Spend cattle, not luck: designing rune enchants in Ringfort
Seven small runes, one per item, and a price that climbs every time you buy one
Every auto-battler eventually hits the same problem: by the middle of a run you have more money than good things to buy. In Ringfort the money is cattle, and for a long stretch of development the late game had a pile of cattle and nothing worth spending it on. Rune enchants are our answer to that, and this note is about how they work and why they are shaped the way they are.
What an enchant is
In the market there is an Enchant button. Press it, click one of your items, and you are offered three runes. Pick one and that item carries it for the rest of the run. The first enchant costs 6 cattle, every enchant after that costs 3 more, and the price stops climbing at 30.
There are two hard rules. Each item holds one rune, and a new rune replaces the old one. And only items that fire can be enchanted: passive economy items and auras never “go off”, so a rune on them would never do anything, and the game will not let you waste cattle that way. When you re-enchant an item, the rune it already has is left out of the three offers, so you always get a real change.
The seven runes
Five of them add an extra effect every time the item fires:
- Blazing puts Burn on both neighbours.
- Venom puts Poison on both neighbours.
- Frost freezes one item on each neighbour for a short moment.
- Guard gives you a little shield.
- Fortune steals one cattle from each neighbour.
The other two change the item itself:
- Swift makes its cooldown 25% faster.
- Keen adds 20% crit chance.
Burn, Poison, Frost and Guard grow with the item’s stars. A 0-star item applies 1 Burn or 1 Poison per fire, and each star adds another, so a 3-star item applies 4. Frost starts at 0.4 seconds and adds 0.2 per star. Guard starts at 5 shield and adds 5 per star.
Why the effects are so small
On paper these numbers look tiny. That is on purpose. A rune fires every time its item fires, and in Ringfort every fort fights both of its neighbours at once, so Blazing on a fast weapon means two fresh Burn stacks every few seconds for the whole fight. A rune is not meant to be a new item. It is meant to bend an item you already like toward the build you are making.
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That is also why the runes line up with the game’s three reactions. Venom on anything gives a burn build a reason to run poison and trigger Fester. Frost on a quick item keeps an enemy item cold, which is exactly what Shatter needs. Guard and Keen are the quiet, safe options when you just want your best item to be a bit sturdier or a bit sharper.
One detail we had to decide: some items reward you each time you freeze an enemy item. Freezes from the Frost rune do not count for those rewards. Without that rule, a cheap rune on a fast item could feed those rewards far more than intended, and the item would stop being the interesting part.
Why the price climbs
A flat price would turn every spare cattle into another enchant, and the best build would become “enchant everything”. A price that climbs by 3 every time makes each new rune a real choice against rerolling the shop, upgrading stars or saving for a big buy. The cap at 30 keeps enchants on the table in a long run, when your income has grown and nothing else is worth buying.
The other forts enchant too
The computer-controlled forts play by the same rules. When a bot cannot upgrade its stars any further and still has cattle saved, it enchants items that do not have a rune yet, paying the same climbing price you do. Forts in the higher rings also arrive with some items already enchanted, more the further you climb. When you hover over an enemy item, its rune is shown, so you can see what you are up against before the fight.
There is a Steam Achievement for it as well: Enchanter, for enchanting 5 times in one run.
Try it, then wishlist it
Ringfort has a free demo on Steam right now, and the full game launches on November 16, 2026, as part of Steam’s Auto Battler RPG Fest, with Steam Achievements and a launch-week discount.
Play the free demo or wishlist Ringfort on Steam: https://fervogame.com/ringfort/medium
More about the game: https://fervogame.com/games/ringfort/
Related notes: the three reactions — https://medium.com/@fervo-games/shatter-fester-shield-break-the-three-reactions-in-ringfort-0b3628c9c180 — and no pity gold for losing — https://medium.com/@fervo-games/no-pity-gold-for-losing-how-comebacks-work-in-ringfort-213d02737d6d
