Throughout history, many cultures have donned warpaints. The Pictish, Vikings, Africans, Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs are a few of history’s vast wealth of examples. Painting oneself for ceremony or war is nothing new, and while the tradition has modernized with tattoos in the real world, the spirit of the painted warrior lives on within the world of Conan Exiles. Warpaint can serve to represent your clan, your fighting spirit, or can even prove functional in your war efforts.
Today we’ll be looking at Conan Exiles Warpaint, how to make it, apply it, and what it does. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What is Warpaint?
Within Conan Exiles, Warpaint is a decoration method that involves applying paints, pigments, and dyes to the skin. These paintings often manifest in complex, beautiful designs inspired by various cultural or historical influences. You can craft Warpaints at the Dyers bench, with the first warpaints able to be created at Level 22 after unlocking a few pre-requisite feats.
What do Warpaints do?
Most of the Warpaints you’ll sketch are purely decorative, designed to show off your culture or allegiances with your clan or tribe. Warpaints are favored by roleplayers to showcase those allegiances. It also furthers their character development, particularly if your character’s race or culture is central to your character development.
Some Warpaints, however, are functional choices that could improve your abilities. These designs are contained within their feat tree and will serve to buff your character’s various aspects and skills. These functional designs don’t make too much of a difference, as their improvement is often minimal and doesn’t last long. However, they can help you get the edge, either in battle or in resource gathering.
What do I need to create Conan Exiles Warpaints?
To design and create your first Warpaints, you’ll first need to hit the minimum level requirement of 22. After that, you can unlock the Decorative Warpaints feat for 2 points, after you have first unlocked the Iron Tools, Papyrus Scroll, and Dyemaker feats.
As a side note, many DLC packs offer Warpaints. You can unlock the feats to craft these DLC designs as soon as you have learned the Decorative Warpaints feat at level 22. You can discover the DLC paint designs for free, not requiring any feat points. Functional Warpaints have a much higher barrier to entry due to their improved nature. You’ll need to learn the Functional Warpaints feat at Level 42, requiring 3 feat points. You also have to know the Decorative Warpaints feat beforehand, but you’ll likely already have this unlocked.
To craft Warpaints, you’ll need three core resources to craft any design. Firstly, you’ll need a dyers bench to manufacture these designs. Alongside that, you’ll need one Papyrus Scroll and one Inking Brush for each design as standard, though each design will require different tertiary ingredients.
What Conan Exiles Warpaints are in the game?
There are plenty of Warpaints available to make, especially if you own some or all of the DLC packs. Below, I’ll include a comprehensive list of all the warpaints available within the game.
Base Game: Decorative
These warpaints are in the base game as part of the Decorative Warpaints feat. These designs represent the Black Hand, Forgotten Clan, Darfari Cannibals and other commonly found NPC factions in-game.
Base Game: Functional
These warpaints are in the base game as part of the Functional Warpaints feat. These designs include Strength, Agility, Vitality, and more, offering buffs and bonuses to various skills and attributes.
Decorative Aquilonian Warpaints
These warpaints are from the Jewel of the West DLC. These designs include Sky Watch, Aegis, Blessed, and more, designed to represent the elegance of Aquilonian culture.
Decorative Khitan Warpaints
These warpaints are from in The Imperial East DLC. These designs include Dreams of the East, The Silken Path, and more, designed to represent the opulence and prestige of Khitan culture.
Decorative Pictish Warpaints
These warpaints are from in The Savage Frontier DLC. These designs include the Snake, Turtle, Otter, and more, designed to represent the natural aspects of Pictish culture.
Decorative Yamatai Warpaints
These warpaints are from in the Seekers of the Dawn DLC. These designs include Blossom, Tiger, Moon, and more, designed to represent the calming beauty and natural balance of the Yamatai culture.
Decorative Turanian Warpaints
These warpaints are included in the Treasures of Turan DLC. These designs include Dreams of Shanpur, Wanderer, Glory, and more, designed to represent the nobility of the Turanian culture.
Decorative Neca Warpaints
These warpaints are included in the Riddle of Steel DLC. These designs include Neca Pure, Warpath, and Vengeance. While not seemingly representing a culture, these designs are bold and striking, likely designed to intimidate enemies.
Decorative Derketo Warpaints
These warpaints are included in the Debaucheries of Derketo DLC. These designs include Calm, Passion, Innocence, and more, designed to represent the duality of Derketo, the goddess of life and death.
Miscellaneous Warpaints
There is also a selection of warpaints that prove obscure, with some possibly not even obtainable in-game. These designs are primarily obtained through the Figurine events at the Pools of the Grey Ones within Siptah. Due to how random the reward system seems to be, it’s hard to confirm which designs exist, though many of these warpaints can be attained using mods.
There is a massive variety of warpaints in-game, and that is without considering mods into the equation. Within the modding community, character customization is a feature offered with plenty of different mods. Warpaints is no different, and thus you can find hundreds of modded designs throughout a wealth of mods. If you’re a PC player looking for more variety, mods may be something you wish to consider.
How do I make Conan Exiles Warpaints?
So you’ve unlocked the feats, now you’ve got to create these designs. You’ll firstly need to meet the resource requirements to begin crafting your warpaints, so let’s take a look at what you’ll need.
Dyer’s Bench
The Dyer’s Bench is a relatively cheap workstation that allows you to create various dyes, pigments, and warpaints. This workstation is crafted within your inventory and has reasonable cost requirements that should be easy to meet. To craft the Dyer’s Bench, you’ll need 50 pots of tar and 50 bricks. For a level 22 with Iron or even Steel tools, this is an easy requirement to meet.
Papyrus Scroll
The Papyrus Scroll is a critical part of creating War Paints, as it’s what you’ll sketch your design onto. Fortunately, creating these scrolls is incredibly simple. Head to an Artisan Table with three Plant Fibers fibers in your inventory. You can use those fibers to craft a Papyrus Scroll at a ratio of 3:1, with each scroll taking 5 seconds to craft. If you use a Sickle to gather Plant Fiber, you should have no issue having enough to make more scrolls than you’ll likely ever need.
Inking Brush
Fur can be somewhat troublesome, as it is sourced mainly from some more dangerous beasts found in the Highlands and Tundra. The best option may be to gather the fur from Elk, as they’re some of the easier beasts that offer fur. One Inking Brush is consumed per design created, so you’ll need a considerable amount of Fur if you plan to create many designs.
Once you’ve gathered those resources and created the workbench, you can then browse through the selection of Warpaints and work out which one you’d like to create. The Tertiary and Quaternary resources are very dependent upon the design, and to attempt to list all of the resources needed here would be asinine, as it is much easier for you to browse through the list in the Dyer’s Bench.
Many warpaints require simple ingredients like dyes, coal, tar, or other easy-to-attain resources. Some of the more expensive designs, like the functional ones, may require more complex ingredients like Dragonpowder. That extra cost may be something to consider regarding factoring cost and effect.
What are some good Warpaint mods?
As mentioned earlier, Warpaints and tattoos are a common feature for Conan Exiles mods. There are many modders out there that make amazing designs, some of which you may wish to consider. Keep in mind that many mods may offer NSFW, adult-orientated features, so user discretion is heavily advised.
Nocturnal Gods: Warpaints
Created by Ysa H.Z, SubDistortion, and Shalia, this mod offers some impressive though borderline NSFW warpaints in a very gothic, almost occult style. These designs are extremely impressive and can be the finishing touches to a darker character, though the mod itself has not been updated since January 2022, and may eventually run into some compatibility issues.
VeloXs Tattoos
Created by André and VeloX_J, this mod is a favorite amongst roleplayers. Focusing on a more Nordic inspiration, this mod offers modest and immersive tattoos that feel accurate within the Conan Exiles universe. Much like Nocturnal Gods, this mod hasn’t been updated since February 2022, and thus may eventually encounter some compatibility issues.
RA: Character Customization
Created by Whiskey and AtzerriGold, this mod has been a mainstay in many mod lists since its release in 2018. This mod offers tattoos, makeup, scars, and many other aesthetic designs that many roleplayers have grown to love. Atzerri often streams her progress on this mod, and it’s clear that care and passion are the driving forces behind it. It’s regularly updated and offers some amazing designs.
Pippi
Created by Joshtech, this mod is a must-have for server admins. It has become perhaps one of the most important mods within Conan Exiles, and whilst it is designed for server management, it does provide some functionality for warpaints. You can create and save character presets with Pippi’s character editor. There, you can access all warpaints in the game, including those from the Grey One’s pool and designs not yet implemented in-game. You can also change the colors of the warpaints at will, something not available in the base game.
Frequently Asked Question – Conan Exiles Warpaints:
Question: Is it possible to change the color of warpaints?
Answer: It seems like this isn’t possible. Some old forum posts seem to indicate that Funcom might have been considering it, but it seems that thought never came to fruition, and so you’re stuck with the color of your chosen warpaint unless you install a mod like Pippi.
Question: Do any of the warpaints provide an advantage in gameplay?
Question: Do Warpaints expire?
Answer: Yes. Decorative warpaints expire within roughly four hours after the first application, and must then be applied again if you want to keep them. Functional Warpaints will expire after just 1 hour, likely a balancing decision from Funcom to stop them from being essential. You can also remove warpaints at any time by using a Sloughing Fluid.
Conclusion
Warpaint within Conan Exiles is an outstanding way to show off your culture and personality. Popular amongst PvE Exiles and Roleplayers, many players use Warpaint to reflect their chosen race and culture. Functional Warpaints can also provide a small yet valuable improvement to a variety of skills, helping you to gain the edge in tough PvE or PvP encounters. There are also loads of great Warpaint-related mods on the Steam Workshop and Nexus that offer new designs, extra functionality, and more opportunity to showcase your culture through your character.
Warpaints are one of the many aesthetic choices within Conan Exiles that make fashion and character design within the game so satisfying. As Conan progress to Update 3.0 and onwards, we can likely expect the list of Warpaint to grow, even more, offering intriguing and unique designs.
Today I’ve taught you what Warpaints are, how to manufacture them, and their uses. It’s time to channel your inner Bob Ross and get painting. Best of luck Exile!
Recommended Reads:
- Conan Exiles Crafting Guide
- Conan Exiles Co-Op Guide
- Conan Exiles Spice Guide
- Conan Exiles Raw Ash Guide
- Conan Exiles Ichor Guide
- Conan Exiles Purge Explained
- Conan Exiles Kiln Guide
- Conan Exiles The Barrow King Guide - February 20, 2023
- Conan Exiles DLC Guide - February 7, 2023
- Conan Exiles Tar Farming Guide - January 14, 2023