Cosmetics and where they come from

A cosmetic in Time Heroes carries a name, a piece of art, a rarity and a record of where it came from. That is the whole entry. There is no damage figure on it, no luck figure, no income figure, so nothing you equip for looks will move a number on your stat sheet.

What cosmetics do carry is signal. Rarity drives how a frame behaves, how an aura glows and how much Prism the thing is worth, and other players see almost all of it.

The families that ship

Cosmetics are organised by what they dress rather than by where you bought them. The Bazaar groups its shelves the same way: one for your profile, one for your shuttle deck, one for your pet, one for your gear and one for the limited pack.

These are the families you can own and equip today.

• Profile: avatar frames, banners, nameplates and cursors
• Chat: chat bubbles, the frame drawn around your message in world chat
• Pet: auras, the ring and particles around a pet, and pedestals, the slab underneath it
• Gear: pickaxe skins for mining and bag skins for your inventory
• Shuttle: deck backgrounds, shuttle skins and deck props
• Emotes, which rotate on their own daily shelf

How one reaches your account

There is no single storefront. A cosmetic can be bought, opened, earned or granted, and where an item came from is recorded on the item itself, which is what decides whether it is ever purchasable again.

Only items marked as shop stock can be bought at all. Everything else arrives through a channel.

• The Cosmetic Bazaar, which sells shop stock for Prism
• Cosmetic cases in the Vault, opened with Style Keys, including the Prospector's Kit that drops pickaxe skins, pedestals, chat bubbles and bag skins
• The season pass, which pays cosmetics on its track
• Badges and milestones, for things you cannot buy
• Mystery points on the star map, whose drops are never sold anywhere
• Subscription and referral ladders

Prism, and dusting spares

Prism is the Bazaar's currency and it is the only live purchase currency for profile cosmetics. Prism comes in packs, arrives on the season pass track, and can be recovered from cosmetics you already own by dusting spare copies in the Vault.

Price is derived from an item's rarity and its category rather than typed in by hand, and some rarities are simply not sellable, which is how an item can exist, be equippable and never appear on a shelf.

Soulbound, and what that means

Cosmetics arrive soulbound. They attach to your account and there is no path that moves one to another player: no sell back, no trade, no gift. The player to player rails are closed at launch anyway, but soulbound is a stronger statement than a closed flag, because it is a property of the item.

One family works differently in a way worth knowing. Auras are repeat buy on purpose. A single copy binds to a single pet species, so putting the same aura on a second species means buying a second copy at the full price. Frames, banners and the rest are one time purchases and the Bazaar will tell you that you already own them.

Cosmetics survive every reset

Both reset layers keep your cosmetics. A Paradox press and a Supernova collapse each take your level, your coins and most of your pets, and each leaves your frames, banners, auras, skins and level badges exactly where they were. Nothing you dress your hero in is at risk when you press.

One of them even reads your resets back to you. The star theme on your level badge is decided by how deep into Paradox you are: gold at the start, a purple nebula from your first press, cosmic blue from the fifth, and an onyx void at the tenth. It is the one piece of your look you cannot buy.