Shadowgems

• The Stronghold Gem Mine produces them continuously, at a deliberately small rate. It will not make you rich this week and it accumulates into something real over a month.
• Every city boss carries a shadowgem pool, sized by its tier, shared out among the fighters who qualify. It is not a lottery: turn up, land enough hits, and you are paid a share.
• The guild Warcamp produces them into the shared pool, split between members on claim.
• The Tower pays boss and milestone shadowgems, up to 80 in all, once per account and never again from resets or repeats. See the Tower page.
• Daily and milestone rewards grant them in small amounts for simply playing regularly.
• The player gem market lets you buy them outright with gold, which is the fastest route for a player who has gold but no wish to spend money.

The through-line is that gems reward patience rather than payment. Every one of those sources is time-based, so a player who logs in regularly for a month accumulates a meaningful balance without ever opening a wallet.

The gem shop carries 55 distinct items. They fall into a few honest categories: instant restoratives and energy refills (the three energy items, Instant Energy Restore, Full Restore and the Energy Overflow Elixir, have no daily limit, only their gem price), gear crates, cosmetic items, convenience unlocks such as extra marketplace slots or a stronghold build queue slot, and respecs for the talent and Ascendancy trees.

Gear rerolls also cost gems, which is where most active players spend the bulk of theirs: rerolling the rolled stats on a good piece of equipment is the main way to turn a lucky drop into a genuinely best-in-slot item.

Invite a friend from Settings, under Recruit a Friend. Once your friend has verified their email and reached Warlock, 5,000,000 gold is banked for each of you, and you, the inviter, also receive 250 shadowgems for the friend you brought in.

3 of the colour themes are sold in the gem shop. See Colour Themes for the full list and prices.

Gems can be cashed out to gold directly, at 98% of whatever the live player gem market is paying per gem, capped at 500 gems per day. There is no fixed gold-per-gem number to quote: the rate moves with the market, and the conversion simply takes a small cut of it. The cap is the important part: it exists so the conversion is a steady trickle rather than a lever anyone can pull to flood the economy in one afternoon.

The other direction runs through the player gem market, where players post gems for gold and gold for gems at a price per gem they choose. That market is where the exchange rate lives, which is why the direct cash-out reads off it rather than setting its own: selling on the market yourself keeps the cut the conversion takes, at the cost of waiting for a buyer. A new listing or buy order must price each gem between 0.25x and 6x the current gem value, so two players cannot use an absurdly priced listing to move gold between accounts without the transfer fee.

The VIP Pass costs EUR 9.99, once, with no renewal, and covers the current calendar month's season. Buying part-way through unlocks the days you missed. It gives a second daily reward track on top of the free one, plus standing perks.

• 50% more market listings, on every market.
• Quest and challenge rerolls cost 50% of the usual price.
• 5 extra Arena fights a day, on top of the normal 20.
• 1 extra Stronghold build queue slot.
• The Daily Free Gems are multiplied by 2.
• 3 extra gear sets (6 in total), and a crown beside your name.

The VIP daily track pays 20 Shadowgems on an ordinary day, 60 on every seventh day, and 150 on the last day of the month, which also pays a Godshard. Day 14 pays a mythic material instead of a legendary one. Unclaimed days from last month stay claimable for 3 more days. If a pass lapses, anything already running keeps going, but the bonus slots and discounts stop applying until you hold the pass again.

• Rerolls on a piece you intend to keep are the highest-value routine spend for an active player.
• Respecs are worth paying for once, after you understand a tree. Paying to fix a guess you could have planned is the avoidable cost.
• Convenience unlocks (marketplace slots, a queue slot) pay back permanently, so they are better early than late.
• Check the player market before converting gems to gold at the fixed rate, and before buying gems with gold.