king's shoulder. Every hex she lands plants a curse that festers until you match it away, and she will outlive him.
Rime-Cursed Ring
+10 damage for every Frost block you clear. Every few seconds, a random Frost block on your own grid freezes.
Rimewolf
Lean and quick, the alpha of the frost packs. It bites often, and every bite numbs a rune just long enough to ruin the chain you were building.
Rooftop Pressure
When the stack reaches the top row the board is full, and the RAISE button locks out until you clear room. Nothing pushes the stack up on its own at the moment, so a full board costs you no HP. It just leaves nowhere to refill into.
Rowan Ward
Walk into a battle holding an Elite and you start behind a barrier worth 6 damage.
Salt Pouch
Your Burn and Frostbound bite 15% deeper into Elites.
Scree Sprite
Loose mountain stone gathered around a mean little will. It throws grit at you from across the field and comes apart the moment anything reaches it.
Shadow
Naudiz (ᚾ), the dark violet rune. The Ginnungagap Shard, the Kraken's legendary prize, answers to Shadow: while its Void window is open, everything you deal ignores weaknesses and resistances alike.
Sinmara
Surt's consort, woken early when a mortal crossed the threshold of Muspelheim. She brings Leváteinn down through the tallest column on your board, so the stack you have been building is the one she reaps.
Sinmara
Keeper of Leváteinn, Surt's consort, woken early when a mortal crossed the threshold of Muspelheim. Fire follows her onto your board, and she will cut a line straight through your own runes to reach it.
Skadi
The Huntress, daughter of the mountain jötnar and as patient as the long winter. Set the cold into a foe first, then hit them while it still has hold of them.
Skadi the Hunter
Skadi the Huntress, before her change of heart. Every arrow she lands plants frost in your board, and her Wardens keep coming to plant more. When she looses a volley straight up, everything it falls on freezes.
Skirmisher
A wandering bandit, too lean to take you on by himself. He never has to.
Slayer's Edge
You hit badly wounded enemies for 20% more.
Smoke Bomb
Flee from the current wave of the battle. No loot or kill credit is granted, and it does not work on elites or bosses.
Solstice Charm
Your Sun matches have a 15% chance to leave an Elite Sunstruck.
Spark Sigil
Your Lightning matches deal +2 damage per rune cleared.
Splash
Your hit spills onto every other foe on the field. The one you struck takes the full weight of the chain, and the rest take a share off the side, which is how a crowded fight comes apart.
Static Capacitor
Every chain step builds +1 Ability charge, and deeper steps build more.
Stone Pup
A scrabbling whelp of living scree. It bites with a mouthful of gravel, and it brings its litter.
Stone Sentinel
A granite guardian roused out of Thrym's hall to stand at his flank. Its fists grind, and whatever they touch on your board goes to stone. It will still be standing after its king has fallen.
Stone Wyrm
A great serpent of living rock that bores through the roots of the mountains. It is old and slow and impossibly heavy, and every blow lands like the mountain shifting. What it breathes on turns to stone.
Stonebound Focus
Earth runes come up on the rising row more often.
Stoneskin Pendant
Basic strikes land on you for 10% less.
Storm
Hagalaz (ᚺ), the purple rune. No hero and no realm claims Storm, and a standard journey never deals it at all — you will only meet it somewhere the colour set has been widened.
Storm-touched
The storm has struck this rune and turned it to Lightning. It wears a pale ring and crackles for as long as it holds the charge, and the crackle quickens as the charge runs low. Spend it while it is yours: match it for a small bonus to damage, or send Thor's ability through it. Let the charge run out and the rune burns away with the block.
Strike Timer
The orange bar beside a foe. When it fills, they swing. Every swing takes them the same length of time, and nothing you match on the board slows it down.
Summon
Something an enemy calls up mid-fight, like a Kraken's tentacle or a Frost Warden. It dies the moment its summoner does and never counts toward clearing the fight, and a summoner will keep calling more, so put your damage into the one doing the calling.
Sun
Dagaz (ᛞ), the orange rune. No hero and no realm claims Sun yet, so it works as pure fuel: it chains and combos exactly like anything else on the board. A realm will lay claim to that radiance eventually.
Sunray Focus
Sun runes come up on the rising row more often.
Sunstone
Your Sun matches have a 6% chance to Bless a block into a healing block.
Sunstruck
Midsummer light has burned a foe's guard away. An Elite that would normally shrug off part of your Burn and Frostbound takes them in full instead, and they bite harder than usual for as long as the light holds. Gold motes rising off a body tell you the window is open.
Surtling
Son of Muspell, called the Ember-Stalker. Smallest of the brothers and far the quickest. His blades run hot enough that a nick will set a rune burning.
Swapping
Drag a block to swap it with its neighbour. You swap sideways only, the original Panel de Pon rule. A few effects, like the Ginnungagap Shard's Void window, open vertical swaps for a while and let you build chains you otherwise couldn't reach.
Target Lock
Tap a foe's sprite to lock onto them, and every damaging match you make goes to them alone. Tap them again to let go, or tap another foe to move the lock across.
Tentacle
An arm of the thing below, up through the floor of the world. It closes on one of your runes the moment it arrives and holds on. Holding is all it does.
The Kraken
A cosmic horror out of the void between realms, drawn up by mortals foolish enough to walk the same road twice. Its tentacles pin your runes and leave them cursed. Then it tilts the world, and your board starts falling sideways.
The Rune-Idol
An ancient standing-stone, older than the realm's first kings, its carved runes still warm with the old magic. The folk who raised it are long dust, but the stone remembers the price of a blessing.
The Sanguine Horn
Your Ability deals 50% more damage and heals you for 2% of the damage it deals. Nothing else can heal you — not blocks, not potions, not passives.
The Sundered Heart
Start every fight at 50% of max HP, and with +50% Ability charge.
Thor
The Thunderer, with the storm still at his shoulder. Chain your matches deep enough and the sky answers, turning runes on your board to Lightning for you to spend.
Thrym, the Stone-King
Lord of the giants of Jotunheim, who once stole the Thunderer's hammer and buried it eight leagues deep. The mountains answer to him, and he has no need of a trick on your board. He simply hits harder than anything you have met.
Thunderlink
Chains you build deal +10% more damage.
Thunderstone
Tap to send a bolt arcing through every matchable Lightning block on the grid for 35 damage each, then into the enemy. Each chain step has a 4% chance to refresh a charge.
Tidewater Focus
Water runes come up on the rising row more often.
Trickster's Token
You walk into every fight with your Ability bar already 25% full.
Vagabond Archer
A drifter who picks off stragglers from the treeline. Worn leathers, a longbow, and no loyalty past his own skin.
Valkyrie's Boon
If you fall to 0 HP, the feather burns away and you heal to 50% of max HP.
Vital Ring
You take back 4 HP at the end of every battle.
Void Damage
Void damage ignores the matchup entirely, so every hit lands at its base value whatever the foe is weak to or resists. While the Ginnungagap Shard's Void window is open, everything you deal turns Void — chains, splash, Ability bolts, status ticks, charm procs alike. You stop losing damage to resistances, and you give up your weakness bonus for the same window.
Warding Stave
Freeze, ignite, and petrify lose 20% of their bite, and curses give you 20% longer to break them.
Water
Laguz (ᛚ), the blue rune. No hero draws on Water, and Sinmara sees less of it than anyone, which leaves it the thinnest colour on most boards. When it does turn up it makes reliable filler for a chain.
Weakness
Every foe has elements it cannot stand. Match one of those runes and the hit lands harder than it should. Tap a foe's name to see what they are weak to.
Wind
Tiwaz (ᛏ), the pale grey-green rune. No hero and no realm claims Wind, and like Storm it sits outside the colours a standard journey deals. Nothing in the game leans on it yet.
Wrapped
A Kraken tentacle has one of your blocks in its grip. You can't match it or move it, and cracks spread over it as the grip tightens, until the tentacle crushes the block outright. Match right beside it and the tentacle lets go, though it will reach back for another. Kill the tentacle and the block is yours again for good.
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