Wilderness

The Wilderness is a large and dangerous area which makes up the entirety of northeastern Gielinor, directly north of the kingdoms of Asgarnia and Kandarin. It was the only place where non-members could engage in Player-versus-Player (PvP) combat until December 10, 2007, when the Duel Arena was opened to free players and the Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars minigames were introduced. Players can no longer attack each other in the Wilderness, however in the Wilderness area, there are several PvP minigames, and Jagex has confirmed more are to come.

Revenants will randomly appear and attack players in the Wilderness. Revenants are the ghost-like spirits of creatures killed during the God Wars. All of them can teleblock and prevent you from moving, and are capable of using all 3 styles of the combat triangle. In 50+ Wilderness, most of them can also poison the player. They can also unleash hefty damage despite their combat level; even the level 7 Revenant Imps can hit up to 8. The further north players go, the higher the danger level gets. The danger level represents the potential combat levels of revenants you can engage in combat. A danger level of 1 means you can be attacked by revenants within 1 combat level of your own; a danger level of 2 means you can fight revenants within 2 combat levels of your own; and so on.

Teleports will not work above level 20, except for a select few such as the Amulet of Glory or Ring of Life which may be used up to level 30. However, the Tele Block spell will prevent teleports from working for 5 minutes, which revenants may cast on you. Wearing a Forinthry bracelet allows a player to still teleport whilst under a teleblock for up to 5 times per bracelet, which can be life saving in certain situations such as the Mage Arena.

The Ditch


The Wilderness is protected by a ditch on its south edge, requiring players to click on it to enter the Wilderness. This is to prevent players from wandering into the Wilderness and getting killed. After clicking the ditch, players are presented with a screen that asks whether they really want to enter the Wilderness. Players who click yes will then jump over the ditch. Above it, there are a few safe spaces. This has, however, reduced the level 1 Wilderness to 4 tiles.

Jagex has added the ditch functionality on the 18th April 2007. They also added the option not to receive this warning message every time on the 17th July 2007. Players can toggle this and other warning messages on and off via the Doomsayer in Lumbridge.

Why Enter the Wilderness?
Why indeed, would anyone choose to enter this dangerous place?

To Fight in the Bounty Arena, Clan Wars, or Fist of Guthix
WARNING: If you die in Bounty Hunter you will lose all your items! Only take items you are prepared to lose!

Matching wits against other players is one of the most common reasons why some players choose to visit this lawless place. The Combat triangle comes into play when battling other players, and is briefly outlined as follows:
 * Mages are generally strong against Warriors, because metal armour is more vulnerable to magic, and mages can cast holding spells such as entangle to stop the warrior from moving and make him/her unable to attack.
 * Warriors are strong against Rangers, but need to close in fast. Their metal armour does attract magic, though, creating even more damage.
 * Rangers are strong against Mages, as ranger-oriented armour such as leather and dragonhide, has the best protection against magic. Their arrows slice through mage robes. Again, though, an advantage to warriors is the rangers' leather armour, easy enough to cut through, warriors just have to get close enough to rangers to attack.

To Access the Abyss
Pay to play players can use the Abyss in the Wilderness to access the various altars throughout RuneScape to craft runes; the Zamorak mage that teleports players to the abyss is in level 5 Wilderness. Many players will risk being killed to craft runes here as it is the fastest way available; normally only runes above cosmic are crafted here as any rune below this is not considered worth the risk.

A Shortcut
The Edgeville bank is closer to the mind altar than the Falador branch is. Although a shorter path, it crosses into level 4 Wilderness.

For Resources
There are many useful respawns in the Wilderness. Particularly, in the non-members' world, there are only two spawn points for the planks required in the Dragon Slayer quest: The lava maze (level 43) contains a few valuable items such as iron full helm, gold necklace, staff of earth, steel plate, along with coin respawn points. Bring food, as it contains king scorpians, hill giants and lesser demons, this is also a favourite place for revs to wander There are also many respawns for bones in the chaos temple, and members can collect White Berries (a valuable potion ingredient) at Red Dragon Isle.
 * 1) In the Graveyard of Shadows, level 22 Wilderness. This place is multi-combat and is filled with aggressive level 18 and 24 zombies, so lower levels may want to bring some food and/or armour.

To Mine Ores
The risk factor and the aggressive monsters mean these mines are rarely mined-out, unlike the Mining Guild at busy times.

While the best metal armour enables players to shrug off most of the monsters that frequent the mines, Revenants will frequently attack with magic as well, so ranged armour may be preferable to avoid a negative magic defence bonus.

Also, in the higher-leveled Wilderness area, the Lava Maze, is the only place where free players can mine Rune ore!

To Solve Clues
Pay to play players can obtain Clue Scrolls from monsters. The higher level Clue Scrolls often involve visits to the Wilderness, including to the parts with a very high danger level. Most of the time you will be incapable of teleporting so you would need to bring a lot of food, preferably lobsters or sharks.

To Train Agility
Pay to play players have an Agility training course in the deep Wilderness. It is one of the fastest Agility training areas, though also the most dangerous.

To Kill Monsters
The Wilderness has monsters that can be interesting to kill for their drops or their experience e.g. Greater demons. In member worlds, Green Dragons, the King Black Dragon and the Chaos Elemental are examples of monsters that attract players into the Wilderness.

To Unlock Music
Some players wish to unlock as much music as possible. Many music tracks are only available in the Wilderness.

To Make Money
Many players engage in player killing at the bounty hunter arena to obtain valuables. When they kill a player, the player they killed drops all of their items (they keep only 1 with the Protect Items prayer activated, instead of the standard four items with that prayer activated). Then the player killer takes the dropped items and does whatever so they may wish to do with them. This includes using the High Alchemy or Low Alchemy spells on them or selling them for money.

Also, many players visit the Wilderness to kill Green Dragons, as the hides and bones they always drop are very profitable.

To Sell Items
Many players have items that are of very little value to merchants and skill specialists. The General store in the Bandit Camp buys items for high alchemy prices because the, "Tax collectors do not visit his store." All Wilderness merchants are very high-level as a matter of personal safety.

To Slay Revenants
Many players seek out revenants to hunt and kill them, usually just for the glory and satisfaction of doing so. Some higher leveled revenants also drop fairly valuable items, such as Dragon daggers or Amulets of glory, though these are fairly rare drops.

To Explore
There are a lot of places that players would like to explore. Basically, curiosity can sometimes kill you. But if a player is ready, why not go ahead and have a look around?

Features
All of the area above except the Red Dragon Island is available to Free-to-play users. A basic outline to some features is given below, for more in-depth click on the link.

Dark Knight Fortress
The Dark Knight Fortress, located in levels 14 and 15 of the Wilderness is one of the easiest places to train Magic due to 7 rune spawns. Earth, Water, Air and Fire runes. It also contains Chaos, Mind and Body runes.

Features
This area is only available to Pay-to-play users. Note: The white line visible near the bottom is the fence separating the Free-to-play and Pay-to-play areas.

Mage Arena
This is where players with at least level 60 Magic can take Kolodion's challenge. Successful players receive the God Cape and the God Staff of their chosen God. For more information, see the Mage Arena article.

Obelisks


There are six Wilderness Obelisks. Each portal will randomly teleport anyone standing on the central pad to any of the other 5 pads. They are the only teleportation method to work beyond level 30 Wilderness apart from the Ardougne teleport lever. To activate the portal, touch any of the pillars on the side. The portals are found in the following locations:

Wilderness part of Edgeville dungeon
Although most of the Wilderness is an open area, the north part of Edgeville dungeon is Wilderness too. It can be accessed by passing a members gate. The Wilderness level in the northernmost part is 5. Points of interest:
 * Several Chaos druids in the Wilderness section, well known for their high drop rate for herbs.
 * There are quite a few red spider's eggs respawns in this dungeon, making it easier to collect them for potions.
 * Several Black Demons live farther inside the dungeon, closer to a bank than most others.
 * There is a demon who resides in the dungeon named Chronozon. He's a critical part of the Family Crest quest and can only be killed after successfully casting all four of the elemental "blast" spells on him.
 * The Earth Obelisk is in the dungeon near Chronozon, and the Air Obelisk can be accessed through the dungeon as well, past the Black Demons.
 * The dungeon is one of only 2 locations to house Earth Warriors. You need to 15 Agility to get to them.

Trivia
Before the December 10 2007 update, the Wilderness was the only place free-to-play players can duel with other players as well as clans warring against other clans. The area just north of Edgeville was a very popular dueling area while the demonic ruins was a very popular area to stage clan wars.