// Designer

Ichor Glyphs

Ichor glyphs are the deepest layer of Icaroid tuning. You place crystalline, conductive ichor pieces onto a component's upgrade grid. Certain patterns of conductive cells form a glyph, which grants a bonus tailored to the part hosting it - stat boosts, an effect, or even an ability. The same shape on a weapon, a core, legs, or a utility part may do entirely different things, but each glyph will usually have a theme.

How glyphs work

Each component - and the core - has its own ichor grid, a small field of valid cells. You drop ichor pieces (each a small shape) onto those cells. When your Icaroid deploys into a battle, it pumps energy through its upgrade grid, activating each glyph's pattern and providing its bonus to the host part or the whole Icaroid for the fight.

A glyph's bonus is keyed to the host's component type - weapon, core, mobility, or utility. The same shape gives different rewards depending on what it sits on.
Multiple glyphs can match on one Icaroid and even in each component; their bonuses stack.
A glyph's stat bonus is no longer a fixed number - its strength scales with the size of the pieces forming it, and with the elements of any other glyphs those pieces also belong to (see below). Some glyphs instead - or also - grant effects and abilities.
Empty space matters: what you leave out is just as important as what you fill in. Most glyphs require that certain cells remain unoccupied.

Build around the host

Put offensive shapes on weapons for special on-hit effects, defensive shapes on the core, speed shapes on legs, etc. The Tower may make a weapon harder to destroy, but on a core it grants Siege Mode and on legs it grants a significant +100 mobility - read the per-type lines before you commit to an upgrade strategy.

Elemental affinities

Every glyph and gem carries one or two elemental affinities, and some grid cells do too. Matching affinities amplify each other; opposing ones cancel out. Ordinary pieces have no element of their own - a glyph gives its element to every piece that forms it, and an affinity cell gives its own to whatever piece rests on it (at half a glyph's strength, unless the cell is an amplified one).

Metal - structure (and a little armor). Opposed by Lightning.
Lightning - mobility. Opposed by Metal.
Water - evasion and power generation. Opposed by Fire.
Fire - accuracy and ammo capacity. Opposed by Water.
Ichor - Ichor Resonance (amplifies glyph output). Opposed by Null.
Null - shielding. Opposed by Ichor.

A loose piece on bare cells is inert raw material: it gives only a small amount of structure, scaled by its size. Everything else it produces comes from the glyphs it joins and the affinity cells beneath it - a piece inside a Metal glyph makes structure, the same piece inside a Fire glyph makes accuracy and ammo, and a piece in no glyph at all still makes a little of whatever the cells under it are. Bigger pieces are worth more per cell, so a glyph built from a few large pieces charges harder than one built from many small ones.

A piece can wear more than one element at once - from several glyphs, from the cells beneath it, or both - and its worth is split between them in proportion to how strongly each was stamped on it, a glyph counting double a plain cell. Overlap glyphs of unrelated elements and each only gets a share of the piece's charge; overlap opposing elements and the shared piece charges neither. A cell matching an element the piece already carries cannot stamp it any harder, so it purely amplifies that output instead; an opposing cell both dilutes the piece and damps what is left. Line up glyph and cell elements to push a stat as high as it will go.

Those coloured cells are a hint, not decoration. Every core, mobility frame, weapon and utility pod has a handful of them, and they are chosen to match what the part is already built for - Metal on heavy armoured chassis, Fire on ammo-hungry guns, Water on reactors and energy weapons, Null on shield banks, Lightning on legs and thrusters, Ichor on anything shaped to channel it. Faction colours their choice too: expect Metal on Welter parts, Water on Solari, Fire on Ironfall, Ichor on Chorus, Lightning on Praxis and Water on Exordia. Parts built around their grid - Chorus hardware above all - carry noticeably more affinity cells, and the strongest ones of all. Building with a part's cells is the cheapest power in the grid; building against them throws it away.

Ichor works a little differently, because it grants no stat of its own. A piece forming an Ichor glyph instead produces Ichor Resonance, which amplifies every glyph bonus on that part - so an Ichor glyph is a force multiplier on whatever else the grid is doing, and it grows stronger still where its pieces sit on Ichor cells: those cells both make the piece a little Ichor themselves and amplify what that is worth, so even a piece in no glyph resonates faintly on one. A Null cell beneath one damps it, as you would expect from opposing elements.

Ichor pieces

Pieces are your raw material for shaping glyphs. Each piece occupies a fixed footprint of cells, and what it is made of hardly matters - what matters is the shape it lets you spell out, and the cells it comes to rest on. Left to itself on bare cells a piece only reinforces the part it sits in, adding structure in proportion to its size; a few also carry a minor effect. It is the glyphs you build from them - and the affinity cells you cover - that decide what those pieces actually produce.

Piece size	Structure on its own	Worth to a glyph
2 cells	+2	5
3 cells	+3	10
4 cells	+7	20
5 cells	+12	35
6 cells	+18	55

The right-hand column is what the piece is worth to any glyph it forms - the value that becomes that glyph's element, feeds its charge, and turns into its stats. It climbs far faster than the cell count, so large pieces are disproportionately powerful, and disproportionately awkward to fit. A piece shared between two glyphs splits that worth between them.

Gems

Gems are rare, colorful ichor pieces created by natural processes that cannot be replicated in manufacturing. At most one gem may be installed anywhere on an Icaroid - across the core and every component - and each gem grants a unique ability to the unit carrying it.

Gem	Cells	Bonuses	Ability
Ward Gem	4	+10 shielding	Ward Bastion - deploys a stationary Ward Turret projecting a shield bubble over nearby allies
Ember Gem	3	+5 damage	Ember Nova - arm it, and every shot the carrier fires that turn detonates with bonus blast radius, its direct damage burning as plasma (stability, electrical and sensory shots keep their type)
Verdant Gem	5	+10 structure	Verdant Mend - a restorative pulse that repairs nearby allied units
Quakestep Gem	4	+5 damage	Quakestep - arm it, and every step the carrier takes that turn quakes the ground, wracking nearby units (allies included) with stability damage
Harmony Gem	4	+5 accuracy	Harmony Attune - attune to any unit to echo its condition outward: an enemy's afflictions bleed to nearby foes, or an ally's blessings ripple to nearby friends, each at half strength
Tempest Gem	5	+5 damage	Arc Surge - calls down a burst of chain-lightning around a target hex, searing and stunning every enemy caught in it
Phase Gem	3	+5 speed	Phase Step - blink instantly to a distant hex, slipping past terrain and hazards
Aegis Gem	4	+8 shielding	Aegis Ward - projects a shielding ward onto an allied unit, blunting all incoming damage for a time
Siphon Gem	4	+5 damage	Drain Siphon - a leeching strike that tears structure from an enemy and mends the carrier (and its nearest wounded ally) with the stolen essence
Rimefrost Gem	5	+5 accuracy	Rime Lock - flash-freezes a target area, rooting every enemy caught in the frost bloom in place

What makes gems special is how they drink from the glyphs around them: every glyph whose matched cells include part of the gem is attached to it, and the gem's ability gains:

the stat deltas of each attached glyph and of every ichor piece that participates in those glyphs (each piece counted once) - a Ward Turret born of a gem inside The Capacitor gains its +structure as hull and its +shielding as bubble strength, and a Power Array feeding the same glyph adds its shielding on top;
the attached glyphs' behaviors, where they make sense for an ability: Volley Fire lets the ability activate twice before its cooldown starts, Rapid Fire shortens the cooldown, Stored Charge multiplies the ability's strength, Efficient waives its power cost, on-hit weapon effects are inflicted by damaging gem abilities, and other passive effects transfer whole onto anything the ability deploys (a gem inside The Fortress raises a Thick-Skinned turret).

Gems are scarce

Outside campaigns a gem simply carries a steep point cost. In a campaign, gems are mined from rare gem deposit provinces (one gem every four turns goes to the owner; capitols never hold deposits) and every unit manufactured from a gem-carrying design consumes one whole gem - production stalls until the gem is banked, and a destroyed unit's gem is gone for good.

Reading a pattern

Glyph patterns in this guide use three characters:

# - a cell that must be filled by a placed upgrade.
X - a cell that must be empty for the glyph to match.
. - don't care (padding, shown for alignment).

Patterns can match in any rotation, so you don't have to orient pieces exactly as drawn - only the shape matters.

Glyph catalogue

Every glyph, with its shape and the bonus it grants on each host type. Stat shorthand: structure / armor / shielding / weight / mobility / speed / height / damage / accuracy / range / ammo. Effects and abilities link to their guides where covered.

Structural

###
###
###

The Brick

Blocky. Weighty. Solid. Dense.

Weapon +15 structure, +5 armor, +50 weight
Core +25 structure, +25 armor, +50 weight, Rocklike
Mobility +15 structure, +50 weight, No Displacement
Utility +25 structure, +15 armor, +50 weight

####
#XX#
#XX#
####

The Fortress

A hollow square of reinforced plating - the walls matter, not the space within.

Weapon +25 structure, +15 armor
Core +35 structure, +35 armor, Thick-Skinned
Mobility +25 structure, +15 armor, −5 mobility
Utility +25 structure, +25 armor, Thick-Skinned

#XXX
##XX
###X
####

The Rampart

Defense of the walls is key to fending off the slavering hordes.

Weapon +15 structure, +15 armor
Core +25 structure, +15 armor, −25 mobility
Mobility +25 structure, +15 armor, −3 speed
Utility +15 structure, +15 armor

X#X
X#X
X#X
###

The Tower

The construction and defense of towering edifices is a time-honored tradition.

Weapon +15 structure, +5 armor, +10 damage
Core +25 structure, +15 armor, Siege Mode
Mobility +15 structure, +100 mobility, −3 speed, +3 height
Utility +15 structure, +5 armor, Thick-Skinned

###
###

The Crusher

A dense block of Ichor - no finesse, just mass.

Weapon +15 structure, +5 armor, +20 weight
Core +25 structure, +15 armor, +30 weight
Mobility +15 structure, −5 mobility

Offensive

###
XXX
###
XXX
###

The Barrage

Firing this much ammunition is an artform unto itself.

Weapon +5 structure, −5 armor, Rapid Fire
Utility +15 structure, +5 ammo replenishment

X#X
X#X
X#X
###
X#X
X#X

The Sniper's Eye

Tall vertical column with a crossbar near the top.

Weapon +5 structure, Targeting Computer
Core +15 structure, Indirect Sensors
Utility +5 structure, Targeting Computer, Indirect Sensors

#X#
##X
###

The Fang

Nature's weapons provide many lessons.

Weapon +5 structure, −5 armor, Armor Piercing
Mobility +5 structure, +35 mobility

XX#
X##
##X
#XX

The Disruptor

Strategic interference with the machinations of the enemy leads to victory.

Weapon +5 structure, Sensory Disrupted
Core +15 structure, +15 shielding, Weather Bubble
Mobility +5 structure, +15 mobility, Entangler
Utility +25 shielding, Weather Bubble

#X#
#X#
###

The Maw

Hunger leads to aggression. Aggression, violence.

Weapon +5 structure, Teeth
Core +15 structure, +15 armor, Consuming (lifesteal)
Mobility +5 structure, +5 mobility, Predator
Utility +15 structure, grants Fire Everything

###X
X##X
XX##
XXX#

The Scorched Earth

Fight fire with fire. Or, perhaps, just eat it.

Weapon +5 structure, Melt Terrain
Core +15 structure, +5 armor, Melt Terrain
Mobility +5 structure, +15 mobility, Plasma Trail
Utility +10 structure, Flame Eater

#X#X#

The Volley

Fire more, less.

Weapon +5 structure, Volley Fire

Mobility & evasion

XXXX#
XXX##
XX##X
X##XX
##XXX

The Sprinter

Charge into combat - or escape from it. Moving faster always helps.

Weapon +15 mobility, +15 accuracy
Core +15 mobility, Initiator
Mobility +100 mobility, Ghost Step
Utility +25 mobility, +4 speed

#XXX#
##X##
X###X

The Vaulter

Leap tall obstacles in a single bound.

Weapon +5 mobility, Curved Flight
Core +15 mobility, Hover
Mobility +50 mobility, +2 height
Utility +15 mobility, +2 speed

X###
X#XX
###X

The Coil

Controls lightning. Nikola Tesla would have been proud.

Weapon +5 mobility, +10 electrical damage
Core +25 mobility, Thunderstorm
Mobility +35 mobility, −5 structure, Grounded
Utility +15 mobility, Tesla Coil

###
#X#
###

The Container

Sometimes you keep things in. Sometimes out. The Container does both.

Weapon +20 ammo, +10 shielding
Core +20 ammo, +3 ammo replenishment, +30 shielding
Mobility +10 shielding, Water Immune
Utility +10 shielding, +10 ammo, +1 ammo replenishment

##X
X##
#XX

The Shadow

Everywhere and nowhere. Hard to shoot properly.

Weapon +5 mobility, Shadowed
Core +15 mobility, Shadowed
Mobility +25 mobility, Shadowed
Utility +15 mobility, Shadowed

Shield & energy

X###
##XX
##XX
X###

The Shell

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

Weapon +15 shielding, +15 electrical damage
Core +35 shielding, Dampening Field, Plasma Resistance
Mobility +25 shielding, Plasma Resistance
Utility +35 shielding, Dampening Field

X###X
##X##
#XXX#
##X##
X#X#X
XX#XX

The Wellspring

Water flows with purpose. Ichor flows create that purpose.

Weapon +15 shielding, +5 structure, Digger
Core +75 shielding, Resonant Field
Mobility +15 shielding, grants Flow
Utility +50 shielding, Resonant Field

X##
##X
X##
##X

The Conduit

Reach enlightenment. Or at least en-lightning-ment.

Weapon +15 shielding, +10 electrical damage
Core +35 shielding, Electrical Resist, Resonant Field
Mobility +15 shielding, grants Charged Dash
Utility +35 shielding, grants Resonate

##X##
XX#XX

The Capacitor

Stored tension waiting to be unleashed.

Weapon +15 shielding, +15 structure, Stored Charge
Core +50 shielding, +25 structure, Electrical Resist
Mobility +15 shielding, Stored Dash
Utility +50 shielding, Reactive Lattice

Targeting

X#X
#X#
X#X

The Reticle

Four cells at the diagonals around an empty centre.

Weapon +30 accuracy, −20 mobility
Core +15 accuracy, −20 mobility
Utility Indirect Sensors

X###X
##X##
#XXX#
##X##
X###X

The Lens

Focus on what's really important - like exploding that guy over there.

Weapon +4 range, +30 accuracy, −30 mobility
Core +2 range, +25 accuracy, −50 mobility
Utility Indirect Sensors

#X#X#
X#X#X
#X#X#
X#X#X
#X#X#

The Web

What tangle have we wrought?

Weapon +50 stability damage
Core Entangler
Mobility +5 mobility
Utility Indirect Sensors

Ammo & resource

###
###
X#X
X#X

The Reservoir

If you never throw anything away, you'll always find something to fit the situation.

Weapon +20 ammo, +1 replenishment
Core +50 ammo, +3 replenishment
Mobility +30 ammo, +2 replenishment
Utility +20 ammo, +2 replenishment

X###
X#XX
###X
#XXX

The Siphon

Draw from everything around you. And we do mean everything.

Weapon Siphoned Shot
Core +50 structure, Salvage Repair
Mobility Weather Siphon
Utility grants Mining Repair

#X##
X#XX
#X##

The Efficient Round

Efficiency sometimes means firing more accurately. Sometimes it means never firing at all.

Weapon −10 weight, Efficient
Core −50 weight
Mobility +2 speed, +50 mobility
Utility +5 replenishment, −20 weight

Special & rare

X#X#X
#XXX#
X#X#X

The Resonant Star

The music of the spheres gives the lie to the silence of space.

Weapon +5 structure, +15 shielding, Ichor Resonance
Core +25 structure, +25 shielding, Resonant Field
Mobility +25 shielding, Shield Resonance
Utility +15 structure, +25 shielding, grants Resonate

#X#X#
X###X

The Iron Crown

Heavy is the crown.

Weapon +15 structure, +15 armor
Core +35 structure, +15 armor, Thick-Skinned
Mobility +15 structure, +5 armor, −5 mobility
Utility +25 structure, +25 armor

X###X
XX#XX
X###X
XX#XX
XX#XX

The Anchor

Hold fast to your position. The betrayal of the earth is not among your concerns.

Weapon applies Weighed Down on hit
Core +35 structure, +10 armor, Terrain Anchor
Mobility +25 structure, −15 mobility, Terrain Anchor
Utility +25 structure, +15 armor, Terrain Anchor

X#X
###
X#X
##X
X##

The Relay

Coordination is the key to victory.

Weapon +5 structure, Beacon
Core +15 structure, +30 shielding, Relay Boost
Mobility Coordinated Movement
Utility +50 shielding, Relay Boost

##X
###
#X#
#X#

The Font

Let the river flow.

Core +25 structure, +25 shielding, Mending Field
Mobility +25 structure, +25 shielding, Mending Trail
Utility +15 structure, +35 shielding, Mending Field

#X#
XXX
#X#

The Null

A presence defined by absence.

Weapon Null Zone
Core Null Zone
Utility Null Zone

X#X
X#X
###
X#X
X#X

The Beacon

Aid has been sought. Will you answer?

Weapon applies Beacon on hit
Core Beacon Self
Mobility grants Drop Beacon
Utility grants Drop Beacon

#X#
X#X
#XX

The Mending Web

Time may heal all wounds, but sometimes you want to speed things up.

Core Regeneration
Mobility Ammo Pickup
Utility Mending Field

Nulling & deployment

Glyph bonuses are snapshotted onto your Icaroid the instant it deploys, merged together with each component's inherent effects and tagged to the part that granted them. That tagging matters in two ways:

Destruction revokes them. If the component carrying a glyph is destroyed, its glyph bonuses go with it - losing a weapon can cost you the aura or ability it was hosting.
Nulling suppresses them. The Chorus Null Suppressing weapon effect inflicts Nulled, which switches off every glyph-sourced bonus on the target for its duration. Inherent component effects keep working; only glyph bonuses go dark, then snap back when Nulled expires.
A stabilized grid is immune. Grid Stabilized - from the Chorus Grid Stabilizer utility component - holds the grid online: while it is installed and intact, Nulled cannot suppress your glyph bonuses at all. Destroy the stabilizer and nulling bites again.

Glyph-reliant builds are fragile

An Icaroid that leans hard on glyphs - especially Chorus ichor-scaled builds - can be neutered by a single Null Field Projector. Spread your value across inherent stats and glyphs, or carry a Grid Stabilized grid, so a null doesn't switch you off.

Grid amplifiers

Several Chorus parts exist purely to get more out of the grid:

Part	What it does
Grid Amplifier mod	Doubles the stat deltas of every ichor piece in the host's grid (not glyph bonuses).
Throughput Magnifier mod	Boosts the effectiveness of every glyph bonus drawn from its grid.
Gridwalker mod	Once per turn, reposition one piece without disturbing the rest.
Overflow Conduit mod	Each time any grid forms a new shape bonus, snaps 10 plasma at the nearest enemy.
Ichor Conduit Hub util	Single-weapon glyph bonuses apply to all weapons.
Resonance Relay util	Broadcasts this Icaroid's glyph bonuses to an ally at reduced strength.
Planet Siphon util	Places a structure; friendly Chorus Icaroids near it gain 10–25% glyph effectiveness.

The grid itself grows larger through core research - each core series has grid-expansion nodes that add cells for bigger patterns - rather than through a bolt-on part.