Soul Strip Relic System: 50 Items That Shape Every Run

What Are Relics?

Relics are passive items you collect during a run. Once you have one, it stays with you until the run ends. No activation cost, no energy — they just work.

Soul Strip has 50 relics spread across 4 rarity tiers: 14 Common, 16 Rare, 14 Epic, and 6 Legendary. The higher the rarity, the more a relic warps your strategy.

For the current pool and each item’s exact trigger, see the Soul Strip relic catalogue. Use the guide to choose an archetype; use the catalogue when deciding whether a specific pickup works with the deck in front of you.

Where Relics Come From

• Elite fights always drop a relic: a Rare, and from Act 2 on there’s a 10% chance it’s an Epic instead.
• Normal fights drop a Common relic 15% of the time.
• The shop stocks one Common and one Rare relic you don’t own yet.
• Events sometimes offer a Common or Rare relic as a choice, usually for a price.
• The Act 1 and Act 2 bosses let you pick one of three: Epics after the first act, Legendaries after the second. The final boss ends the run.
• Treasure Hunter’s Spade lets you dig up a Rare relic at the Hot Springs instead of resting, up to 3 times.

Legendaries come from the Act 2 boss, so the one you take is the relic you build the final act around.

How Relics Trigger

Not all relics work the same way. Each one has a trigger type that determines when it activates:

• Passive — always active. Ice Crystals keeps 50% of your remaining Block at the start of each turn. Eternal Grip gives every card in your hand Retain at the end of your turn.
• On Battle Start — fires once when combat begins. Button Talisman gives 10 Block. Toxic Vial applies 5 Poison. Snuffed Candle applies 2 Vulnerable.
• On Turn Start — fires every turn. Black Star draws 2 extra cards (but costs 2 HP). Scroll of Rebirth plays a random exhausted card that costs up to 2 Energy for free, every third turn.
• On Card Played — fires per card. Stone of Duality: a card that deals damage grants 3 Block, a card that grants Block deals 3 damage.
• On Card Exhausted — Feather of Oblivion: the first card you Exhaust each turn gives +1 Energy.
• On Damage Taken — Bloodstone: the first time your HP falls below 50% in a battle, gain 3 Strength.
• On Rest — Sturdy Boots raises Hot Springs healing from 30% to 60% of max HP.
• On Combat End — Skull of Greed gives +10 Gold after every victory.
• On Acquire — one-time effect when you pick the relic up. Pandora’s Box replaces every Common card in your deck, except Cursed ones, with a random Rare of the same element. Mentor’s Diary gives each card type in your deck a random upgrade path. Deal with Death gives +1 max Energy but costs 15 max HP.

Abandoned Doll used to cut 3 cards from your deck the moment you picked it up, and it chose them itself. Now it gives 3 free card removals at the shop, and you decide what goes.

The trigger system means the same relic can be great or useless depending on your deck. Feather of Oblivion is a steady extra Energy in an Exhaust deck and does nothing in a Retain build.

Risk/Reward Relics

Three relics print a price right in their tooltip:

Deal with Death (Epic) — +1 max Energy (3 → 4). Costs 15 max HP for the rest of the run (80 → 65 without upgrades). A third more Energy every turn is a lot of extra actions. But 15 fewer HP means less room for mistakes. If you already read enemy intents well, it’s almost always worth it. If you’re still learning the fights, those 15 HP are the margin you’ll miss.

Cursed Hoard (Rare) — Cursed cards deal 75% more damage. Costs 3 HP at the start of each battle. There are five Cursed cards in the game, and without them in your deck it’s pure downside.

Black Star (Legendary) — +2 cards drawn per turn. Costs 2 HP at the start of every turn, and Block doesn’t stop it. More cards means more options and faster kills. But the clock is ticking — you need to end fights fast or the HP loss adds up.

Neither HP price can kill you on its own: it stops at 1 HP. Demon Queen’s Crown has a price too, paid in Energy instead of HP; more on it below.

These are the most interesting relics in the game because they force a real decision. A pure upside relic is just “take it.” A risk/reward relic is “should I take it given what my deck looks like right now?”

Standout Relics by Build

Shadow (Poison/DOT)

• Toxic Vial (Common): Free 5 Poison at battle start. Shadow’s best Common relic.
• Shadow Mask (Common): Whenever the enemy gains Weak, it also gains 2 Vulnerable. Shadow’s own synergy applies Weak, so every Shadow combo makes the enemy Vulnerable as well.
• Witch’s Cauldron (Rare): At the end of your turn, Exhausts every Status card in your hand and draws a card for each. Keeps your hand clean.

Ice (Block/Control)

• Ice Crystals (Rare): 50% of unused Block carries over. The defining Ice relic.
• Button Talisman (Common): 10 Block at battle start. Free breathing room.
• Warding Scroll (Common): At the end of your turn, each card with Retain in your hand gives 2 Block (up to 3 cards). Stacks with Retain cards naturally.

Fire (Damage/Burst)

• Bloodstone (Rare): The first time you drop below 50% HP in a battle, gain 3 Strength. Fire decks that take hits can snowball hard.
• Flame Crystals (Epic): Elemental synergies trigger twice. Fire’s synergy adds 3 damage for the second Fire card in a turn and 6 from the third on; with this relic every one of those hits lands twice. It used to multiply the bonus by 1.5 on top, but together with Navigator’s Hat that was two relics stacking on one mechanic, so the multiplier is gone.

Multi-Element

• Navigator’s Hat (Rare): Synergy bonuses are 50% stronger, rounded down. It shines on the big payouts: Fire’s +3 becomes +4, Ice’s +4 becomes +6. A one-point bonus, like Shadow’s single Weak, stays at 1 on the second card and only grows from the third.
• Void Prism (Epic): In each battle, the first card from each of 3 different elements costs 1 less Energy. Rewards element diversity.

Power-Heavy Decks

• Demon Queen’s Crown (Legendary): Active Power limit goes from 3 to 6, and every Power costs 1 more Energy. Twice the passive effects, each one dearer. Build-defining.
• Echo Mirror (Epic): The first Power triggered each turn triggers twice.

Exhaust Decks

• Feather of Oblivion (Rare): The first Exhaust each turn refunds 1 Energy. One Exhaust card per turn effectively costs one less.
• Scroll of Rebirth (Epic): Every third turn, plays a random exhausted card that costs up to 2 Energy, for free. Cheap dead cards come back.

The Design Goal

Relics serve one purpose: make identical decks play differently. Two Shadow decks with the same cards will have completely different runs if one has Toxic Vial + Shadow Mask and the other has Feather of Oblivion + Cursed Hoard.

The relic you pick should change how you draft. Take Feather of Oblivion and Exhaust cards become priority picks. Take Ice Crystals and Block cards jump in value. The relic doesn’t just buff your deck — it redirects your strategy.

With 50 relics in the pool, a single run only sees a slice of them, and you never choose from more than three at once. Each run feels different, and no choice turns into a menu to study.

Try It

The demo on Soul Strip’s Steam page covers the full first act — enough to see how a single relic pickup changes the trajectory of a run. The full game has all three acts and all 50 relics, and you can wishlist it on the same page.

Soul Strip: Waifu Card Battler

A deckbuilding roguelike where every card is a waifu with her own element and personality. Battle through dark fantasy, craft combos, collect and level up your favorites.

Wishlist on Steam