Runes and upgrades

Runes are permanent upgrades which enable the player to travel to locations and Biomes which are not accessible otherwise.

Once acquired, the player's collected runes can be viewed in the saved game slot (in the main game menu, under "play")

The only way to acquire runes is to travel to specific zones and defeat Elite enemies which spawn from certain Elite obelisks.

There are currently seven runes in Dead Cells: the Vine Rune, the Teleportation Rune, the Challenger Rune, the Ram Rune, the Spider Rune, the Homunculus Rune, and the Customization Rune.

List of runes

Rune	Icon	Biome	Location	Elite Guardian or Boss	Grants ability	Grants access to
Vine Rune		Promenade of the Condemned	In a room accessed by entering a door found at the base of a large overhang	Undead Archer	Ability to sprout vines from special green blobs.	Toxic Sewers, Ramparts
Teleportation Rune		Toxic Sewers	In a room found beneath a switch-operated door with the switch directly behind the door.	Slasher	Ability to teleport between pairs of electric sarcophagi.	Ossuary, Forgotten Sepulcher
Challenger Rune		Black Bridge	Defeat The Concierge	The Concierge	Opens the daily run door in the Prisoners' Quarters.	Daily Run
Ram Rune		Ossuary	In a room in the Ossuary.	Slasher	Ability to break fragile ground (marked with yellow sign) with any dive attack. Buffs up your Dive attack's damage and range (long fall Dive attack only).	Ancient Sewers
Spider Rune		Slumbering Sanctuary	In a room in the Slumbering Sanctuary.	Caster	Ability to climb the walls and wall-jumping.	Slumbering Sanctuary (if entered from Black Bridge), Graveyard, Prison Depths
Homunculus Rune	File:Homunculus Rune.png	Throne Room	Defeat The Hand of the King.	The Hand of the King	Allows the player detach their head and control it separately from their body to access certain areas and disable a single enemy's movements with full control of the player's body. Upon reaching max distance away from the main body the head will slingshot back to position. The cooldown for this rune will not start unless the player latches onto an enemy, is reset upon killing the enemy Homunculus latched onto. This can also be used indefinitely to bring blueprints and loot back to the player. Using the rune breaks invisibility. This rune can't be used if the Beheaded is cursed.	Cavern
Customization Rune	File:Cutomization Rune Icon.png	Ramparts	In a room close to the entrance of the Ramparts.	Undead Archer or Zombie	Unlocks Custom Mode on the main menu.	Custom Mode

References

Navigation wiki