Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• Abilities
  • Siphoning attacks
  • Conjures
  • Incantations
    • Necromancy Runes
  • Action bars
• Well of Souls
  • Talent Tree
  • Talent Points
• Rituals
  • Ritual Site
  • Ritual Types
    • Communions
    • Ensouling Materials
    • Essence
    • Necroplasm
  • Laying Out Your Ritual Components
    • Light Sources
    • Glyphs
      • Foundational Glyphs
      • Alteration Glyphs
  • Strategies for Efficient Rituals
  • Disturbances & Spirit Attraction
    • Wandering Soul
    • Sparkling Glyph
    • Shambling Horror
    • Corrupted Glyphs
    • Soul Storm
    • Defile
  • Results of a Ritual
    • Component Durability
    • Ritual Output
    • New Focus
    • Deathshead Moth
  • Gathering Resources
    • Focuses/Foci
    • Inks
      • Ashes
      • Necroplasm
• Upgrading your Gear
  • Death Skull (Weapons)
  • Deathwarden Gear (Tank Armor)
  • Deathdealer Gear (Power Armor)
• Training Methods
• Skill Timeline

Getting Started

Unlike other skills, Necromancy has much of its progression tied to a story-line in a series of quests. The first one, aptly named Necromancy!, is how you unlock the ability to train the skill. This quest functions as a tutorial for the skill. When finished, be sure to visit Sostratus on the South East docks to obtain a free set of Deathwarden robes. If you ever find yourself unsure of what to do next, consult the Skill Timeline below.

Abilities

In the powers page for Necromancy you will see there are 2 sections: Abilities and Incantations. All incantations are tied to the Well of Souls and require runes to use, so we will discuss them later. All Necromancy abilities require you to wield a siphon, such as the Death guard you receive during the tutorial quest. All of the conjuring abilities require you to wield a conduit, such as the Skull lantern, and use a resource called Ectoplasm to use. For clarity, we will refer to these abilities as siphoning attacks and conjures, respectively.

For now, here is a brief overview of the Necromancy abilities.

Siphoning Attacks

As mentioned above, siphons have no requirement other than wielding a siphon in your main hand. The following table explains siphoning attacks in more detail.

Conjures

Unlike siphoning attacks, conjures can only be used if you are wielding both a siphon and a conduit. They also require Ectoplasm to fuel them, which is a resource obtained as a by-product of rituals, covered below.

Incantations

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Necromancy Runes

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Action Bars

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Well of Souls

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Talent Tree

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Talent Points

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Rituals

Rituals are the aspect of Necromancy training done outside of combat. Its primary purposes are to create Necromancy runes, add souls to the Well of Souls, and create materials to upgrade your gear.

The Ritual Site

Rituals must be performed in the space provided South of the Well of Souls. Each ritual has a level requirement and components needed in order to perform it. These take the form of a focus, glyphs, and light sources, all of which are discussed further below. On the South side of the site, just outside the grassy area you can find the focus storage and ritual chest. Any items that can be used as a ritual focus can be put in the focus storage, but it has a limit of 20 item spaces, so use them wisely. Whenever you complete a ritual, any output will be stored in the ritual chest. The pedestal is where the ritual focus is placed, and clicking that option opens the ritual menu. It also had a right click option to clear the site of all glyphs and light sources.

Each ritual’s input is placed on the pedestal as the focus of the ritual. The input is consumed as part of the ritual in order to create the output, although you will always receive some Ectoplasm as a by-product of the ritual process. Note that for some rituals, the input can be one of several things, and that input can change the resulting output.

Ritual Types

Broadly speaking, rituals fall into 4 categories: Communions, Ensouling materials, Essence, and Necroplasm. There are also some quest specific rituals, but for more information on them, visit the appropriate quest guide page by looking through the Skill timeline below.

Communions

Communion rituals are the primary method to attract souls back to the City of Um to power the Well of Souls. You perform your first lesser communion as part of the Necromancy! quest, which is a requirement for all subsequent communion rituals. They always require a type of elemental glyph and at least 1 type of commune glyph. Each communion will attract a number of souls to power the Well of Souls, with the base number dependent on focus you use as the input and what tier of communion you perform: lesser, greater, or powerful.

*The outputs of a ritual can be increased with the use of Multiply Alteration Glyphs. These do not increase the inputs, but they do require Inks and Ectoplasm to make.

Ensouling Materials

Ensouling rituals are used to make materials used to upgrade your Necromancy armor and weaponry. You perform your first lesser ensoul material as part of the Kili Row quest, which is a requirement for all subsequent ensouling rituals. They all require a type of elemental glyph and at least 1 type of change glyph. Each ensouling ritual will convert a chosen input into either a type of Ensouled bar, Ensouled cloth, or Ensouled thread, with the type dependent on what tier of ensouling you perform: lesser, standard, or greater.

*The outputs of a ritual can be increased with the use of Multiply Alteration Glyphs. These do not increase the inputs, but they do require Inks and Ectoplasm to make.

Essence

Essence rituals are used to turn Pure essence into Impure essence, the material used to make Necromancy Runes. You perform your first lesser essence ritual as part of the Rune Mythos quest, which is a requirement for all subsequent essence rituals. They all require a type of elemental glyph and at least 1 type of change glyph. Each essence ritual will convert the input Pure essence into a base amount of Impure essence that varies by ritual: lesser, greater, or powerful.

*The outputs of a ritual can be increased with the use of Multiply Alteration Glyphs. These do not increase the inputs, but they do require Inks and Ectoplasm to make. **This number represents the amount of Pure essence is being used for each Impure essence being made (thus, lower value means more efficient). This efficiency increases with the use of Multiply Alteration Glyphs.

Necroplasm

Necroplasm rituals are used to turn weaker types of Necroplasm into stronger types. This is highly important, because necroplasm is used to make the inks you need to perform higher level rituals, with each type beyond the Weak necroplasm corresponding to a particular ink. Necroplasm rituals all require 1 type of reagent glyph and at least 1 type of elemental glyph. Each necroplasm ritual will convert 200 of the focused necroplasm into 100 necroplasm the next tier up: Lesser, Greater, or Powerful. Because large amounts of necroplasm are needed for the inks used to perform rituals, do not be afraid to make more necroplasm than you think you need: it will likely be useful later. Furthermore, keep in mind that you will get far more efficient use of these rituals by using Multiply Glyphs.

Ritual	Level	Required Glyphs	Light Sources	Input	Outputs*
					Ectoplasm	Necroplasm	XP
Lesser necroplasm	5	1x Elemental I 2x Reagent I	4	200x Weak necroplasm	3	100	200
Greater necroplasm	60	1x Elemental I 2x Elemental II 2x Reagent II	6	200x Lesser necroplasm	7	100	1,480
Powerful necroplasm	90	2x Elemental II 4x Elemental III 2x Reagent III	10	200x Greater necroplasm	15	100	6,600

*The outputs of a ritual can be increased with the use of Multiply Alteration Glyphs. These do not increase the inputs, but they do require Inks and Ectoplasm to make.

Laying Out Your Ritual Components

The ritual site starts off rather small, with 4 Light source spots, 5 Glyph spots, and the central pedestal. As you gain levels, the number of spots you can use in the ritual site increases, as seen in the table below. When setting up your ritual components, the positions they occupy are irrelevant: only the number of each type matters.

Site Tier	Level	Light Source Spots	Glyph Spots	Image
1	1	5	4
2	60	7	6
3	90	11	10

Light Sources

The light source spots are pentagonal in shape. While higher level candles do have higher durability, it isn’t worth the resources to make higher level candles. Buying the Basic ritual candles from Lupe for 1 Coin each is generally the better choice. However, once you get into the higher level rituals, the Disturbances will often award you with higher level light sources faster than they can be used, at which point you may as well use them. Despite other light sources not being worth your time, they can be made (see the table below).

*While White candle (lit) can be used for rituals, it is recommended not to use them because unlike the other candles, they do not stack in a single inventory space, forcing you to resupply frequently.
**Greater flaming skull are in a similar situation to the White candles (lit), but you do not need to resupply them frequently on account of them having a durability of 36. If you are successfully completing the Defile Disturbance, you will collect these much faster than you will use them.

Glyphs

The glyphs used for any given ritual can be drawn on any of the available square spots. The glyphs that can be requirements for a ritual are called Foundational glyphs. Any foundational glyphs drawn in addition to those required for a ritual will have no impact on it. However, the extra glyph spots can be used to draw Alteration glyphs instead, which modify the ritual in some way. Unlike foundational glyphs, alteration glyphs require Ectoplasm to be drawn in addition to Inks.

Strategies for Efficient Rituals

The general rule when doing rituals is that multiply glyphs are your best friend, protection glyphs are pointless, and attraction glyphs are good if you are actively doing your Disturbances and aren’t yet above 500% spirit attraction. Upon skill release, Disturbances would reduce the Durability of your ritual components if not properly addressed. This was the reason the protection glyphs were created. It was quickly found that this interaction led to less fun with the skill overall, so it was removed. However, the protection glyphs remained. Since there is no longer a drawback to Disturbances during your rituals, these glyphs have no significant purpose and shouldn’t be used unless you enjoy wasting your ritual materials.

As far as doing rituals efficiently, the multiply glyphs are by far the most useful. The amount of time saved with the speed glyphs doesn’t measure up to the increased yield of the multiply glyphs. Keep in mind that the output modifier increases the items or souls output, but has no impact on the input materials or experience gained. This allows you to not only complete your ritual goals faster (by way of reducing the number needed to get what you want out of them), but also reduces the materials required significantly.

However, the attraction glyphs are what make it possible to achieve over 500% spirit attraction. If your spirit attraction is above 500%, then at each time in the ritual where it’s possible to get a disturbance, you are guaranteed to have one. Furthermore, higher spirit attraction increases the odds of getting the higher level disturbances, which have better rewards.

As a final note, the alteration glyph material requirements do add up over time, but not as much as they appear to at first glance. For a simple example, a single multiply I glyph will cost you 1x Ectoplasm, 1x Basic ghostly ink, and 2 Regular ghostly ink for every 3 rituals you do. The durability is what makes this more efficient. If each alteration glyph was a cost for every ritual, then you would be net losing necroplasm in certain situations. Instead, for each alteration glyph you are losing the materials for the glyph for every 3 rituals times the tier of the glyph (i. e, multiply I lasts 3 rituals, multiply II lasts 6 rituals, and multiply III lasts 9 rituals). Don’t get hung up on the math, we’ve done enough of it for you! Alteration glyphs are worth the time and effort if done mindfully.

Disturbances & Spirit Attraction

While you are performing rituals, there will occasionally be disturbances caused by the spirits the rituals attract. These disturbances take 6 possible forms, each only appearing during certain conditions. Successfully managing the disturbances yields Necromancy experience and an item reward that varies by disturbance. All item rewards are placed in the ritual chest. Exception: Necromancer’s tomes of experience will always be placed in your inventory, provided that there is space for it.

One of the major conditions is the percentage of spirit attraction, which by default is displayed at the top of your screen while at the Ritual Site. With no modifiers to this, it defaults to 100%. However, increasing this percentage (which is done by using Alteration Glyphs) changes what disturbances can occur. During any ritual, there is a set number of times at which a disturbance can occur. At 501% or more a disturbance is guaranteed to occur at each of these intervals. The higher the spirit attraction, the better the odds of having higher level disturbances, and thus, the better the rewards.

Despite this, the disturbances that can occur are still limited by the other condition: what ritual is being performed (see the table below). In simplest terms, the spirit attraction determines the base distribution of chance for each disturbance, then the tier of the ritual removes some of the possible disturbances.

Wandering Soul

The Wandering Soul disturbance can occur in any ritual with a spirit attraction of 1% or more . It will appear at one side of the Ritual Site and cross to the other. If you dismiss it before it reaches the other side (which takes X seconds), you will receive its reward.

Sparkling Glyph

Under the right conditions (any ritual with a spirit attraction of 1% or more), sometimes one of your glyphs will begin to sparkle. When this happens, click the glyph to expel the sparkles before its duration ends (X seconds) to receive your reward.

Shambling Horror

Shambling Horrors can spawn any ritual with a spirit attraction of 101% or more. It will appear on one side of the Ritual Site and start making its way toward a glyph or light source spot chosen at random. The chosen spot will give off green smoke briefly, which you can make happen again by clicking on the horror. Once you know what the spot is, stand within a few tiles of it, then click the horror, immediately followed by the chosen spot to claim your reward. You will fail this disturbance if the horror reaches the chosen spot, which occurs in X seconds, regardless of how far away the chosen glyph is from where the horror spawns.

Corrupted Glyphs

When the conditions are met (any tier 2 or 3 ritual with a spirit attraction of 201% or more), corrupted glyphs can spawn. There will always be 3 of them, each consisting of a curved line with a number of lines in the middle of the curve: one with 1 line, one with 2 lines, and one with 3 lines. These must be [[left click text-ed form]] in the correct order, 1 -3. There will be a bar representing the time remaining to deal with the disturbance above each of the glyphs. If you click the wrong glyph, you will not be penalized for it, but you will receive a popup telling you that you chose the wrong glyph, which will appear above the correct glyph to deal with next. If you [[left click text-ed form]] all three of the glyphs before the timer runs out, you will receive your reward.

A few things to keep in mind: while the word used to describe them is “glyphs," it is not the same as the ones that are drawn on the glyph spaces. These ones hover above the ritual site a small height and are presented vertically. They appear in a specific orientation that can make it difficult to see them or click on them if you are not facing North. If you meet the conditions for this disturbance, it’s highly recommended to keep your camera facing North or to use the “Fixed camera" ritual interface feature.

Soul Storm

Soul storms can spawn any tier 2 or 3 ritual with a spirit attraction of 301% or more. They will spawn atop one of the glyph or light source spots.

Defile

The most rewarding disturbance, defile can occur only in tier 3 rituals with a spirit attraction of 501% or more. A large pool of miasma will appear somewhere on the ritual site. You will have a short time to siphon it away by left clicking on it. There is a chance of failing to continue siphoning the defile, signified by a sizzling sound and some purple mist. If you do not click again when this happens, your progress bar for siphoning it will reset. The most reliable way to avoid this problem is to click the defile every time your progress bar advances until it completes.

Results of a Ritual

Between the start and conclusion of a ritual, 3 things are guaranteed to happen, and a 4th has a chance to happen.

Component Durability

Upon starting a ritual, all components used for the ritual, regardless of whether they are glyphs or light sources, will have their durability reduced by 1. Any components that reach a durability of 0 will be labeled as depleted and cannot be used to start a new ritual after the current one until they are repaired, which uses the same materials used to make them initially. If you have multiple components that need to be repaired, you can right click the pedestal and select “Repair all" to fix them all at once. You can check the durability of all your ritual components by right clicking the pedestal and selecting “Check durability all," or any of the components individually by right clicking them and selecting “Check durability."

Ritual Output

You will receive the output of the ritual. In simplest terms, you will obtain the remaining experience reward of the ritual (beyond what you earned while performing it), and any item outputs for the ritual will be added to the ritual chest. These outputs include the Ectoplasm.

New Focus

If your focus storage contains another possible focus for your current ritual, it will automatically be placed on the pedestal. If the ritual you are performing has multiple foci that can be used for it, then it will prioritize the item that you used for the ritual you just completed. If you do not have another one in storage, then it will prioritize the highest tier focus possible for the same ritual you just completed. However, if no possible focus is present, then the pedestal will remain empty, and you will have to add a new one manually.

Deathshead Moth

Completing a ritual has a chance to spawn a Deathshead moth. If one spawns, you will receive a notification in your chat box. Catching a Deathshead moth awards X Necromancy experience.

Gathering Resources

While the resources that can be obtained from completing disturbances are significant, they aren’t enough to be done in a sustainable manner. You will need to gather resources for your rituals from other sources.

Focuses/Foci

As far as the foci for your rituals are concerned, there are some surprisingly easy sources. We have them outlined below. Lesser Communions Of the possible foci for lesser communions, the Wyvern bones are the most readily available to lower level players by way of Wilderness flash event rewards. The ability to quickly gather Bones or Big bones is mostly hampered by limited inventory space, which can be circumvented by using the Bonecrusher (and the upgrade for it) alongside either the Death Note relic or wearing a Tome of Um, obtained by completing the City of Um easy tasks.. Greater Communions There are a lot of plentiful options for greater communion foci. For mid and lower level players, the easiest method is going to be the killing of chromatic dragons for Dragon bones. For mid-high level players this can be done faster by killing Vindicta & Gorvek, as they drop Dragon bones in larger quantities. However, for players with the Death Note relic, the fastest foci will come from killing Dagannoth with a Dwarf multicannon and aggression potions. If you are at high or max levels, then you also have the option of killing Kerapac, the Bound for his noted Dragonkin bone drops, although all the troves from the Elder God Wars Dungeon have a chance of dropping them as well. Powerful Communions Unless you are comfortable killing Raksha, the Shadow Colossus or you do a lot of Big Game Hunter, your best bet for obtaining powerful communion foci is to kill Feral dinosaurs. They drop additional noted Dinosaur bones fairly regularly. The only other notable option is killing The Ambassador a lot, because he can commonly drop a sizable number of Reinforced dragon bones.

Inks

The most significant resource for the performance of rituals is by far the amount of ink needed. The inks are each made using Ashes, Vials of water, and necroplasm of the appropriate tier (see the table below).

Ashes

When creating your inks, the biggest obstacle is easily the Ashes. While you can obtain them by making lines of fires using any logs, that method is both slow and click intensive. If you want to obtain a sizable amount of Ashes, we recommend two methods, both of which require wearing the Tome of Um 1 or higher: Method 1: Combat in the Abyss. This method requires completion of the Enter the Abyss miniquest and the combat level and gear necessary to camp in the abyss for extended periods without leaving. All the creatures in the abyss drop Ashes. We recommend using the area loot window interface for this setup. Continually kill everything that attacks you and pick up the Ashes. When they stop attacking you, you can either run to the other side of the Abyss, or you can teleport out. Do not use this method if you do not have any fast teleport methods or several skills above level 30 (allowing you to get to the center of the abyss to escape combat). Method 2: Intense clicking in the Haunted Mine This method is more intense than the fire line method, but it yields Ashes at a far faster rate than fires or Method 1. It requires completion of the Haunted mine quest. Make your way in the haunted mine to the area where the glowing fungus grows. Pick one of them and add it to your action bar: its first option is drop. Set that action to a keybind, drop it on the floor, and open your area loot window. Each time you drop a Glowing fungus, it will crumble into Ashes. Click the glowing fungus, hit your chosen keybind, and then hit the keybind to pick up all the loot (default bind is spacebar). You can repeat this process very fast, limited only by how long it takes the fungus to regrow, which is about 2 seconds.

Necroplasm

As far as necroplasm goes, your only significant obstacle is time. Each kind of necroplasm requires 200 necroplasm of the previous tier for the purposes of the ritual to make it. This makes it seem like you will need a lot more necroplasm than you actually do. So long as you make good use of Multiply glyphs, you will find the amount of necroplasm you need to ritualize is much smaller than expected. See the table of Necroplasm rituals for more information.

Upgrading your Gear

In order to begin upgrading your Necromacy gear, you will first need to complete Kili Row. Once done, can upgrade your gear to tier 20 and will need to speak with Kili every 10 levels afterward to access the new upgrades. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For every upgrade tier, Kili will requre that you complete tasks before she will teach you.

At level 70, the path will split. You will be given the ability to continue to learn the Tank (Deathwarden) route or choose to learn the Power (Deathdealer) upgrade. Note that you CAN learn both routes (one at a time for each level - whichever style you want first), however, your gear cannot change between the 2 styles after the tier 70 upgrade. As such, if you plan to do both styles, you will need 2 sets of armor.

Upgrading Necromancy gear MUST be completed at the Um Smithy. In addition to the items listed below, you will also ALWAYS need the previous tier item in order to upgrade something. Note that you can purchase T20 - T90 gear pieces from the Grand Exchange, however, you must have created the item at least once before you can equip it.

Deathskull Gear

Death skull is the name of the Necromancy weaponry. It includes a Main-hand (Death guard) and an Off-hand (Skull lantern). These are obtained while completing Necromancy! and additional pieces can be purchased from Sostratus.

At level 70, the Death guard will gain a special attack called "Death Grasp" - costs 25% Adrenaline and has a 30 second cooldown. Using this attack will stun and bind your target for 4.8 seconds while dealing 405% - 495% Necromancy damage. It will deal another 40% damage for EACH Necrosis stack (consumed on use), totaling up to 885% - 975% with 12 stacks.

Deathwarden Gear (Tank Armor)

Deathwarden is where your Necromancy armoring begins. Your first full set can be obtained from Sostratus for free and any additional pieces can be purchased from him as well.

All Necromancy gear is Deathwarden style until you reach level 70. At this point, and ONLY at this point, you can choose to change your gear from Deathwarden to Deathdealer when you upgrade it as long as you have completed the associated tasks. Note that once you change the style of your gear, you CANNOT revert it and must continue along the Deathdealer route for that armor piece.

Deathdealter Gear (Power Armor)

At level 70 you can finally choose to alter the style of your armor from Tank to Power. Note that you will still require the T60 Deathwarden pieces to upgrade into your T70+ Deathdealer gear and once your gear is Deathdealer, it CANNOT be reverted to Deathwarden.

Training Methods

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Skill Timeline

• Quest: Necromancy!
• Activate the City of Um lodestone
• Collect a set of Deathwarden robes from Sostratus
• Level from 5 to 20
• Quest: Kili Row
• Level from 20 to 24
• Quest: Rune Mythos
• Level from 24 to 46
• Quest: Vessel of the Harbinger (Requires: Ghosts Ahoy & Rune Mythos)
• Level from 46 to 60
• Tier 2 Ritual Site unlocked
• Level from 60 to 65
• Quest: The Spirit of War (Requires: Vessel of the Harbinger)
• Quest: That Old Black Magic (Requires: The Blood Pact & The Spirit of War)
  • Level 32: Lady Grey
  • Level 45: No-Gums Murray
  • Level 50: Zommy
  • Level 65: Rhythm
• Level from 65 to 75
• Quest: Tomes of the Warlock (Requires: The Spirit of War)
• Level from 75 to 85
• Quest: Remains of the Necrolord (Requires: Tomes of the Warlock, Nadir, & Vengeance)
• Level from 85 to 90
• Tier 3 Ritual Site unlocked
• Level from 90 to 95
• Quest: Alpha vs Omega (Requires: Remains of the Necrolord)