Well, friends of Giant Bomb. I have scoured the wikis, the web, and everything in between but cannot determine the exact usage rules of the White Sign Soapstone.

I realize that there is no number next to the item in the inventory so I'm assuming it's unlimited, but is it locked to a time/location constraint of any kind? Is usage of the Soapstone actually unlimited?

Any help would be awesome. Many thanks, Bombers!

*For reference, here's the game wiki information on the item - Link.*

I presume this is your first Souls game? Yeah, you can use it as many times as you like; there are certain areas that don't allow it, but they're few and far between. So, go nuts.

Uhm... it's way more lenient in this game than in DS1; I know that much. It'll pretty much tell you any time it disappears; if it doesn't say anything then just assume it's still sitting there. If you wanna raise your chances of getting summoned, then just stick to places near bonfires or boss gates. Or you can be a super nice guy and put a small soapstone near hard non-boss areas. Those people are great.

Great, thank you very much for the info.

And yeah, first Souls game where I haven't ripped my hair out after an hour. I just want to be able to return the favors I'm getting from other players.

Speaking of the little white soapstone, the reward you get from it is so much superior from the one you get from the big one (unless you're a Heir of the Sun).
The item you get, trade it with the crows from the tutorial area... unlimited llottery !

@myrmicus: Don't know anything about that, but I'll look into it. Thanks for the tip.

@emofratparty: The little white soapstone leave a mark which other players uses to summon you. But you're summoned for a limited period of time. Plus, each monster you kill shorten this time. When the time is up, you return to your world and are rewarded for a silky stone. The silky stone, little silky stone and petrified something can be traded with the crows, in the nest you can find on top of the ladder, in the tutorial zone. By dropping the stone in the nest, it is replaced by another random item.

The white soapstone (the normal one) allow other players to summon you, but without any time limit. You only return in your world if the boss is defeated and are rewarded with an item (dunno the english name) that is used in the Blue Sentinels covenent (used to access their own dueling arena).well the time isn't really unlimited, but it's long enough for you to travel through the entire level and defeating the boss.

If you want to help the host to defeat a boss, use the regular white soapstone. I was disconnected from the host once in the middle of a boss fight, because of the time limit to the little soapstone. But that was partly because I was summoned far away from the boss room. Using the little soapstone just in front of a boss room grants you enough time to defeat it.

This isn't true. I've had more than a few times where I was sent back to my world in the middle of a boss fight because time was up. Besides that, I've been send home tons of times before we even reached the boss. Some players seem to like to have people help them with the regular area and aren't going for a boss run; this is when it occurs most.

Yeah, the summon time of the small sign is significantly shorter, but the normal one isn't anywhere close to unlimited.

Interestingly, I"ve never been sent back to my world,except for one time ine Shrine of Amana, when the host finally reached the chest, on the right, where the hippo is, in the end of the narrow road You must have spent an awfully long time for the summon to end... or maybe something specific was done (as It didn't last long for me to "complete my duty" on that one occasion.

@myrmicus: White sign summons generally last around 15-20 minutes I'd say. Though I wonder if--besides beating a boss--it's based on a timer or is instead set around the amount of souls acquired while apart of the host's world. In any case you definitely cannot linger within another player's world forever, that much is certain.

Also good to know! Seems like a weird change from the other games (or at least the original Dark Souls).