Guide to Crowns

In order to obtain a crown, one must visit a crown vault which spawns throughout the worlds. These are activated through diamond-shaped props called "Proto Statues", which must be slightly damaged by the player until the middle part breaks, which will cause IDPD units to spawn. The vault will then start to collect any radiation from any nearby enemies killed or rad cans broken, and once filled it will emit a green glowing circle in the middle as another wave of IDPD units are summoned. At this point the vault can be broken, and entered for the secret vault area.

Upon entering there will be a pedestal that can be walked on which will give a crown. Crown modifiers will not stack; If already running a crown, then the new crown picked will replace the previous modifier. The only exception to this is CoDestiny listed on its specific page. Vault Guardians can also spawn protecting the pedestal, if already visited a vault that run or started with a crown. They will awaken upon standing on the pedestal and must be killed to exit the level. If they are attacked before touching the pedestal, then a crown will not be granted and will 'skip' that part of the vault. A more in-depth look is located on the vault page (link later), this is just a brief summary.

Vaults will spawn naturally on 3-2 and 5-2 within preloop. In Loop, they will appear on 1-2 and 7-2 additionally giving 4 chances per loop. After 3 vaults are visited, they will no longer spawn, meaning whatever crown is taken last will be kept for the rest of that run, and can never be removed. They do not spawn in X-2 replacement areas such as YV's mansion and Jungle, so its possible to miss vaults completely by going to these secret areas.

Crowns passively may turn normal weapon chests into a cursed weapon chest at a 1 in 7 chance(~14%). More information on the CoCurses page.

While golden weapons are unlocked by simply entering the next level with them, crowns are achieved via looping or achieving victory. This means there is one of three methods; defeating and sitting on the Nuclear Throne, defeating and looping past the Nuclear Throne, or defeating Captain and sitting. Once this is done with a specific crown, it will be unlocked as that character. There is a fully in-depth guide to getting Ultra Mutant(getting all crown unlocks) here. (Link later)

There are a total of 12 crowns that can be unlocked. The first 6 only appears in the preloop vaults, and the other 6 appears in any vault Loop onwards. In any vault there is an option to take 'bare head' which will not run any modifier, but will still count towards one of the three vault visits in a run.

Here is a general overview of the crowns as their text appears in game. Any crown can be clicked on to a more in-depth guide on the mechanics of each crown, as well as subjective strategy guides for any of those looking for advice.