Introduction
With Module 6: The Thirteenth Eclipse, Turbine is proud to introduce a new feature - an early version of Stormreach’s first crafting feature, called the Eldritch Device. The Eldritch Device allows players to create and upgrade items, and to create their own raid loot, using other items collected from their adventures! Much is still unknown about the devices, and their full potential and power remain a mystery. The greatest scholars in Stormreach are committed to studying these altars to find out more.
Getting Started
Here is what they’ve found out so far: There are several steps to creating your own loot and upgrading that item, so let’s see how it works.
Everything starts with a recipe. Every recipe produces a different item or effect, so you’ll have to tinker around to discover them all. Recipes are not physical items you find in the game, they’re simply known combinations of ingredients that successfully produce another item or ingredient. Later, in our example, we’ll start you off with some simple recipes but most recipes have not been discovered yet!
The Eldrich Device: VAST and MYSTERIOUS
Ingredients
Recipes are made up of up to five ingredients collected during your adventures, or manufactured from the items you’ve collected. We call these Raw and Manufactured ingredients. Many ingredients can be stored in the new “ingredient” bags introduced with Module 6, which work just like collectible bags.
At first, you’ll need to collect a few Raw Ingredients, like pebbles, arrowheads, or chipmunk funk, to begin using the first Eldritch device in Meridia. Using these raw ingredients, you’ll manufacture higher level ingredients, like taper candles, oils, and ores. These are Manufactured Ingredients to be used in other recipes you’ll discover along the way.
Right: Various raw ingredients. Clockwise from top left: Green Briar Twigs, Lammanian Lily Petals, Locust Husk, Chipmunk Funk, Glistening Pebbles, Bitterscrub Fungus. Left: An assortment of manufactured ingredients. Clockwise from top left: Ore of Travail, Filaments of Toil, Red Taper, Wondrous Scarab, Wondrous oil, Wondrous balm.
Energy Cells
In most recipes, you’ll usually need to include an Energy Cell to power the device, though some recipes contain enough magic on their own to power the altar. Energy Cells can be purchased from a vendor and are also found in the raid. For your first real recipe in creating a new weapon, you’ll need an Eberron Energy Cell, which can be purchased from vendors in the game.
Top: A depleted energy cell.
Bottom: A charged energy cell
Later recipes require a Shavarath Energy Cell, which can be collected during your adventures. While there is only one type of Eberron Energy Cell, there are three types of Shavarath Energy Cell: low, medium and high.
When you find an energy cell, it may be charged or depleted. You can recharge energy cells by combining an empty cell with any weapon whose plus value is 6 through 10, depending on the type of cell. This is a great opportunity to put some of those unused items that you’ve been storing away in your bank to good use !
Use a +6 to +10 weapon to recharge depleted energy cells!
Eldritch Basics
Currently, there are several different types of Eldritch Devices, each one available to players as they progress through the raid and other areas of the game. Each device is made to accept different ingredients.
The Interface
The Eldritch Device interface is simple, and easy to use. There are five slots to accept ingredients and components of your recipes. To create a recipe, simply drag ingredients from your inventory to a slot in the Eldritch device. If your ingredients are not appropriate to the particular device you are working with, you will receive a message telling you that your item is not able to be used in the device.
The Eldritch interface.
Creating manufactured ingredients
Let’s create our first manufactured ingredient by using our collected raw ingredients. (For this example, we’ll assume you’ve collected Green Briar Twigs, Lammanian Lily Petals, Locust Husk, Chipmunk Funk, Glistening Pebbles, Bitterscrub Fungus.
First, drag an Eberron energy cell to a slot in the device, followed by four raw ingredients. In this example, we’re going to use Glistening Pebbles, Green Briar Twigs, Chipmunk Funk and a Locust Husk, and an Eberron energy cell. After placing the ingredients in the device, click the “Mix Magically” button and you will notice that the recipe failed. This means that unfortunately, the combination of raw ingredients we’ve used does not produce anything special.
Let’s try again, but this time instead of a Locust Husk, lets try a piece of Bitterscrub Fungus. Don’t forget your energy cell! Click Mix Magically, and viola! You have one “blue taper” candle. Congratulations!
By repeating steps like these with other ingredients, you can continue to manufacture better ingredients which will in turn, allow you to make something REALLY special.
Creating an item
Shiny Green Steel Warhammer blank!
After you’ve created enough manufactured ingredients, you can use them to make weapons and equipment. The items you make from manufactured ingredients are called “blanks”… in the new module, all blanks are green steel. Usually these are base items which you can upgrade later, but have some neat effects even before you upgrade them, such as increased dice damage! For this example, we’ll be creating a Warhammer!
Lets assume we’ve already created enough manufactured ingredients to create our blank. We need: One “Ore of Travail”, one “Red Taper”, and one “Wondrous Oil”. We’ve also already created the signet stone we need to create the blank, and we have a charged Eberron Energy cell.
Just as before, drag your ingredients, signet stone and the energy cell into the proper Eldritch device, and click the combine button. If you’ve gotten the recipe right you should receive a bright shiny green steel Warhammer!
Upgrading your item
Now that you’ve made a weapon, you’ll likely want to upgrade it! Upgrading an item is asimilar process to gathering and creating ingredients and items.
In order toupgrade your item, you’ll have to combine it with a Shard of Power that has been imbued with a certain characteristic. You can collect Shards of Power during your adventures in the Shroud and combine them with other manufactured ingredients, like an essence, a focus (pl. Foci) or a cloudy gem, to give the shard a special characteristic that will apply to your weapon.
In our example, we are going to forge the following items to imbue our shard: One Shard of Power, one Inferior Foci of Fire, one Cloudy Gem of Escalation, one Diluted Material Essence, and of course a Shavarath Low Energy Cell.
Imbuing a Shard of Power. Upgrading your item.
Once you’ve already imbued your shard, you then can place it into the eldritch device along with an energy cell and your weapon, and you are now the proud owner of customized raid loot!
As you progress to the later phases of the raid, you can continue the upgrade process to further upgrade your weapon, choosing either the same type of effects (all fire for example) or mixing it up (such as combining some fire with earth in a higher tier of upgrades), it’s your choice! Additional upgrades require higher quality imbued gems, but the scholars say that if you can figure out just the right combination of effects, your equipment will be granted a special bonus ability.
Green Steel Warhammer, with all three upgrades.
Unlock special spells for your weapons by specializing your upgrades!
Other uses of the Eldritch Device
The Stones of Change
Lesser eldritch devices have also been discovered by the Twelve, called “Stones of Change”. While these stones lack the power of the eldritch devices of Meridia and The Shroud, a number of uses have been found thus far. These stones of change do not seem to require energy cells to power their recipes.
Dragonshard Combinations – Khyber or Siberys Dragonshards and Dragonshard Fragments can be placed in a Stone of Change to combine them into larger versions. For example, 10 Flawed Siberys Dragonshards can be combined to form an Imperfect Siberys Dragonshard, or 1,000 Khyber Dragonshard Fragments can be combined to form 10 Tiny Khyber Dragonshards, suitable for low level castings of Trap the Soul.
Binding and Attuning of items – Any equippable item can be placed into a Stone of Change with a number of Khyber Dragonshard Fragments to bind the item to the user and prepare it for the later addition of Eldritch Rituals. Binding and attuning an item requires (minimum level of item ^ 2) Khyber Dragonshard Fragments, so a minimum level 12 item would require 144 fragments. An item that is bound never takes permanent item damage when repaired, but can no longer be traded.
Eldritch Rituals – An attuned item can have one line of Eldritch Rituals placed upon it. Thus far, the only ritual that the Twelve have found is called the Adamantine Ritual, which increases the hardness and durability of an item. This ritual requires Adamantine Ore and Soul Gems: Essence of Earth (produced by the Trap the Soul spell), and can be placed on an item up to five times (though later applications increase only the durability of the item). In future modules, many more Eldritch Rituals will become available, but placing an Eldritch Ritual on an item will remove any others that are currently on the item.
The Twelve have placed a Stone of Change in the marketplace next to the Lordsmarch Bank and one at the base of their tower for common use.
It is suspected that once the scholars fully understand the powers of the device, we’ll even be able to change effects on existing items as well as shatter shards into fragments, but these are dangerous powers which must be studied further, before we can attempt such deeds.