A relic is a small rule change you carry for the whole run: damage-over-time engines, economy twists, panic buttons. Picking around them is half the strategy layer of the game (the tips page covers the picking discipline; the run structure explains where the picks happen), and their best friends are specific towers.
How relics work
Relics appear as run rewards and shop stock from early on (the shop grid itself, mid-run):
Relics appear as run rewards and shop stock from early on; the run-start kit includes one pick (examples from the 2024 press review: extra starting gold, or tower prices randomized between 50 and 150 percent). Synergy is the whole game: a relic that pays off burned monsters wants fire towers; a crit relic wants the Sniper's 50 percent base crit (an official 1.0 number). The developer's one design note on runes and relics from the Dev Chat: players choose by numbers too often, so 1.0 pushed utility-shaped options.
The ten relics reworked in 1.0
Official, from the launch changelog, effects condensed but faithful:
| Relic | 1.0 effect |
|---|---|
| Flash Freeze Device | First monster within 10 tiles of the fire takes 7 Chill stacks instantly; 1 more stack per second while in range |
| Sacrificial Pact | If fire HP would drop below 5, consume the relic and restore up to 10 HP |
| Chaos Transmuter | Towers transformed per round grows by 1 each round |
| Ember Guardian | Each stage opens with 5 random buff tiles in the fire's attack range |
| Frost Venom | Poisoned monsters gain 1 Chill stack per second |
| Explosive Demolition | Selling a tower mid-battle explodes for 10x the sale gold as damage |
| Volatile Poison | Every 5 seconds, a poisoned and burning monster detonates: half its poison as fire damage, split nearby; chains to other poisoned monsters |
| Giant Lizard Fang | Poisoned monsters gain 1 percent Fragile per second, to 20 percent (5 for bosses); resets when poison ends |
| Lava Bucket | Fire damage may spawn lava pools dealing 3x the round number per second |
| Venom Satchel | Every 5 seconds in battle, grants a Poison Bottle buff to a random unbuffed tower |
Notice how many of these chain poison, burn and chill into each other: that is the element-synergy loop the whole game is built on, and it is why the rework list reads like a synergy matrix.
Community standouts
⚠️ Community content, unverified. Player reports from Reddit, Steam forums and a 2024 community guide; patch drift applies.
- Mystic Gauntlets: the 2024 guide's "must have" panic save.
- Voodoo Doll: crit-build anchor; pairs with arrow-tower crit chance in shard-clear posts.
- Poverty: pays out on cheap towers, enabling the end-wave spam-and-upgrade play.
- Robot Builder: stackable tower boosts; a forum post describes a Thunder tower carrying nine.
- Chameleon Shell: changes a tower's element (the 1.0 notes reference its Charge and Fragile interactions, so it survives as an official-adjacent name).
- 2024-era favorites CryoConductor, Focus Prism and Overcharge Battery: named in the old guide; current behavior unconfirmed.
Two community behaviors worth knowing: "re-roll your map, grab relic nodes early" is the opening advice in Heroic shard-clear threads, and a launch-window forum request to ban relics from runs tells you how warping the strong ones feel. Neither is an official mechanic.
FAQ
How many relics are in Emberward?
The 2024 Early Access launch had 42 (press-reviewed). The current total is not officially published; more arrived across updates and 1.0 reworked at least ten.
What are the best relics?
No official tier list exists. Community high-difficulty play centers on synergy engines (poison-burn chains, crit stacks) over raw numbers; the ten official rework effects above are the only effects documented verbatim.
Can I ban or choose specific relics?
Not currently. A Steam forum thread requested relic banning around launch; no official response or mechanic exists as of September 20, 2026.
I am missing one relic for a full collection. Where is it?
Community threads on missing relics point to the in-game Compendium's records. Some relic unlocks are tied to progression depth (endgame modes, event content); we do not track individual unlock conditions, only the official and community record.