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Hollow Knight Charms: Effects, Notches, Locations, and Synergies

Hollow Knight has 45 listed Charms, 11 possible Charm Notches, and loadouts that can be tailored for exploration, spells, combat, healing, or defense.
Length3 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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Hollow Knight’s Charms are equippable items that change the Knight’s abilities, and each one uses a limited number of Charm Notches. You can change your loadout only while sitting at a Bench. The community-edited Hollow Knight Wiki Charms page, last edited September 29, 2026, lists 45 Charms; five pairs or progress-linked forms are mutually exclusive, so you can hold at most 40 at once.

How Charm Notches and loadouts work

You begin with 3 Charm Notches and can obtain 8 more, for a maximum of 11. Equipping Charms uses those notches according to each Charm’s cost. Getting a Charm Notch restores health fully, according to the wiki’s Charm reference.

Five transformations account for the difference between 45 listed Charms and a maximum collection of 40 held at once:

  • Kingsoul and Void Heart
  • Fragile Greed and Unbreakable Greed
  • Fragile Heart and Unbreakable Heart
  • Fragile Strength and Unbreakable Strength
  • Grimmchild and Carefree Melody

Overcharming lets you equip a Charm even when you do not have enough remaining notches. The first time you activate it, select the Charm five times; later activations take one selection. While Overcharmed, incoming damage is doubled, except environmental damage received while invulnerable.

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  • Leap into minds with the Dream Nail. Uncover a whole other side to the characters you meet and the enemies you face.

Where to get all 11 Charm Notches

Buy four from Salubra

Salubra is in Forgotten Crossroads. Her four notch purchases unlock after collecting 5, 10, 18, and 25 Charms, respectively.

Charms collected Price
5 120 Geo
10 500 Geo
18 900 Geo
25 1,400 Geo

Find or earn four more

  • Fog Canyon: Find the hidden area; reaching it requires Isma’s Tear or Monarch Wings.
  • Fungal Wastes: Defeat the two Shrumal Ogres.
  • Colosseum of Fools: Complete the Trial of the Warrior.
  • Grimm Troupe: Defeat Grimm in the troupe tent in Dirtmouth.

These locations and unlock details are listed in the Hollow Knight Wiki Charm reference.

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What the different Charms are useful for

There is no universally best loadout in the cited references. Choose Charms around what you are doing, how you prefer to fight, what you have unlocked, and how many notches you can spare. The following are representative effects, not a ranking.

Exploration and Geo

  • Wayward Compass marks the Knight’s location when the map is open.
  • Gathering Swarm collects loose Geo.

Spells and SOUL

  • Soul Catcher and Soul Eater increase the SOUL gained from Nail hits.
  • Shaman Stone increases spell damage.
  • Spell Twister reduces the SOUL cost of spells.

Nail combat and movement

  • Quick Slash increases Nail attack speed.
  • Longnail and Mark of Pride increase Nail reach.
  • Dashmaster enables more frequent dashes and downward dashing.
  • Sprintmaster increases running speed.

Health, healing, and defense

  • Fragile Heart and its Unbreakable form increase health.
  • Quick Focus speeds up healing; Deep Focus heals twice as much but makes focusing slower.
  • Lifeblood Charms provide protective masks.
  • Baldur Shell protects the Knight while focusing.

Summons, automatic effects, and progression

  • Weaversong summons weaverlings; Glowing Womb spends SOUL to produce hatchlings.
  • Defender’s Crest emits an odor effect that can harm nearby foes.
  • Kingsoul slowly supplies SOUL and opens the way to a birthplace. Void Heart is part of the Knight and cannot be unequipped.

The Charms reference includes locations or unlock details for each entry. Fragile Charms break on death; their Unbreakable upgrades avoid that consequence. Check a Charm’s acquisition and prerequisites before planning a build around it.

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  • Equip Charms! Ancient relics that offer bizarre new powers and abilities. Choose your favorites and make your journey unique!
  • An enormous cast of cute and creepy characters all brought to life with traditional 2D frame-by-frame animation.

Which Charms work well together?

A Charm Synergy is a pairing that creates a novel effect beyond ordinary additive stacking. For example, Longnail’s 15% Nail-range increase and Mark of Pride’s 25% increase combine to 40%, rather than creating a separate special effect. The community-edited Charm Synergies page describes special pairings including Sharp Shadow with Dashmaster, Weaverlings with Grubsong, and Flukenest with Shaman Stone. Reported effects include increased shadow damage, faster Weaverlings, SOUL gained when Weaverlings hit, and a changed Flukenest projectile.

When comparing combinations, consider:

  • What effect each Charm provides relative to its notch cost.
  • Whether the build is for exploration, Nail combat, spells and SOUL, healing, defense, or passive damage.
  • When the Charms become available and any location or ability prerequisites.
  • Whether death can break a fragile Charm.
  • How the combination interacts with the rest of your loadout, including any special synergy.
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How many Charms can you equip?

The number you can equip at one time depends on the notches you have acquired and the cost of each Charm. The maximum is 11 notches; Overcharming can exceed the available capacity, but causes doubled incoming damage under the conditions described above.

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  • Tightly tuned 2D controls. Dodge, dash and slash your way through even the most deadly adversaries.
  • Forge your own path! The world of Hallownest is expansive and open. Choose which paths you take, which enemies you face and find your own way forward.
  • An enormous cast of cute and creepy characters all brought to life with traditional 2D frame-by-frame animation.
  • Leap into minds with the Dream Nail. Uncover a whole other side to the characters you meet and the enemies you face.

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