Skeleton summoning in Hytale is handled entirely through one item: the Rekindle Embers Grimoire, often called the Necromancy Grimoire. It consumes both itself and a skull-based bone pile to raise a Skeleton Warrior minion that fights on your side for a limited time.
Quick answer: Equip a Pile of Skulls, place it on the ground, then equip a Rekindle Embers Grimoire and hold the attack/secondary-action button until the cast bar fills. When it completes, one Skeleton Warrior minion spawns from that pile, consuming both the Pile of Skulls and the Grimoire. The summon succeeds if a skeleton appears and begins following you; it fails if no valid skull pile or bone item is nearby.
Requirements to summon skeletons with Rekindle Embers
Summoning skeletons is gated by three hard requirements:
- Rekindle Embers Grimoire: A consumable summoning spellbook that raises one Skeleton Warrior per use.
- A valid bone object nearby: At minimum, a Pile of Skulls placed in the world. Other bone items and placed bone structures can also count as valid summoning anchors.
- Line of sight and proximity: You need to be close enough that the Grimoire detects the bone item; if nothing valid is in range, the cast will not fire.
If any of these conditions are missing, activating the Grimoire will not create a minion, and no charges are spent when there is no valid bone item.
How to get Rekindle Embers Grimoires
Rekindle Embers Grimoires are not craftable. They are dropped in fixed quantities by specific skeleton elites:
| Enemy | Zone / Context | Drop |
|---|---|---|
| Burnt Praetorian Skeleton | Zone 1, in dedicated arena structures | ~5 Grimoire: Rekindle Flame (Necromancy Grimoires) per kill |
| Skeleton Praetorian | Zone 4, roaming in Devastated Lands sub‑regions | 5 Rekindle Embers Grimoires per kill (chance-based) |
Burnt Praetorian Skeletons appear alone inside large circular arenas in Zone 1 biomes such as the Drifting Plains, The Fens, and the Autumn Forest. These arenas are mostly cobblestone, marked by wide dirt approaches on the map, and lit with blue Lost Civilization Braziers that are easy to spot at night.
Skeleton Praetorians patrol Zone 4 (the Devastated Lands and its sub‑regions), with a tendency to show up more often in ash-heavy areas. They are large armored undead, wielding heavy weapons and shields.
Both enemy types can be farmed repeatedly. Each successful kill yields a batch of Rekindle Embers Grimoires plus other loot such as Essence of Fire, Piles of Skulls, and rare ores, letting you stockpile necromancy charges for later summoning.
How to get Piles of Skulls and other valid bone items
Rekindle Embers does not summon by itself; it always looks for nearby bone items and converts each valid object into one Skeleton Warrior. The most important item here is the Pile of Skulls.
- Piles of Skulls from Praetorians: Burnt Praetorian Skeletons in Zone 1 arenas reliably drop several Piles of Skulls alongside Grimoires.
- Piles of Skulls from Skeleton Praetorians: Zone 4 Skeleton Praetorians can also drop Piles of Skulls along with their Rekindle Embers Grimoires.
- Underground and skeletal POIs: If Praetorians do not provide enough skull piles, you can find more in underground areas or points of interest that spawn regular skeleton enemies.
- Other bone items and structures: Any standard bone item counts, including player‑placed bone structures you obtain or craft. Once placed, they act as valid summon anchors for the Grimoire.
Skeleton enemies in general drop bone-related items. Standard skeleton variants are hostile undead that appear in dungeons and ruins across Orbis and can be farmed to accumulate basic bone drops when Praetorian elites are unavailable.
Summoning skeletons with Rekindle Embers (basic flow)
Step 1: Put a Pile of Skulls (or another valid bone object) in your hotbar and select it. Stand in a safe area with enough open space for a skeleton to spawn.
Step 2: Place the Pile of Skulls on the ground directly in front of your character. The pile must exist as a world object, not just an inventory item, for the Grimoire to use it.
Step 3: Switch to a Rekindle Embers Grimoire in your hotbar.
Step 4: Hold the casting input while facing the skull pile. On mouse and keyboard, this is described as holding either the Left Mouse Button (primary attack) or the Secondary Action button, depending on binding. A short casting bar (~2 seconds) will begin filling.
Step 5: Release the button once the cast bar is full. If the Pile of Skulls is within range and unobstructed, a Skeleton Warrior minion bursts out of the skull pile.
On success, two things always happen at once: the Pile of Skulls disappears, and the Rekindle Embers Grimoire is consumed. The new Skeleton Warrior immediately becomes allied, follows you, and is ready to attack your chosen targets.
Summoning rules and limits
The necromancy system in Hytale follows a clear set of deterministic rules.
- One Grimoire = one minion: Each Rekindle Embers Grimoire raises exactly one Skeleton Warrior, regardless of how many bone items are nearby. The game looks for one valid item, consumes it, and spawns a single minion.
- Bone‑item matching: Piles of Skulls are always valid. Standard bone items and player‑placed bone structures are also recognized as anchors.
- No valid bone, no summon: If there is no qualifying bone item within the Grimoire’s detection radius, the cast does not fire, and you do not lose a Grimoire charge.
- Per‑stack cap (arena variant): When using Zone‑1 Burnt Praetorian drops, a full stack of five Necromancy Grimoires can be used to maintain up to five Skeleton Warrior minions simultaneously (one per Grimoire).
- System‑wide cap (Zone‑4 variant): When using Rekindle Embers Grimoires from Skeleton Praetorians, there is no explicit hard cap beyond your supply of Grimoires and skull piles. You can raise many skeletons in succession as long as you keep feeding the system bones and books.
These rules mean summoning is essentially a resource trade: one book and one skull pile per skeleton. Collecting large quantities of both enables sustained necromancy, while running low on either resource immediately constrains the size of your minion group.
Skeleton minion behavior and lifetime
Once raised, Skeleton Warriors follow a predictable behavior model.
- Allegiance and targeting: Skeletons automatically follow you and attack any entity you directly damage. They also retaliate against anything that hits them, even if you never tagged that enemy yourself.
- Damage interactions: Your own skeletons can hurt you if you stand in the path of their melee swings. Positioning matters when fighting in tight spaces.
- Pathing constraints: Skeletons do not handle swimming. Prolonged submersion in water causes them to drown and despawn, so summoning near lakes, rivers, or ocean edges is risky.
- Despawn conditions: Each minion persists until one of three conditions is met: its health reaches zero, it loses you and cannot follow (for example, after teleporting away), or roughly five minutes of real time pass.
- Death of the summoner: If you die, any current skeleton minions expire immediately.
The five‑minute lifetime and despawn-on-death behavior define necromancy as a tactical, short-term power rather than a permanent army. Summons are best treated as temporary force multipliers for specific fights or short expeditions.
Failure conditions and how to recognize a successful summon
A skeleton summon either succeeds clearly or fails without cost. The outcomes are easy to verify:
- Successful summon: The Pile of Skulls (or bone structure) vanishes, the Grimoire disappears from its inventory slot, a Skeleton Warrior visually rises from the pile, and the minion immediately begins following you. Your active minion count increases by one.
- Failed summon (no valid bone item): You hold the cast input, but when the cast bar completes, nothing spawns and no items are removed. This indicates the Grimoire did not detect a valid bone anchor within range.
Common reasons for failure are standing too far from the skull pile, trying to cast with the bone item still in inventory instead of placed in the world, or attempting to cast in an area where no bone items exist at all.
Once these mechanics are understood, summoning skeletons in Hytale becomes a straightforward resource check. Secure a steady flow of Rekindle Embers Grimoires from Praetorian skeletons, stockpile Piles of Skulls and other bone items, then convert those resources into a rotating screen of Skeleton Warriors that soak hits and pressure enemies while you attack from safety.
