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Summoning is a members-only skill released on 15 January 2008 and updated on 31 March. It allows players to infuse the essence of a variety of creatures into Summoning pouches, then summon these creatures, termed familiars. Each familiar has a unique ability that requires a Summoning scroll, made from a corresponding pouch, to use. Summoning familiars and creating scrolls gives very little experience, so players must almost always create pouches in order to gain levels quickly in the skill.

The summoning skill shares similarities to Prayer, the skill is trained mostly through one action (infusing pouches) and points are used when the skill is brought into action, such as summoning a familiar to assist in fighting, carrying or foraging.

Summoning also affects the player's combat level. Previously, the maximum combat level a player could have was 126. When summoning was added to the game, the maximum combat level was raised to combat level 138.

Contents 1 Updates 2 Pouches 3 Scrolls 4 Familiars 4.1 Abilities 5 Pets 6 Summoning Items 6.1 Shop Items 6.2 Headdresses 6.2.1 All Items That Can Store Summoning Scrolls 7 Locations 7.1 Summoning Shops 7.2 Pet Shops 7.3 Obelisks 7.3.1 Small Obelisks 8 Training 8.1 High alchemy 8.2 Minimum cost 8.3 Minimum time 8.4 Minimum charms 8.5 Costs 8.6 Chaos Tunnels 9 History 10 Music 11 Trivia 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Updates

• 15 January 2008: Summoning release
• 21 January 2008: Spirit shards were halved in price, from 50gp to 25gp each. Anyone who had bought shards for 50gp before the price cut were given the number of shards they had bought, for free, as compensation.
• 31 March 2008: Summoning part 2
• 7 May 2008: Update:Perils of Ice Mountain - Bogrog will swap Summoning pouches for spirit shards at a 70% rate.

[edit] Pouches

Main article: Summoning pouches

Summoning pouches are used to summon familiars. The creation of a pouch is relatively simple: the pouch is infused with the essence of a creature, or familiar, which can be summoned later on using the pouch. Doing so yields experience in the skill. A pouch is used up when when its familiar is summoned. It is not restored when the familiar is dismissed.

Several items are needed in order to make summoning pouches. A single empty pouch, a number of spirit shards, depending on the familiar, and a charm (of specific colours such as gold, green, crimson, and blue) is needed for each summoning pouch. Each familiar also requires a unique component that embodies the familiar in some way: for example, wolf bones are needed to summon a spirit wolf. Empty pouches and spirit shards can be purchased from Pikkupstix in Taverley for 25 coins for spirit shards and 1 coin for pouches, and other various locations across RuneScape.

Three shops sell the basic summoning components (see the Summoning Shops section). Most of the components can also be purchased from players, or through the Grand Exchange. However, charms are only available as monster drops, which is a key factor in the difficulty of this skill. To make pouches, the required items must be taken to a Summoning obelisk. Players can right click on the obelisk and choose the option "create pouch". This will open up an interface that allows players to choose what type of pouch and how many they wish to make.

[edit] Scrolls

Main article: Summoning scrolls

Summoning scrolls are required to enable a familiar to use its special move.

To create summoning scrolls, use a completed summoning pouch on a Summoning obelisk. A window will open and allow you to choose what type of scroll (and how many) you want to make. You can also click the obelisk's option of "Infuse pouches", which will open the same window but require you to switch from the pouch-making page to the scroll-making page. You will get 10 scrolls for each pouch that is transformed.

[edit] Familiars

Main article: Summoning familiars

Familiars are friendly creatures that players may summon to help them do many things. The familiars have many different abilities, from boosting skills to aiding you in combat, and all of them have special moves that can be activated with Summoning scrolls.

Only one familiar can be summoned at a time. It must be dismissed before another can be summoned.

In order to summon a familiar, players must use the "Summon" option on a Summoning pouch. It costs summoning points (similar to Prayer points) to summon familiars. Familiars now drain Summoning points over time after the "Summoning 2" update. This is not made clear in the knowledge base. Summoning potions can restore summoning points.

You can talk to a familiar if you have at least 10 or more summoning levels above the required level to summon that familiar. You will never be able to talk to the pack yack or wolpertinger because it is impossible to get a "natural" summoning level over 99.

[edit] Abilities

Familiars have different special abilities that they are able to access. Some are accessed by talking, using the familiars special button or right clicking a familiar for another option.

Abilities	Description
Fights	This familiar will fight with you when you attack something, the level in brackets indicates the familiars Combat level. Note that you must choose to attack for it to come to your aid. They only fight in multi combat areas. The pack yak and unicorn stallion, bunyip and void spinner will only fight to defend themselves, and then only if you have auto-retaliate turned on.
Light enhancer	Some familiars - notably bats - can see well in the dark and will make any light source you have with you brighter.
Skill boost	Some familiars can temporarily raise your level in a given skill, while some other familiars provide an 'invisible' boost that is always active. The number in brackets indicates the size of the boost, and the term 'invisible' indicates that is always active as long as your familiar is close by. If that stat has already been raised by a potion, then the skill boost will not work. Note that invisible skills boosts do not allow you to perform an activity above your level, they simply help you in increasing the efficiency of your activity in your current level.
Remote view	These familiars can fly into the air and allow you to see through their eyes, giving you the ability to see things much further away.
Beast of Burden	A beast of burden can carry a number of items equal to the number in brackets. In some cases, it will only be able to carry certain items, in which case they will be listed. Note that only abyssal familiars can carry rune essence and pure essence
Forager	A forager will find certain items from time to time, and can carry 30 of its type of item. You are only able to 'Withdraw' items from these familiars.

[edit] Pets

Pets are animals that follow you as you travel throughout RuneScape. They do not fight or do things for you like familiars, and instead are mostly "decoration", as well as a way to show off your Summoning level. They are very similar to cats obtained from the Gertrude's Cat quest.

When you get a pet it will be the baby version of the adult. Young pets need to be fed a certain type of food so that it does not run away because it is hungry. After a certain amount of time it will grow into an adult pet which is slightly larger than the younger version. Bird pets work slightly differently. The bird must be hatched from an egg. It is then a chick until it grows to be an adult. Also, birds of prey (raptors, owls, hawks) go through three growth stages after hatching: chick, youth, and adult.

Even though cats do not need food once they are grown it is not the same for pets. Adult pets still need to be fed.

You can talk to a pet if you are at least 10 or more summoning levels above the required Summoning level to obtain that pet. You will never be able to talk to the dragon or chameleon because it is impossible to get a "natural" summoning level over 99. You can talk to your pet monkey by wearing the monkey speak amulet (M'speak amulet) from the Monkey Madness quest.

The table below shows the different pets, the levels at which they can be obtained, and what kinds of foods they require. Some pets require you to place a certain type of egg in an incubator, found in pet shops in Taverley and Yanille. Hatching may take several hours.

Notes:

• For the pets in the dog variety, feeding them bones does not count as feeding them food. If you only supply them with bones, they will eventually run away.
• Some pets require you to catch them with the Hunter skill. Pets caught using hunter (noted in the table below) will be caught as the baby version, just like other pets start as.
• All pets (but not cats, which technically are not classed as pets) require you to have completed the Wolf Whistle quest and have the required Summoning level and Hunter level (in some cases).
• You can only have one "follower" active at a time: familiar, pet, or cat. You can have a cat and several pets in the bank or in your inventory.
• You can have several pets, based on your Summoning level: You can have one pet, plus one additional pet for every ten Summoning levels you have. A level 12 summoner could have two pets, for example. (Cats do not count against this limit.) However, you cannot have more than one of each type of pet. For example, if you have a platypus pet, you cannot have a second platypus.

Image	Pet	Summoning Level	Hunter Level	Food	Obtained from
Cats	Cat	N/A	-	Raw/cooked Fish	Gertrude-100gp
	Bulldog	4	-	Raw meat (not fish or chicken)	Pet shop - 500 gp
	Dalmatian	4	-	Raw meat (not fish or chicken)	Pet shop - 500 gp
	Greyhound	4	-	Raw meat (not fish or chicken)	Pet shop - 500 gp
	Labrador	4	-	Raw meat (not fish or chicken)	Pet shop - 500 gp
	Sheepdog	4	-	Raw meat (not fish or chicken)	Pet shop - 500 gp
	Terrier	4	-	Raw meat (not fish or chicken)	Pet shop - 500 gp
	Gecko	10	27	Flies and beetle bits	Caught using Hunter
	Platypus	10	48	Raw fish	Caught using Hunter (after completion of As a First Resort... quest)
	Penguin	30	-	Raw fish	Penguin egg Talk to the penguin keeper by the penguins in the Ardougne zoo.
	Giant crab	40	-	Raw fish	Crunchy claw token
	Raven	50	-	Ground fishing bait as a chick, fishing bait as adult	Raven egg
	Squirrel	60	29	Nuts	Caught using Hunter
	Saradomin owl	70	-	Ground fishing bait as a chick, fishing bait as adult	Blue egg
	Guthix raptor	70	-	Ground fishing bait as a chick, fishing bait as adult	Green egg
	Zamorak hawk	70	-	Ground fishing bait as a chick, fishing bait as adult	Red egg
	Raccoon	80	27	Raw meat and fish	Caught using Hunter
	Vulture (pet)	85	-	Ground fishing bait as a chick, fishing bait as adult	Vulture egg
	Chameleon	90	-	Flies	Egg found near ruined hut on Cairn Isle
	Monkey	95	27	Bananas	Caught using Hunter
	Dragon	99	-	Vast amounts of raw meat, fish and chicken	Dragon egg

[edit] Summoning Items

Summoning includes the use of 4 new subitems. These include Pets, Familiars, Summoning Scrolls, and new Summoning only items. These and their required Summoning skill levels are listed below:

[edit] Shop Items

Note: See Summoning Shops for the shop locations.

Image	Item	Price
	Pouch	1 gp
	Spirit Shard	25 gp
	Antlers	100 gp
	Lizard Skull	200 gp

[edit] Headdresses

Note:

• These items can only store scrolls that are used to attack (not skill helping scrolls like "Egg Spawn").
• Combat scrolls stored in headdresses will be automatically used while in a multicombat zone with your familiar summoned and when you are wearing the headdress.
• The scrolls stored in the headdress must match the familiar you have currently summoned for them to be used.
• The non-specific Summoning items (eg. Adamant full helm) can be enchanted by Pikkupstix, for free, to store Summoning scrolls. (Note: You must have the required Summoning level to get the item enchanted in the first place.) If you wish to have the item disenchanted, simply speak to Pikkupstix and he will remove the enchantment, again for free. (See table below)
• The specific Summoning items (eg. Antlers, Lizard skull, and Feather headdress) are the only items that require the summoning level to wear. All other items can be worn like normal.

[edit] All Items That Can Store Summoning Scrolls

Item	Summoning Level	Defence Level	Number of Scrolls	Notes
Antlers	10	1	40	Obtainable from a summoning shop for 100 coins.
Lizard skull	30	1	65	Obtainable from a summoning shop for 200 coins.
Feather headdress	50	1	150	Comes in various colours. Craftable at level 79 Crafting, from a coif and 20 coloured feathers.
Adamant full helm	20	30	50
Snakeskin bandana	20	30	50	Requires level 30 Ranged.
Splitbark helm	30	40	50	Requires level 40 Magic.
Rune full helm	30	40	60
All Fremennik helmets	35	45	70	Requires the completion of The Fremennik Trials quest.
Helm of Neitiznot	45	55	90	Requires the completion of The Fremennik Isles quest.
Dragon medium helm	50	60	110
Lunar helm	55	40	110	Requires level 65 Magic.
Armadyl helmet	60	70	120	Requires level 70 Ranged.

[edit] Locations

[edit] Summoning Shops

• Taverley
• Gu'Tanoth
• Nature Grotto (Wishing Well)

[edit] Pet Shops

• Yanille
• Taverley

[edit] Obelisks

Main article: Summoning Obelisks

Note that the italic bank locations need some quests or limitations to use.

Obelisk	Details	Nearest bank	Travel options
Summoning shop
Gu'Tanoth	On the path to city gate	Yanille	Yanille house portal, Fairy ring CIQ, Castle Wars
Taverley	In basement of Pickupstix house.	Falador, Warriors' Guild,the Rogue's Den	Taverley balloon, Taverley house portal
Mort Myre	In the Nature Grotto cave	Burgh de Rott, Canifis	Fairy ring BKR
No Summoning shop
Isafdar	Just inside the Underground pass	Lletya	Elf teleport crystal, Abyss to Death altar
Brimhaven	North west of the village	TzHaar City	Fairy ring BJR, Shilo carts, Ship (trawler and normal), Amulet of Glory (for banking at TzHaar)
Piscatoris	In cave south of the Fishing Colony	Piscatoris Fishing Colony	Fairy ring AKQ or Kathy Corkat or Spirit kyatt teleport
Kharidian Desert	In cave south-west of Pollnivneach	Nardah	Pollnivneach house portal, Camulet teleport

[edit] Small Obelisks

Main article: Small obelisk

Small obelisks are partially-charged with Summoning energy and may be used to recharge Summoning points, but not to infuse pouches or scrolls. They are found all over Gielinor, and are much more abundant than fully-charged obelisks. For their locations see the main article (Small obelisk) as there are too many to be listed here.

[edit] Training

The main summoning experience is gained from making pouches. Making scrolls and using the special effects give very little experience (typically less than 10% of that provided by making pouches). Hence, training the skill involves making loads of pouches.

The three main elements required for pouch-making are charms, spirit shards, and tertiary ingredients. Since charms are untradable, you must collect them by yourself, which takes time and effort (see Charms). Spirit shards cost money and are not available from monsters, so they must be bought with money. Finally, the tertiary ingredient can usually be obtained through many ways, involving decision-making on whether to buy or collect it. Summoning's high cost may be an attempt to control the price of rare familiars, similar to construction.

One also needs to find a way to do quick and efficient round trips between a bank and a summoning obelisk (see Obelisk section above), to minimise the time taken to make pouches.

[edit] High alchemy

Players may be able to make a small profit from alchemizing their pouches, but only for those made from gold charms, and only if they runecraft their own Nature runes. Players are not advised to alchemize pouches made from crimson, green, or blue charms as they may take a loss instead. The amount of money received from high alchemy is proportional to the number of shards used in summoning the creature.

Table below shows minimum cost of only pouch and shards, assuming players get tertiary components themselves. War tortoise and Rune Minotaurs are excluded due to the extreme difficulty in getting enough components on your own

Level	Pouch	High Alchemy	Minimum Cost	Net Profit Per Pouch	Number Needed	Total Profit
1	Spirit wolf pouch	359 gp	176 gp	183 gp	22	4,026gp
4	Dreadfowl pouch	374 gp	201 gp	173 gp	95	16,435gp
10	Spirit spider pouch	374 gp	201 gp	173 gp	127	21,971gp
16	Granite crab pouch	359 gp	176 gp	183 gp	18	3,294gp
17	Mosquito pouch	269gp	25gp	244gp
40	Bull ant pouch	419gp	275gp	144gp
52	Spirit terrorbird pouch	434gp	300gp	134gp
66	Barker toad pouch	419gp	250gp	169gp
71	Arctic bear pouch	464gp	350gp	114gp
83	Spirit dagannoth pouch	269gp	25gp	244gp

See Summoning pouches table for more alch values.

This skill may be in decline, as with a new update you could swap pouches for shards, gave a more cost effecting option.

[edit] Minimum cost

Based upon minimizing the cost due to the number of spirit shards used:

Table below shows minimum cost assuming players buy all the components (pouches, shards, tertiary ingredients).

Level	Shards	Tertiary	Method	Cost	Notes
1 - 4	14	Wolf bones	Starting point	-	At completion of Wolf Whistle quest
4 - 10	760	Raw chicken	95 Dreadfowl pouches	25840 coins	Uses gold charms from quest
10 - 16	1,008	Spider carcass	126 spider pouches	135702 coins	Uses gold charms from quest
16 - 18	378	Iron ore	54 Granite crab pouches	14580 coins	Uses up the remaining gold charms from quest
18 - 40	10,927	Iron ore	1,561 Granite crab pouches	421470 coins	Uses gold charms
40 - 52	17,930	Marigolds	1,630 Bull ant pouches	7661000 coins	Uses gold charms
52 - 66	65,364	Raw bird meat	5,447 Spirit terrorbird pouches	2184247 coins	Uses gold charms
66 - 67	6,545	Swamp toad	595 Barker toad pouches	220150 coins	Uses gold charms
From this point up, the rarity and cost of the tertiary component may be your primary constraint.
67 - 82	31,964	Tortoise shell	31,964 War tortoise pouches	149080096 coins	Uses gold charms
83 - 86	3,226	Dagannoth hide	3,226 Spirit dagannoth pouches	17068766 coins	Uses crimson charms
86 - 99	12,469	Runite bar	12,469 Rune minotaur pouches	170850238 coins	Uses blue charms
Costs are based on current exchange prices plus the cost of shards and pouches. And without taking into consideration later alching of made pouches.

At around level 16 this will use up all the gold charms from the quest. Raw chicken meat can be bought in a store in Canifis or from Ali Morisanne in Al-Kharid. Iron ores are easily mined or purchased from the Grand Exchange. It also will require just over 2,000 Spirit shards at 25 coins each. It will cost around 50,000 coins to reach level 18. Expect at least 3 times that amount to just make the hiscores at level 30.

[edit] Minimum time

For minimum time you must create pouches from whatever charms you get and you must create the highest level pouches that you can make with the charms you obtain.

[edit] Minimum charms

This method minimizes the charms used to gain levels:

Level	Shards	Tertiary	Method	Cost	Notes
1 - 4	14	Wolf bones	Starting point	-	At completion of Wolf Whistle quest
4 - 10	760	Raw chicken	95 Dreadfowl pouches	25840 coins	Uses gold charms from quest
10 - 16	1,008	Spider carcass	126 spider pouches	135702 coins	Uses gold charms from quest
16 - 18	378	Iron ore	54 Granite crab	14580 coins	Uses up the remaining gold charms from quest
18 - 19	90	Bucket of sand	2 Desert wyrm pouches	2414 coins	Uses green charms
19 - 25	2,679	Bronze claws	47 Spirit scorpion pouches	70876 coins	Uses crimson charms
25 - 36	3,927	Potato cactus	77 Spirit kalphite pouches	169785 coins	Uses blue charms
36 - 46	13,974	Bronze bar	137 Bronze minotaur pouches	374558 coins	Uses blue charms
46 - 55	30,500	Iron bar	244 Iron minotaur pouches	818620 coins	Uses blue charms
55 - 56	5,436	Jug of water	36 Spirit jelly pouches	136224 coins	Uses blue charms
56 - 58	11,562	Steel bar	82 Steel minotaur pouches	338660 coins	Uses blue charms
58 - 66	76,608	Empty fishbowl	532 Karamthulhu overlord pouches	1992872 coins	Uses blue charms
66 - 76	219,944	Mithril bar	1,447 Mithril minotaur pouches	7153968 coins	Uses blue charms
76 - 86	486,864	Adamantite bar	3,381 Adamant minotaur pouches	20086521 coins	Uses blue charms
86 - 99	12,469	Runite bar	12,469 Rune minotaur pouches	170850238 coins	Uses blue charms
Costs are based on current exchange prices plus the cost of shards and pouches.

[edit] Costs

The cost of training the skill is in larger part determined by the number of shards and the cost of each shard. Analysis of the cost of a summoning experience point shows that the cost starts at 2.9 coins per point (Barker toad) to 31.3 coins per point (Beaver).

Analysis of the pouch table shows a relationship between cost per summoning experience and Charm type:

Charm	Coins/XP point
Gold charm	2.9 - 8.1
Blue charm	5.8 - 9.3
Crimson charm	13.6 - 17.1
Green charm	26.5 - 36.1

The analysis applies to summoning levels over 16. For the lower levels, players essentially use the gold charms from Wolf Whistle.

The experience given for a particular pouch is a charm linked factor multiplied by Summoning skill level required for that pouch. The table below gives the multiplication factor for each pouch type.

Charm	Multiplication factor
Gold charm	1.3
Green charm	1.75
Crimson charm	4.4
Blue charm	8.8

Even the lowest option to train the skill puts this skill at a higher cost per experience point than any other skill, even exceeding the acknowledged money sink skill - Construction.

See Update:Summoning balancing regarding skill costs.

[edit] Chaos Tunnels

Main article: Chaos Tunnels

The Chaos Tunnels were released in conjunction with Summoning. When players run out of charms, this is the main location where they go to get a large supply of them. Different monsters drop different types of charms. Players should be warned that the area is multicombat and it would be best to come prepared with food and good armour. There are 5 entrances (called rifts) to the tunnels.

[edit] History

Main article: Summoning history

Summoning was mentioned in Issue 20 of the God Letters when Saradomin mentions the Mysterious Old Man who apparently roams RuneScape looking for people who are "of such low intellect that they cannot respond even directly to their own name" and would teleport the aforementioned over great distances (using a mysterious type of rune) if they did not respond in an attempt to "test" Summoning.

On 31 March 2004 a Behind the Scenes-like article was published, which included the updates of the next few years. Within these, there were also "Summoning spells - summon skeletons, demons, etc...!".

In November 2007, Jagex first started hinting about "something big" to come in the near future, and continued to hint about it until they finally announced its future release in January 2008. They then proceeded to release four Development Diaries about the skill, as well as three sets of wallpapers, all giving small hints and teasers about the skill. Finally, on 15 January 2008, the skill was released.

A few months before its release, Jagex had a Knowledge Base banner ad where the person typed in "bulldog". Many curious players tested this, and most did not realize the page they ended up on, was a clue to summoning.

On 29 January, Jagex "fixed" a bug with charms, which was that many monsters dropped too many charms and some of the other monsters dropped next to nothing. They made the charm drops based on monsters' combat levels, and added charm drops to more of the monsters that are assigned as Slayer tasks. However a post on the forums later that day announced they had quickly removed the update as it caused other problematic issues with the game.

When Summoning 2 had been released on 31 March 2008, they added more creatures, such as various Titans, TzHaar based creatures, Pest Control creatures and much more. Also you can gain Combat XP from the familiars depending what familiar it is that attacks.

Here are a few images released by Jagex before summoning was released. Source: RuneScape home website

[edit] Music

• Scape Summon - The opening music at the Welcome to RuneScape screen when the skill was released
• Animal Apogee - in room with Summoning Obelisk

[edit] Trivia

• Hiscores - On 6 February 2008, Nercychlidae became the first player with 10,000,000 experience and on 8 February (3.5 weeks) the first to reach level 99.
• You can log onto a Free-to-Play world and you will be able to see your combat level without the bonus from summoning.

• Apparently, a hidden monster can be seen by using paint on the Summoning Log-in screen or by turning your brightness and contrast up too 100/the maximum. However, this may be the result of pareidolia, which occurs when random shapes appear to resemble an actual object.
• On 13 February, the summoning log-in screen was taken away, to be returned on 31 March (with the release of summoning batch 2).
• The chocotrice that was commandable during the 2008 easter event is the only creature that could be controlled by non-member players.
• From the Update on 'Summoning Wallpaper #4' on the 27 March 2008, the picture along side the article on the Runescape homepage, when saved to your hard drive, has the name 'abyssal_titan.gif' showing yet another summoning familiar. This links with the Update description of 'It is element-ary that we would release a new wallpaper for something as titan-ic as Summoning 2'. Then from this description you see that 'element-ary' directly links with the wallpaper of 4 creatures based on the elements.
• When Summoning 2 update came out, the login screen became the summoning one once again. Then after the Treasure Trails update, the summoning log-in was taken away again.

[edit] See also

• Quest experience rewards - Summoning
• Summoning history
• Summoning pouches
• Summoning familiars
• Summoning scrolls
• Summoning obelisk
• Summoning effectively

[edit] External links

• RuneScape Knowledge Base
  • Summoning
  • Development Diary 1 - Concept
  • Development Diary 2 - Development
  • Development Diary 3 - Testing
  • Development Diary 4 - Release

Skills
Free skills
Members skills