Upgrades (Glyphs And Runestones)

Glyphs and Runestones are “Upgrades” for your Armor and Weapons respectively.

Glyphs

By placing a Glyph on a socketed piece of armor, a Witcher can enchant the item with a passive bonus that augments existing Sign abilities. Lesser Glyphs may only provide relatively weak bonuses, but can be combined with other lesser Glyphs to create Greater Glyphs with significant boosts to Geralt’s armor potential.

In order to enchant a piece of armor, a Glyph of Infusion must be prepared first. The base component to all armor enchantments, Glyphs of Infusion can be found by looting containers and corpses. Additionally, crafters like the blacksmith and armorer sells Glyphs of Infusion in their shop. For those who wish to extensively upgrade multiple pieces of gear, it is recommended you purchase the diagram for crafting Glyphs of Infusion as soon as possible.

Lesser Glyphs are special enchantments you can place into armor upgrade slots in order to receive passive bonuses to Sign abilities. They may be found in containers, nests and the corpses of monsters. Additionally, these enchantments can be found in shops in later stages of the game. The most economical option is to learn the basic techniques and materials needed to craft your own glyphs as needed.

Students of advanced crafting techniques may learn greater enchantments that can be used to combine multiple lesser Glyphs into a single Greater Glyph. This is an excellent way to augment your equipment while keeping additional upgrade slots open for other enchantments. Be warned! Once an enchantment is in place, it is impossible to remove without destroying the item.

Runestones

Runestones can be used to enhance a socketed steel or silver sword with a permanent enchantment that increases weapon damage, adds persistent conditions to enemies, and augments spell power. Once a runestone has been embedded, it cannot be removed without destroying the weapon, and without the help of a smith. Runestones can be crafted from diagrams, or purchased from merchants. Crafting lesser and greater Runestones helps reduce the cost of upgrading, but requires the assistance of higher-level smiths that may be difficult to find early in your adventure.

For a complete list of Runestones and their effects, consult A Witcher’s Tools in your free eGuide.