Silksong relics: what they are and how to use them

Silksong relics: what they are and how to use them in Hornet’s kit

Silksong relics are a category of equippable artifacts in Hollow Knight: Silksong that grant Hornet passive effects and a smaller set of active bonuses, sitting between crests, tools, and silk skills in the game’s build-crafting layers. They are the spiritual successors to the Charms system from the first Hollow Knight, but they behave differently: they occupy their own dedicated slot, several of them require an additional resource to activate, and many of them interact with movement, healing, or combat in ways that change how a given encounter feels. Players who only know charms from the original game tend to underestimate how much a single silksong relic can shift a run, and they also tend to overstuff the slot during the first hours because the early descriptions are short and the long-tail effects are not obvious.

This article is written for players who already understand the basics of movement, silk, and combat in Hollow Knight: Silksong, and who want a structured way to think about relics before committing a slot. The first section explains the system at a high level, the next sections walk through the categories of relics, then through the practical question of how to slot, activate, and upgrade them. A troubleshooting section addresses common cases where a relic does not appear to do what the description says, and the FAQ answers follow-up questions that come up in most first playthroughs, including how relics relate to the older Charms system and which relics to chase when the build is still empty.

How silksong relics fit into the build system

Silksong relics are not interchangeable with crests, tools, or silk abilities. Each layer of the build system in Hollow Knight: Silksong answers a different question, and treating them as one pool is the most common cause of confused inventories. A build that has the right crest and the right tools but the wrong relic in the third slot will still feel slightly off, because the relic is the layer that decides what the rest of the kit can afford to do.

Crest defines Hornet’s baseline moveset: needle combos, silk range, dash, and aerial options. It is the chassis.
Silk abilities are the named, often upgradable moves tied to crests, like the thread-swing or the binding cord attacks. They scale with Silk and form the offensive vocabulary.
Tools are consumable or rechargeable items that take up the limited red tool slots and have explicit cooldowns. They are the tactical layer.
Silksong relics are the artifact slot, separate from tools. They provide mostly passive benefits, with a small number of active effects that need a trigger or a secondary resource.

The reason this distinction matters is that the relic slot is small, often capped at three, and the per-slot value is therefore high. Choosing a relic is closer to choosing a crest’s playstyle than choosing between two consumable tools. Once the relic is set, it tends to stay set for a long stretch of the game, and the trade-off is whether to invest a slot in a defensive option, a movement option, or an economy option that boosts Silk generation. The build also has to leave room for the relic’s resource cost, if it has one, which means the third relic slot is rarely a free choice.

Categories of silksong relics

Although the in-game descriptions vary, the practical effects of silksong relics group into a few families. The groupings below are based on the dominant effect and are useful when you are trying to fill an empty slot or to replace an underused relic. They are also useful when comparing two relics that look similar on the card but solve different problems in the build.

Economy relics

Economy relics affect Silk generation, healing, or both. They are the safest early choice because they do not depend on learning new inputs. A typical economy relic increases the number of silk threads Hornet regains on hit, shortens the time to recover from a heal, or generates extra silk when a particular condition is met, such as a successful pogo or a parry. In a long boss run, an economy relic usually does more total work than a small damage boost, because it gives the player the resource to keep attacking in the first place. In a short boss run, the same relic can be overkill, because the fight ends before the extra silk is spent.

Survival relics

Survival relics are about damage reduction, extra masks, or a chance to avoid lethal damage. Some grant a single bonus mask, which is a flat +1 to the health pool, while others reduce incoming damage by a small percentage or trigger a brief invulnerability window on a specific event, like a perfect dash through a telegraphed attack. These are most valuable in the mid game, when the player has learned the patterns but is still missing a mask or two on a boss. Late game, they are often the first relic to be replaced once the player has the masks from exploration and the reflexes to avoid the hit in the first place.

Combat relics

Combat relics push the needle or thread attacks harder. They can add bonus damage to a specific attack family, increase the range of a silk ability, or grant a brief window of increased damage after a defensive action such as a parry or a downward strike. They are popular for boss-rush players, but they tend to be unforgiving because they amplify what is already there. If the player is not landing hits, a combat relic does nothing, and the slot is effectively empty. Combat relics also tend to be the relics that get patched the most, because small numerical changes to their bonus have an outsized effect on boss time-to-kill.

Movement and traversal relics

Movement relics tend to be the most transformative. They might let Hornet cling to surfaces she could not previously hold, dash further, skip a small platforming segment, or briefly ignore a hazard. These relics do not show up in damage-per-second calculations, but they are often the difference between a frustrating backtrack and a clean loop. In many cases, a movement relic is the one players will not unequip until the next area is fully explored, because removing it closes off routes that the rest of the kit now depends on. A common mistake is to swap a movement relic for a combat relic right before a boss; the swap feels like preparation, but it usually makes the fight longer.

Utility and trigger relics

Utility relics do not fit cleanly into the other groups. A utility relic might cause defeated enemies to drop a small amount of rosaries, mark hidden breakable walls on the map, or silence the audio cue of nearby enemies. The audio effect in particular is more useful than it sounds, because it removes one of the most common reasons a player gets hit during a long exploration session. Trigger relics are the small subset that require an explicit input or a condition, such as holding a button for a short window or spending silk. They are the closest thing the system has to a true active ability, and they tend to be the relics that confuse new players because the effect only fires on demand, and there is no in-game reminder that the relic is sitting in a slot.

What silksong relics look like in practice

Because the exact names of relics in Hollow Knight: Silksong are still being confirmed by players as the build is updated, the table below describes the categories in a form that will remain useful even if a specific name changes. Use it as a decision aid when you are looking at a relic and trying to decide whether to take it, and as a reference when comparing two relics that look similar on their cards.

Category	Typical effect	Best slot priority	Resource cost to use
Economy	Faster Silk regen or extra Silk on hit	High, slot 1	None
Survival	Bonus mask or damage reduction	High in mid game, lower once the build is stable	None
Combat	Bonus damage or extended range	Medium, often swapped per area	Sometimes Silk
Movement	Extra dash, cling, or pogo boost	High for first-time exploration	Rarely
Utility	Map reveal, extra drops, signal changes	Low to medium, niche uses	Usually none
Trigger	Active effect on a held input or condition	Medium, depends on the player’s reflexes	Often Silk

The slot priority column is a heuristic, not a rule. A movement relic that lets you reach a vendor three rooms earlier can be worth more than a generic damage boost, especially if the vendor sells a tool that the build needs. The resource cost column matters more than it looks, because trigger relics that spend Silk are competing with the heal action for the same resource, and that trade-off is the silent constraint of most runs. A build that has two Silk-spending relics in its three slots is usually a build that cannot afford to heal, which means the relics are working against each other.

How to obtain silksong relics

For a broader view of the game’s design roots and the relationship between the two entries, the Hollow Knight series background on Wikipedia is a useful anchor, while the differences and new features summary for Silksong on IGN is a useful place to confirm how the relic system fits into the wider set of additions.

Relics are scattered across the map in the same way that charms were scattered across Hallownest in the first game. The exact path varies by relic, but the patterns are consistent and are worth learning early because they will appear in many different areas. The four patterns below cover most relics; if a relic does not match one of them, it usually matches two.

Defeat a miniboss in a side room

Most silksong relics are awarded by minibosses that sit in optional rooms off the main path. These rooms tend to look like dead ends, with a long platforming approach that is harder going in than coming out. The relic is the reward for clearing the miniboss, and the room usually contains a bench nearby. The pattern is reliable enough that a player who sees a long downward corridor with a single small arena at the bottom should expect a relic to be available. The minibosses themselves are tuned to be doable with the tools the player already has, so backtracking for a relic is rarely a wasted trip once the route to the room is known.

Complete a vendor quest

A smaller number of relics come from vendors who request a specific item. The requested item is rarely something the player is already carrying for a different reason, so the relic often unlocks late because the quest item is the bottleneck. If a vendor offers a quest and the player has the right component, it is usually worth turning in immediately, because the relic unlocks the build rather than the other way around. Vendors also tend to rotate their stock after each major milestone, so a vendor that sells a relic-related consumable today may sell a different consumable after the next boss.

Find a hidden room in a late area

A few relics sit in rooms that the map does not mark, behind breakable walls, false floors, or secret passages. These are the relics that show up in the inventory much later than the rest of the category, and they are usually the strongest in their group, because the path to find them is gated by a separate movement ability. The tradeoff is that the player often has to clear the surrounding area twice: once before the movement ability is unlocked, and once after, to grab the relic. The first pass is unavoidable; the second pass is where the relic actually joins the build.

Buy them directly from a specific merchant

A handful of relics have a rosary price tag, and they appear in merchant inventories after the merchant has been unlocked. The price is not always visible until the player returns with a specific currency, so checking the merchant after every major milestone is worth the trip. Some merchant relics also require a one-time reputation step, like donating to a settlement or completing a small fetch quest, before the relic is added to the shop. The reputation step is easy to miss because it is described in a single line of dialogue.

How to equip and activate silksong relics

Relics are equipped from a different menu than tools, which catches a lot of players out. The two screens look similar, but they are not interchangeable, and slotting a relic into a tool slot will not equip it. The slot also does not persist across difficulty modes in the way that some players expect, so a relic equipped in a normal run may not be present in a Steel Soul attempt.

Open the menu and find the screen that lists Hornet’s equippables.
Locate the dedicated relic slots. The default capacity is small, often three, and is unlocked in stages as the player progresses.
Select a relic to view its effect and any resource cost it has.
Assign the relic to a slot. A confirmation is required because the slot is valuable.
If the relic has a trigger, equip it and then read the binding shown on the relic card; the binding is the input the relic uses to fire.
If the relic has an upgrade path, check the upgrade screen before leaving the menu, because upgrades are applied separately and not at the relic card.

Active relics that require an input do not work until the binding is set, and there is no on-screen warning if a relic is sitting in a slot without a binding. The first time a trigger relic seems to do nothing, the binding is the first thing to check, not the relic itself. The second thing to check is whether the relic is in a slot at all, because it is possible to assign a relic to a slot that is currently disabled by the area’s restrictions, in which case the relic appears equipped but does not fire.

Reading relic descriptions without being misled

Relic descriptions in Hollow Knight: Silksong are short, and that is part of the difficulty. A description like “Silk regen increased after a successful parry” looks like a small bonus, but in practice the parry already returns Silk, and stacking a relic on top turns the parry into a major Silk event. Conversely, a description like “Deal bonus damage on a downward strike” is a real bonus, but the bonus only applies on a single attack type, and the player will feel it on bosses that are vulnerable to pogos and not feel it at all on grounded enemies. The same pattern shows up in nearly every category, which is why reading the description in the context of the current area is more useful than reading it in isolation.

A useful habit is to read the description and ask a few questions before committing the slot:

How often does the trigger condition actually happen in the fights I am stuck on?
Does the bonus stack with what the crest already gives me, or does it duplicate an effect?
Does the relic’s resource cost compete with my heal, or is it free?
Does the relic require a movement option I have not unlocked yet?
Is there a better relic in the same category that I have not picked up?

If the answer to the first question is “rarely,” or the answer to the third is “yes, it competes,” the relic is not the right choice yet, even if the description sounds good. The same relic can move from a low-value slot to a high-value slot as the build changes, so the right answer is rarely “always equip” or “never equip.” It is also worth remembering that descriptions do not always list edge cases, such as what happens when the trigger condition happens at the same time as a heal, or whether the bonus applies to summons and to projectiles from crests that have a ranged component.

Building around a single silksong relic

The most efficient way to use silksong relics is to pick a relic first, then build the rest of the kit around it, rather than the other way around. The reason is that the relic is the only slot that cannot easily be swapped during a fight, so it has to set the tone. A player who starts with a tool, picks a crest to support the tool, and then looks for a relic that “fits” usually ends up with a build that works but does not feel coherent, because the relic is doing the smallest job in the kit. A relic-led build also tends to be more stable across patches, because the relic’s role is fixed while tool and crest numbers can shift.

The build process looks roughly like this in practice:

Identify the relic that solves the most painful part of the current area. For a long climb, that is a movement relic. For a long boss, that is a survival or economy relic.
Choose a crest whose silk abilities and combos feed the relic’s trigger. A parry relic pairs with a crest whose parry is already a core move.
Pick tools that cover the gaps the relic cannot cover, like a ranged tool if the relic only buffs close combat.
Keep the third relic slot open until the player has cleared a section, then re-evaluate based on what the next area actually demands.
Apply upgrades only after the third slot is decided, so the upgrade cost goes to the relic that is staying in the build.

Step four is the step that gets skipped. Most players commit three relics early and forget that the slot count grows as the game progresses, so an old relic stays equipped long after the situation that called for it is over. Treating the third slot as a rotating slot is usually the cleanest fix. Step five matters because upgrades are a finite resource, and an upgrade spent on a relic that gets replaced in two areas is an upgrade that has to be re-earned for the relic that actually stays.

Common silksong relic problems and how to diagnose them

Relic-related issues tend to fall into a few recurring patterns. The table below pairs the symptom with the most likely cause and the first thing to check. It does not cover every possible bug, but it covers the cases that show up in the largest number of player reports.

Symptom	Likely cause	First thing to check
Relic seems to do nothing at all	Trigger input is not bound	Open the relic card and confirm the binding is set
Bonus damage does not appear	Attack family does not match the relic’s condition	Re-read the description, especially the trigger word
Silk runs out faster than expected	Relic is spending Silk on a passive effect	Look for a per-second or per-event cost in the description
Relic slot is greyed out	The relic belongs to a category that needs an unlock	Check if a quest or vendor condition has not been met
Effect triggers in the wrong place	A different relic in the same slot chain fires first	Try the relic alone, with the other slots empty, in a test room
Relic does not appear in inventory	Miniboss was not actually defeated, or a vendor turn-in was missed	Return to the room and check the arena state

Most “relic is broken” reports resolve to one of these six cases. The diagnostic step is the same in each: take the relic out of context, put it in a controlled test, and see whether the effect appears without the other slots in play. If it does not, the bug is in the relic; if it does, the relic is fine and the surrounding build is masking its effect. A useful trick is to test in the room that awarded the relic, because the room’s enemies usually trigger the relic’s condition on their own, which removes the player’s input from the equation.

Silksong relics and the wider meta

Because the relic system sits on top of crests and tools, the meta around silksong relics is mostly a meta around which categories pair well with the strongest crests, and which relics scale with the rest of the kit. A few patterns are visible across many player discussions, and they are useful as a starting point, not as a fixed tier list.

Economy relics are underrated early and overrated late. In the early game, every extra Silk thread matters. In the late game, the crest already generates enough Silk, and the relic slot is better spent on a movement or combat option.
Survival relics are the safest slot for a first playthrough because they require no new input. They are also the first relics that experienced players drop, because a player who has learned the patterns does not need the extra mask.
Movement relics are the most build-defining choice. A movement relic that opens a new route changes the order in which the player clears the map, and that affects which tools and crests are picked up.
Trigger relics are the most polarizing. They scale with player skill, so a trigger relic in the hands of a confident player will outperform any passive, and in the hands of a new player will look like a no-op.
Utility relics are the easiest to skip, but the one that silences nearby audio is widely considered the best in its category because it removes a constant source of distraction.

None of these patterns is a rule. A boss that hits hard may push the survival relic back into the build. An area that drains Silk may push the economy relic back in. The meta is best read as a starting point, not as a fixed tier list, and it shifts as the patches change relic numbers, which they tend to do more often than they change crest or tool numbers.

How silksong relics compare to charms in the first Hollow Knight

Players who finished the first Hollow Knight often start Silksong expecting charms, and the relic system is the closest analogue. There are three differences worth knowing, and they affect how the build is planned, not just how it is played.

Slot count is smaller. The first game allowed many charm notches; Silksong caps relics at a small number, so each slot is more expensive in practice.
Triggers are explicit. Charms were almost entirely passive. Relics can be triggered, and the trigger has a real cost, often Silk.
Relics do not break the build if missing. A charm like Mark of Pride or Quick Slash was often mandatory for serious play. Relics are more modular, and a build without a specific relic is still a valid build.

Together, these three differences push the relic system toward build identity rather than optimization, which is consistent with the way Silksong handles crests and silk abilities as the deeper layers of the kit. It also means that relic guides from the first game are not a reliable source of advice for Silksong, even when the relic’s role looks similar on paper.

Practical checklist before swapping a silksong relic

Swapping a relic is cheap, but re-learning a build around a new relic is not. The checklist below is a short way to avoid the most common regret: swapping right before a boss that the previous build was tuned for. It is also a useful pre-boss ritual in general, because it forces the player to commit to a loadout before the fight, rather than during it.

Confirm the next encounter’s damage type. A relic that helps with chip damage is wasted on a one-shot boss.
Confirm the next encounter’s arena shape. A movement relic is wasted in a flat arena, and a combat relic is wasted in a vertical chase.
Confirm the next encounter’s time-to-kill. A long fight rewards economy and survival; a short fight rewards raw damage.
Confirm the relic’s resource cost fits the build. A Silk-spending relic in a build that is already Silk-hungry is the wrong choice.
Confirm the relic’s trigger fits the player’s reflexes. A parry relic on a player who does not parry is a dead slot.
Confirm that the relic’s upgrade has not been spent on a relic that is being replaced.

Running through this list takes a minute and saves the ten minutes of re-equipping after a failed attempt. It also has the side effect of forcing the player to look at the relic loadout as a whole, instead of as a list of individual effects, which is the frame of mind that tends to produce the most coherent builds.

Frequently asked questions

Are silksong relics the same as charms?

No. Silksong relics occupy their own slot, are fewer in number, and include some trigger-based effects that charms did not have. Charms in the first Hollow Knight were almost all passive and used notch points. Relics in Silksong are more like a focused artifact layer, with passive and active effects side by side. The visual design is also different: charms were small wearable items, while relics tend to be larger objects that sit in a dedicated menu.

How many silksong relics can I equip at once?

The base capacity is small, often three, and grows as the player progresses. The exact number is not important for planning; what matters is that the slots are valuable, and a slot spent on a niche relic is a slot not spent on a general one. The slot count also varies slightly with the difficulty mode, with some modes unlocking an extra slot earlier than the normal run.

Do silksong relics cost Silk to use?

Some do, some do not. Economy, survival, and most movement relics are passive and free. Trigger relics and certain combat relics spend Silk on activation. The description on the relic card lists the cost, and the cost competes with the heal action, which is the most important economy constraint in the game. A build with two Silk-spending relics usually has to choose between healing and using the relic, which is a choice that no description flags explicitly.

What is the best silksong relic for a new player?

For a first run, an economy relic and a survival relic will carry the build through the early game. Once the player has learned the patterns, the third slot is best filled by a movement relic, because movement relics open routes that lead to better tools and crests. The “best” relic is the one that fits the player’s weakest skill, not the strongest. A player who struggles with timing will get more out of a survival relic than out of a combat relic, even if the combat relic has a higher listed value.

Can I switch silksong relics mid-fight?

No, relics are equipped from a menu and are not part of the in-fight swap set, which is reserved for tools. Relics are a between-fight decision, and switching them is a deliberate choice that costs the player a rest at a bench. The bench rest also resets the relic’s trigger cooldown in some cases, which is worth knowing when a fight is going badly and a swap is being considered.

Do silksong relics stack with each other?

Only when the descriptions say so. Two relics that both boost Silk regen will usually stack additively, while two relics that modify the same attack family will often have diminishing returns or, in some cases, a cap. The description is the source of truth, and the test room is the way to confirm. Stacking is also patch-sensitive, so a stack that worked in an earlier build may be capped in a later one, which is one reason to test rather than trust the older community guides.

Why does my silksong relic not trigger?

The most common reason is that the trigger input is not bound. Open the relic card, look for the binding prompt, and set it. If the binding is set and the relic still does not fire, the trigger condition is probably not happening as often as the player thinks, and the diagnostic table in this guide applies. A third possibility is that the relic is in a slot that is currently disabled by the area’s restrictions, in which case the relic appears equipped but does not fire.

Are silksong relics missable?

Yes, several are tied to side rooms, vendor quests, or hidden passages, and they can be passed by if the player rushes the main path. The good news is that, like charms in the first game, almost all relics can be revisited, because Silksong uses the same open structure that lets the player return to old areas with new movement tools. A small number of relics are tied to a single vendor’s stock, and that vendor does not restock after a certain point, so those are the ones most worth tracking down before the relevant milestone.

Do silksong relics affect the ending?

The ending in Silksong is driven by quest progression and by which areas are completed, not by the relic loadout. Relics change how the player reaches the ending, not which ending is reached. A player who wants a specific ending should follow the relevant quest chain, not chase a specific relic. The relic loadout can still affect how long it takes to reach the ending, which is the most practical sense in which relics matter for endings.

Should I upgrade a silksong relic before trying a new boss?

Only if the upgrade is a small, known cost. Upgrades that consume a rare material should be saved for the build the player intends to keep, not spent on a relic that might be replaced in two areas. Upgrades that cost only rosaries are safe to apply, and they are usually worth applying before the first attempt at a new boss. A useful rule is to upgrade only after the third relic slot has been decided, so the upgrade cost goes to the relic that is staying in the build rather than the relic that is being rotated out.

Silksong relics: what they are, how they work, and how to use them