The Vigil · Economy
Every orb and shard, accounted.
NoDawn has two currencies, and only one of them can be bought. This page says exactly which is which, what a pack contains, and where the line sits between paying for time and paying for power.
The two currencies
Vitae Shards
Paid out by quests — 75 to 250 a quest, alongside Vigil XP. Shards cannot be bought at any price, and there is no way to convert Blood Orbs into them.
Blood Orbs
Bought in three sizes, or delivered monthly as part of the Vigil Pass. Orbs are not earned by playing — if you never spend money, you will never hold one, and everything that matters is still reachable.
The Conclave Casket
One pack, eight cards, priced in either currency:
Blood Orbs — purchased, or from the pass stipend.
Vitae Shards — roughly four to eight quests, playing normally.
Every casket holds four commons, two uncommons, one slot that can come up at any rarity, and one guaranteed rare-or-better — plus an Ichor finish rolled onto one of the cards the pack actually contained. The current drop rates are published in the Reliquary, at the point where you decide to open one.
Masters and Havens are never in packs. They arrive with your starter decks. The cards that decide how a lineage plays are not something you can be made to chase.
Duplicates are not waste
A card you already own advances the Vault toward a wildcard of that rarity, and a wildcard becomes any card you choose at that rarity. Opening the same uncommon three times is slower than opening three different ones, but it is never nothing.
What money buys, and what it does not
| Thing | Earnable by playing | Buyable |
|---|---|---|
| Every card in the game | Yes — packs cost shards, or craft with wildcards | Yes, with orbs |
| Masters & Havens | Granted with starter decks | Not sold |
| Card backs, boards, avatars, titles, sigils, victory effects | Some, priced in shards | Some, priced in orbs |
| Ranked standing | Yes | No |
| Anything that changes a match | — | No |
The honest version of the pay-to-win question: money buys time, not power. There is a 25,000-orb Unlock the Vaults that hands you the whole card pool at once, and it buys nothing you could not have earned — it buys not having to. Cosmetics are a separate axis and touch no part of a game.
The Vigil Pass
A monthly membership: a Blood Orb stipend each billing period, seasonal cosmetics, and a Vigil-XP boost. It is billed monthly and grants no card, no rarity weighting and no advantage in a match.
Purchases of virtual currency and digital items are covered by the refund policy, which explains the digital-content carve-out and what happens to a pack once it is opened. Worth two minutes before the first purchase rather than after.