Crimson Moon Loadout, Armory and Purification Explained

Two layers, one rule

The support team’s own framing: gear management is split into what happens during a hunt (out in Gildenarch — “pick up loot and use it immediately”) and back at the hub (Sanctus Clypeus — “build and edit your loadout for the next hunt”). Almost every “can’t change loadout” or “how do I drop items” question is the collision between those two layers.

Changing your loadout

• Where: the Loadout Station at the portal in Sanctus Clypeus.
• When: before you deploy. The Core Gameplay Loop article is explicit: “once you begin your mission you will no longer have access to the Loadout station” until the run ends or you die.
• What: nine gear slots (four armor, two trinkets, one-hander and shield or a two-hander), two consumables, and your Angel.
• Saved builds: up to four loadouts can be saved and edited.

So if you are mid-run and the menu is greyed out, that is by design, not a bug. The Steam forum thread “Loadout to black…” aside, nothing on the Known Issues list concerns the Loadout Station.

Dropping and swapping items during a hunt

There is no bag to open. When you pick up a weapon, armor piece or trinket it equips immediately and “whatever was occupying that slot is dropped on the spot”. To “drop” an item, pick up the one you want instead. Consumables and throwables have their own carry caps, raised by level (Consumable Max Carry at levels 6 and 13, Throwable Max Carry at 9) and by Bag Slots (+2 at levels 4 and 7).

One launch-day quirk is official: “the interaction area around dropped loot is currently larger than intended, which can make selecting individual items difficult”. Hotfix 1.0.1 targets it.

What survives a run

The support article on failing a mission draws the line:

Boons and mid-hunt buffs are always run-only, whether you win or die.

Purification, step by step

The developer wiki’s Gear Purification page walks through an example with a set of gauntlets:

1. A new run starts in the default Crimson Oath loadout at Common tier.
2. You find an Uncommon Telvaught Gauntlets in Gildenarch. An icon on the item shows it is not yet purified.
3. Back at the hub the run’s loot is purified, permanently adding it to your collection.
4. A Common-tier version of the item appears in your Armory.
5. Gold upgrades it permanently at the Blacksmith. The tier ceiling is level-gated: Uncommon at level 2, Rare at level 4, Epic at level 12.
6. Once upgraded, every future drop of that item “will always be Uncommon Tier or better” — upgrades raise the floor, not just the equipped copy.

The support team’s summary line is the whole system: Find → Purify (permanently yours) → Upgrade (permanently stronger). The Blessed achievement (purify 50 items) had been earned by 27.7% of players after one day.

Why the Armory is “options, not a ranking”

The support article says it directly: think of the Armory as a toolkit — “a weapon that’s mediocre generally may be the right answer to a specific boss”. Every purified item is a new option at the Loadout Station, so the practical goal of early runs is width (purify many things) before depth (upgrade a favourite).

The reported bug: loot losing its Boons

Two Steam forum threads from launch day (“Many loots lost their rarities and passives when I ended session”, “Loot losing their enchants/boons on round/run ending”) describe gear coming home weaker than it was found. Read against the support article, part of this is intended — gated gear returns “in a weaker, purified form” and the Armory copy is Common tier — but players also report Boons disappearing from items that reached the end of a mission. That second case is not on the official Known Issues list as of 2 September 2026; we will update this page if Hotfix 1.0.1 addresses it.

Related

• Sanctus Clypeus hub — every station and who runs it.
• Level unlocks — the Blacksmith tiers and bag slots by level.
• How runs work — lives, death and Nexus Gates.