Binding

Binding is Tideward's familiar trade, renamed from "Summoning" in May 2026 because that name belongs to RuneScape's familiars system. The shape is simple. A Bond drops while you train a trade or fight a monster. That Bond lets you craft the matching familiar's tablets. Wearing a stack of tablets keeps the familiar at your side, chopping, mining or swinging beside you until the stack runs out. There are twenty-one to find, ten for the trades and eleven for combat.

How Binding works

Every familiar begins with a Bond. The ten skill familiars drop theirs while you train the matching trade: the Bond of the Treant from Woodcutting, the Mole from Mining, the Octopus from Fishing, and so on through the Tannin from Kindling. The eleven combat familiars drop theirs from host monsters, goblins for the Goblin Thief, the four dragons for the Dragon. One Bond unlocks the recipe. A craft takes 5 seconds and makes 25 tablets at base, paid in Binding shards bought with gold from the shop (green, silver and black for skill familiars, red, blue and gold for combat: 6 shards for a tier one familiar, 8 and 6 for tier two, 10, 8 and 6 for tier three, with the Tortoise the one odd recipe) plus a secondary ingredient, usually something the familiar's trade handles: 50 normal logs for the Treant, 50 copper ore for the Mole, 50 bronze daggers for the Goblin Thief. The Leprechaun and the Cyclops take 1,000 gold instead.

Tablets stack, and you equip a stack in one of two summon slots. A skill familiar burns one tablet per action of its trade and grants a passive while it is worn: the Treant adds a 10% chance of an extra log on every chop, the Pig a 10% chance to preserve resources in Cooking, the Tannin a 5% shorter Kindling interval. A combat familiar swings on its own timer with a fixed max hit that never scales with your levels or gear, burns tablets as it swings, and carries a passive of its own: the Wolf 2% lifesteal, the Occultist 10% global evasion, the Dragon a 10% chance to set the enemy burning. When the stack runs out the slot empties and the passive ends, live or away, so the tablet count is the familiar's clock. A few late sources, the Binding Keeper's Cloak among them, add a small chance that a use keeps its tablet, so the clock runs a little slower once you have them.

Bonds keep dropping after the first, and more of them raise that familiar's Bond level, at 1, 6, 16, 31, 46 and 61 Bonds. Bond levels are what synergies read. Wear two familiars whose Bond levels and your Binding level meet a pairing's requirement and the pair forms a synergy. The game lists every pairing and what it does. Six of the combat pairings carry a live effect today; the rest are listed to work toward.

Tips for training Binding

1. Wear the familiar whose Bonds you are hunting. An equipped familiar makes its own Bond two and a half times likelier to drop, so the second Bond comes faster than the first.
2. The Treant and the Goblin Thief are the level 1 familiars, one for each side of the trade. The Treant wants 50 normal logs and green shards; the Goblin Thief wants 50 bronze daggers and red shards.
3. A skill familiar spends a tablet on every action of its trade, so a stack of 25 is 25 chops until you own something that preserves charges. Craft a few stacks before a long away session or the slot will be empty when you get back.
4. A combat familiar's max hit is fixed, so it is a steady second attacker plus a passive, not a scaling one. Pick it for the passive you want, lifesteal, evasion or Burn, rather than for damage alone.
5. Tablets sell for nothing. Craft what you will wear, not what will sit in the bank.

Skills that pair with Binding

The 28 trades aren't isolated. Binding works best alongside these:

Frequently asked about Binding

Why renamed from Summoning?

"Summoning" is Jagex's name for RuneScape's familiars system. The May 2026 rebrand changed it to "Binding": the same idea of familiars you craft and wear, under a name that does not sit inside that trademark cluster.

How long does a familiar last?

As long as its tablet stack. A skill familiar burns one tablet per action of its trade, a combat familiar burns tablets as it swings, and when the stack runs out the summon slot empties and the passive ends. There is no timer, live or away. The stack is the clock.

Is Binding in the free game?

No. Binding is part of the one-time $9.99 unlock. Bonds still drop in the free game, they are bank items like any other, so the Bonds you find before unlocking are waiting when you do. Crafting a tablet is what the unlock opens.