For such an important resource, one that enables players to access the majority of the combat in the game through Wizarding Challenges, surely Runestones would be pretty easy to find, right?

Well.... not quite. Currently there are two (2) reliable ways to get Runestones without spending premium currency. You can't find them on the map, and they aren't rewarded from Daily Tasks or log-in rewards.

The first secret to these little gems lies in your Registry. Each Registry Family has an XP bar that fills up as you return Foundables from that Family. Upon leveling up that particular Registry Family, you receive a corresponding Treasure Trunk. These reward you with Scrolls to power up your Profession Skill Tree nodes, which is a handy bonus. However, more importantly for our purposes, they also give you a Runestone of the same type as that Family. This is the main source of Runestones you can count on as you progress in the game, especially after you Prestige your Registry pages and can get more Family XP. Note that the Level of the Runestone gained from a Treasure Trunk can vary slightly - it isn't predetermined.

A typical Treasure Trunk reward

The second secret is gifting. Gifting was introduced in update 2.7.0 allowing players to collect gift boxes to send to other players in their Friends List. Runestone gifts are guaranteed as a reward for successfully completing a Wizarding Challenge. If you lose the challenge, or are booted due to server errors, you will not receive the Runestone gift.

Other Methods

As always, there is the alternative of simply buying Runestones from Diagon Alley. Surprisingly for such an important resource, the Bag of Runestones bundle in Wiseacres is very reasonably priced. At 40 Gold for 10 Runestones, one Level 1 Runestone for every Family, including Oddities, it's quite a decent purchase if you run dry and need more to keep doing the Wizarding Challenge Daily Task.

The rarest reward of all: an actually fair price for a premium currency shop item

Last and perhaps least reliably, there are reports that Runestones can be found as a very rare reward from Portkeys. While we cannot verify this claim, largely due to having garbage luck with our own Portkey drops, presumably the chance of getting a Runestone is higher with higher-quality Portkeys. That said, if you do get a Portkey Runestone reward, feel free to post a screenshot over at our Wizards Unite Community!