Runes





Runes are small, weightless stones that allow users to cast spells using the Magic skill. Runes can either be bought from the various Rune shops found across RuneScape, traded with other players, purchased on the Grand Exchange, created from rune essence or pure essence through the Runecrafting skill, obtained from the Runecrafting Guild, procured from drops by killing monsters, or picked up from spawns on the ground.

The elemental runes (air, water, earth and fire, named after the Greek classical elements) can be substituted for by wielding a respective elemental staff, battlestaff or mystic staff. The only time an elemental staff cannot be used to substitute for runes is when setting up a portal in the Portal Chamber of a player-owned house.

Runes come in a number of different types, but they can be categorised according to themes based on their names. For example, mind, body, blood and soul are all constituent parts of a human; cosmic and astral pertain to outer space; nature is in Guthix, law is in Saradomin, and chaos is in Zamorak; and life and death occur in time. The six combinations runes (mud, mist, lava, smoke, steam and dust) cover all possible pairs of the four elemental runes.

History
Guthix used the Stone of Jas to created runes when he first visited Gielinor. For awhile, the knowledge of how to create them remained a secret. After that, he hid the stone somewhere in Gielinor, until a Fremennik seer found an ancient cave beneath the eastern mountains of the Fremennik province. The stone somehow created Rune essence rocks near the stone itself. The stone was later removed by "those who walk a higher astral path". However, the rune essence was not. The seer who found the stone, found a way to create runes from this essence, and went to Misthalin to show the magic you can cast with these. And soon, the knowledge of magic was spread around every human kingdom. Plus, the Wizard's tower became the place where all of the magic was studied. Some Fremmeniks travelled further south to create Runecrafting altars, so that every human could craft those runes. But other Fremmeniks found that magic may only be used by the gods. So they banished those who made the altars to an island in the far northern sea. Those Fremmeniks later became the Moonclan. The Fremmeniks who weren't banished quickly started the Runecrafting Crusades in an attempt to stop Mages from creating runes. And later, the Wizard's tower was burnt down by Zamorakians. It wasn't until Year 169 that an adventurer helped the wizards of the Wizard's tower uncover the secrets of Runecrafting - during the Rune Mystery quest. There are very few people who know of the ancient art today.

Non-members runes


All players can use the runes listed below. There are two categories of runes referenced in the game: elemental runes and non-elemental runes. Elemental runes include air rune, fire rune, water rune, and earth runes. Non-elemental include all others, which are: mind rune, body rune, chaos rune, death rune, blood rune, soul rune, cosmic rune, law rune, nature runes, and astral runes.

However, free players can only craft runes up to body runes (using the Runecrafting skill). Also free players are limited in the runes they can find in stores and that can be bought on the Grand Exchange. The two magic stores (in Varrock and Port Sarim) only sell the basic elemental runes, chaos runes, and death runes. The other types of runes can be traded with other players, gotten as drops or spawns, or bought on the Grand Exchange in Varrock.

Minigame runes
The following runes, Elemental Runes and Catalytic Runes, are given to players who are participating in the Fist of Guthix minigame or Stealing Creation Minigame. They are substitute for other runes. However they can only be used in combat spells. If a player tries to cast a non-combat spell, he or she will receive one of the messages:

You did not come here to do that!

The members-only Lunar spell Stat Spy can be cast in Fist of Guthix, despite not directly affecting combat. These runes cannot be dropped. If they are dropped in the Fist of Guthix waiting room, they will be lost immediately. You will have to exit the waiting room and enter again to get them back.

Members runes


The Wizards' Guild in Yanille has the cheapest rune shop available to members. Located on the guild's upper floor, it sells every rune in the game except for astral, cosmic, and combination runes.

Only members can use the runes listed below.

Combination runes
These runes are members only, and act as one of each of their composite runes. To make them, take the appropriate talisman to the respective altar. For example, if one wanted to make dust runes: one would bring air runes and earth runes, and the earth and air talismans to either the air altar or earth altar.

Note:
 * Crafting combination runes uses one of the talismans, so it is recommended that one only crafts combination runes of the talismans one has the most of. The Lunar Magicks spell Magic Imbue allows a player to craft combination runes without the use of the opposing talisman.
 * Crafting combination runes has a 50% chance of success. A Binding necklace allows 100% success for crafting combination runes 15 times.

Monster drops
Many monsters drop runes in RuneScape, but some more than others. These are some of the more notable and relatively easy monsters that drop runes:
 * Level 7 and 20 Dark Wizards south of Varrock and south of Taverley.
 * Wizards in the Wizards' Tower south of Draynor Village.
 * Infernal Mages in the Slayer Tower.
 * Air wizard, Earth wizard, Water wizard, Fire wizard south of Falador.
 * Dark wizards in Draynor Village.
 * Chaos Druids in Taverley Dungeon.
 * Flesh Crawlers in 2nd floor of the Stronghold of Security drop fire, body, nature and dust runes.
 * Moss Giants on Crandor and the Moss Giant Island, west of Brimhaven drop Air, Earth, Nature, Law, or Cosmic runes occasionally.
 * Goblins just South-west of the Grand Exchange.
 * Ghostly warriors in the parallel dimension of Axe Hut in level 55 Wilderness.
 * Cockroaches drop many different kinds of runes, mainly air, water, fire, death and law.
 * Hill giants drop air runes, nature runes, cosmic runes, fire runes etc.
 * Ankou drop law, death, or blood runes, 15 noted pure essence, or 15 rune essence.
 * Barbarians drop Earth, Chaos, Law, Mind, or Fire runes occasionally.
 * Stone statues in Bandos' throne room drop many dust and earth runes.
 * Black Knights in the Black Knight's Fortress

Runecrafting
Runecrafting is the skill of crafting runes from rune essence or pure essence. Through this skill, players can create their own runes for use in Magic.

Rogue Trader
Runes can be obtained by completing Ali Morrisane's Rogue Trader minigame, which players may complete after finishing The Feud quest.

After completing the minigame, players are able to obtain runes for a cheaper price.

Respawn locations
Here is a short list of respawn locations of runes throughout RuneScape.

Note- the best place to get rune respawns in f2p is in the Dark Warriors Fortress. The northernmost room contains respawns of 5 Earth, Water, Air and Fire runes. The room directly west of this contains 5 Chaos, Mind and Body runes. Players should be wary when approaching this area: Although this a good place for a rune spawn, revenants have a patrol route in this castle, and will attack and very possibly kill players who are within their combat level. Its not usually crowded and can be a good place for low leveled players to gain a few magic levels on the Dark Warriors!

Shops
There are several shops around RuneScape that sell runes. These are identified with the Magic shop icon on the minimap.

Note: Only the shops in Mage Training Arena and Magic Guild stock combination runes.

Barrows
The Barrows minigame provides large numbers of combat runes (mind, chaos, death and blood) from the chest, though very high combat skills are required in order to be successful at the Barrows.