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By MakerJake ᶠᵉᵃᵗ Doc Croc

Obviously, you'll need to own Dark Souls: Remastered for this guide.
https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/570940/DARK_SOULS_REMASTERED/

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Before you can follow this guide you will need a special item, don't worry, it's easy to obtain! You will need the White Sign Soapstone, which you obtain from Solaire of Astora (Praise the sun!)



You'll first find Solaire after defeating the Taurus Demon in Undead Burg: after you exit the tower, before turning left and running across the bridge where the Dragon is, turn right to find him staring at the sun. (Pictured left) speak to him and you will obtain the White Sign Soapstone, an important item for playing with your friends. We'll come back to that in a moment.

Go to System > Network Settings
Set "Region Matchmaking" to Global
Set "Matchmaking Password" to Something Secure.
Set "Launch Setting" to Start Online
And Finally, "Summon sign visibility": Restricted means you're locked to the same region.

Once all done, it should look like this (Use a different password!!!)

Ensure you and your friend both have the same settings!

What is Humanity?
Humanity is both consumable items (hard humanity) and a game mechanic, let's start with the item.
There are multiple consumables from which you get humanity, for this guide, we will only go over Humanity and Twin Humanities
Guide subject to update, may add the Giant Humanity boss!

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Humanity: Increases Soft Humanity count by 1 when consumed, which we will get to in a moment, and restores health. To obtain humanity, you can find it in the world, buy it from select NPC merchants, or kill bosses and enemies such as Rats in the Undead Parish and The Depths, and one in Firelink Shrine. An easily acquired Humanity is at Firelink Shrine, On a corpse hanging on the well.


Twin Humanities: Increases Soft Humanity count by 2 when consumed, and restores health (more than the single humanity item). You can obtain this from killing some bosses and certain NPCs. Also obtainable by killing Clan of Forest Protectors

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Well, 'soft' humanity is the amount of humanity held by the player, located in the HUD in the top left corner. This is not the same as the amount of consumables in your inventory. That is Hard Humanity, see above sub-section "Consumables" for information on that! After using the consumables, your Soft Humanity amount will increase, by either 1 or 2 depending on if you use Humanity or Twin Humanities. Keep in mind, when you die, you always lose all your Soft Humanity whether you are Human or Hollow, though you can go and retrieve unused Soft Humanity from your bloodstain, as you would your souls.





Reverse Hollowing, you can use one of your Soft Humanity to Reverse your Hollowing, and become a human. Your character's appearance will change, and you'll be able to be summoned to your friend's game, detailed below. Now, this only uses 1, what is the rest for? Well, having a higher Soft Humanity amount will increase the player's Item Discovery rate, and Curse Resistance. Among those two things, which by them-self are great, is Chaos Upgrades. They add a damage buff as-well as elemental damage based off the material you use, and your current amount of Soft Humanity. to learn more, read the wiki on Chaos[darksouls.wikidot.com]. You can reverse your hollowing at any bonfire.




Upon reversing your hollowing and becoming human, the Soft Humanity counter in the top-left will begin to glow, and one humanity will be removed from the counter. This means you are now human, and as such can now be summoned to your friend's game using the White Sign Soapstone. Summoning information is detailed below. Keep in mind, while human you can be invaded by hostile Black Phantoms, and you can invade other player's worlds. Dying while human will return you to your hollow form and you will lose all of your soft humanity, BE CAREFUL!

The person to be summoned, needs to use the White Sign Soapstone, which places a Soul Sign at their feet. Now the summoner goes to that same location, and interacts with the Soul Sign, know it can take a few seconds for it to appear. Only the user that wants to summon the other needs to be human, and there are few level requirements, so a high level user can be summoned to boost a low level player. That said, if you are not using the password system, you can only summon a user within plus or minus 10 levels of your own, plus 10%. so if you are level 20, you can summon a user 12 levels plus or minus your own. It also takes into account weapon level, so I suggest using a Summon Calculator.

Upon successful interaction with the Soul Sign, at the bottom of the screen will appear the words "Summoning Phantom, don't move too far away, and don't die while this is happening or it will cancel the summon and you'll need to interact with the Soul Sign again.
If the summoned user dies, they will be sent back to their own world, and if the summoner dies, the summoned will be sent back to their own world, and the summoner will lose their soft humanity, upon which you will have to reverse your hollowing all over again.
Don't die.

The benefit of assisting your friend is that after beating an Area Boss, you get Souls, 1 Soft Humanity and if you are a part of the Warrior of Sunlight covenant, a Sunlight Medal. For more details about that, read on.

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And that is how you summon your friends. That said, there is still more to talk about.
When human, there are other ways players can join your game, in the form of invading your world. We will get to this in just a moment.

This is the White Soul Sign, as detailed above. It is one of two signs you might see when wanting to summon another player to help you. That said, in the game are factions known as "covenants" (we will cover those in detail in the next section) and this is the sign you will see when the summoned player is in all but one covenant, The Warriors of Sunlight.


One of the aforementioned "covenants" is called The Warriors Of Sunlight (I'll explain them more in the next section), to join them, you need 25 Faith, once you have that, you pray at the Altar of Sunlight which is below the Hellkite Dragon in upper Undead Burg. After joining, when using a White Sign Soapstone, you will have a Gold Soul Sign (pictured left), denoting your devotion to the covenant.

When Human, use the Red Sign Soapstone (obtained in the Painted World of Ariamis) to place down a Red Soul Sign, it will be visible to other Human players. When a player interacts with it, you will be summoned to their world as an Invader, your goal? Kill them. If you win, you get all of their Soft Humanity. Upon failure you drop your Souls and Soft Humanity as a bloodstain.


After joining the Gravelord Servant covenant (instructions in next section), use the Eye of Death to place a Gravelord Soul Sign. To successfully place this sign, you must be Human, the area boss must be alive, and you don't have an Invader or Summoned Phantom in your world. You can get the Eye of Death from Basilisks, Spirit of Vengeance, or from Patches at Firelink Shrine. Unlike other Soul Signs, this is to lure player's into your world, for you to defeat them in PVP.

Once you join the Path of the Dragon covenant (instructions in next section), use the Dragon Eye to place a Dragon Soul Sign. To place this sign, like with the Gravelord Soul Sign, you can't have an Invader or Summoned Phantom in your world, the area boss needs to be alive and you must be Human. This is used to invade another player's world as a hostile Dragon Spirit (PVP), the winner gets a Dragon Scale and Souls.

We will cover the nine covenants as briefly as we can, as much can be said about each. Focusing mainly on their interactions with you the player, while giving you an idea of who, what, and why they serve.














The disciples of Dark Sun Gwyndolin. Members of which will normally invade players as blue phantoms, but only against those who have sinned. Which generally means people who have attacked or killed a peaceful NPC, being Indicted by a player that you've invaded, or getting kicked out of a covenant.

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These pyromancers once from Lost Izalith hoard humanity, but they are only mentioned here as a formality, since they are the game's only covenant that doesn't directly require or benefit from a form of online connectivity to participate in it's purpose. One may be able to convince them to help save someone lost in the dark.

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Not to be confused with the enemies of the same name; Members of the Darkwraith covenant serve a mysterious primordial serpent, named Darkstalker Kaathe, who wishes to collect power for the Furtive Pygmy. The covenant's members possess a rare, intact, red eye orb that can be used an unlimited number of times to conduct their invasions. While the numbers are not fully known, it is likely that a large portion of all regular red phantom invaders are connected with the Darkwraith.

(Kaathe not pictured above, subject to update with the correct darkstalker)

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Servents of Alvina, a large cat located somewhere in Darkroot Garden. Their only goal is to defend said garden from any and all online intruders. Stepping foot into Darkroot Garden invites up to two of it's members to your world as blue invaders.

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Serving Gravelord Nito, the First of the Dead, their goal is to infect other players with extra enemies called Gravelord Black Phantoms. Those who are infected will also be pulled as invaders into the world of the covenant members, who lay in wait to slaughter the unsuspecting.

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The ferocious members who walk the Path of the Dragon are honorable apostles of the ancient dragons. Who, using their dragon eye, are able to be summoned as an opponent, the winner receives both souls and a dragon scale. Some whisper that those in the upper echelons of this covenant can turn themselves into full dragons, as even their lowest of members can turn partially.

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Guardians of Princess Gwynevere, who are specialized in support miracles such as the ways of using sunlight to heal. Like the Warriors of Sunlight, and the Way of White, the Princess's Guard benefit from a higher chance for online play.
Amazing Chest Ahead! (valiant hollows respect women)

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Noble Knights who are sworn to the, now lost, firstborn son of Lord Gwyn. They harness the power of sunlight not to heal as those who serve his sister, but as lightning itself, the purest form of sunlight as originally done by the Lord of Cinder during the dragon war long ago. These warriors overflow with the energy of the sun, so much so that both their soul and soul sign glow an incandescent gold. Like the Princess's Guard, and the Way of White the Warriors of Sunlight benefit from a higher chance for online play. Praise The Sun!

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Servants of the Great Lord Gwyn himself, this is normally considered to be a starter covenant as unlike all the prior mentioned covenants they only get the same bonus of higher online connectivity as the Princess's Guard and the Warriors of Sunlight. However, it should be noted that by accepting Petrus's offer to join will give you early access to his wares, of which are mainly having to deal with miracles.

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When playing as a human, your world is subject to Invasions, upon which players will join your world with the intent to fight. Keep in mind, the game takes player level into account, so invaders will not usually be overpowered and thus you have a fair chance of winning. Most of the invasion methods are voluntary for the summoner, however, so if you lose, it's your fault. As the host, when human you will find different Soul Signs, some of which are PvP oriented (see summoning section for which ones), and after interaction will summon a Hostile Phantom to kill you. Depending on the covenant, they may appear slightly different, or be summoned through different Soul Signs. After defeating them, you will get Souls and a point of Humanity. If you lose, they get those instead, and you become hollow again. I mentioned above that most invasion methods are voluntary... Well, there are a few situations that are not. For example, if the Hostile Phantom uses a Cracked Red Eye Orb all that is required is that you are human and have not yet defeated the area boss. Similarly, if the Hostile Phantom is in the Darkwraith Covenant (not described in this guide), and uses a Red Eye Orb (not to be confused with it's cracked variant), the same will happen. Note: as an Invader, you cannot be hollow to place your Soul Signs, or use the Cracked Red Eye Orb / Red Eye Orb, and the area boss must remain alive. The primary reason to Invade other players is for Humanity, though when you belong to certain covenants you get special rewards, for example, as a Dragon Spirit, you get a Dragon Scale for defeating the host, and similarly, as a Gravelord Servant, you get an Eye of Death after defeating the host, both in place of the Humanity.

PvP Invaders have certain Spawn Locations, as-well as a Cooldown Timer that protect the host from further Invasions. The cooldown timer can be reset by certain items detailed on the wiki. After each invasion, the cooldown length becomes longer, up to 10. (though no different than level 9)


Summoned Phantoms can appear in several different ways, depending on the covenant, method of summoning, and whether they are the summoned, or the summoner. For example, after summoning a Red Phantom invader by interacting with a Red Soul Sign, they will appear to the host as, you guessed it, red. Keep in mind that Invaders will also appear wearing the actual gear they have, so an experienced player can tell what they are in for before the fight. Win and you get a point of Humanity and some souls. Fail and you will lose your Soft Humanity, and be sent to a bonfire.

Pictured left is a Dragon Spirit, they are the phantoms that belong to the covenant of The Path of the Dragon.
To summon this phantom, the host must be human, and the area boss must be alive, assuming those two prerequisites are met, you interact with a Dragon Soul Sign for them to invade your world. The winner of this fight gets a Dragon Scale and some Souls. The loser gets sent back to a bonfire without their Soft Humanity.


Pictured here is a Spirit of Vengeance, this one is slightly different than the others. The simplest way for this phantom to appear is when a user interacts with a Gravelord Soul Sign to kill a Gravelord Servant, they will appear like this. After defeating the Gravelord Servant, you obtain an Eye of Death and the Gravelord Infection is put to an end. That's not the only way for this Phantom to appear though... If you are in the Blade of the Darkmoon covenant, you can use a Blue Eye Orb to invade a player who has Sinned.


(Note: The Blade of the Darkmoon covenant and their items are more complicated, and involve multiple other online game mechanics which will not be covered in this guide. As such, I recommend you to read the following wikidot articles)
Blade of the Darkmoon Covenant[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Blue Eye Orb Item[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Indictments[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Sin[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Phantoms[darksouls.wikidot.com]

There is a little bit more to cover, though I feel they did not fit into any of the above sections. That said, they are online related and as such I decided to put them into the guide.

We will start here. As you play through the game, hollow or human, you will see messages written on the ground, often guiding you to hurl yourself off of cliffs, or mentioning amazing "chests". What are these you ask? They are Guidance Messages, made by players using an Orange Guidance Soapstone. They have a rating, which is dictated also by using the Orange Guidance Soapstone item below.

This is how you write, view, or rate messages. Upon using, you'll be able to rate messages up or down, or write your own (up to 6 per character), though this is limited to a specific word structure as a form of censorship, as other players will see these messages. You obtain it from the Male Undead Merchant[darksouls.wikidot.com] for 100 Souls, or kill him for it instead. It has infinite uses.

Using this, you can see the positive and negative ratings of a message. It also reveals more messages, both written by players, and by the devs[darksouls.wikidot.com]. To obtain the Seek Guidance Miracle, you can buy it from two merchants, Petrus of Thorolund[darksouls.wikidot.com] at Firelink Shrine, or from Rhea of Thorolund[darksouls.wikidot.com] for 1/4 price at the Undead Parish after saving her.


This is one of four items that will clear the Invasion Cooldown Timer[darksouls.wikidot.com], allowing back-to-back Invasions so you can get right back to PvP after defeating a Red Phantom. Originally, you could only get this in the Painted World of Ariamis, but in Dark Souls: Remastered, you can buy it from Undead Merchant Male[darksouls.wikidot.com] in Undead Burg for 2,000 Souls.














Thank you for reading, and a HUGE thank you to Doc Croc for helping with this guide.

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Because of the sheer length of this guide, I've decided to put all links in it's own section here, because the way Steam displays links would inflate all the text and make formatting significantly more difficult.

I've separated all the links by the guide section, this said, there are a few locations where I have left links in their sections. This is intentional.

White Sign Soapstone (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Taurus Demon (boss)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Undead Burg (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]

Undead Parish (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
The Depths (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Firelink Shrine (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Rat (enemy)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Clan of Forest Protector (enemy)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Hollowed (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Gravelord Black Phantoms (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]


White Sign Soapstone (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Soul Signs (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Undead Burg (location)[/url}[url]Humanity (item/mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Eye of Death (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Phantoms (players)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Summon Range Calculator (online tool)[darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com]
Painted World of Ariamis (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Twin Humanities (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Humanity Farming (online guide)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Spirit of Vengeance (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
The Path of the Dragon (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Firelink Shrine (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Eye (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Spirit (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Scale (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Souls (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Patches (npc)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Red Sign Soapstone (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Basilisk (enemy)[darksouls.wikidot.com]

The Warriors of Sunlight (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Altar of Sunlight (location / altar)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Sunlight Medals (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Faith (stat)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Gold Phantoms (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Undead Burg (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]

Gravelord Servant (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Gravelord Nito (npc)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Black Phantoms (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Spirit of Vengeance (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Eye of Death (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]]
Humanity (item/mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Spirit of Vengeance (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Bosses (enemy)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Soul Signs (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Souls (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Firelink Shrine (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]

The Path of the Dragon (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Scale (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Stone Dragon (npc / altar)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Ash Lake (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Eye (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
indictment (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Weapons (items)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Head Stone (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Torso Stone (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Firelink Shrine (location)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Soul Signs (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Souls (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]

PvP (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Phantoms (players)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Cracked Red Eye Orb (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Darkwraith (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Red Eye Orb (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Scale (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Eye of Death (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Invasion Spawn Locations (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Cooldown Timer (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Dragon Spirit (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Blade of the Darkmoon (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Blue Eye Orb (item)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Sin (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Humanity (item/mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Spirit of Vengeance (phantom)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Soul Signs (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Souls (mechanic)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Bosses (enemy)[darksouls.wikidot.com]
Gravelord Servant (covenant)[darksouls.wikidot.com]