Enshrouded Gems: How They Work & Where to Get Them
Gems are fitted into weapons at a Gem Forge. You need a gem, a suitable weapon with a slot, and Archaic Essence. Do the Alchemist's Gem Forge quest for the first gem and the first Essence; after that gems drop from Fell, Hollow and Drak corpses and from the Hollow Halls. A dropped weapon of Legendary rarity always has a slot; Epic has a 50% chance and Common has none.
- Gems in 1.029tiers 1–7, 5 rarities
- Gem Forges18on the map, plus one you build
- Legendary gear100%rolls a gem slot
- Essence tiers7I to VII
A gem adds one effect to a weapon: bleeding on a critical hit, burning on fire damage, homing bone shards, an allied Hollow. The full list with every gem's text is the gems database; this page is the order to do things in: where to start, what a weapon needs, where more gems come from, and how to choose.
Numbers come from the 1.0 game files. What the files do not hold is said where it comes up and collected at the end.
Step 1: Do the Gem Forge quest
Every gem is fitted at a Gem Forge, an Ancient forge with enemies nearby. The Alchemist sends you to the first one. Finding And Using A Gem Forge (Balthazar) has you clear the Gem Forge in the Springlands, follow the Fell to a Shroud Lair, kill the Fell Banshee there, and come back. It pays out Archaic Essence I and Gem of Bleeding, which are exactly the two things you need for the last step.
The last step of the journal says it plainly: “Take your newly acquired gem, a suitable weapon, and the Archaic Essence I back to the Gem Forge. Use these components to slot a gem into a weapon to empower it!” So you bring three things: a gem, a suitable weapon, and Archaic Essence. The Lair is covered in the Shroud Lairs guide; all 18 forges are on the Gem Forge map.
Archaic Essence comes in 7 tiers, one per region: I Springlands, II Revelwood, III Nomad Highlands, IV Kindlewastes, V Albaneve Summits, VI Veilwater Basin, VII Cinder's Cradle. Gem tiers also run from 1 to 7, which suggests a higher-tier gem wants a higher-tier Essence. That is our reading; the files do not give the price of a socket or an upgrade.
Step 2: Get a weapon with a slot
Not every weapon takes a gem. In the loot file, the rarity of a dropped weapon decides its chance of coming with a gem slot:
| Rarity | Chance of a gem slot |
|---|---|
| Common | 0% |
| Uncommon | 5% |
| Rare | 25% |
| Epic | 50% |
| Legendary | 100% (guaranteed) |
What the files do not say about slots
How many slots one weapon has, whether the copy you craft at a station has one, and which weapon accepts which gem are not in the files. Check the weapon's card in game before you commit a gem. Our legendary weapons guide lists weapons you can reach early.
Step 3: Collect more gems
After the quest gem, gems come from three places. Corpses: the fixed corpse tables of three factions hold gems (Hollow 20, Fell 18, Drak 14), and the named enemies that use them include Hollow Damned, Hollow Hound, Hollow Necromancer, Fell Black Knight, Fell Crusader, Drak'Dal Priest. Hollow Halls: the wiki ties 5 gems to a specific hall: Gem of Skulls (Springlands Hollow Halls); Gem of Fracturing (Revelwood Hollow Halls); Gem of Lesser Necromancy (Nomad Highlands Hollow Halls); Gem of Soul Reaping (Kindlewastes Hollow Halls); Gem of Necromancy (Nomad Highlands Hollow Halls). Quests: the Gem Forge quest gives the Gem of Bleeding.
4 gems have no source in the files at all (Gem of Burning, Gem of Puncturing, Gem of Retaliation, Gem of Lycanthropy). We do not guess where they come from.
Collecting also pays: the journal lists 7 gem sets, and finishing them all is worth 875 XP in total.
Step 4: Pick a gem for the weapon
The files give no ranking of gems, so we do not rank them. What they do give is each gem's own text, and most of it names a damage type. Match the gem to the damage your weapon does. This table groups the gems whose text names that damage.
| Your weapon deals | Gems whose text names it |
|---|---|
| cutting | Bleeding, Swiftness, Agility, Bloodlust |
| piercing | Puncturing, Aerobatics |
| blunt | Retaliation, Fracturing |
| fire | Burning, Focused Light, Meteoric Impact |
| ice | Cold Composure |
| shock | Currents |
| poison | Toxic Betrayal |
| shroud | Corruption, Cleansing |
A reading of the text, not a rule
The gem rows carry no weapon-type field, so the files do not say which weapon accepts which gem. The damage word in a gem's text is a hint. Many gems name none: they trigger on kills, blocks, sneak attacks or glides.
- You block a lot: Gem of Retaliation. Blocking damage has a … chance to add … bonus blunt damage to the next attack within the next few seconds and increases the pushback.
- You glide into fights: Gem of Meteoric Impact. Landing after gliding creates an explosion that deals … fire damage and leaves behind a trail of fire that applies burning to enemies, dealing … damage per second for ….
- You finish with sneak or Merciless attacks: Gem of Skulls. Killing an enemy with a Sneak Attack or Merciless Attack has a … chance to spawn a level … companion skull.
- You fight in the Shroud against the clock: Gem of Hopeful Embers. When the remaining time in the Shroud is below …, defeated enemies drop time replenishing Orbs.
Step 5: Build a Gem Forge at home
You can stop walking back to a map forge. The Placeable Gem Forge goes in your base, and its text says: “This Gem Forge can be placed inside your base. Use it to upgrade gems or to insert them into your weapons from the comfort of your own home.” The quest A Gem Forge Of Our Own (Loraine Crim) sends you to the Gem Forge Recipe in Cinder's Cradle, the Ancients' citadel, to find its recipe.
Then you craft it from Loraine Crim: 30× Basalt, 10× Gold Dust, 10× Celestium Bars, 5× Moonstone Dust, 5× Diamond Dust, 2× Archaic Infusion. Several of these are late-region materials, so build it once you are deep into the map.
What the files do not tell us
Slots per weapon, which weapons accept which gem, what a socket or an upgrade costs in Essence and how a gem upgrades are not in the files, nor are the numbers behind a gem's effect (the game fills them from the gem's level, and all 29 gems scale this way). If one of these decides your build, read the card in game first.
Related guides
Enshrouded Shroud Lairs: Locations & Rewards
All 13 Shroud Lairs on the Enshrouded map by region and level, how to clear one, the Fell Banshee, and the Archaic Essence, gems and chests they give.
Early Legendary Weapons in Enshrouded (1.0)
The 7 Legendary weapons you can walk to before the Kindlewastes (levels 3–20): where each is, what it does and which build wants it. From the 1.0 game files.
How to Get Legendary Runes in Enshrouded (1.0)
Legendary Runes in Enshrouded 1.0: what they upgrade, the Blacksmith recipe (25 Runes), which enemies and bosses drop them, and what to spend them on first.