Rune sockets, enchantment effects, and +N equipment upgrading.
Enchanting & Upgrading
Two optional gear-progression systems, each behind its own feature flag (Enchanting and Equipment Upgrade). Turn either off and the intents are rejected and the windows are hidden — nothing else changes.
| System | What the player does | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Enchanting | Sockets a rune into a piece of gear to grant an effect | The rune, plus a skill-gated success roll |
| Upgrading | Pushes an item to +1, +2, +3… with upgrade materials | Materials, plus a skill-gated success roll |
Runes Carry Their Own Enchantment
A rune is an ordinary item with a Rune config — authored under Items → Items, in the same editor as everything else. Creating a new rune opens a tabbed modal (Details / Enchantment) and you author the effect right there; the rune owns its effect, so there's no "create an effect first, then link it" dance. Power users can still point a rune at an existing shared effect.
Type-conditional effects
An enchantment is a list of branches, each gated by what it's applied to. One rune can read completely differently depending on the slot:
| Branch gate | Example effect |
|---|---|
| Applies to weapons | 15% chance to apply Burn on hit |
| Applies to armor | +12 fire resistance |
| Applies to a specific item type | Precise overrides beat the general gate |
Branch gates offer your world's authored weapon and armor types, not a fixed engine list, and each branch shows a live summary. An optional worn aura VFX plays while the enchanted item is equipped, and a dry-run shows exactly what a given item would receive.
Sockets
Gear defines how many rune sockets it has (Rune sockets on the item's gear config). New item instances inherit that count when they're created; older instances fall back to the definition's count when a player tries to enchant them. Applying a rune consumes it, rolls against the enchanting skill, and — on success — writes the enchantment onto that specific item instance. The effects are live in combat, not cosmetic.
Upgrading (+N)
Upgrade materials are their own item type with:
- Min. Gear Tier — the lowest item tier this material can upgrade
- Tags — which items the material is valid for
- A max upgrade level per item, and a gating skill that governs the success roll
+N through trades, mail, bank deposits, and death.
In Game
Enchanting and Upgrading are two HUD windows. Players reach them by talking to an NPC with the matching role (an enchanter or blacksmith with the right station), or through an event command that opens the window directly. Both windows are ordinary panels: they take your theme accent and can be restyled and repositioned from the UI & HUD editor like anything else.
> Balance lives with the rest of your combat tuning: success formulas, skill gating and the gear-drop affix chance are all editable under Combat → Tuning.