Boons and the Gods

Boons are the heart of every run. They are blessings from the Olympian gods that modify your attack, special, dash, cast, or grant passive effects, and a run’s power comes almost entirely from how you stack them. The single most important habit is commitment: a run that pours boons into one damage source becomes a juggernaut, while a run that takes a little from everyone stays weak. This page explains how the system works and how a build actually forms around it.

The nine Olympians

Each god has a color and a theme, and most builds are named after the god they lean on:

God	Theme	Typical effect
Zeus	Lightning	Chain lightning, bouncing bolts, strikes
Poseidon	Water and knockback	Knockback damage, bonus loot
Athena	Defense	Deflect, which reflects projectiles
Aphrodite	Charm and Weak	Weak reduces enemy damage, high raw damage
Ares	Blades and Doom	Doom delivers delayed burst damage, blade rifts
Artemis	Critical hits	Critical chance and crit damage
Dionysus	Festive Fog	Stacking poison-like damage over time
Demeter	Chill and frost	Chill slows enemies, ranged frost
Hermes	Speed	Move, attack, and dash speed, dodge, utility

Hermes is the odd one out: he buffs speed and utility rather than a damage source, and he does not give Duo boons. Athena’s Deflect is the classic defensive pick that survives most ranged fights on its own.

Rarity and Poms of Power

Boons come in rarity tiers that raise the strength of the effect: Common, Rare, Epic, and Heroic, with Legendary as a separate category covered below. Higher rarity simply means bigger numbers on the same boon. You can improve the rarity a god offers with certain keepsakes and by clearing Erebus gates.

A Pom of Power is different from a boon. Instead of granting something new, it raises the level of a boon you already hold, pushing its numbers up. Poms are how you take the one boon your build is built around and make it carry the whole run. In an Erebus gate, a single Pom can grant two levels instead of one.

Duo and Legendary boons

Two special categories reward commitment to specific gods. A Duo Boon requires that you already hold the right boons from two specific gods, and it is usually far stronger than an ordinary boon. There are 28 Duo Boons in the game, shared among eight gods; Hermes and Chaos do not give them, and every eligible pair of gods shares exactly one Duo. A Legendary Boon is a single very powerful boon each god offers only once you already hold a certain set of that god’s boons. Both are payoffs for going deep on a god rather than dabbling.

Chaos is not an Olympian. From Chaos Gates it offers powerful blessings that apply a downside for a set number of encounters, then convert into a strong run-long buff once that penalty window passes. High risk early, strong payoff if you survive it.

How a build forms

Pick one damage source and feed it. Choose your attack, your special, your cast, or a status like Doom or poison, then take every boon that scales that source. A defensive boon and some mobility round it out, and a Duo or Legendary is the ceiling you aim for.

In practice that means deciding early what this run is about, often nudged by the keepsake you started with, then routing toward the god who anchors that plan. Add Athena’s Deflect or a similar defensive boon so you survive, add Hermes for speed, and keep an eye on which Duo your boons are setting up. The strongest builds are not a grab bag of good boons; they are one idea taken as far as the run will let you.

Related: Keepsakes for steering which god appears, The Four Regions for where boons are offered, and build pages like Doom Ares, Crit Artemis, and Lightning Zeus.