Crimson Pin

Lore & Background

In Krat, where every citizen is a marionette strung by unseen hands, the Pins are small tokens of intent — little metal charms that a puppet can press into its own chassis to sharpen a particular instinct. The Crimson Pin, with its deep red lacquer and needle-thin profile, is said to encode a single, brutal directive: strike harder. Puppets who carry it report a subtle heat behind their fists, as though a thread of the old Puppet Master's will still hums inside the metal.

The Pin's origin is never fully explained in the game's dialogue, but its design language — the sharp, almost surgical geometry, the blood-dark finish — echoes the aesthetic of Krat's industrial underbelly. It feels less like a crafted trinket and more like a shard pulled from something larger, something that once pulsed with a mechanical heartbeat. Players who collect many Pins begin to suspect that each one is a fragment of a single, shattered directive left behind when the city's strings were cut.

In the broader mythology of the world, the Pins represent the last vestige of agency a puppet can claim. You cannot change your strings, your master, or your script, but you can choose which small, sharp intention to carry into the next fight. The Crimson Pin is the intention that says: I will not be gentle.

In Their Own Story

The workshop smelled of machine oil and cold iron. The Puppet sat motionless on the workbench, eyes dim, fingers curled around a half-finished gear. A Pin lay in the palm of its open hand — small, crimson, catching the amber glow of a single overhead lamp. It had found the thing in the gutter behind the factory, wedged between a broken cog and a smear of something dark. Now it pressed the Pin into the slot behind its ear, felt the faint click of acceptance, and for the first time in long, silent hours, something warm and sharp moved behind its ribs. Outside, Krat groaned and clanked under a sky the color of rust. The Puppet stood. The Pin hummed. The night was about to get louder.

Reader's Guide

The Crimson Pin is a passive offensive modifier. Once equipped in one of your Pin slots, it passively increases the damage your attacks deal. There is no activation, no cooldown, no stance requirement — it simply makes every hit you land hit harder. This makes it an excellent foundation piece for builds that rely on frequent, close-range strikes.

In practice, pair the Crimson Pin with other offensive or critical-oriented Pins to stack damage bonuses, or combine it with a stamina-recovery Pin if you want to keep swinging without running dry. Because Pins are passive, they do not interfere with your stance or weapon moveset, so you can slot the Crimson Pin alongside any weapon type — a heavy hammer, a slender blade, a pair of daggers — and still benefit from the flat damage uplift.

When building your loadout, think of Pins as the 'stat layer' beneath your weapon choice. The Crimson Pin answers the question 'how hard do I hit?' while other Pins answer questions about endurance, speed, or survivability. Equip it early, keep it equipped, and let your raw damage numbers climb while you hunt for complementary modifiers to round out the rest of your kit.

Look for it as world loot in Krat's industrial districts, from certain vendors, or as a drop from mid-tier enemies. It is not a rare or endgame item, which makes it a reliable early-to-mid-game upgrade you can bank on while you explore for rarer Pin combinations.

Did You Know?

• Pins in Lies of P are purely passive — they never trigger a cutscene, animation, or active ability. Their power is entirely in the numbers they quietly add to every interaction.
• The Pin system means two players using the exact same weapon can have radically different combat profiles, depending on which Pins they have slotted.
• The Crimson Pin's visual design — a small, needle-like charm with a deep red finish — mirrors the game's broader motif of tiny, precise objects carrying outsized mechanical purpose.
• Because Pins do not consume stamina or trigger cooldowns, you can equip multiple offensive Pins simultaneously without any mechanical penalty, making stacking a core part of build optimization.