Gem work in Enshrouded used to mean a trip to one of the Ancient forges in the Shroud every time you wanted to swap or level a gem. Late in the game, the Ancient Researcher, Loraine Crim, offers a way out. Her quest “A Gem Forge Of Our Own” sends you into the Citadel in Cinder’s Cradle to find the blueprints for a forge you can build in your own base.
Quick answer: Smash the urn shelf in the Citadel search area, press the switch behind it, and read the notes upstairs. Then have Loraine craft the Placeable Gem Forge from six materials and place it.
A Gem Forge Of Our Own: Quest giver, steps, and rewards
Loraine Crim, the Ancient Researcher, hands out the quest once you reach the late game. She believes the plans for an advanced gem forge are stored somewhere in the Citadel, the old capital of the Ancients. The quest has two parts, and you only collect the reward once both are done.
- Part 1: Find A Gem Forge Crafting Recipe, inside the Citadel in Cinder’s Cradle
- Part 2: Craft And Place A Gem Forge, back at your base
- Reward: 450 XP plus the Placeable Gem Forge itself
Where to find the Gem Forge recipe in the Citadel
The quest only points you at the Citadel in general, and the recipe sits behind a locked door on an upper floor. The door is opened by a button on the level below, and that button is hidden behind furniture. Here is the full route.
Placeable Gem Forge recipe and crafting requirements
The Ancient Researcher builds the forge, and she won’t do it without a proper home. Her recipe requires a Sheltered Bed assigned to her, so the craft has to happen under a roof. If her bed is missing, the menu flags it as “Missing Bed” and the craft stays locked.
| Material | Amount | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
 Basalt | 30 | Gathered in Cinder’s Cradle |
 Gold Dust | 10 | Mill |
 Celestium Bars | 10 | Blast Furnace |
 Moonstone Dust | 5 | Mill |
 Diamond Dust | 5 | Mill |
 Archaic Infusion | 2 | Infusion Altar |
Once the forge is crafted, place it anywhere in your base. That completes Craft And Place A Gem Forge, and the quest pays out its 450 XP. You will know it worked when the quest drops off your journal and the forge accepts your weapons and gems.
How to make each Gem Forge material
Basalt is the only ingredient you simply pick up. It’s a dense volcanic stone found across Cinder’s Cradle. Everything else runs through a crafting station, so get the timers going early.
| Material | Station | Inputs | Output and time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold Dust | Mill | 1 Gold Bars | 1 in 4 min |
| Diamond Dust | Mill | 1 Diamond | 1 in 3 min |
| Moonstone Dust | Mill | 1 Moonstone | 1 in 3 min |
| Celestium Bars | Blast Furnace | 40 Coal, 20 Celestium Ore | 20 in 12 min |
| Archaic Infusion | Infusion Altar | See below | 5 in 4 min |
Archaic Infusion takes the most legwork. One batch at the Infusion Altar needs 10 Magma Gel, 1 Archaic Core, 5 Archaic Shards, 4 Sparkling Dust, and 6 Archaic Essence VII, and it yields five Infusions. That covers the two you need with three left over. The Archaic Core drops from the Ancient S.P.D.R. Construct, and Archaic Essence VII comes from the Shroud Lairs in Cinder’s Cradle.
One Blast Furnace run makes 20 Celestium Bars, double what the forge needs, so a single batch is enough.
Gem Forge Notes: What the Generation VII blueprints describe
The room you open in the Citadel holds a lore entry called Gem Forge Notes, filed under Ancients and the Flame and found in Cinder’s Cradle. It has two parts. The first, “My Notes Are Safe,” is an Ancient engineer explaining that the elders shelved the project because gems couldn’t supply enough energy for their ascent, so the blueprints were locked away upstairs. The engineer also praises the lock design, since the door and its light can be seen from the button below. That is exactly the setup you solve in Steps 4 to 6.
The second part, “Gem Forges: Construction Notes, Generation VII,” is the actual spec sheet. Its parts line up neatly with what Loraine asks you to bring.
| Forge component | Material in the notes | Matching recipe item |
|---|---|---|
| Effusion Rock | Basalt substrate | Basalt |
| Precious Metal Conduit | Aurum alloy | Gold Dust |
| Inner Fibre Hull | Celestium, Moonstone | Celestium Bars, Moonstone Dust |
| Conductor Assembly | Diamond lattices | Diamond Dust |
| Essence storage | Archaic Essences | Archaic Infusion |
The notes give a reason for each choice. Basalt is picked for thermal stability, and the gold alloy for conductivity and its resistance to arcane wear. Celestium adds strength and holds energy, while Moonstone is flagged as too brittle but possibly useful for spreading light inside the forge. Diamond lattices resist cracking. The engineer also asks for a wide circular base, reinforced overhead supports, and a warning to expand Archaic Essence storage before it combusts.
What a Gem Forge in your base does
The Placeable Gem Forge does the same job as the Ancient forges out in the world, minus the commute. Its item description says it lets you upgrade gems and fit them into weapons from home. Like every Gem Forge, it handles four actions on a weapon’s socket.
- Insert a gem into a weapon
- Extract a gem from a weapon
- Upgrade a socketed gem without swapping the weapon
- Recycle a gem to get back some Archaic Essence
All of it costs Archaic Essence, the resource the game describes as what you need to put gems into weapons. The world forges sit mostly inside the Shroud, three per biome, and each one caps how high it can upgrade a gem. Cinder’s Cradle has two of them on its map. Your first forge comes much earlier, through the Alchemist’s quest “Finding And Using A Gem Forge.”
For example, the menu of the Springlands Gem Forge out in the world shows “Max Gem Level: 10” and “Archaic Essence I” (“Level 5”). Its “SELECT ITEM” panel tells you to insert gems into fully upgraded weapons.
An equipped gem’s rank and effect appear in the weapon tooltip. At level 50, Gem of Destiny marks a random foe no more than 25.00 m away for 20 seconds. When it dies, an orb appears, restoring 100 health, 48 mana, or 71 stamina—whichever resource is lowest.
Weapon gems by region
Every region has its own set of gems, and finishing a full regional set grants XP.
| Region | Gems |
|---|---|
| Springlands | Bleeding, Burning, Puncturing, Skulls |
| Revelwood | Fracturing, Hopeful Embers, Retaliation, Swiftness, Toxic Betrayal |
| Nomad Highlands | Agility, Storm’s Eye, Lesser Necromancy, Overpowering |
| Kindlewastes | Corruption, Focused Light, Battle Mania, Soul Reaping |
| Albaneve Summits | Bloodlust, Cold Composure, Meteoric Impact |
| Veilwater Basin | Lycanthropy, Aerobatics, Currents, Greater Necromancy |
| Cinder’s Cradle | Armoring, Cleansing, Destiny, Hyperspecialization |
The table gives each gem’s name without the words “Gem of.” Some effects are useful to understand before spending essence. Gem of Hopeful Embers causes defeated enemies to leave orbs that extend your Shroud timer when little time remains. Gem of Lesser Necromancy may revive an allied Hollow Wretch when you get a kill, with up to four active at once; Gem of Greater Necromancy instead revives one Hollow Reaper. Gem of Hyperspecialization returns Focus for kills shortly after you activate a weapon’s Special Ability, while Gem of Cleansing temporarily removes an enemy’s Shroud Damage Resistance when you hit it.
With the forge placed at home, all of that tuning happens a few steps from your storage chests instead of deep in the Shroud.
