Expedition Crafting — Verisium Runeforging and Kalguuran Runes
“Did Expedition even have crafting items?” is a fair doubt — because the pre-0.5 Expedition economy (artifacts, vendor gambling, the Recombinator) is gone entirely. In its place, 0.5 merged Expedition into the Runes of Aldur system, adding a whole new crafting axis: transform gear with Verisium, and earn socketable runes. So Expedition is still — arguably more than ever — tied directly to crafting.
As of 0.5.5, Expedition is no longer league-limited content. Farrow, Dannig, and Expedition content became core Atlas mechanics, Standard included, and in game you meet Expeditions from Act 4 onwards. Everything below applies whether or not you play Runes of Aldur. The full change list is in the 0.5.5 patch notes.
The old Expedition economy is gone
If you came from an older guide, know this first.
- The old artifacts (Broken Circle, Black Scythe, Order, Sun) and Exotic Coinage now all read “This item is no longer usable.”
- The vendors Rog, Gwennen, Dannig, and Tujen were turned into non-interactable doodads, and the Recombinator was removed. Reclaim items left in old inventories with
/reclaimexpeditioninventories. - The one surviving old function is Dannig’s Loreweave quest: hand over 60 unique rings for a Loreweave ring.
So “run Expedition, hoard artifacts, have Rog craft for you” no longer applies. Everything below is the actual 0.5 Expedition crafting.
Verisium and Runeforging
The central crafting currency of 0.5 Expedition is Verisium, used at the Verisium Anvil to transform equipment; higher variants like Exceptional Verisium and Liquid Verisium exist too. Verisium drops from monsters empowered by Verisium Remnants and from Expedition bosses.
The work done at the anvil is called Runeforging. How you unlock it depends on the league.
- In Runes of Aldur — an Act 1 quest unlocks it, adding a Verisium Anvil to towns and hideouts.
- Outside it (Standard, Forbidden Rites) — since 0.5.5 it’s unlocked by completing The Runeseeker quest in Act 4. Once unlocked, Farrow can be placed in your hideout in all leagues, and Expedition uniques can go in the Unique Item Stash Tab.
What the anvil does:
- Adds Runic Ward to armour. It swaps the item’s base for a Runeforged base (uniques become Runemastered), and that base grants Runic Ward. Existing modifiers are kept.
- Upgrades low-level unique items to a higher level.
- Repairs a Shattered Triskelion into The Triskelion Reforged (no resource cost) and crafts uniques from Starlit Ore. These tie directly into the pinnacle boss — see The Aberration.
Two cautions. Corrupted items cannot be runeforged. And Runic Ward is a new 0.5 defensive layer — it works opposite to energy shield, absorbs otherwise-fatal damage, and regenerates ~5% per second (it’s also the resource for Kalguuran skills).
Socketable runes — Expedition’s real crafting items
The most direct “crafting item” is the Rune — an augment socketed into gear to add a fixed modifier (an enchantment). There are two families:
- Ezomyte runes — drop broadly across the game.
- Kalguuran runes — drop only from Verisium Remnants and Expedition encounters. This family is exactly how Expedition feeds crafting.
Basic runes are things like the Adept Rune and Body Rune; Runic Ward–related runes (Ward Rune, etc.) come only from Verisium Remnants.
Rune tiers and combining
Runes have tiers, lowest to highest: Lesser → Rune → Greater → Perfect.
- Combine three of the same rune to move up a tier (at the Reforging Bench).
- Perfect tier requires using a Masterwork Rune on a socketed Greater rune.
Replacing and removing runes
- A socketed rune can be overwritten by placing another socketable in the slot (this used to be impossible; it changed).
- Only Perfect-tier runes can be recovered, using an Orb of Extraction — which destroys the host item and returns its non-socket-bound augments.
- Endgame runes are limited to one per character.
Note that runes share the same socketable class as Soul Cores — remembering that clears up most socket-rule confusion.
Aldur runewords
Inscribing a runeword at a Verisium Remnant yields special named runes. The confirmed ones:
| Rune | Effect |
|---|---|
| Aldur’s Legacy | Socketed into a unique Kalguuran/Ezomyte item, destroys it to create a rune imbued with its power |
| Breath of Aldur | Weapon rune — converts fire/lightning modifiers to cold |
| Ancient Rune of Animosity | Talisman rune (Druidic / stun themed) |
| Ancient Rune of Control | Quarterstaff rune (immobilise themed) |
These are mostly drop level 65, come only from specific Verisium Remnant runewords, and share a limit of 1. Aldur’s Legacy is especially powerful — it effectively moves a favourite unique’s power into a rune you can graft onto other gear.
Meanwhile, beast-boss named runes like Farrul’s Rune of Grace drop broadly, not exclusively from Verisium Remnants. So not every named rune is Expedition-locked.
Running Expedition (Verisium Remnants)
The mechanic itself (placing explosives to detonate relics and markers, empowering monsters) is in Six Map Mechanics; here we focus on the material angle.
- The Verisium Remnant is the source. It appears as a standalone encounter in the Runes of Aldur league and as part of Expedition encounters. Clear the guards → inscribe a runeshape to set the reward and wave modifiers (the runeword) → Shatter the Remnant, which drops Verisium, Runeforging components, and exclusive runes/alloys.
- Aim your reward with the runeword. If you’re after a specific rune or Aldur runeword, the combination you inscribe on the Remnant is what targets it.
- Logbooks still exist. Consume an Expedition Logbook at a Logbook node on the Atlas to open an Ocean Biome area, previewing contents via up to three Rumours. Note that, unlike PoE1, Logbooks cannot be crafted with currency.
Turning Expedition on with Tablets (0.5.5)
Expedition Tablets drop in Standard and in Forbidden Rites. They do not drop in Runes of Aldur — that league is Expedition already. What a Tablet does depends on how many you stack:
| Tablets | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | Adds a Kalguuran Expedition to the map |
| 2 | Adds a Verisium Remnant, +35% Kalguuran Expedition density |
| 3 | Adds an additional Kalguuran Expedition |
| 4 | Adds another Verisium Remnant, +35% density again |
From a materials angle the point is that density is material: raising Expedition density raises the number of chests, monster flags, and Verisium Remnants inside the dig site. If you want Remnants more often, stack in twos and fours.
0.5.5 also added Tablet modifiers — increased Expedition explosive area of effect, increased quantity of Logbooks from Runic Monsters, additional bosses encased in ice, and additional Verisium Sentries.
Separately, Aldur’s Saga cannot be obtained outside Runes of Aldur. Its special modifiers do appear naturally on Grand Expeditions run from a Logbook in Standard and Forbidden Rites, so the modifiers themselves aren’t out of reach.
Remnant changes in 0.5.5
- The Oath Rune was adjusted. Affected monsters are no longer immune to damage; instead they gain more Ward and spend less Ward summoning minions. Its rarity bonus went up.
- A new Runeshape recipe granting 10 Chaos Orbs was added to Expedition Remnants.
- Multiple Verisium Sentries can now apply rune modifiers to the same monster.
- Fixed a bug where Liquid Verisium couldn’t be used directly on Rune Remnants from the inventory, along with Expedition encounter explosion radii being slightly too small.
The Expedition pinnacle boss is The Aberration — if your progress heads that way, see The Aberration.