Kindled? Hollowing? Terms I don't understand.

[River Victor]

OK, I get that I can use Humanity to regain my former handsome appearance and increase HP, but what's the benefit of Kindling and what causes Hollowing? Does Hollowing affect anything? And what's the benefit of Kindling a bonfire. Can I do that a limited number of times? Should I pick which spot if I can only choose a number of them?

[Bustin' Cider]

when human you can summon help but also get invaded by both npc and human players. So if youre struggling with a boss go human and look out for gold summon signs around the boss. Some npcs you summon to progress their questline.

[Bustin' Cider]

You want to be invaded by the npc's if you want some of their armour or weapon drops, and they wont invade after youve killed the area boss but humans still will. Theres lots of ways to farm humanity but u get it passively in every area up to 10 just by killing a bunch of enemies before the area boss dies. its like 10 enemy for 1st humanity, another 20 for 2nd, it goes up and up until youve had 10, then you'll need to find another way.

Kindling a bonfire makes it give 10,15,20 estus flasks. youll need an item to go past 10, you need to be human to kindle so it'll cost u 2 humanity if u hollowed, 1 to transform, 1 to kindle.

[Bustin' Cider]

you can also pop humanity to get hp back in game and it turns it into whats called soft humanity (when it goes into the top left of your HUD, not in your inventory as a usable item) but thats best used as emergency heal when youre out of estus. Having more soft humanity ups your item find and damage with chaos weapons.

[Bustin' Cider]

die when human=hollowed

you can run back to pick up dropped souls and soft humanity carried, die again b4 u get there and theyre gone.

[lammy from um jammer lammy]

hollowing happens upon death and can be only reversed by consuming one humanity and using that humanity to reverse hollowing at a bonfire

being hollowed means you cannot be invaded by human players and NPCs and are also unable to summon other human players and NPCs to do things like fight bosses with you.


Kindling a bonfire will increase the amount of estus charges you can carry, up to 20, with increments of 5 for every time you've kindled a bonfire. You need to be human to kindle a bonfire, so the minimum humanity required to make a bonfire go from 5 to 20 is 4 assuming you start the process hollowed.

You can only kindle bonfires up to 10 estus charges (once) until you get the rite of kindling by killing pinwheel in the catacombs (the area behind firelink shrine, with the skeletons)

[River Victor]

Is Kindling a bonfire permanent?

[Bustin' Cider]

yes, carries to ng+ aswell

[River Victor]

Thank you. One more question, how do I use soft hollowing? I have those numbers but how to I utilize them?

[Bustin' Cider]

just keep hold of them up there to increase your item find, or use them to reverse hollowing then kindle the bonfire. Its safer to keep them in your inventory then just pop one when you need help with a boss. but the ones you accrew go straight to soft.

[dcy665]

Being hollow does not effect HP, that is from Demon's Souls.

Being hollow/human benefits of each were covered very well by Mother T and JB (that's an image I didn't need in my head)

[Melchiah]

Ok I'll explain it nice and clean:

• Hollowing is when you die and turn into a zombie bacon thing; this is essentially an "Offline mode" as you can't summon others to help you, but you can't be invaded either (you can still see others' ghosts and messages) and that's it. Going human doesn't give you more HP, it only enables summons and invaders; keep in mind though that having soft humanity (the number besides your health bar) increases your item discovery and gives you additional defense and status resistance[darksouls.fandom.com].
  
  
• Kindling is when you burn humanity on a bonfire, which increases how many estus that bonfire will give you (10 max until you beat the boss at the catacombs, then you can go up to 20). Whenever you kindle a bonfire it stays that way even at NG+, and each bonfire has it's own level of kindling (from 5 estus to 20).
  
  
• Should you ever die to a curse (skull icon), your HP will be reduced by 50% until you use a purging stone or break the curse by other means, and you can avoid a curse on death by equiping a rare ring of sacrifice. Being cursed will allow you to hit ghosts, but it's better to use a transient curse as it won't lower your HP by half. This is the only effect in game that can lower your Max HP.

Edit: I'd also like to add in case some one doesn't know this:

• Liquid humanity can be lost along your souls if you don't pick up your blood stain.
  
• You can break free from grab attacks (or in most cases, at least lower the damage recieved) by mashing your right hand attacks (both normal and strong).