The Artifact system is a process - getting the Artifact, getting the scrolls, activating the Artifact, and leveling the Artifact. The first three steps are necessary to get a useable item - the fourth is necessary for it to reach its potential.

Getting An Artifact

How to get an Artifact varies greatly. Some can be done solo, others take multiple groups; some take a few minutes, others can take hours; some are simple, others more complicated than anything in the game before ToA. The detail page for each Artifact has a section on how to get the unactivated version. There are a couple other things of note:

• You will not get a quest for the Artifact encounter itself. While some Artifacts (Stone of Atlantis and Cloudsong, for example) have sub-quests associated with them, the completion of that quest will not in itself get you the Artifact.
• If you successfully complete the Artifact encounter, you will get a quest completion message which will show up in /quest. For example, if you complete the Dream Sphere encounter, your completed quests list will show "Dream Sphere Encounter".

Getting the Scrolls

Each Artifact has three 'scrolls' associated with it. While referred to as scrolls, they're not necessarily named as such in-game - our Artifact detail pages list what the names of the scrolls associated with each Artifact are. You can also delve an item - if it is a scroll, it will say which Artifact it belongs to.

Scrolls always drop in the same region the Artifact is found in. In patch 1.74, Mythic changed the drop so that they can drop off of every humanoid mob type in the region, rather than a specific mob.

You can /interact with a scroll to read part of the story behind an Artifact; if you have more than one of the scrolls for the same Artifact, you can /use one of the scrolls to combine them and then interact with the combined version for more of the story. And of course, if you have all three scrolls, you can combine them and read the entire story.

Activating The Artifact

When you have the unactivated Artifact, encounter credit, and a book (what 3 scrolls combined to are called), head to the Scholars in the region you found the Artifact in. There are Scholars in each Haven that accept unactivated Artifacts - it shouldn't matter which one you give it to (so long as you're in the right Haven), but if one doesn't take it, try another.

First, hand the unactivated Artifact to the scholar. Then, if necessary, click through any dialogue until the Scholar asks for the book. Hand it over. At this point, you should get the activated Artifact back.

If the Scholar doesn't take your Artifact, you're in the wrong Haven or you haven't completed all the steps. You also need to have the correct book in your inventory when you hand it over - and only one. Having extra scrolls for that Artifact in your backpack may mess things up.

Leveling the Artifact

Each Artifact starts out at level 0, with only a couple bonuses. For it to reach its potential, you have to spend time leveling it... just as you spent time leveling your character.

Mythic has removed all zone restrictions on leveling Artifacts, so no matter what you kill, your Artifact will gain experience.

The Artifact will gain experience so long as it is currently equipped. For everything except weapons, this means it must be in use; for weapons, it can be in one of the slots while you are actually using another item and still get experience. When your Artifact gets experience, you will get a message saying so just below the line saying how much experience you gained. Artifacts get the same experience you do, so if you are gaining experience faster, so is your Artifact (though +% experience bonuses from Artifacts won't help level other Artifacts).

Due to rounding, an Artifact may delve as having 100% experience earned toward the next level for a while. Just keep killing and it'll move on correctly.

Notes on the Artifact Database:

Unless otherwise specified, "magical abilities" are usable every 15 minutes. If an Artifact has two usable magical abilities (as opposed to one usable and one proc, for example), they are on the same timer; if you use one, you have to wait to use the other.

All items created by Artifacts disappear upon logging.

An Artifact's first Magical Ability is used by selecting the Artifact and typing /use; the second by selecting and typing /use2. Even if the first ability is not usable/castable, the second one requires /use2.

Only one "offensive buff" effect may be on a character at a time. Different versions from different Artifacts will not stack; nor will they stack with spells.

Using an Artifact invokes the same item use timer that using a charge on any other item does.