Curios — how they work and where to invest
Русская версияWhat this is. Curios are items crafted in the Weapon Forge and equipped on heroes. Every hero has their own. The system unlocks at Weapon Forge level 20.
But the real gate is elsewhere: a curio can only be equipped once the hero has reached level 211. Until you have such a hero, investing in curios is premature.
The screen is called Curio and has four tabs: crafting, material production, curio storage and inheritance.
The shop is hidden. The curio redeem shop is behind the chest icon in the top right corner of that screen. It has no label, and nobody finds it on their own — yet without the shop half the system does not work.
1. What a curio is made of
A curio card has three blocks:
- Legion Attribute (passive) — percentages to Troop ATK, DEF and HP. The same percentage applies to all three.
- Hero Attribute — flat ATK, DEF and HP for the hero, i.e. for match-3 combat.
- Exclusive Attribute (passive) — different for every curio. It unlocks in steps as you enhance the item.
A live example — the epic Dragon Horn (Fiona's curio), 5★, enhancement +4, power 385,000:
| Block | What it gives |
|---|---|
| Legion Attribute (passive) | Troop ATK +7.5 %, Troop DEF +7.5 %, Troop HP +7.5 % |
| Hero Attribute | ATK +300, DEF +300, HP +600 |
| Exclusive Attribute (passive) | at +0 — Construction Speed +50 %; at +2 — Medical Tent Healing Speed +50 %; at +4 — Research Speed +50 % |
Passive attributes only work on the hero the curio belongs to — the one named on the card ("Equip on X to activate"). That covers both the Legion Attribute and the Exclusive Attribute.
On any other hero all you get is the Hero Attribute — flat stats for match-3 combat. You will get no troop percentages out of somebody else's curio.
On its own hero, though, the passive works from the bag: the hero does not need to be in your march, the curio only needs to be equipped.
One more thing you would not expect: not all curios are combat items. Fiona's exclusive attributes are entirely economic — construction, healing, research.
2. Qualities and colours
| Colour | Quality |
|---|---|
| green | Common |
| blue | Uncommon |
| purple | Superb |
| gold | Epic |
| red | Legendary |
Quality drives the strength of the exclusive attributes, the size of the hero attribute and the power figure. According to the tables on the Puzzles & Chaos Fandom Wiki (an outside fan wiki about the game, not ours) the Legion percentage does not depend on quality at all — it depends only on star level and enhancement level. Our single client example matches that: an epic curio at 5★ and +4 gives exactly the +7.5 % the table predicts. We have not checked a curio of a different colour.
3. Crafting
- There are two slots: one for common craft, one for exclusive craft (from a scroll).
- Every craft costs 100 Meteor Alloy — always, whichever method you use.
- Common Craft produces a random curio. Most of the time what you get is a Code of Light — a "book" that belongs to no hero at all.
- Exclusive Craft needs a scroll and produces the curio named on that scroll.
The rules from the crafting screen, verbatim (translated from the Russian client):
"Common Craft produces a Curio of random quality."
"Exclusive Craft produces a Curio of the type you choose."
"Common Craft has a 30% chance to produce an Exclusive Curio and a 70% chance to produce a Code of Light."
| Quality | Common Craft | Exclusive Craft |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 63.9 % | 49.0 % |
| Uncommon | 25.0 % | 30.0 % |
| Superb | 10.0 % | 15.0 % |
| Epic | 1.0 % | 4.5 % |
| Legendary | 0.1 % | 1.5 % |
A scroll gives you exactly the curio it names — but you do not know in advance what quality it will roll. Your odds of a good colour are better than with common craft, and that is all. The only guaranteed way to a top-class item is a red chest.
This comes from Alena Antipova's write-up, and it agrees with the client screen, which shows its own quality probability column for exclusive craft.
Every 50 common crafts award a scroll for a superb or better curio. The counter is visible in the interface.
Speeding up a craft, and why it gets expensive
A craft can be finished instantly with the item the Russian client calls "instant gear completion" — despite the name it applies to curios, this is a translation slip. The other option is diamonds.
Per Alena Antipova's write-up, the price rises with every further curio:
| Which curio in a row | Diamonds | Instant-finish items |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 500 | 1 |
| 2nd | 1,000 | 2 |
| 3rd | 1,500 | 3 |
| 4th | 2,000 | 4 |
| 5th | 2,500 | 5 |
| 6th | 3,000 | 6 |
| 7th | 3,500 | 7 |
| 8th | 4,000 | 8 |
| 9th | 4,500 | 9 |
| each further one | 5,000 | 10 |
The 100 Meteor Alloy per craft is spent on top of that. We have not worked out over what period this counter resets, and we are not going to invent an answer.
4. Where scrolls come from
- The curio redeem shop — for Rusty Alloy, in chests of various designations.
- Events: Astrology, Tundra Ruins, Alliance Party and others.
- Purchases.
- Every 50 common crafts.
Inside a chest you pick the curio from a list, and the panel on the right shows which ones you already own.
5. Upgrading: two independent tracks
- Enhancement — the "+N" level. It accepts curio essence, Codes of Light and any other curios (that is, devouring them).
- Ascending — the star level. It requires Curio Spinel and Curio Crystal.
It is a separate item with its own name. It is bought in the curio redeem shop for 5 Rusty Alloy; a spinel costs 1.
What the Legion percentage looks like across the ladder, per the Fandom wiki tables:
| Stars and enhancement | Troop ATK / DEF / HP |
|---|---|
| 4★, +1 | +1 % |
| 5★, +4 | +7.5 % (matches the client) |
| 7★, +5 | +33 % |
| 7★, +25 | +70 % |
| 8★, +30 | +106 % |
6. Inheritance — the key mechanic of the whole system
The rules from the inheritance tab, verbatim (translated from the Russian client):
1. "The enhancement level and the ★ level of a Curio can be passed to another Curio using the Inheritance function."
2. "As a result, the star level and enhancement level of the old Curio are reset to their original values."
3. "If a Curio has already been enhanced or ascended, it cannot inherit the attributes of another Curio."
4. "The Curio selected to inherit must not be equipped on a hero."
What that means in practice:
- Enhancement level and stars travel. Colour does not — colour is a property of the frame itself.
- So you always pour from the worse frame into the better one. The other way round throws your investment away: the donor is wiped and the progress ends up sitting in a weak frame. The game asks you to confirm in that case, and it asks for good reason.
- The donor is not consumed, it is reset to its original state — you keep the empty frame.
- The receiving curio must be completely untouched. Crafted something good? Do not touch it at all until you have poured the old one into it. One tap on Enhance and it can no longer inherit anything.
7. Where to put your materials
There are two different answers here, depending on where you are.
Alena Antipova's advice: level your curios evenly, so that your overall stats rise evenly.
We have few heroes and their development is nowhere. So: level what you actually have, and keep the other curios for inheritance.
If you do not have a particular hero, there is no point whatsoever in investing into a curio that only fits him.
That also answers what to do with the "books" and other people's curios that keep coming out of common craft: they are frames to hold your investment, not items to wear. Level what you have, wait for the curio you need, pour it over.
8. Salvaging and the shop
Salvaging or devouring a curio produces Rusty Alloy, and the amount depends on quality:
| Quality | Rusty Alloy |
|---|---|
| Common | 1 |
| Uncommon | 3 |
| Superb | 20 |
| Epic | 100 |
| Legendary | 500 |
What it buys in the shop (prices as of the screenshot; several entries carried discount badges, so they may be promotional):
| Item | Rusty Alloy |
|---|---|
| Curio Spinel | 1 |
| Curio Crystal | 5 |
| Instant craft completion | 5 |
| Curio Scroll Chest II | 300 |
| Superb Curio Scroll Chest III | 1,000 |
| Epic Curio Scroll Chest II | 5,000 |
| Legendary Weapon Selection Chest | 10,000 |
| A finished legendary curio (Dragon Scale Shield, Queen's Crown) | 20,000 |
This next part is our own arithmetic, not game data: 20,000 Rusty Alloy is forty salvaged legendary curios. The same amount buys 20,000 spinels or 4,000 crystals. Before you save up for the legendary on the shelf, work out how many star levels the same alloy would buy.
9. The Curio event
There is a dedicated curio event, running roughly every two weeks. According to the Fandom wiki it falls on the Tuesday of an Ace Lord week.
Points there come from the lord power gained by crafting and from speeding crafts up. The Fandom wiki lists a different set of tasks — points for obtaining spinels, crystals and essence and for crafting curios by quality, from 20,000 points for a common one up to 500,000 for a legendary. The two lists do not agree; both are stated here as they stand.
None of this is spent as it arrives. It is saved up — ideally for several months — and dumped all at once during the event. The same rule applies to every other resource in this game.
And hoard in balance: a mountain of scrolls and Meteor Alloy will not earn you many points without instant-finish items. Those need saving up just as much.
10. Common mistakes
- Pouring from a better frame into a worse one. Colour does not travel, and the investment burns.
- Touching a new curio before inheriting into it. An enhanced or ascended curio can no longer inherit.
- Expecting a scroll to guarantee a colour. A scroll fixes the curio, not its quality.
- Confusing Curio Crystals with diamonds. Different things entirely.
- Equipping somebody else's curio for the troop percentages. There will be none — the passive only works on its own hero.
- Spending materials outside the event. The same actions during the event also pay points.
11. What we do not know yet
An honest list, so that nobody mistakes a guess for a fact:
- The exact costs of enhancement levels and star steps.
- Over what period the rising craft price resets.
- How long a craft takes without an instant-finish item, and how much time the item removes.
- What star level a freshly crafted curio starts at, and where the ceiling is.
- Whether curio storage has a limit, and what the "share" button does.
- What the material production tab actually produces.
- The English names used above have not been verified against the English client — they are taken from the Fandom wiki. The source for everything else here is the Russian client.
Get in touch
Found a mistake? Got a question about the mechanics? Want a guide on a topic that is not here yet?
Write to pnc.wiki.101@gmail.com — I will fix it, answer it, or write it.
One request in particular: if something in the game does not match what is written here, send a screenshot from the client. A screenshot settles the question faster than any argument, and in these guides it outranks any outside source.