Hades 2 Cauldron Guide 2026: Priority Order for All 50+ Incantations, Ranked by Passive Value

Search “Hades 2 cauldron guide” and you’ll get two contradictory answers. One camp says unlock Night’s Craftwork first, then chase the Wretched Broker. Another says Kindred Keepsakes is “the single biggest quality-of-life jump in the game” and should come before almost everything else. Both are right — they’re just answering different questions. One is ranking by what you’re forced to unlock next because of a materials gate. The other is ranking by what pays off the most once you have it. This guide separates the two, then ranks every incantation that gives an ongoing, run-after-run benefit by how much value it actually returns, with the exact reagents each one costs.

Verified against the Hades 2 v1.0 Launch Update, Post-Launch Patch 1, and the Warsong and Olympic Updates as of this writing. Ingredient costs and unlock conditions can shift with future patches — cross-check against your own Cauldron menu if a number here looks off.

Quick Start: Your First Five Cauldron Decisions

1. Interact with the Cauldron at the Crossroads once you’ve died and returned at least twice — Melinoe needs to comment on it before “Concoct” becomes available.
2. Spend your first Moly on Night’s Craftwork — it unlocks the gathering tools that generate almost every reagent later recipes need.
3. As soon as you’re holding 10 Bones, unlock Summoning of the Mercantile Fortune to open the Wretched Broker.
4. Grab Forget-Me-Not the moment you have a spare Moly — it flags exactly which gathering tool a locked recipe needs, so you stop guessing.
5. Once you’re gathering reliably, save toward Kindred Keepsakes (4 Limestone, 2 Moly, 1 Lotus) before any Situational recipe — it’s the highest-value passive unlock in the game per run.

How the Crossroads Cauldron Actually Works

The Cauldron sits at the center of the Crossroads and lets Melinoe permanently “Concoct” incantations using reagents gathered during runs, grown in the garden, or bought from the Broker. Highlight any incantation to see its full cost before committing. Unlike boons, which reset every death, every incantation you concoct stays unlocked forever — there’s no reason to sit on reagents once you can afford something useful.

Two categories exist inside the Cauldron menu. Feature Unlock incantations open new systems entirely — merchants, garden plots, hot springs, weapon Aspects. Run Upgrade incantations modify how existing systems behave — extra healing, extra Bones, keepsake flexibility. A separate, smaller set of Alchemy Recipes doesn’t unlock anything; it consumes reagents over time to brew a craftable item, and locks the Cauldron from new incantations until the brew finishes.

Gate Unlocks vs. Passive-Value Incantations: Why “Best First” Guides Disagree

Kotaku’s recommended order — Night’s Craftwork, Summoning of the Mercantile Fortune, Forget-Me-Not, Gathering of Ancient Bones, Divination of the Elements, Rite of Vapor-Cleansing — is a materials-gate chain [1]. Each entry either produces reagents the next one needs or removes a bottleneck (not knowing which tool to use). You can’t skip ahead in this chain even if you wanted to; the game simply won’t show you a recipe you can’t afford.

RogueRanker’s pick of Kindred Keepsakes as the standout unlock is a passive-value call — it’s ranking incantations by how much they change every subsequent run once obtained, regardless of gate order [2]. Both lists are correct. The gate chain tells you what’s physically possible to unlock next; the passive-value ranking tells you what to prioritize the moment you have a real choice between two affordable options. Use the gate chain to get moving, then switch to the ranking below once your reagent income stabilizes.

Recipe Priority, Ranked by Passive Bonus Value

These are the incantations that keep paying out on every future run rather than unlocking a one-time system or a situational vendor. Ranked by how much ongoing value each returns relative to its cost.

RogueRanker also flags Quickening of Sentimental Value — which speeds up Keepsake rank-up — as a strong early pick [2]. Its exact reagent cost wasn’t confirmed across the sources checked for this guide, so treat it as a good target once Kindred Keepsakes is done rather than a numbered priority.

The Gate-Unlock Chain You Still Need First

None of the passive-value picks above matter if you can’t afford them. Follow this sequence early regardless of the ranking, because each step either unlocks the reagent source the next one needs or removes a guessing problem [1]:

1. Night’s Craftwork (1 Moly) — unlocks gathering tools at Silver Pools, the primary source of new reagents.
2. Summoning of the Mercantile Fortune (10 Bones) — opens the Wretched Broker to buy what you can’t gather fast enough.
3. Forget-Me-Not (1 Moly) — tags locked recipes with the exact tool needed to gather their missing ingredient.
4. Gathering of Ancient Bones (2 Limestone) — passive Bones income to keep the Broker funded (also rank 4 above).
5. Divination of the Elements (5 Psyche) — reveals boon Elements before you’re deep enough into runs for it to matter (also rank 3 above).
6. Rite of Vapor-Cleansing (2 Moly, 2 Lotus, 2 Nightshade) — opens the Hot Springs for relationship progression.

Every Feature-Unlock Incantation and Its Ingredients

The full Feature-Unlock list, tagged by type: Gate (blocks a system you need), Passive (recurring benefit), or Situational (useful for a specific goal, not every run).

Run-Upgrade Incantations and Their Ingredients

Alchemy Recipes: What the Cauldron Brews, Not Unlocks

These don’t grant permanent effects — they consume reagents over a set time to produce a craftable item, and lock the Cauldron from new incantations while brewing [1].

Because these lock the Cauldron for several runs’ worth of real time, only queue one when you’re not actively saving toward an unlock from the tables above — brewing Sweet Nectar while Kindred Keepsakes sits affordable and unclaimed is a bad trade.

Which Incantations to Chase First, by Player Type

New in the Warsong and Olympic Updates

Hades 2 left Early Access with the v1.0 Launch Update, and Supergiant has kept adding to the Cauldron menu since [3][4]. The Warsong Update added four incantations, including Path to Desired Blessings (1 Feather, 2 S-Reed), which tracks offering requirements directly in the Book of Shadows, and Shuffling of Noted Ballads, a Music Maker convenience recipe. The Olympic Update followed with ten more, including Favored of All Keepsakes (1 Ambrosia, 2 Iris, 2 Shaderot), which auto-equips a selected Keepsake — a smaller sibling to Kindred Keepsakes rather than a replacement for it. Post-Launch Patch 1 also added Returning to a Real Possibility, letting you revisit earlier story beats including the true ending, and lowered the reveal requirement on Greatest Gift of Gaia [5]. None of these outrank the passive-value picks above — they’re QoL additions, not economy multipliers — but they’re worth grabbing once your core list is done.

FAQ

Which cauldron incantation should I unlock first in Hades 2?

Night’s Craftwork if you have a spare Moly — not because it’s the highest-value recipe in the game, but because almost nothing else is reachable without the gathering tools it unlocks. Once your reagent income is running, switch from “what can I afford” to the passive-value ranking above. Community reports note that which recipes even appear as options can feel inconsistent early on [4], so treat the gate chain as a target order, not a guarantee of what you’ll see first.

Do cauldron incantations carry over between runs and deaths?

Yes, permanently — this is what separates them from boons and most resources, which reset every death. That permanence is why front-loading investment into a recurring-benefit recipe like Kindred Keepsakes or Observance of Gaia’s Secrets outperforms spending the same reagents on a one-time Situational unlock: the passive pick pays out on every run for the rest of the game, the situational one pays out once.

What’s the actual difference between Feature Unlock and Run Upgrade incantations?

Feature Unlocks open a system that didn’t exist before — a merchant, a garden plot, the Hot Springs. Run Upgrades modify a system you already have access to — more healing at fountains you can already use, more Bones from rooms you’re already clearing. The distinction matters for planning: Feature Unlocks are usually one-time gates, while Run Upgrades are far more likely to land in the Passive category on the tables above.

Are there new cauldron incantations since Hades 2’s full release?

Yes — the Warsong and Olympic Updates added fourteen combined, and Post-Launch Patch 1 introduced Returning to a Real Possibility [3][4][5]. Most are quality-of-life rather than power gains, so they’re worth grabbing after your economy and Keepsake-flexibility picks are locked in, not before.

Do I need every incantation to see the true ending?

No single incantation is a hard requirement for the true ending, but Consecration of Ashes and Abyssal Insight unlock the Arcana-enhancement and Trials systems that most true-ending prep paths run through. Situational recipes like the Fishing Pier or Taverna don’t touch that path at all, which is why they rank last in the player-type table above regardless of your goals.

Sources

• TheGamer — All Upgrades You Can Get At The Cauldron In Hades 2
• Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife) — All Incantations and Alchemy Complete Guide
• Kotaku — The Best Cauldron Incantations To Unlock First
• RogueRanker — Hades 2 Incantations: The Cauldron and Best Ones
• GameRant — All New Cauldron Incantations in Hades 2 Warsong Update
• TwistedVoxel — Hades II Post-Launch Patch 1 Preview
• Supergiant Games — HADES II: v1.0 Now Available!

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.