Whenever you clear a room in Hades, you see one or two doors with symbols above them. This symbol dictates the reward you’ll fight for in the arena beyond the door. There are two categories: Artifacts and Boons.
Boons come from the various Greek gods assisting Zagreus during his escape attempts. Artifacts are either currencies, weapon upgrades, or ability improvements. Which you choose will depend on the strategy and build you’re going for in our current run.
Artifacts in Hades
There are eleven artifacts in Hades, but you’ll only be seeing nine of them frequently. Diamonds, Ambrosia, and Titan’s Blood are exclusively boss/endgame rewards during an Underworld run. There are ways to get them in larger quantities, as we go over in our Titan’s Blood and Ambrosia guides, but you won’t be finding them in large amounts otherwise.
We’ve detailed the remaining eight artifacts below, in the same order as they’re shown above:
- Darkness: The base currency for the Mirror of Night, you’ll want as much Darkness as you can get your hands on early in the game. It’s usable for House Contractor and NPC mission progression as well.
- Centaur Hearts: These items increase your total health by 25 points and heal you by that much, for a net healing amount of 0.
- Chthonic Keys: You’ll use these items initially to unlock new abilities at the Mirror of Night. You’ll also spend them at the House Contractor and the Merchant in the House. Late game, they’re used to reroll Boons during a run.
- Daedalus Hammer: These hammers offer a choice of three upgrades to your current weapon. Almost all of them are upgrades to the weapon’s capabilities but may not immediately jive with the build or playstyle you’re going for.
- Gemstones: These jewels are used exclusively for upgrading the House of Hades at the House Contractor.
- Nectar: This delicious beverage’s primary purpose is to improve your relationship with NPCs. An upgrade also causes picking a bottle up to increase one random Boon you currently have equipped.
- Charon’s Obol: Coins usable only at Wells of Charon (the purple basin’s randomly spawning in rooms) and at Charon’s Shop rooms.
- Pom of Power: These zesty fruits upgrade the effectiveness of one of three of your equipped Boons.
Boons in Hades
Whenever you come across a door with one of the Olympian god symbols, you’ll be able to get your hands on a Boon; powerful abilities keyed to that god’s portfolio.
Each god and their keyed ability types are below, in the same order as shown above:
- Zeus: A damage-dealing set of powers themed around electricity.
- Poseidon: Primarily damage-focused abilities based around the pushing of enemies around a map.
- Athena: Defensive abilities themed around reflecting damage at enemies or straight-up reducing it.
- Aphrodite: A mix of damage and debuff powers that increase your abilities and lower enemy defenses.
- Artemis: Abilities focused on critical and burst damage.
- Ares: Pure damage potential through saw blades or delayed burst.
- Dionysus: Damage-over-time and confusion abilities that rely on stacks to function to their full potential.
- Hermes: Upgrades that improve Zagreus’s speed and movement or the rate at which you accumulate money.
- Demeter: Damage-over-time and slowing powers keyed to Ice and frost stacks.
- Chaos: Straight upgrades to core character abilities like Attack/Special damage, Cast count, and other improvements. You must survive a set number of rooms with a random debuff to get the upgrade.
That’s it for what you need to know about doors in Hades. Check out our other Hades guides here on GameSkinny.
