Soulframe Armour Guide — Sets, Attunement Gates & Skins

Quick answer — armour in Soulframe

TL;DR: Soulframe armour pieces (helm / chest / legs) each carry a Virtue attunement: if your Virtue total is below the piece's requirement, you only get its lowest armour rating. The site catalog tracks 11 Rare armour entries — 3 full sets (Circade, Tempest Leathers, Regalia of Rood) and 8 boss pieces. Cosmetics: Moonsteel Thread + Bestitching at Verminia permanently unlocks armour looks; pigments are four-tier colour gradients with adjustable brightness and saturation.

• How does armour scale? By Virtue attunement — same threshold rule as weapons: below the requirement = lowest rating only (Virtues explained).
• Where do sets come from? Circade — one-time Crypt puzzle; Tempest Leathers — chests/deeds/votives; Regalia of Rood — Collector Crate / Hark / Vadagar Stag; boss pieces from The Mendicant King and Mestra Carmo. Full table below.
• Hotfix 15 news (Aug 19, 2026): the Circade set no longer takes up inventory capacity and duplicate acquisitions were fixed — see the Circade × Hotfix 15 section.
• Fashion: Moonsteel Thread from Zenith Wares unlocks skins via Bestitching; pigment recipes come from the three faction shops.

How does armour work in Preludes 15?

Armour is three slots (helm / chest / legs) plus cosmetics. Every piece carries a Virtue attunement that follows the same gate rule as weapons — meet the threshold and the piece scales with your Virtue; fall below it and you still wear the piece, but at its lowest armour rating. Since Preludes 15 made Virtue allocation free per loadout, you can re-gate your armour whenever you swap builds — and skins/dyes are stored per loadout too, so looks and stats travel together.

Armour attunement and Virtue gates

• Below the gate = lowest rating. A mismatched armour piece doesn't stop working — it silently drops to its minimum rating (community-measured system rule, consistent with the weapon attunement gates). Check your Armoury tooltip before committing a piece to a build.
• Match your dominant Virtue. Just like weapon gates, pick armour whose attunement matches where your points actually are — a Grace build wearing Courage-attuned chest is paying the gate without the payoff.
• Related bug note (community): rune-unlocked bonus slots reportedly don't eat Virtue scaling (suspected bug) — see Totems P15 if you stack rune slots on armour-adjacent gear.

Armour sets and pieces (catalog)

All 11 published armour entries in the catalog are Rare tier. Three are full sets (armour-set category); eight are individual boss pieces (armour). Per-piece Virtue gates are shown in the Armoury in-game — the catalog lists sources, which the table below mirrors exactly.

Full sets (3)

Boss pieces (8)

Notes:

• Avakot backup pricing: every boss piece and set (except one-time Circade) has an Avakot merchant backup at 230–245 Dracs — the community "buy below 50" rule applies to cheap stock, but for Rare armour the merchant line is a duplicate-top-up, not a bargain (inventory guide).
• Capacity: since Hotfix 15, armour you buy from merchants no longer uses inventory capacity — see Inventory management for the full exemption list.

Circade × Hotfix 15 (August 19, 2026)

Hotfix 15 landed August 19, 2026 and reshaped the Circade set's story — official forum post #14922:

• Duplicate acquisitions fixed — the one-time gem-puzzle reward can no longer be re-granted.
• No longer takes up inventory capacity — the Circade set is on the Hotfix 15 exemption list (alongside Fable direct grants, mini-quest rewards, and Zenith purchases).
• Existing duplicates removed from player accounts.

The set itself is earned in the Crypt of the Circade — enter with a Crypt Key, clear to the final boss room, and solve the ten-gem puzzle to claim the full set. Full capacity rules: Inventory management.

Pigments — four-tier colour gradients

Pigments are four colour tiers, not just four colours (community-sourced): each pigment is a gradient with adjustable brightness and saturation, so a single pigment family covers a range of looks rather than one flat colour.

• Recipes are sold at the three faction shops — Silent Rose, Alka's Children, and Kith of Kings — so faction reputation feeds directly into your palette options.
• Pair pigments with Verminia's dyes at the Nightfold; both are saved per loadout alongside your armour skins.

Moonsteel Thread & Bestitching — armour skins

Moonsteel Thread is the skin currency: one thread permanently unlocks an armour piece's appearance via Bestitching at Verminia — and since Preludes 11 Hotfix 10, re-equipping unlocked looks is free.

• Where to buy: Wares of Zenith bundles (25 Arcs ×1 / 38 Arcs ×2 / 56 Arcs ×3), Avakot merchant (25 Dracs when stocked), or Steelsingers Guild standing after The Steelsinger quest.
• How much for everything? Community catalogs count ~69 threads to Bestitch every armour set (community-verified trivia).
• Skins and dyes are stored per loadout (community-sourced) — your looks travel with your build, not your bag.
• One caution from the item page: keep the physical piece in your inventory after Bestitching, or its look stays locked — sell duplicates carefully.

Sets vs mixed pieces (community view)

Community consensus (opinion, not catalog data): mixed pieces for stats, full sets for fashion.

• The catalog documents no set bonuses — armour value comes from rating and Virtue attunement, so mixing pieces to match each slot's gate to your build is the stat-optimal play.
• Full sets win on unified looks (and make the most of a Moonsteel Thread Bestitching pass); Circade is the standout one-time full-set pickup.
• Practical split many players land on (community view): wear whatever matches your Virtue gates, then Bestitch the look you actually want over it — stats and fashion stop competing.

FAQ

Related guides

• Virtues explained — the attunement gate rules armour inherits
• Inventory management — the Hotfix 15 capacity exemptions covering armour
• Crypt of the Circade — the Circade set's dungeon
• Weapon tier list — weapon-side gates and stage picks
• Factions — the three shops that carry pigment recipes
• Totems P15 — rune slots and the Virtue-scaling bug note
• Talismans overview — the neck-charm layer on top of armour