Artifacts - items that influence the stats of a hero and his army. They can change his parameters or offer him special abilities.

Artifact types Artifacts for heroes
Artifacts, that a hero carries with him in his inventory.
Only artifacts that have been "put on" influence hero's stats (highlighted with yellow). Almost all artifacts have a level of 1 to 4 that determines their force.

Runes
Runes can be placed into the player's capital city rune stone. They influence all the heroes (but not machinery) located in a certain radius around the city. The set of rune stones in use can be changed only once per day.

All runes have a level (1-4), that determines their power. The rune's level is mentioned in the floating tooltip.

All runes have a radius of influence, indicated in the floating tooltip (i.e. r12 = the rune works in a 12 cell radius around the capital city).

Clan runes
Clan runes can be placed into the clan rune stone, based in one of the clan cities. These runes influence all the units belonging to one clan that are located within its radius of influence. Currently they are not present in the game.

Where do I find artifacts?

Blacksmith
The blacksmith is the city building where artifacts can be crafted. You need recipes to craft artifacts. Recipes may be found as trophies when killing monsters, or can be bought on the market. The higher the level of the blacksmith, the higher the chance to craft a valuable artifact.
Not all artifacts can be produced.

Trade
Artifacts can be purchased from other players on the market.

Age of the artifacts/runes

Every artifact has its own life time, by the end of which it disintegrates (usually 70 days). The aging process of an artifact does not depend on the time his owner has spent online, nor does it depend on the fact if it was used. However if you equip an artifact with a hero and then pass it to another to be equipped again, it will age for 4 days instantly.

Artifacts may have modificators: