Hollow Knight Charm Notches Guide: Every Unlock and Build Milestone

Charms are Hollow Knight's whole build system. Slot the right combo and the Knight hits harder, heals quicker, or flings spells all day. The catch is room: every charm eats a few charm notches, you start with just 3, and there are only 8 more in the entire game. Tracking all of them down is one of the bigger hidden upgrades in Hallownest, because every extra notch makes every charm you own more flexible.

Starting Charm Capacity

You wake up in King's Pass with 3 notches, and that's the whole budget for a good while. Cheap charms run 1 or 2 notches. The big names mostly cost 3, and heavies like Soul Eater, Joni's Blessing, and Hiveblood want 4. Kingsoul, the old king's own charm, takes 5, which is more room than you'll have for ages.

One rule shapes all of it: charms only go on and come off at a bench. Stand up, and that's your kit until the next bench you find. Walk into a boss room wearing your Geo-farming setup and you're stuck with it. There's no swapping mid-fight, so what you wear when you leave a bench is a real decision.

What fits in 3 notches

For your first hours, the menu is mostly cheap stuff:

• Grubsong (1 notch) - the Grubfather's reward for freeing 10 grubs
• Thorns of Agony (1) - sitting out in Greenpath
• Wayward Compass (1) - Iselda sells it for 220 Geo once you've met Cornifer
• Gathering Swarm (1) - Sly sells it for 300 Geo
• Steady Body (1) - Salubra sells it for 120 Geo
• Soul Catcher (2) - free, at the Ancestral Mound
• Stalwart Shell (2) - Sly again, for 200 Geo
• Dashmaster (2) - in the Fungal Wastes, south of Mantis Village

Some tidy pairs jump out. Soul Catcher plus Grubsong is a little SOUL engine: more soul from your nail hits, plus a bump of soul every time you get hit. Wayward Compass plus Gathering Swarm only spends 2 notches and leaves one free, which is the classic exploring pair (and honestly kind of hard to give up later). Or you can blow all 3 on a single charm once something worth it shows up.

Why the cap pinches

Three notches is two small charms, or one medium one. Against early fights like the False Knight or Hornet in Greenpath, you're picking between staying alive and dealing damage, and you can't really have both. Later bosses are balanced around fuller loadouts, so somewhere in the mid-game, notch hunting stops being optional.

One nice side effect worth knowing: picking up any notch completely refills your masks. A new notch doubles as a free full heal, which has rescued more than one trip deep into hostile territory.

Notches from Salubra

Four of the eight extra notches come from one bug. Charm Lover Salubra runs her shop at the bottom of the Forgotten Crossroads, up above the abandoned village near the Blue Lake. Getting there is its own little check: you need to have beaten the Gruz Mother first, and then you either dash across with the Mothwing Cloak, climb with the Mantis Claw, pogo off your Shade, or come the back way over the Blue Lake from the Resting Grounds.

She sells four notches, and each one costs two things: Geo, and a charm collection.

| Notch | Geo cost | Requirement | | --- | --- | --- | | First | 120 | Own 5 charms | | Second | 500 | Own 10 charms | | Third | 900 | Own 18 charms | | Fourth | 1,400 | Own 25 charms |

That's 2,920 Geo for the set, spread across most of a playthrough.

The charm-count gates

The gates count charms you own, not what you're wearing. A charm that has never left your inventory since you found it counts just the same. That includes everything bought straight off a shelf: Salubra's own stock, Sly's charms, and Leg Eater's fragile trio (Fragile Heart at 350 Geo, Fragile Greed at 250, Fragile Strength at 600). Grubfather rewards count too.

So the real gate is how thoroughly you explore. Most players drift past 5 charms without trying. Eighteen and 25 take actual hunting, and by that point you'll be glad for the excuse.

Buying charms to buy notches

Salubra's own shelves pull double duty. She sells Steady Body for 120 Geo, Shaman Stone for 220, Longnail for 300, Lifeblood Heart for 250, and Quick Focus for 800. Every purchase nudges your total toward the next gate and puts a genuinely strong charm in your pocket at the same time. Shaman Stone alone is worth more than most charms in the game for a spell build.

And if you're ever standing there short on Geo, choosing between a charm and a notch, take the notch. Charms can wait. Extra room makes every charm you already own better.

One last thing from her shop: buy all four notches and collect every charm in the game, and Salubra will offer you her Blessing for 800 Geo. It slowly regenerates SOUL while you rest at any bench. Not a notch, but a sweet capstone for a charm collector.

Exploration and Combat Rewards

The other four notches live out in the world. Two are guarded, one's tucked away, and one is a proper arena prize.

Fog Canyon

There's a notch in a hidden area north-east of Cornifer's corner of Fog Canyon. Reaching it means crossing halls of noxious water, so you'll want either Isma's Tear (the acid-swim ability, from deep in the Royal Waterways) or the Monarch Wings double jump.

This is the easiest one to postpone. Fog Canyon is confusing even once you have the map, and plenty of its rooms sit behind ability checks you can't pass yet. Come back in the late game and grab it in one clean trip.

Fungal Wastes

Deep in the Fungal Wastes, two Shrumal Ogres share a big greenhouse-style room, and the notch is your reward for clearing it. They're slow, and their spore spit is telegraphed a mile off. Dash in once a spit lands, get your hits in, then back out and wait for the next opening. Beat both and the notch drops, with no movement ability required.

Colosseum of Fools

The Colosseum sits at the very top of Kingdom's Edge, inside the carved-out shell of a giant dead bug. Pay Little Fool 100 Geo once and the Trial of the Warrior is unlocked for good; replays never cost again. The trial runs around a dozen waves of enemies, and there's a bench conveniently close below the arena.

Your first clear pays out a charm notch, 1,000-1,024 Geo, and the Warrior achievement. Nothing inside the trial drops Geo while you fight, so that ending payment is the whole check. Later clears keep paying the Geo, which makes the trial a decent farm once you can cruise through it.

The Grimm Troupe

The last notch belongs to the Grimm Troupe, a free questline that ships with every current copy of the game. It starts in the Howling Cliffs, near where you first dropped into Hallownest: break through the hidden walls, Dream Nail the big dead bug, and light the brazier.

Tents appear in Dirtmouth the moment the lantern's lit. Talk to Grimm in the big one and he hands you Grimmchild, a 2-notch companion charm, and the quest rolls from there. Keep Grimmchild equipped, hunt the three Grimmkin Novices for their flames, then the three Grimmkin Masters. Bring the flames back and Grimm himself fights you in the tent. Beat Troupe Master Grimm, the Grand Performance achievement pops, and the notch shows up in the tent for you to collect.

The quest keeps going after that, toward Nightmare King Grimm. The notch is already banked by then, so there's no pressure. Finish the ritual or help Brumm banish the whole troupe instead, and either way your extra slot stays put.

Overcharming Risks

So what happens when you've got 2 notches free and you really want Quick Slash, which costs 3? You overcharm.

At a bench, pick the charm that doesn't fit. The game refuses it. Pick it again, and again, and again. The first time you ever do this, it takes five tries, and on the fifth the charm snaps into place and purple cracks spread across your loadout. From then on, overcharming takes a single click for the rest of the save. The game remembers.

There are two limits. You need at least one notch still free, and the charm you're forcing has to cost more than what's free. So it's one charm pushed past the line, never a stack of extras on top. And those purple cracks are your tell. Don't wander into a boss fight with them showing by accident.

The bill: while overcharmed, every point of damage you take is doubled. A hit that would've cost one mask costs two. Spikes, acid, enemies, bosses, all of it lands twice as hard. You're trading health for power, straight across.

When it's worth it

• Radiant fights in the Hall of Gods, from the Godmaster content. On Radiant you die in one hit no matter what, so a damage multiplier has nothing left to multiply. Overcharm freely and enjoy the firepower.
• Safe Geo farming. Wear Gathering Swarm plus Fragile Greed and sweep a peaceful area for loose Geo. Nothing in a quiet zone is going to touch you anyway.
• Replays and speedruns, where you already know the fights cold and the extra damage deletes bosses before they get rolling.

When it hurts

• Steel Soul runs. Death is permanent there, and doubled damage cuts your margin in half. Best to leave overcharming alone entirely.
• First attempts at a hard boss. You'll get hit while you learn, and every hit costs double. Learn the fight clean, then overcharm later to speed up kills once you're dodging well.

A decent rule of thumb: overcharm when you don't expect to get hit at all, and stay clean when you expect to get hit a lot.

Planning Boss Builds

Notches are a budget, and builds are just spending plans for that budget. The habit that ties it all together: swap charms at a bench near a boss arena before you commit. Most arenas keep a bench close by, so there's rarely a good reason to fight in your traveling setup.

Budget milestones

Here's how capacity turns into real setups as the notches come in:

| Notches | Setup | Math | | --- | --- | --- | | 3 (start) | Soul Catcher + Grubsong | 2 + 1 | | 5 | Shaman Stone + Soul Catcher | 3 + 2 | | 6 | Quick Slash + Longnail + Grubsong | 3 + 2 + 1 | | 8 | Quick Slash + Longnail + Grubsong + Baldur Shell | 3 + 2 + 1 + 2 |

The jump to 5 notches is the biggest early milestone, because that's where a 3-notch centerpiece charm gets real support sitting next to it. Six is where a nail kit starts to feel finished. Everything past that is another supporting piece on top.

An 11-notch melee set

Quick Slash (3) + Mark of Pride (3) + Unbreakable Strength (3) + Grubsong (1) + Steady Body (1) = 11, with nothing left over.

Quick Slash hides in Kingdom's Edge, south of Oro's hut, and it's the single biggest nail upgrade in the game. Mark of Pride is the Mantis Tribe's gift for beating the Mantis Lords in Mantis Village. For the strength slot, Leg Eater sells Fragile Strength for 600 Geo, or 480 if you show up wearing Defender's Crest, and it breaks on death until Leg Eater repairs it for a fee. Divine, up with the Grimm Troupe in Dirtmouth, will turn it Unbreakable for 15,000 Geo. That price stings, but it's a one-time payment on a flat damage boost. Fast nail, long nail, strong nail, soul insurance, and no recoil when you swing. That's most of a nail-build wishlist in one bar.

An 11-notch spell set

Shaman Stone (3) + Spell Twister (2) + Soul Catcher (2) + Lifeblood Heart (2) + Steady Body (1) + Grubsong (1) = 11.

Shaman Stone pumps spell damage hard, Spell Twister cuts the soul cost of every cast, and the two SOUL charms keep fuel flowing. Spell Twister sits in the Soul Sanctum, in the room right before Soul Master, which is a fitting place to find it. This is the kit for bosses you'd rather not stand next to, and it makes Shade Soul and Howling Wraiths carry real fights. If you want chunkier soul gain later on, Soul Eater (4 notches, from Crystal Peak) can replace Soul Catcher plus a 1-slot helper.

An 11-notch survival set

Quick Focus (3) + Stalwart Shell (2) + Baldur Shell (2) + Lifeblood Heart (2) + Thorns of Agony (1) + Grubsong (1) = 11.

Faster heals, longer invincibility after taking a hit, a shell that blocks damage while you focus, two extra masks, and payback on anything that tags you. Zero damage buffs anywhere in it. It feels a little cowardly, and it works anyway, because more survivability means more attempts per bench trip, and more attempts means actually learning the fight. Once a boss clicks, trade the defense out for the damage pieces above and go again.

All three of those sets land on exactly 11, every slot spent. That's the real payoff for hunting down every notch: the end-game kits fill the bar perfectly, with not a single notch sitting empty.