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Runes are the endgame growth material in DragonSword: Awakening. They sit at the far end of the progression chain, past the equipment and Familiars layers, and they are the main reason to keep running the game's hardest instanced content after the story is finished.
Where Runes Come From
Raids are the primary source. Alongside items that lower the hurdle for equipment farming, a raid clear drops Runes, and because raids can be cleared solo for the same rewards as a cooperative run, no Rune source is locked behind mandatory group play. See Dungeons and Raids for the wider instanced economy and Co-Op for how a raid party is formed.
Star Ranks and Synthesis
Runes carry a star rank, and lower-ranked Runes can be synthesised into higher ones. The ceiling moved after launch: patch 1.0.7 on August 6, 2026 made four-star synthesis capable of producing a five-star Rune, where previously it could not. Patch 1.0.9 then updated the probability information in the Options menu to reflect that five-star Runes are obtainable from four-star synthesis, so the odds are published in-game rather than inferred.
Hound13 has said Rune variety and Rune stat spread are both under review, and that further farming improvements are being considered on top of the changes already shipped.
Storage
Runes have their own inventory allowance, separate from general items. Patch 1.0.7 raised the cap from 200 to 500 and added an owned-count readout to the inventory so the total is visible without counting by hand. That expansion is the example Hound13 pointed to when asked about currency and stack limits more broadly.
The item-deletion feature Hound13 had been scoping shipped in patch 1.0.10 on August 20, 2026. The inventory menu now allows discarding items in four categories: Cooking, Materials, Cooking Ingredients and Runes. The studio had said it was deliberately avoiding making every item deletable in order to prevent accidental losses, and the shipped feature keeps that limit rather than opening deletion up across the whole inventory. The same patch cleared a display fault where a Rune name and enhancement level read incorrectly after moving into the equipment, Karma or Rune management view and backing out again.
What Runes Are Not
Not tradeable. There is no player-to-player trading in DragonSword: Awakening, and Hound13 has ruled it out for a single-player-focused game.
Not purchasable. Runes are not sold. Under the Buy-to-Play Model the store carries costumes, Familiars and the Deluxe Pack only, none of which affect power.
Not shared between Heroes. Equipment is character-specific by design, and Hound13 has said full progression sharing is not planned.
Related
Dungeons and Raids for the content that drops them.
Getting Started for the earlier progression layers.
Update History for the synthesis and inventory changes.