Since I haven’t had enough time to give as much detail and information as usual with my The Skillz articles this is “Summoning, Part A”. I will release “Summoning, Part B” sometime later this year which will have tips, tricks, and all the usual goodies that The Skillz articles usually have.

The Skillz – Necromancy

Jagex has finally released the long-awaited necromancy of Runescape! This means that you can finally summon skeletons out of fallen foes and raise terrible King Black Dragons to fight for you. You can also now raise gh-

“Wait a minute…” A voice says.

“Huh? What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that, this is Jason’s article, not yours.”

“Well since he was busy with gathering gold round things, I figured I should help out and write his article for him.”

“Well I’m sorry, but he’s asked me to write it as I am more adept to nature then you are.”

“Aww, can’t I please write it?”

“Nope. If you wouldn’t mind could you please leave the room while I write? If you don’t go peacefully, I’ll have to ask my pet Dragon to escort you out.”

*Gulp*

“Alright, I’ll leave.”

Door shuts as the man walks out.

Ahhh, good. I’m sorry about that, he’s always trying to get in the spotlight. Jason is busy today gathering Gold Charms for this month’s new skill, Summoning, and in his absence he’s asked me to write his article about the skill.

Now let’s try this again…

The Skillz – Summoning [A]

On January 15th, Jagex released another skill: Summoning. Many players were dying to see this skill, but I think most them were let down. We’ll talk about the downsides of the skill later on. To start off we’ll talk about…

Wolves, Pouches, Scrolls, and Teeth

To begin Summoning, you need to go to Pikkupstix in Taverley. Unlike most skills where you can just pick up a few items and start (like Herblore), this one requires you to do a quest. Wolf Whistle is a relatively short and easy quest, having only 7 steps according to Trekkie’s quest guide, all items needed during the quest can be obtained during the quest. Rune Beast has written an article about this quest so I won’t spend too much time on it.

After you finish Wolf Whistle you’ll be level 4 Summoning and will be able to create Dreadfowl Pouches. Pouches are what you use to summon creatures. Each pouch requires you to have a certain Summoning level like in most skills. Summoning pouches are tradeable, but you still must have the appropriate Summoning level to use a pouch. Pouches may also be turned into “scrolls” which allow the creature whose name is on that scroll to do a special ability, these abilities range from doing very little to fairly high damage, raising your defence, stunning an opponent, or even curing you of poison!

You may have noticed during Wolf Whistle, Pikkupstix gave you fourteen particularly odd-looking teeth looking objects which were used when you created the wolf pouch. These are actually shards. Shards are one of the main components used to create pouches. Shards, combined with empty Pouches and certain colored Charms as well as a certain secondary (or fourthary, if you will) ingredient allow you to create the Summonable pouches.

Charms and how to get the little blighters

Charms are the main annoyance of Summoning. You may have thought that the shards were if you’ve been to Pikkupstix’ shop and seen that they cost 25gp each.(as of January 17th, the were originally 50gp each when first released.) Though shards cost a fair bit they’re not nearly the hardest item to come by since Pikkupstix has a limitless supply of them. Charms, however, are very difficult to get but before we get into that we need to know what they look like.

There are four types or grades of charms: Gold, Green, Crimson (“Red”), and Blue(“Cyan”). Now since Gold are the lowest grade charm, you would think they’d be the easiest to get, right? Well as it turns out there are no easy to get charms.

“What did you say? Of course there are easy charms, if not we can always just buy them off the GE.”

Be my guest, but I can guarantee you that you won’t be able to put a trade offer up to buy any. This is because Jagex has made all Charm grades non-tradeable and players cannot use the Grand Exchange to buy/sell charms or pick them up as drops. This definitely makes Summoning a lot harder.
Now also you would think that the lower grades, Gold and Green, would be less used at the upper levels. This, however, isn’t true. You can use your first crimson charm at level 19 and your first blue charm at level 23, whereas you can use your last gold charm at level 71 and your last green charm at level 88.

Now, about getting the little things…

There are many monsters that drop charms. I’ve found that the best charm-droppers are Slayer monsters like: Basilisks, Infernal mages, Jellies, Bloodvelds. Infernal mages seem to drop the better amount of Gold charms from these 4 monsters whereas Basilisks, Jellies, and Bloodvelds drop Green charms fairly well. Dust Devils are a good resource for Crimson charms being about a 33% drop rate. Below is a list of monsters I’ve fought and their average drop rate percentage.

Slayer Monsters:
Basilisks (35%)
Bloodvelds (40%)
Dust Devils (40%)
Infernal Mages (45%)
Jellies (45%)
Kurasks (30%)
Turoths (30%)

Non-Slayer:
Ice Warriors (45%)
Khazard Troopers (25%)
Moss Giants (45%)
Ogres (40%)
Shadow Warriors (40%)

You’ll notice I have tried more Slayer monsters then non-Slayer monsters. This is because I’ve been doing Slayer tasks for testing and Duradel has chosen to give me more Slayer creatures then non-Slayer creatures. I’ve heard that the following drop charms fairly good: Nechryaels, Fire Giants, Iron Dragons, Steel Dragons, Greater Demons, Giant Rock Crabs, Kalphite(Guards and above), Cave Crawlers, and Blue Dragons.

With both of those lists combined, that’s 21 monsters that have been known for good charm drop rates and I’m sure there are some monsters I don’t know about. Its still hard to gather charms though, considering the best drop rate for charms is 45-50%, I have yet to find a 75% drop rate.

What’s the use, why have a tag-a-long?

Good question, most of the familiars you can summon are not worth using from what I’ve heard. (I have yet to try many as I’m only level 20 as of the writing of this article.) The most useful ones so far from what I’ve heard have been the Macaw and the Compost Mound. none of the Familiars are very good for fighting with, when I tried using a granite crab in Castle Wars it died in one or two hits from an opponent, Familiars are also always targeted first by players.

A familiar’s hitpoints are equal to your Summoning level. So, a Summoner of level 50 would have Familiars with 50 hitpoints when fully healed. A familiar’s time is a base of 3 minutes plus an extra minutes per 10 levels you are above the familiar’s minimum level, thus a level 60 Summoner could have a Bull ant which would last 5 minutes per renewal and have 60 hitpoints.

Now, some familiars just look cool. If you just want a neat looking follower I suggest a Pet, these we’ll talk about in the next section.

The Granite Crab, Beaver, Ibis, and Granite Lobster can all be useful for skillers. The Granite Crabs allows you to not need to Carry a big net for fishing and the Beaver allows you to fletch 28 logs at once, instead of consuming one spot with a knife. The Ibis counts as a harpoon for catching tuna and swordfish, whereas the Granite Lobster counts as a harpoon for catching sharks, all could be useful if you want to carry one more item per load.

Many familiars also allow you to carry items on them, some of the following are Beasts of Burden: Spirit Kalphites, Bull Ants, Spirit Terrorbirds, Abyssal Parasites(Pure and normal unnoted essence only), War Tortoise, and Pack Yak. They allow you to carry from 1-10 items on them while they’re summoned. But be careful, if you should let them un-Summon while carrying items, who knows where your items will go!

Dogs! And Reptiles, Birds, and Crustaceans…?

Dogs! Yes! Jagex finally added dogs even after they said they wouldn’t. Jagex has, a few times on the forums, said that they would never add Dogs, though then I was annoyed that they wouldn’t be adding then I’m even more annoyed now because they lied to us. (Kinda makes you wonder what else can be trusted…)

Dogs, like cats, must be raised from puppies. Unlike cats, however, they only have puppy and adult ages. (Just goes to show that dogs can’t get obese). Puppies require raw meat-type foods until they are 100% grown. (meat-type foods are any foods which use the beef image: raw Beef, raw Rat, raw Bear, and raw Pawya.) Unfortunately, grown dogs must also be fed raw beef, unlike cats which don’t require food after adulthood.

Reptiles? Ever wanted a Gecko or Chameleon but your Parents said no? Well now you can have either if your summoning and hunter are high enough levels. Geckos can be caught in the North east area of Karamja isle using a box trap, it requires level 10 Summoning and level 27 Hunter. Chameleons must be incubated from an egg which can be found on Cairn Isle just west of Shilo Village, they require level 90 Summoning and eat flies.

Birds are raised from eggs. The first bird type you’ll be able to hatch will be a penguin, you can get a penguin egg from an Ardougne zoo keeper. Baby penguins require level 30 Summoning and must be fed raw fish. Even adult penguins must be fed raw fish. The next bird type pet is a raven. Raven eggs can only be obtained from bird nests, which are dropped as random events from trees while woodcutting. Baby ravens must be fed ground Fishing bait and adults can eat normal fishing bait.

The next birds are the God birds. Remember those Blue, Green, and Red eggs you’ve always gotten from nests while woodcutting? Well, now they can be hatched if you have level 70 Summoning. The Blue egg is the Saradomin Owl, the Green is the Guthix Raptor, and the Red is the Zamorak Hawk. They all require ground fishing bait as babies and eat normal fishing bait as adults. God Birds do not currently do anything special but its hoped that they will eventually be able to boost your prayer bonus a bit and possibly fly into battle with you.

Following God Birds are vultures, though you’d think it would be easier to raise a vulture baby then the baby of a God animal its actually harder. Vultures require level 85 Summoning to incubate. They eat normal ground fishing bait and normal fishing bait when adults.

The hardest one of the pets is to get is the giant crab. In order to get one, you have to buy it from Mogres in the underwater adventure from Recipe for Disaster. Baby Giant crabs eat fish and so do their adult stage.

There are a few more pets but I don’t really want to use the time to explain them as they’re pretty self-explanatory and I think this already relatively long.

Hmm what’s left?

If you find that a certain familiar seems to do really well with their special attack, then you could buy a piece of headgear from Pikkupstix to store from 5-10 scrolls in. If your Crafting is high enough, you can combine a coif and some hunter feathers together to make a headdress, these can store up to 15 scrolls and randomly use them at will, much like the Slayer black mask.

—

If I’ve left anything out I’m sorry. Summoning is a fairly big skill and most of us are only just starting it. If you want more information about it, I highly suggest reading the Knowledge Base article on Summoning. For the most accurate tips I suggest reading RSBandB’s RuneScape General Discussion forum or staying logged into RSBandB’s official Chat Channel.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Now, to go find Goldun and set him straight about this new skill…