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In Hades, there's an entire pantheon of gods who are willing to aid Zagreus in his quest to escape from the underworld. This help comes in the form of boons, which are various buffs and abilities that you can use in combat. Getting these boons is usually straightforward. You see the symbol of a particular god, listen to a little bit of dialogue, and then choose one of the three available boons being offered.
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However, there's one god that doesn't operate the same way as the rest. That would be Chaos, a primordial being that existed long before the Greek gods and is responsible for creating Nyx and other gods. Chaos is a bizarre character whose boons are unlike any other in the entire game. Let's take a closer at Chaos and determine how to use their power to your advantage.
Finding Chaos
First, you need to find Chaos. While other gods are out in the open, Chaos can only be reached by traveling through Chaos Gates that look like this:
These appear randomly throughout the chambers of Hades. You can't enter until you've cleared out all the enemies in the area. To go into a Chaos Gate, you have to take a small amount of damage. This means that if Zagreus' health is too low, he won't be allowed to enter the gate at all. You can nullify this damage by equipping the Cosmic Egg keepsake.
Cosmic Egg
The Cosmic Egg is a handy keepsake as it prevents you from taking damage while entering a Chaos Gate. Aside from that, it also increases the chances that the boon you receive from Chaos will be of rare quality or higher. So if you're looking to load up on Chaos boons, it's worth getting this egg.
Luckily, it's not too hard to get this keepsake. All you need to do is give gifts of Nectar to Chaos and they'll eventually reward you with the Cosmic Egg. Now you'll be able to put it on before a run or in the small resting area after a boss fight.
This keepsake is also part of a prophecy called Amusing Chaos on The Fated List Of Minor Prophecies. After you give Chaos six gifts of Nectar and beat the final boss fight with Hades twice, this prophecy will be unlocked. To complete it, you need to equip the Cosmic Egg and then defeat Hades at the end of your run. This can be hard since this keepsake will be of absolutely no use during the fight with your grumpy dad. If you succeed, this will delight Chaos and they'll reward you with three diamonds for daring to do something so needlessly difficult and dumb.
Chaos' Curses And Boons
Now that you've entered the realm of Chaos, you can talk to them to receive one of their boons. But each boon comes with a price of its own.
Every Chaos boon is cursed with a debuff that will briefly make the game harder for you. This curse lasts for a certain amount of encounters. If you can survive the curse, it'll wear off and you'll be rewarded with a new boon. You'll be given three options and you can choose which curse you want to be hit with along with the possible boon you will receive if you manage to make it through the next few chambers alive.
There are 13 possible curses that you can choose to be afflicted with:
- Abyssal: You take more damage from traps.
- Addled: You take damage when you use your Cast.
- Atrophic: Your total health is temporarily decreased.
- Caustic: Every time you kill an enemy, an Inferno-Bomb is tossed at you.
- Enshrouded: You can't see what the rewards are for the next chamber you enter.
- Excruciating: You take more damage from enemies.
- Flayed: You take damage when you use your Special.
- Halted: The range of your dash is shortened.
- Maimed: You take damage when you use your Attack.
- Pauper: You can't earn any of Charon's Obol in the next few chambers.
- Roiling: You'll fight more enemies in the next few encounters.
- Slippery: It takes longer for you to reclaim your Bloodstones.
- Slothful: Your movement speed is much slower.
Most of these curses will only last for around three to four encounters, but they can cause a headache for that period. The easiest curses to take on of this bunch are Pauper and Enshrouded, as they only deny you Charon's Obol or knowing what the next chamber's reward will be. You'll miss out on some items for a bit, but it's a simple way to get a boon. If you're good at dodging traps, Abyssal is also pretty easy to handle.
Upon successfully surviving a Curse, you can be rewarded with one of these possible boons from Chaos:
- Affluence: Increases the amount of Charon's Obol you can find.
- Ambush: Increases the damage you deal when attacking enemies from behind.
- Assault: Increases the damage you deal to undamaged enemies.
- Defiance: You get an additional use of Death Defiance (this boon will only appear if you have another Chaos boon already.)
- Eclipse: Increases the amount of Darkness and Gemstones that you get from rewards.
- Favor: Increases the chance that the boons you receive will be of rare quality or higher.
- Flourish: Increases the damage of your Special.
- Grasp: You get an extra Bloodstone for your Cast.
- Lunge: Increases the damage of your Dash-Strike
- Shot: Increases the damage of your Cast.
- Soul: Increases your maximum health.
- Strike: Increases the damage of your Attack.
As you can see from this list, Chaos' boons won't transform your move set in significant ways like some of the other boons can. Instead, they're straight-up buffs that either improve your damage output, enhance your stats, increase the number of items or quality of boons you might find, and can even give you more Death Defiance (which is essentially like getting an extra life.) Depending on the quality of the boon, these can be potential game-changers that will make a run much easier to manage.
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