Key takeaways
- Tallow Light and Quickstep — both are pure convenience, and holding them gains you nothing. Quickstep in particular changes how Act 1 vertical areas are navigated.
- Ember Ward and Ironhide — the two resist runes together cover most of the damage types you meet before level 20. Combined they cut incoming elemental and physical damage enough to survive two extra hits from most Act 2 elites.
- Ledger’s Sight — reveals hidden vendor stock, which includes the crafting reagents you need for the tier above your current gear.
- Reclaim — the only respec source before Act 3. Use it the moment a build stops working rather than grinding to the next ritual site.
Arcane Scrolls in Excry are one-time consumables that permanently unlock a rune, a traversal move, or a vendor service for your save, and the short answer is this: use every Tier I and Tier II scroll as soon as you meet its level gate, and save only the handful of Tier III and Tier IV scrolls that unlock late-game vendors or open routes you cannot reach any other way. There are 12 scrolls in the current build, and most of them lose real value if you sit on them past the act they drop in. Below is the full list with drop locations, unlocks, and a clear use-or-save call for each.
Quick Comparison: The Four Scroll Tiers
Tier matters more than the individual scroll name, because tier determines the level gate, the drop rate, and how much a vendor will pay for a duplicate. The ranges below are drawn from the in-game compendium and the game’s official patch notes.
| Tier | Typical drop source | Level gate | Typical drop rate | Resale value | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Common mobs, Act 1 chests | 3 | 12–22% | 15–90 gold | Use immediately |
| II | Elites, Act 1–2 bosses | 12 | 6–12% | 140–320 gold | Use immediately |
| III | Act 3 mini-bosses, rift chests | 24 | 2–5% | 600–900 gold | Save until the unlock is confirmed |
| IV | Act 4 sentinels, Hollow Choir arena | 38 | 1–2% | 1,400–2,400 gold | Save; never use before the Act 4 route check |
The Complete Arcane Scroll List
The “where it drops” column lists the earliest reliable source. Every scroll can also drop from any enemy of its tier once you have entered the relevant act, which is why farming the earliest source is usually the fastest route.
| Scroll | Tier | Where it drops | What it unlocks | Use or save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scroll of Tallow Light | I | Ashfall Reach mobs (common) | Lantern slot for the off-hand | Use |
| Scroll of Ember Ward | I | Cinderhusk elites, Act 1 | Fire-resist rune (18% base) | Use |
| Scroll of Quickstep | I | Act 1 chests, smuggler caches | Short dash with a 4-second cooldown | Use |
| Scroll of Ironhide | II | Act 1 boss, Act 2 elites | Armor rune (+12% physical resist) | Use |
| Scroll of Ledger’s Sight | II | Act 2 market district | Reveals hidden vendor stock | Use |
| Scroll of Reclaim | II | Act 2 ritual sites | Refunds one spent skill point | Use on your first bad build |
| Scroll of Stormcall | III | Act 3 Stormspire mini-boss | Chain-lightning rune | Use once you have the mana pool |
| Scroll of the Hollow Choir | III | Act 3 choir crypts | Summon rune (two shades, 60s) | Save until level 30 |
| Scroll of Vaulting | III | Rift chests, Act 3 | High ledge traversal | Save for the Act 4 gate |
| Scroll of Umbral Passage | IV | Riftbound Sentinels | Shadow route through the Veil | Save |
| Scroll of the Weathered Key | IV | Hollow Choir arena reward | Opens the Vault of Nine Doors | Save — highest resale value |
| Scroll of the Ninth Gate | IV | Act 4 sentinel chain | Final vendor tier access | Save |
Why the drop column is not a fixed spawn
Excry rolls scroll drops from a tier pool rather than a single enemy table, so a Tier II scroll can surface from any elite in Act 2. The listed source is simply the encounter with the highest documented chance, which is what you should farm if you need that specific unlock.
Scrolls Worth Using Immediately
Roughly seven of the twelve scrolls belong in your inventory for minutes, not hours. They fall into three groups: quality-of-life unlocks, resist runes that smooth the early difficulty curve, and the single respec scroll that prevents you from restarting a save over one misplaced point.
- Tallow Light and Quickstep — both are pure convenience, and holding them gains you nothing. Quickstep in particular changes how Act 1 vertical areas are navigated.
- Ember Ward and Ironhide — the two resist runes together cover most of the damage types you meet before level 20. Combined they cut incoming elemental and physical damage enough to survive two extra hits from most Act 2 elites.
- Ledger’s Sight — reveals hidden vendor stock, which includes the crafting reagents you need for the tier above your current gear.
- Reclaim — the only respec source before Act 3. Use it the moment a build stops working rather than grinding to the next ritual site.
Scrolls Worth Saving — And When to Cash Them In
The saving case is narrower than most guides suggest. Only five scrolls justify sitting in your stash, and each has a specific trigger that tells you it is time to use it.
- Vaulting — hold it until the Act 4 route check. Using it early spends the unlock on a ledge you can reach with a stacked crate anyway.
- Hollow Choir — the shades scale with your level at the moment of use, so using it at 24 wastes roughly a third of their damage output. Use at 30 or above.
- Stormcall — the rune drains a percentage of your maximum mana per second. Below a 180 mana pool it is unusable in practice.
- Umbral Passage and Ninth Gate — both feed late-game vendor or route access. Ninth Gate is also the most valuable duplicate to sell, at around 2,400 gold per the vendor’s listed price.
Worked Example: What a Tier IV Scroll Actually Costs You
Take the Scroll of Umbral Passage. Riftbound Sentinels spawn three per rift run, and each has a documented 1.6% drop chance. That gives an expected 0.048 scrolls per run, or roughly one scroll every 21 runs. At about 18 minutes per run, that is a little over six hours of farming.
The Rift Broker sells the same scroll for 1,400 gold. If your gold-per-hour rate is around 220 gold from ordinary Act 3 play, buying it costs about 6.4 hours of farming — functionally the same as dropping it yourself. The practical conclusion: buy Tier IV scrolls with gold unless you are also farming rift reputation, in which case the drop and the reputation come from the same runs and the farming time is effectively free. Do not sell a Tier IV duplicate to a general vendor, who pays roughly 30% of listed value; the Rift Broker and the Act 4 quartermaster pay full price.
Decision Matrix: What to Do With a Scroll You Just Picked Up
| Your situation | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First save, below level 12 | Use every Tier I scroll on sight | Drop rates are high; duplicates will replace them within an hour |
| Mid-game, level 20–30 | Use Tier II, hold Tier III until the level gate | Act 3 enemies hit hard enough that an unused resist rune is wasted |
| Level 38+, finished Act 3 | Use Vaulting and Stormcall, bank the rest | Route access and vendor tiers are the only unlocks that still matter |
| Stash near its 120-slot cap | Sell Tier I duplicates; never sell Tier IV | Tier I scrolls resell for 15–90 gold and are re-farmable in minutes |
| Co-op with a lower-level partner | Use quality-of-life scrolls, hold damage runes | Shade summons and chain lightning scale off the caster’s level, not the host’s |
Common Mistakes and Consumable Realities
- Using a scroll below its level gate still consumes it. The unlock is queued, not applied, and you cannot retrieve the scroll. This is the single most common way players lose a Tier IV item.
- Scroll unlocks are character-bound, not account-bound. A second character starts with nothing, so do not plan a build around a scroll your alt has not found.
- Duplicates are the intended currency. The game expects you to sell them; hoarding ten Scrolls of Tallow Light fills roughly a twelfth of your stash for no benefit.
- There is no scroll durability or expiry. Nothing wears out and nothing decays, so “saving” costs you nothing except the window in which the unlock would have helped.
- New Game Plus resets scroll unlocks but not your compendium entry. Per the game’s official patch notes, the compendium record persists so you can see which scrolls you have already used at least once.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Arcane Scrolls carry over to New Game Plus?
No. Unlocks are tied to the save’s progression state, and starting New Game Plus returns you to the same scroll situation as a fresh run. Your compendium entries persist, which tells you which scrolls you have already collected once, but you will need to find and use them again for their effects.
Can I get a scroll back after using it?
No, and there is no undo. Using a scroll is permanent and immediate, even if the unlock is gated behind a level you have not reached. If you are unsure whether you want an unlock, the safe move is to leave the scroll in your stash — it costs nothing to hold.
What is the fastest way to farm Tier III scrolls?
Rift chests in Act 3 have the highest documented rate, around 5%, and a full rift run takes roughly 15 minutes. Act 3 mini-bosses are close behind at 2–3% but take longer per attempt, so rift chests win on scrolls per hour unless you are also chasing mini-boss gear.
Are scroll unlocks shared between characters?
They are not. Each character needs its own scrolls, and a duplicate found on one character cannot be transferred to another through the shared stash. This is why Reclaim and the resist runes are worth using early on every new character rather than banking them.
Should I sell duplicate scrolls or keep them?
Sell Tier I duplicates without hesitation — they resell for 15–90 gold and refarm in minutes. Never sell a Tier IV duplicate to a general vendor, who pays about 30% of listed value; the Rift Broker and Act 4 quartermaster pay the full 1,400–2,400 gold, which is enough to buy a different Tier IV scroll outright.
Do scrolls expire or lose value over time?
Scrolls do not expire, and their vendor resale value is fixed at the listed price regardless of when you sell. The only thing that depreciates is the practical value of using an early-game unlock late, which is why the tier table above recommends immediate use for Tiers I and II.
