Joni's Blessing

Joni's Blessing
Blessed by Joni, the kindly heretic. Transfigures vital fluids into blue lifeblood. The bearer will have a healthier shell and can take more damage, but they will not be able to heal themselves by focusing SOUL.
Effect	Increase Masks by 40% (rounded up), all Masks become Lifeblood Causes Lifeseeds to flock to the Knight instead of running away
Notch Cost

Joni's Blessing is a Charm in Hollow Knight. It changes all Masks to Lifeblood Masks and increases Masks by 40% (rounded up). When selecting the Shell binding in the Pantheons, it increases Masks from 4 to 7 (10 with Fragile Heart/ Unbreakable Heart).

Number of Lifeblood Masks

Masks	Lifeblood Masks
5	7
6	9
7	10
8	12
9	13
10	14
11	16

The 40% increase in Masks granted by Joni's Blessing only takes into account the base Masks and the two Masks added by Fragile/ Unbreakable Heart. Masks added by Lifeblood Heart and Lifeblood Core are not included in the calculation.

Usefulness

When having Joni's Blessing equipped it becomes easier to enter the Lifeblood Core room in the Abyss. With 8-9 Masks and Fragile Heart/ Unbreakable Heart or Lifeblood Heart, it is easy to make the 15-Mask threshold, thus earning Lifeblood Core.

As with Lifeblood Heart and Lifeblood Core, Joni's Blessing is more useful in a Spell-focused build where SOUL can be used to cast Spells rather than heal. As such, it should be saved for later in the game when more Notches have been acquired, but Lifeblood Core remains inaccessible.

However, Lifeblood Core is usually a more efficient Charm for adding survivability in the endgame than Joni's Blessing; 4 Lifeblood Masks are gained with either Charm (going from 9 to 13 Masks), but Lifeblood Core only costs 3 Notches and does not prevent healing.

How to Acquire

Found in Joni's Repose in the Howling Cliffs. The Charm is resting on the corpse of Blue Child Joni.

Joni's Blessing location

Charm Synergies

Hiveblood

Hiveblood can regenerate Lifeblood Masks granted by Joni's Blessing, though it takes twice as long (20 seconds). (Hiveblood does not affect Lifeblood Masks not directly gained through Joni's Blessing.)

Charm Combo Tips

Grubberfly's Elegy	Lifeblood Masks from Joni's Blessing are not treated like normal Lifeblood Masks, and instead are treated like actual Masks. This makes Grubberfly's Elegy only trigger when the Knight is at the maximum number of Masks.
Fragile Heart	Joni's Blessing includes the Masks given by Fragile/ Unbreakable Heart when calculating its Mask bonus.
Lifeblood Heart	Stacks with both Lifeblood Heart and Lifeblood Core.
Lifeblood Core	Stacks with both Lifeblood Heart and Lifeblood Core.
Shaman Stone	Since Shaman Stone is used in Spell-casting-focused builds, it is good to combine it with Joni's Blessing in battles where healing is difficult or impossible.

Trivia

• Reaching 1 Mask while having this Charm equipped does not create black streaks across the screen.
• If the Knight dies, the HUD displays a single empty Mask, representing a maximum of 1 regular Mask. This affects the Knight's Shade health and causes it to die in one hit.
  • There is a glitch where the Knight occasionally gains one additional Mask after they have taken damage to what is supposedly their last available Lifeblood Mask. This additional Mask is a normal white Mask but is covered in the black fog effect until destroyed.
• The actual formula of Lifeblood masks (as in code) is: (int)((float)max_health * 1.4) + 1. For max health 5 and 10, floating point precision problem cause 5 * 1.4 = 6.999999 and 10 * 1.4 = 13.999999, resulting 7 and 14 Lifeblood Masks, respectively.