Crowns

Crowns are secretly located game modifiers, found in hidden Crown Vaults. In order to access a Crown Vault, you need to destroy a fully charged Proto Statue; this will spawn a portal to the crown vault. After touching the Crown Pedestal, you get to choose one Crown out of a set of six. You get a different set of Crowns before and after looping the game. You can also choose to not take a Crown at all. Crowns only last for your current run and disappear after restarting (which might be changed).

Crown effects do not stack. One Crown replaces the other, even if you take the same one twice. This goes for effects like more enemies spawning or pickups fading faster and being worth more.

Once you obtain a Crown, Cursed Weapon Chests will have a 1/7 chance to spawn in future levels of the current run. Having a Crown also causes I.D.P.D. to spawn right after you exit the Crown Vault and on 1-1 if you start with a Crown. A Proto Chest will spawn inside the Crown Vault if you already have a Crown when entering it.

Sitting on The Nuclear Throne or Looping the game with a character that has a Crown will unlock it for that character and make it available right from the start. To unlock post-loop Crowns, you have to loop twice, first to acquire a post-loop Crown and again to unlock it. All above rules apply if you start the game with a Crown selected.

Post-loop Crowns can also be unlocked by defeating the Captain boss in I.D.P.D. Headquarters. Beating the boss with a character that has a Crown will unlock it as a starting Crown for that character.

Crown types

Each time your character enters the Crown Vault, you are presented with a set of six Crowns to choose from. If you started with a Crown, you will always have it as an additional option when choosing a Crown from the Vault.

Pre-loop Crowns

If you enter a Crown Vault before looping the game, you can choose one Crown from this set.

Looping the game with a character that has a Crown will unlock it for that character and make it available right from the start.

Crown	Icon	Description
Crown of Life		Mini Ammo Chests won't change into Mini Medkits, regardless of how low on health your character is. There's a 66% chance that the Radiation Canister turns into a stationary Medkit at the beginning of a level, even if your character's health is full. If you are below half HP, the game still rolls a 50% chance to spawn the health chest, and if that doesn't work, it rolls the 66% from the crown.  This means that when below half HP, the chance for a health chest to spawn becomes about 83.33% (1 - (1 - 1/2)(1 - 2/3)).
Crown of Guns		Disables ammo drops from enemies (but not health drops). Adds an 8% weapon drop chance to all enemies. Enemies that normally can't drop weapons will now have the added 8% chance. As always, walking over weapons gives you an amount of ammo specific for that weapon that's equal to two Mini Ammo Chest pickups. Heavy Heart further increases the enemy weapon drop chance by 210%. If an enemy had 2% chance to drop a weapon and Crown of Guns added 8%, then with Heavy Heart, that becomes (2% + 8%) * 2.1 = 21%.
Crown of Haste		Mini Ammo Chests, Mini Medkits, and Rads fade three times faster than normal. Cursed Mini Ammo Chests normally fade three times faster than regular Mini Ammo Chests. Their fade time will be further divided by three by the Crown. Mini Ammo Chests and Cursed Mini Ammo Chests give one more ammo. This bonus is added after Fish's Passive. Mini Medkits give one more health. This bonus is added after the Second Stomach multiplier. Enemies and Radiation Canisters still drop the same amount of rads. Portal Strike Ammo Crates will still give the same amount of Portal Strike ammo when playing Rogue. Walking over weapons to get ammo and stationary Ammo Chests/Medkits are unaffected and give the same amount of ammo/health. However, using a portal to open stationary chests will give you mini pickups instead, which are affected by the Crown. Unlike other ammo chests, walking over and opening an I.D.P.D. Ammo Chest drops 5 Mini Ammo Chests on top of your character. Each of them will give one extra ammo. The selection icon will change depending on your system time.
Crown of Destiny		Mutation choices will be limited to one instead of four from now on. Ultra Mutation choice is also limited to one instead of two. Horror still gets an extra mutation/ultra mutation choice. You get one random mutation right away. This mutation adds on to the max of 8 you can normally get through leveling.
Crown of Curses		Regular Weapon Chests have a 2/3 chance to turn into a Cursed Chest instead of 1/7.
Crown of Risk		Enemies will have 50% higher chance to drop pickups when your character is at full health. Enemies will have 50% lower chance to drop pickups when your character's health isn't full.

Post-loop Crowns

If you enter a Crown Vault after looping the game (after defeating the last boss), you can choose one Crown from this set.

To unlock any of the post-loop Crowns to be available from the start, you have to loop twice, first to acquire a post-loop Crown and again to unlock it.

Post-loop Crowns can also be unlocked by defeating the Captain boss in I.D.P.D. Headquarters. Beating the boss with a character that has a Crown will unlock it as a starting Crown for that character.

Crown	Icon	Description
Crown of Death		Removes 1 HP from your character's max health. Adds 3 Small Explosions to every Big Explosion spawned in the game. To Explosive Weapons that fire Mini Grenades, it adds one extra Mini Grenade per shot; Cluster Grenades will split into 9 Mini Grenades instead of 8. Cursed Mini Ammo Chests will create two small explosions instead of one. Doesn't affect Blood Explosions (Melting's special ability and weapons: Blood Launcher, Blood Cannon, and Blood Hammer). Doesn't affect Plasma Explosions. Doesn't affect Rogue's special ability and I.D.P.D. Grenades. Upon death, your character's corpse creates a huge explosion that covers the entire screen. Enemies killed by that explosion are added to your total number of kills.
Crown of Blood		A lot more enemies spawn on each level. Does not change the difficulty number, which means it doesn't affect weapon drops. Each enemy drops one less rad.
Crown of Hatred		Opening stationary chests gives you 16 rads and deals 1 damage to your character (which can kill you). Opening a stationary Medkit will heal you first and then deal 1 damage. Walking over Rad Canisters gives you 16 more rads and deals 1 damage to your character. Breaking the Rad Canister from a distance won't give you extra rads and won't deal damage to your character. Opening chests with the level ending portal won't give you rads, but also won't deal damage to your character.
Crown of Love		Replaces all Weapon Chests and Radiation Canisters with Ammo Chests. They can appear as regular Ammo Chests, Present Ammo Chests, or I.D.P.D. Ammo Chests. A Portal Strike Ammo Canister replaces one of the Ammo Chests if you play as Rogue. Ammo Chests can also appear as Mimics. If you play as Y.V. and pick an Ultra Mutation, you will find two Huge Golden Ammo Chests in Y.V's Crib instead of the usual Huge Golden Weapon Chests.
Crown of Luck		Your character starts each level damaged down to 1 HP. Rebel will start each level with half health. As a result of starting below half health, the Radiation Canister has a 50% chance to turn into a stationary Medkit every level. Enemies have a 10% chance to spawn with 1 health instead of their normal amount. Has no effect on Bosses. Can apply to I.D.P.D. units and Vans, causing them to teleport in with 1 health.
Crown of Protection		Weapons will give you 1 HP instead of ammo when walked over. As Regular Melee Weapons give you no ammo, they won't give you health either.