Every Fated List achievement guide lists what each prophecy pays out. None of them tell you that the payout is the point — because the achievement system in Hades 2 doesn’t hand you Grasp at all. “Mind for Magick,” the achievement for reaching maximum Grasp, sounds like a reward you unlock. It isn’t. It’s a badge for spending 500-plus Psyche you had to earn yourself[9]. The Fated List’s real job is funding two separate currencies — Psyche and Ash — that you then spend manually at the Altar of Ashes. Confuse the two and you’ll grind the wrong prophecies for weeks.
This guide breaks down how the Fated List unlocks, what it actually pays into, and which of its ~50-plus tasks to prioritize if your goal is maxing Grasp and unlocking Arcana Cards fast — not just clearing achievements for their own sake.
Quick Start: Unlocking and Prioritizing the Fated List
Before the priority breakdown, here’s the fast version:
- Cast Fated Intervention at the Crossroads Cauldron — it’s available early and unlocks the Fated List itself[4].
- Complete a run (win or lose) after casting it; several prophecies are tracked in the background before they ever appear on the scroll[4][5], so you’re already making progress without knowing it.
- Open the Fated List from the Crossroads menu and check which entries are already partially filled in — those are your quickest completions.
- Stop chasing the largest Bones payouts first. Prophecies like Power Beyond Legend and Combined Might pay 3,000 Bones each[5], which is great for shopping, but Bones don’t touch your Grasp cap or your Arcana Card pool.
- Prioritize the handful of prophecies that pay in Psyche or Ash instead — see the table below.
- Check the Grasp resource farming guide for the fastest per-run Psyche and Ash income once you’ve cleared the easy Fated List wins.
How the Fated List Actually Works
The Fated List of Minor Prophecies is a running task log tied to Melinoë’s story and combat progress, unlocked through the Fated Intervention incantation at the Crossroads Cauldron[4]. It isn’t a menu you build up choice-by-choice — most of its roughly 50 entries begin tracking your behavior immediately, even before the specific prophecy has been revealed to you[4][5]. That means a player who ignores the Fated List entirely for their first ten hours can still open it later and find several tasks already half-complete.
Prophecies fall into a few practical clusters, even though the game doesn’t label them with headers: story/character milestones (talking to specific NPCs, giving gifts), combat milestones (defeating specific bosses, collecting every boon from one god), collection milestones (fishing, cooking, Arcana access), and resource milestones (accumulating Kudos, incantations, or crafting materials)[5][7]. Supergiant has also actively tuned the pacing of this system post-launch — Post-Launch Patch 1 sped up several character-linked prophecies, including “Melinoë, Help Us,” specifically so players wouldn’t get stuck waiting on scripted story beats[1][2].
Worth separating early: not every Fated List entry is also a Steam or console achievement, and not every achievement maps to a Fated List entry. Milestones like defeating every boss or hitting 10,000 lifetime Kudos exist as standalone achievements with their own names[7], while the Fated List is specifically the in-game scroll tracking prophecy tasks with material rewards attached. The overlap is large but not total, which is part of why total counts vary so much between sources — a site counting Steam achievements and a site counting scroll entries are measuring two related but different lists.
The Grasp Myth: What Fated List Rewards Actually Fund
Here’s the part every flat reward table skips: Grasp is a capacity stat, not a reward. It starts at 10 and caps at 30, and the only way to raise it is spending Psyche yourself at the Altar of Ashes — each step costs more than the last, with the jump from 28 to 29 alone running around 350 Psyche[6][9]. Outside the Fated List, the fastest recurring Psyche income comes from a fully upgraded Tablet of Peace and the Frinos familiar compelling lingering spirits mid-run, plus Charon’s Well and Wretched Broker trades between runs[6] — the Fated List’s lump sums just front-load part of that grind. Ash does a different job entirely: it’s what unlocks new Arcana Cards in the first place, revealing adjacent cards on the grid as you spend it, while Psyche only expands how many of those unlocked cards you can have active at once[8].
No Fated List prophecy skips either step. What the best prophecies do is hand you a lump sum of the currency you’d otherwise have to farm run after run. That’s the actual value of an achievement like “Valued Customer” — not a badge, but 80 free Psyche you don’t have to spend three extra floors chasing[4]. Treat every Psyche or Ash reward on the list as a shortcut past the grind, and every Bones or Nectar reward as unrelated to your Grasp progress entirely.
This also explains why the math never fully resolves: the full 25-card Arcana set costs 56 combined Grasp to run simultaneously, but the cap tops out at 30[9]. Even a player who finishes every Psyche-paying prophecy on the Fated List and maxes Grasp will still have to choose which cards to leave off. The achievement system speeds up the climb — it doesn’t remove the ceiling.
Which Prophecies to Prioritize for Grasp and Arcana Progress
These are the specific prophecies confirmed to pay Psyche or Ash, cross-checked across two independent trackers[4][5]. Do these before the big Bones-only prophecies if your goal is unlocking cards or raising your cap:
| Prophecy | Reward | What it actually funds |
|---|---|---|
| Valued Customer | 80 Psyche | Grasp cap (biggest single Psyche payout on the list) |
| Spectral Forms | 40 Psyche | Grasp cap |
| The Invoker | 25 Psyche | Grasp cap |
| Note to Self | 25 Psyche | Grasp cap |
| Major Arcana | 100 Ash | Arcana Card unlocks (biggest single Ash payout) |
| Precision Instruments | 100 Ash | Arcana Card unlocks |
| Tools of the Unseen | 40 Ash | Arcana Card unlocks |
| Customary Gift | 10 Ash | Arcana Card unlocks |
Two more are worth flagging even though they pay in secondary materials: one Fated List tracker lists Mindful Craft (reach Grasp level 14) as paying 2 Nightshade Seeds, and Breadth of Knowledge (access every currently available Arcana Card) as paying 7 Moondust[5] — both are Arcana-upgrade materials rather than Grasp-cap fuel, so treat them as a secondary priority once the Psyche/Ash list above is clear. For a full breakdown of which cards are worth unlocking with that Ash first, see our Arcana Cards guide.
Run the math and the confirmed Psyche prophecies alone (80 + 40 + 25 + 25) hand you 170 free Psyche — roughly a third of the ~500 Psyche it takes to climb from the starting 10 Grasp to the 30 cap[9], before you’ve farmed a single dedicated run for it. The confirmed Ash prophecies (100 + 100 + 40 + 10) add 250 Ash toward unlocking cards, which matters most in the early-to-mid game when most of the 25-card grid is still hidden. Neither total replaces farming — but skipping them means grinding runs for currency you could have collected for free just by playing the story missions you’d probably finish anyway.
Prioritize by Player Type
Not every player should clear the Fated List the same way. Advice that doesn’t change by player type isn’t advice — here’s where it actually diverges:
| Player type | Priority order |
|---|---|
| New player | Ignore Grasp optimization for now. Play runs naturally — the Fated List tracks most milestones passively[4], and you’ll clear a dozen easy prophecies before you’re geared enough to care about Arcana min-maxing. |
| Casual player | Clear the four Psyche-paying prophecies above first (170 Psyche combined), then move on. That’s enough to meaningfully speed up your Grasp climb without a dedicated farming detour. |
| Hardcore / optimizer | Clear every Psyche/Ash prophecy above before touching Bones-focused ones, then switch to dedicated Psyche farming via the Tablet of Peace once the free lump sums are gone[6]. |
| Completionist | Finish every prophecy for “Hand of the Fates,” but sequence the Psyche/Ash ones first anyway — there’s no penalty for order, and it gets your build online faster while you grind out the rest. |
How Many Prophecies Are There, Really?
Guides disagree here, and it’s worth naming the disagreement instead of picking a number and hoping. Two independently maintained trackers list 47 and 48 rows respectively for the full Fated List[5], while the “Hand of the Fates” achievement itself requires completing 60 prophecies[7] — a higher number than either tracker’s row count. That gap likely means both trackers are incomplete rather than that the achievement threshold is wrong, since 60 is a fixed, verifiable requirement pulled directly from the achievement description. If you’re chasing the achievement, trust the in-game counter on your own save over any published total — it updates as new prophecies (including post-launch additions from patches[1]) get folded into your list.
Verified Version
Mechanics and reward figures in this guide were verified against Hades 2 following Post-Launch Patch 2 and its subsequent hotfixes[1]. Supergiant has repeatedly adjusted Fated List pacing and Arcana Card costs post-launch[1][3], so if a specific reward amount looks off on your save, it’s more likely a hotfix changed it than that the tracker was ever wrong — check your own scroll for the current number before relying on any guide’s exact figure, including this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does any Fated List prophecy directly increase my Grasp?
No. Every prophecy on the list pays a currency, item, or Bones — never a direct Grasp point. The “Mind for Magick” achievement rewards you for reaching max Grasp, but you get there by spending Psyche at the Altar yourself[6][9]. Treat any guide that implies otherwise as imprecise about the mechanic.
Should I rush Ash or Psyche prophecies first?
Ash first, if you’re early — unlocking more Arcana Cards widens your options before you’ve even hit the Grasp cap that limits how many you can run. Once you’re regularly bumping against your Grasp ceiling in the mid-game, switch priority to Psyche prophecies, since expanding the cap matters more than adding cards you can’t equip anyway[8][9].
Is it worth finishing the Fated List before maxing Grasp normally?
Only for the free Psyche and Ash prophecies. The list’s combined Psyche/Ash payout (roughly 170 Psyche and 250 Ash across the confirmed entries above) is real progress toward your 500-Psyche Grasp climb[4][5][9], but it’s nowhere near enough on its own — you’ll still need dedicated farming via the Tablet of Peace or Charon’s Well regardless of how many prophecies you clear[6].
Why does my Fated List total not match what I read online?
Because published totals disagree with each other by a meaningful margin (47 vs. 48 vs. 60-plus, depending on the source)[5][7], and Supergiant has added prophecies post-launch[1]. Your save’s own in-game count is the only number that’s guaranteed current.
Sources
1. All Patch Notes on Hades 2 Complete List — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
2. New Hades 2 patch notes deliver buffs, faster progression, and an upgraded ending — PCGamesN
3. HADES II: Strike True in The Warsong Update — Supergiant Games
4. Hades 2: Complete Fated List Guide — TheGamer
5. All Fated List Objectives and Rewards in Hades 2 — Digital Phablet
6. Hades 2: Psyche and Grasp Explained — GameRant
7. Hades 2: Complete 100% Achievement Guide & Trophy Walkthrough — NeonLightsMedia
8. Altar of Ashes Guide — Game8
9. Hades 2 Arcana Cards: Grasp, Best Cards, and Builds — RogueRanker
For the complete moment-to-moment walkthrough, see our Hades 2 complete guide, and for a deeper look at spending Grasp once you’ve raised it, our Grasp build allocation guide.
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.