Dwarf Eats Mountain: Mithril vs Mountain Souls Spending Guide

Table of Contents

1. Mithril: The Mid-Game Power Spike Currency
2. Mountain Souls: The Late-Game Scaling Currency
3. Comparison Table: Mithril vs Mountain Souls at a Glance
4. Mithril Spend Priority: What to Unlock and When
5. Mountain Souls Spend Priority: When to Reroll and When to Hoard
6. The Trap Upgrades: Mithril and Mountain Souls You Should Skip
7. Rare Resources Verdict: Spend Mithril, Hoard Souls Until Run 5

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Mithril: The Mid-Game Power Spike Currency

Mithril starts dropping around mountain 4-5, from any damage hit to the mountain. The drop chance scales with Luck and Mithril-luck (a stat added in the February 6th update). In the early game, you’ll see 1-3 Mithril per mountain. By mountain 30+, good builds generate 10-20 per mountain.

Mithril unlocks are permanent within a run. You buy them at the Mithril Forge after unlocking it (requires a specific Prestige upgrade, usually around run 2-3).

Key Mithril value points:

One Mithril Pip (the base Mithril investment for any upgrade) is worth roughly 2-3 mountains of progress in the mid-game. Spend it on upgrades that solve clear bottlenecks.

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Mountain Souls: The Late-Game Scaling Currency

Mountain Souls appear later (mountain 40+) and drop from specific sources: artifact salvage, boss kills, and the World Spire. They don’t buy direct upgrades — they buy access to the Ritual system, which in turn improves your artifact pool.

The Ritual system is where Mountain Souls matter. Each ritual reroll costs 5-10 Mountain Souls plus a Mithril component. Given that a single artifact reroll can turn a C-tier relic into an S-tier one, the Mountain Soul economy is actually about artifact quality per Mountain Soul spent.

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Comparison Table: Mithril vs Mountain Souls at a Glance

Factor	Mithril	Mountain Souls
Unlock window	Mountain 4+ (early-mid)	Mountain 40+ (late)
Drop source	Any damage hit (Luck-scaling)	Artifact salvage, bosses, Spire
Primary use	Direct upgrades (Mithril Forge)	Ritual rerolls (Great Forge)
Power type	Immediate, additive	Compound, multiplicative
Build phase	Run 2-5 (mid-game focus)	Run 5+ (endgame focus)
Save or spend?	Spend when you hit a bottleneck	Hoard until endgame
Best first buy	Mithril Pickaxes (15 Mithril)	Ritual Power (unlock gate)

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Mithril Spend Priority: What to Unlock and When

Tier 1 (Buy First):

Upgrade	Mithril Cost	Why
Mithril Pickaxes	15	+50% miner damage. Best ROI in the entire Mithril tree.
Mithril Forge unlock	Varies	Gates all Mithril upgrades. Prioritize unlocking this.

I tested skipping Mithril Pickaxes on run 3 to see how far I’d get. Made it to mountain 22 before damage fell off a cliff. On run 4 with Pickaxes, hit mountain 30 with similar time investment. The +50% isn’t a nice bonus — it’s a gate.

Tier 2 (Buy Second):

Upgrade	Mithril Cost	Why
Mithril Chainmail	20	Runner survival in mid-game. Solves the “runners keep dying” problem.
Magnetic Gloves	15	Runner capacity. Second-order effect on gold income.

Tier 3 (Buy When Ready):

Upgrade	Mithril Cost	Best For
Spelunker’s Guild unlock	30-40	Opens Luck/Mithril-luck scaling. Essential for late-game.
Great Forge upgrades	20+	Unlocks Rituals. Save until run 4-5.
Ballista upgrades	15	Ballista-focused builds only.

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Mountain Souls Spend Priority: When to Reroll and When to Hoard

Mountain Souls are precious because their generation is capped. Bosses don’t respawn. Artifact salvage is one-time per artifact.

Phase 1 (Run 1-4): Hoard. Don’t touch.

You don’t have enough artifacts to make rerolls meaningful. A pool of 15 artifacts with 3 C-tier relics is better spent waiting until you have 40+ options.

Phase 2 (Run 5-7, Mountain 40-60):

Spend Mountain Souls on:

1. Unlocking the Ritual system (one-time cost)
2. Rerolling C-tier artifacts only
3. Any “Ritual Power” upgrade that increases Mountain Soul generation

Budget: spend no more than 30% of your Mountain Soul stockpile in this phase.

Phase 3 (Run 8+, Mountain 60+):

Spend Mountain Souls on:

1. Rerolling B-tier artifacts that don’t fit your build
2. Chasing specific S-tier artifacts (with a budget cap)
3. Ritual Power upgrades that provide multiplicative damage or hauling bonuses

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The Trap Upgrades: Mithril and Mountain Souls You Should Skip

Mithril traps:

Upgrade	Cost	Why It’s a Trap
Mithril Gem enhancement	25	+5% gold. The ROI is terrible compared to Pickaxes or Chainmail.
Premium Housing (Mithril version)	30	Housing is cheap with gold. Spending Mithril on this is pure waste.
Early Mithril-luck upgrades	20+	Mithril-luck scales late. Before run 4, these don’t generate enough to pay back their cost.

Mountain Souls traps:

Upgrade	Cost	Why It’s a Trap
Minor Ritual Power (non-scaling)	10	Flat bonus that doesn’t scale with your run. Skip.
Early reroll spam	5-10 each	Spending 30+ Souls before run 5 means you won’t have them when late-game artifacts matter.

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Rare Resources Verdict: Spend Mithril, Hoard Souls Until Run 5

The fundamental difference between these two currencies comes down to timing. Mithril is a mid-game acceleration tool: spend it to solve the bottleneck in front of you. Mountain Souls are a late-game quality-of-artifact tool: hoard them until you have a deep enough artifact pool to make rerolls count.

If you’re sitting on 40 Mithril and your mining damage is slow, buy Pickaxes. If you’re sitting on 20 Mountain Souls on run 3, ignore the Ritual tab and keep pushing.

The one exception: if you find an S-tier artifact that requires Mithril or Mountain Souls to unlock its full potential, spend accordingly. But that’s about identifying S-tier value, not a general rule.

Next: after Mithril Pickaxes, aim for Spelunker’s Guild unlock as your medium-term goal. The Luck scaling it provides makes every Mithril drop more valuable.