Kurast
Undercity has a merchant that can turn spare Gold and crafting materials into
one of Season 15’s fastest shortcuts for socketable power.
Diablo 4 Season 15 has created a familiar
endgame problem: the game gives you several excellent new toys, then quietly
asks whether you have enough time to farm all of them. Soul Splinters are central to the seasonal
buildcrafting, Runes matter more than ever, and high-tier Gems can devour
resources at a rate normally associated with small infrastructure projects.
There is, however, a remarkably direct
shortcut hiding inside Kurast Undercity. With the right War Plan nodes, a
Portal Prankster can unlock the Cabochon Merchant after the District Boss. The
node description says this merchant sells Runes and Gems for Gold. That is
true, but it undersells the interesting part: the current shop can also stock
Soul Splinters, and the inventory can be refreshed. If your account already has
a healthy pile of Gold and crafting materials, this becomes less of a normal
farming route and more of a controlled shopping spree.
The
Cabochon Merchant can stock Soul Splinters alongside Runes and Gems. Lesser
Soul Splinters shown here cost 400,000 Gold each.
1. Unlock the two War Plan nodes that make the farm possible
The loop starts in the Undercity War Plan
tree. You want Gutter Filth and Bauble Day. Season 15 finally made War
Plan progression much friendlier for alt-heavy accounts, and our guide to the account-wide War Plans change
explains how that progression is shared. The important thing here is that the
character you are using still needs the correct Undercity setup.
Gutter Filth gives every Beacon activation
inside the Undercity a small chance to summon a Portal Prankster. That means
Beacons are no longer merely part of the Attunement route. They are lottery
tickets with legs. Hit as many as you reasonably can, and when the goblin
appears, stop pretending the timer is your biggest problem and kill it before
it escapes.
Gutter
Filth gives Beacon activations a chance to summon a Portal Prankster. This is
the node that creates the opportunity.
Bauble Day is the second half of the
machine. If you kill a Portal Prankster during the run, the Cabochon Merchant
appears after the District Boss. That merchant sells Runes and Gems for Gold.
We have already covered how War Plans can turn Kurast Undercity into a loot machine,
but for this route the merchant is the real prize.
Bauble
Day makes the Cabochon Merchant appear after the District Boss when a Portal
Prankster has been killed during the run.
2. Run the Undercity for Beacons, not sightseeing
Once the two nodes are active, the actual
run is simple. Enter Kurast Undercity, keep moving, activate Beacons, and watch
for a Portal Prankster. The goblin behaves like a Treasure Goblin with an
advanced degree in being irritating: it can move through portals and waste
precious seconds if your build lacks burst damage or mobility. A fast
speed-farming setup is therefore ideal. You do not need to kill every demon
that expresses an interest in your personal space. You need enough time, enough
Attunement to make the run worthwhile, and the goblin dead.
After killing the Portal Prankster, finish
the District Boss. The Cabochon Merchant will then be available, and that is
when the run changes from dungeon farming into economics. If the Prankster
never appears, there is no merchant trigger to cash in at the end, so the whole
method is naturally streaky. The advantage is that each successful appearance
can be squeezed for far more than one purchase.
3. Buy Soul Splinters first when the price is absurdly good
The most striking item in the shop is the
Soul Splinter. The current inventory shown during testing offered Lesser
Splinters for just 400,000 Gold
each. For an established endgame character, that is barely money. It is
especially attractive when you need several copies for upgrading or simply want
to test different seasonal trade-offs without farming the exact drop again.
That matters because Season 15’s Splinters
are not generic stat sticks. Some completely change how a build behaves, and
the choice of Diablo, Baal or Mephisto and their associated seasonal
paths can push you toward different endgame activities. The Cabochon
Merchant does not replace the entire seasonal progression system, but it is an
excellent way to fill gaps in the socketable part of your setup.
Do not assume every merchant inventory will
look identical. Stock is randomized, and that is precisely why refreshes
matter. The useful rule is simple: when a Splinter you actually want appears
for pocket-change Gold, buy it. Diablo has offered considerably worse
investment opportunities.
4. Use Rune prices as a target farm, not an excuse to buy everything
Runes occupy the middle ground between
wonderfully cheap and 'perhaps we should consult the accountant.' Current
merchant stock demonstrates several price bands: some Runes appear at around
500,000 Gold, others at 5 million, and high-end examples can reach 50 million.
The exact value depends on what the shop rolls, so the best use of the merchant
is targeted purchasing rather than clearing the shelves because they are there.
Rune
prices can vary dramatically by tier. This stock shows examples at 500,000, 5
million and 50 million Gold.
Season 15 also gave Runes a second life
through the hidden Diablo II-style recipes inside the Horadric Cube. If you are
hunting a specific combination, the merchant can save an enormous amount of
random drop farming. Our guide to Season 15’s hidden Diablo II Runewords
covers why familiar names such as Tal, Eth and Jah suddenly matter in a very
different way.
5. Gems are the Gold sink, so buy with a purpose
Gems are where the Cabochon Merchant stops
pretending to be charitable. The current pricing ladder shown in the shop is
brutally clear: a Flawless Gem can cost around 5 million Gold, Royal Gems
around 50 million, and Grand Gems around 500 million. That is not a farming
method for a fresh seasonal character. It is a conversion tool for accounts
sitting on billions and wondering what the pile is actually for.
The
Gem ladder gets expensive quickly: Flawless examples at 5 million Gold, Royal
Gems at 50 million and Grand Gems at 500 million.
Still, there are situations where that
price makes sense. High-end Gems have become a major part of character power,
and we have already looked at how filling top-end Gem slots can become its own endgame
grind. If the only thing separating your build from the next upgrade
is one Gem and your Gold reserve resembles a telephone number, buying the
problem away is perfectly rational.
The wrong approach is buying expensive Gems
merely because the merchant finally appeared. The right approach is arriving
with a shopping list. Know the Gem type and tier you need before you start
rerolling. Sanctuary already contains enough gambling without turning grocery
shopping into another one.
6. The first refresh is cheap. The next ones are paid in Forgotten Souls
The merchant’s inventory can be refreshed.
The first refresh is the pleasant one: you get a free reroll of the stock.
After that, additional restocks cost 666
Forgotten Souls each. At that point the bottleneck stops being Gold and
becomes one of Diablo 4’s most useful crafting materials.
This is why the farm can feel spectacular
for a well-stocked account and terrible for a character still trying to fund
basic enchanting. Forgotten Souls are used elsewhere, so repeatedly throwing
666 of them at the merchant is not free just because no Gold leaves the wallet.
Use the free refresh every time. Use paid refreshes only when you are actively
targeting something valuable enough to justify them.
7. Convert Baleful Fragments into Forgotten Souls when you need more rerolls
There is one useful pressure valve. At the
Alchemist, Baleful Fragments can be transmuted into Forgotten Souls. The
current recipe converts 100 Baleful
Fragments into 10 Forgotten Souls and charges 250,000 Gold. This lets you
turn a large stockpile of Baleful Fragments into more merchant refreshes
instead of simply waiting for Souls to accumulate naturally.
At
the Alchemist, 100 Baleful Fragments can be converted into 10 Forgotten Souls
for 250,000 Gold.
The numbers also show why you should not
treat paid rerolls casually. Starting from zero Forgotten Souls, one 666-Soul
merchant refresh requires 67 transmutations to get at least 666 Souls. That
consumes roughly 6,700 Baleful Fragments
and 16.75 million Gold before you have bought a single item from the new
stock. It is a useful conversion, not a licence to mash the Restock button
until your materials file for bankruptcy.
8. Farm Forgotten Souls from the activities you already run
The better long-term plan is to collect
Forgotten Souls as part of normal endgame play and reserve conversion for
emergencies. The material tooltip itself lists several sources: salvaging
Ancestral equipment, Salvage Spoils from War Plans, Legion Events, Tortured
Gifts in Helltides, Tree of Whispers caches, Infernal Hordes and Kurast
Undercity. In other words, you do not need a separate full-time career in
Forgotten Soul production.
Forgotten
Souls come from multiple endgame sources, including salvaging Ancestral gear,
War Plans, Helltides, Whispers, Infernal Hordes and Kurast Undercity.
That makes this merchant route fit
naturally into the broader endgame instead of replacing it. Diablo 4 now has so
many overlapping activities that almost every endgame road eventually feeds another
progression system. Here, the elegant loop is to earn Souls and
Baleful Fragments while doing the things you already wanted to do, then spend
those reserves only when the Cabochon Merchant gives you a genuine shortcut.
9. The best farming loop
For most endgame players, the efficient
version looks like this: set the Undercity War Plan to include Gutter Filth and
Bauble Day, enter with a fast build, activate Beacons aggressively, kill the
Portal Prankster when it appears, finish the District Boss, buy any useful Soul
Splinters, Runes or Gems, use the free stock refresh, and only then decide
whether a 666-Forgotten-Soul reroll is worth the price. When Souls run low,
rebuild them through normal endgame play or convert excess Baleful Fragments at
the Alchemist.
1. Unlock Gutter Filth in the Undercity War Plan.
2. Unlock Bauble Day so a killed Portal Prankster can summon the
Cabochon Merchant after the boss.
3. Activate as many Beacons as practical during the run.
4. Kill the Portal Prankster before it escapes.
5. Defeat the District Boss and open the merchant.
6. Prioritize cheap Soul Splinters and specific Runes you actually
need.
7. Treat high-tier Gems as deliberate Gold sinks, not impulse
purchases.
8. Always use the free stock refresh.
9. Spend 666 Forgotten Souls on extra restocks only when the target is
worth it.
10. Convert 100 Baleful Fragments into 10 Forgotten Souls at the
Alchemist when necessary.
The real trick is knowing when to stop
This farm is powerful because it converts
resources you can control into rewards that are normally random. Gold becomes
Runes and Gems. Gold plus Forgotten Souls becomes repeated chances at better
shop stock. Baleful Fragments can become more Forgotten Souls. The whole thing
is very Diablo: kill monsters, collect several currencies, feed them into
increasingly suspicious machines, and eventually emerge with the exact purple
rock you wanted.
But the farm is at its best when used
surgically. If you need one Rune, a handful of Soul Splinters, or a specific
high-tier Gem, the Cabochon Merchant can be one of Season 15’s fastest
shortcuts. If you are simply refreshing because the button exists, the merchant
will happily convert a week of crafting materials into a valuable lesson about
self-control.
