Relics and Blueprints: The Gear Slot You Can Only Craft

Relic basics: the craft-only gear slot

No drop will ever give you one - relics are gear you make yourself.

• ▸A Relic is a special item worn at the bottom-left of the character sheet, offering stat boosts, skill bonuses, and often a granted skill of its own.
• ▸Crafting at the blacksmith is the only acquisition route - except for three relics rewarded directly by the Act 2 side quest 'The Lost Elder'. Some recipes are known to blacksmiths from the start, so check the craft list before hunting blueprints.
• ▸The slot accepts neither components nor augments (see the components-and-augments article).
• ▸Granted active skills can be bound to mouse buttons or hotkeys - it is not unusual for a build's core skill to come from its relic.
• ▸Your first relic is craftable in mid-leveling (the level 18-25 band) - once the blacksmith unlocks, checking your blueprints and materials is worth the detour (see the blacksmith article).

Tiers and crafting: higher relics consume lower ones

Reaching the top tier means crafting through the tiers below - plan backwards.

• ▸The Japanese wiki's tiering: standard relics (levels 18/25), transcendent (level 35), and mythical (levels 60/90, split into lower and upper). The upper (level-90) mythical relics are expansion-exclusive (AoM/FG) and cannot be crafted with the base game alone.
• ▸Everything above the standard tier requires lower-rarity relics as crafting materials - mythical relics demand multiple lower relics plus rare materials.
• ▸Standard-tier materials are mostly common world drops, and some standard relics are craftable as soon as the blacksmith unlocks.
• ▸Blueprint sources shift by tier: the standard band leans on faction reputation vendors and curiosity merchants, while higher tiers rely more on random world drops and boss-limited drops.
• ▸Once you pick a target relic, list the required lower relics, blueprints, and materials first - the Japanese wiki maintains a reverse-lookup table of required blueprints.

Completion bonuses: hidden until the craft finishes

• ▸Finishing a relic rolls one extra property (the completion bonus) from that relic's own table, separate from its base stats.
• ▸You learn what you rolled only at the moment of completion - there is no way to choose in advance.
• ▸Re-rolling means paying the full material list and iron again each time, so chasing a perfect bonus gets expensive fast.
• ▸The practical stance: if the base stats are what you want, accept an imperfect bonus. Save the re-rolling for endgame when materials pile up.
• ▸Remember that each re-craft also consumes the lower-tier relics again - mythical-tier re-rolling is especially costly.

Blueprints: learn once, own it on every character

Blueprints belong to your account, not one character - understanding this simplifies both money and stash management.

• ▸Unlearned blueprints are learned instantly with a right-click - no blacksmith visit required.
• ▸Learned recipes are stored in the account-wide save file (formulas.gst/.gsh) and usable by every character on any difficulty.
• ▸Softcore and Hardcore keep entirely separate saves, though - recipes never cross between modes, and the other mode needs its own copy.
• ▸Never vendor an unlearned blueprint (the same rule our money guides repeat). Conversely, a duplicate of a blueprint you already know cannot be re-learned - selling it for income is fine.
• ▸Blueprint sources are broad: random drops from enemies, shrines, and chests; quest rewards; faction reputation shops; rogue-like dungeon merchants; and boss-limited drops.

1. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Relic — Confirms the dedicated slot, craft-only acquisition (with the three 'The Lost Elder' exceptions), the tiering (standard 18/25, transcendent 35, mythical 60/90 with the upper level-90 band expansion-exclusive), lower-relic material requirements above the standard tier, the random completion bonus and its re-roll cost, granted-skill usage, and blueprint sources.
2. Grim Dawn Japanese Wiki: Blueprints — Confirms right-click learning, account-wide sharing across characters and difficulties (formulas.gst/.gsh), Softcore/Hardcore separation, and acquisition routes.
3. Official Crate Forum: Grim Dawn v1.2.1.6 + Hotfix — Official patch notes for the verified version.