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TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Detailed Familiar Descriptions Summoning Familiar Details - Dreadfowl

The spirit wolf is the lowest-level familiar in the game, and the one that was chosen by Jagex as the “ambassador” of Summoning, if you will. It is prominently featured in the introductory Wolf Whistle quest, and the wolf’s head is the basis for the Summoning skill icon.

Like most familiars, the spirit wolf is quite striking visually; it appears as a fairly large white wolf, with a bushy tail and light blue markings. It is of course the easiest familiar to talk to (and understand), though the dialog with it is rather limited and dull (see Figure 260).

The spirit wolf’s level is reflected in terms of what it can do—not much. J The wolf has no unique and useful abilities, little ability to do damage in combat, and a special move that’s of little value. It also gives very little XP when made or used. It can do a few points of damage on very low-level monsters and so may be of value to very low-level players, assuming they can find any appropriate multicombat areas to use them. Overall, this familiar seems to be in the game mostly just as an introduction to, and representative of, the skill of Summoning.

The essential information for the spirit wolf can be found in Table 54; for an explanation of the table’s entries, see the topic Explanation of the Familiar Summary Tables.

The spirit wolf is mainly oriented around combat. I believe that in theory, the ability to push an NPC out of an area could be of value in certain very specific non-combat circumstances. I have yet to determine any such uses, however.

While most low-level familiars are of little value in combat unless the player is also very low-level, the spirit wolf is pretty much useless even against very low level opponents. In my tests, it had a hard time with even low-level opponents; it could barely even scratch a level 28 kalphite worker. It does seem to do better against opponents that seem to have lower defence; I managed to get one to score a couple of hits on a bloodworm. Of course, with only 12 HP, it’s toast as soon as it’s attacked by pretty much anything.

The special move is also rather pointless in combat; if an enemy is fighting you, using Howl will push them away for just a few seconds, and they will then immediately re-engage. Note that the wolf seems to periodically cast the Howl special even without using scrolls (or using up scrolls in a headdress)—whether you want it to or not. This actually makes matters worse in most cases, however, since it both interrupts your combat with monster and causes the wolf to stop fighting and wander around aimlessly (see Figure 261).

Some folks have theorized that this familiar might be useful for pushing away revenants in the Wilderness, but I’m skeptical. Their worst attacks are ranged and magic anyway, and even if they are meleeing you, this will only stop them for a few seconds.

The only use I could even remotely see for this familiar is as cannon fodder—it might let you avoid a monster hit or two if the beast you are fighting decides to take a couple of turns to kill it. But even there, other monsters with more HP would be better.

Upon completing the Wolf Whistle quest, you get enough XP to push you up to level 4, where you can make dreadfowl. Accordingly, there’s no need to ever make spirit wolf pouches, or summon them. Take the hint and don’t bother (unless you like how they look or something.)

See if you can convince Pikkupstix to tell us mere mortals how to make this thing do what it did during his quest! J

TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Detailed Familiar Descriptions Summoning Familiar Details - Dreadfowl