Wilderness


 * For the music track, see Wilderness (music track).

The Wilderness is a large and dangerous area which makes up the entirety of north-eastern Gielinor, directly north of the kingdoms of Asgarnia and Misthalin. It was famous for being the only place where non-members could engage in Player-versus-Player (PvP) combat to gain all items that the defeated dropped until 10 December 2007, when the Duel Arena was opened to free players and the Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars activities were introduced. As of 15 October 2008, players can now attack each other here (and across the rest of RuneScape in PvP worlds) on special Bounty Worlds. They cannot, however, attack each other here on non-PvP worlds. In the months between December 2007 and October 2008, however, players could only attack each other via activities. The Clan Wars free-for-all portals are very similar to the Wilderness before 10 December 2007, however with the arrival of Bounty worlds the Wilderness returned to being like old player killing. Players should be careful entering the Wilderness as they could be attacked and likely killed by a Revenant.

History
The Wilderness used to be a dense forest with rich supplies of basically everything that a city would need. It was once a big part of Zaros mighty empire, with many fortresses like Dareeyak, Carrallangar, Annakarl and Ghorrock. It once held the greatest of cities ever to be seen on RuneScape and was described as "Heaven on Earth". That is until the God Wars started, and War erupted from the rich land that once belonged to the God Zaros, who faded out of existence as he was betrayed by the once-mortal Zamorak, who then became a god himself. Zamorak quickly destroyed all the Zarosian fortresses. The Gods joined forces in order to fight against Zamorak. However, eventually all the Gods started to fight amongst and for themselves. The Wilderness back then became the centre of warfare.

Possibly during these wars, a parallel realm of the Wilderness was created by the Spirit Beast. Those who are unlucky enough to die in the wilderness will be trapped in this realm for the rest of eternity. As the spirit beast slowly drains the souls of the unfortunate mortal victims makes itself stronger. The prime example of these are the Revenants, cursed to eternally walk the wilderness even after death, thousands of years after the God Wars.

After 4,000 years of battle, the heaven-like Wilderness is now reduced to nothing but cursed, un-revivable wastelands. Eventually Guthix awoke from his long slumber and put an end to the God Wars by creating the Edicts of Guthix, which banned all gods from ever directly influencing Gielinor again. Guthix went deep into the depths of Gielinor and cried, saddened by the effects the God Wars had over the world that he had created and loved. The Wars are stopped, but the damage was done. Many races like Aviansies, Icyene's, Ourgs and Wyrms were driven to exctinction, many having died in the God Wars. The Wilderness is now a wasteland feared by adventurers. Today many ruins of the once beautiful cities still remain in these lands, barely recognizable as great cites but rather as piles of bricks, and spirits of the creatures who died during the God Wars were forced by the gods to look after the Wilderness. They now wander around the area, and are known as Revenants.

Revenants
Revenants were added by Jagex to challenge players after player killing was removed. They 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 (except for the Revenant dragon, which can poison players anywhere in the wilderness). They can also unleash hefty damage despite their combat level; even the level 7 Revenant Imps can hit up to 90 LP. 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.



Teleport restrictions
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 by members 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, members may teleport whilst under a teleblock up to 5 times per bracelet, which can be life saving in certain situations such as the Mage Arena.

If you travel to the spirit realm via Jennica's ring, you can teleport, even from the axe hut at level 55, since the spirit realm is not considered a part of the wilderness as far as game mechanics go.

Items that allow member teleportation to up to 30 level Wilderness:


 * Amulet of Glory(t)
 * Bracelet of combat
 * Necklace of skills
 * Pharaoh's sceptre
 * Grand seed pod
 * Ring of Life

The Ditch


The Wilderness is protected by a ditch on its south edge, requiring players to click on it to enter the Wilderness. This was to prevent players from wandering into the Wilderness and getting killed, or getting 'lured' or tricked into going into the Wilderness with popular luring techniques such as Tree Luring prior the Wilderness changes. 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 added the ditch functionality on 18 April 2007. They also added the option not to receive this warning message every time on 17 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 Clan Wars, Fist of Guthix, or Stealing Creation
Matching wits against other players is one of the most common reasons why some players choose to visit this lawless place. In Bounty Worlds players can fight against one another in the Wilderness. However, in normal worlds players can't fight each other here. It used to be possible to fight other players in the Wilderness on any world, but Jagex removed this feature as it was much used in real world trading. 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 Via 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: 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.
 * 2) The lava maze (level 43) contains several item spawns such as iron full helm, gold necklace, staff of earth, steel plate, along with coin respawn points. Bring food, as it contains king scorpions, hill giants and lesser demons.

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

The Wilderness is one of the uniques mines of runite in all Gielinor, being the only place free-to-play players can mine runite.

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.

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, Chaos Elemental, Black unicorns (for unicorn horns), and the Corporeal beast, are examples of monsters that attract players into the Wilderness.



To Unlock Music
Some players wish to unlock as much music as possible, since they can get the Air Guitar emote upon unlocking 500 songs. Approximately 40 music tracks are unlocked in the Wilderness, including some in the Spirit of Summer and Summers End quests which are started and take place in the wilderness.

To Make Money
Many players engage in player killing in Bounty Worlds to obtain valuables. When they kill a player, they will get items generated by the game or at least some of the target's items. 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.

Another way to make money is by walking/running back and forth from the Wilderness Volcano bank to the Red Dragon Isle, where players can pick up White berries, banking them, and later selling them at the Grand Exchange. White berries sell for coins each.

Another way many players make money is killing black unicorns west of stealing creation and collecting unicorn horns. When they get a full inventory of horns, they deposit them in the stealing creation bank deposit box. After getting many unicorn horns, they can be sold on the Grand Exchange. Unicorns horns sell for coins.

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 Buy Capes
Some players want to collect team capes, so they go in the wilderness just to enhance their collection. These handy capes can vary in colours and designs. You can find these capes by searching for men with big bags on their backs. Their location are in different places but are always near one place.

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 levelled 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. However, curiosity can sometimes kill you, and this applies to better to no other place than the Wilderness. But if a player is ready, why not go ahead and have a look around?

To complete quests or miniquests
On 29 July 2008, the first Wilderness quest, Spirit of Summer, was released. The quest mainly focuses at the centre of the wilderness. The sequel Summer's End is also started in the Wilderness, and on the 29 September, the third quest, Defender of Varrock brought players to the Graveyard of Shadows and to the Chaos Temple which are both located in the Wilderness.

Also, the Ghostly robes (miniquest) takes a player into the Wilderness at least once.

To light beacons
If the player has finished the All Fired Up quest, then the player may need to head into the Wilderness to light some beacons for the All Fired Up (activity). The beacons in the Wilderness are in the following locations: one on the Frozen Waste Plateau, one beacon is located in the low-level Wilderness north of the Grand Exchange, two other beacons north-east of the Lumber yard and one beacon is located north of the altar in level 43 Wilderness.

To shop and trade
There is a shop selling pizza bases located in the Bandit Camp, as well as a general store which buys items from players for the high alchemy price rather than the standard low alchemy used in most general stores. However, due to the remoteness of the bandit camp, the stores are rarely used.

Why not enter the Wilderness?
There is one main reason for players to refuse to enter the Wilderness: fear of death. A player can be killed very quickly in the wilderness in many ways:
 * By Revenants - much more dangerous than their combat level suggests.
 * By other players - PvP worlds or Bounty Worlds only - the attackable levels are increased by the wilderness level (i.e. 10% of the player's combat level + 5 + wilderness level; or just the wilderness level in Bounty worlds), so players can be attacked by players a much higher combat level than them. However, there are no Revenants in PvP worlds.
 * By high-level monsters - some of the chief wilderness attractions are some of the most likely places to die - examples: the Chaos Elemental, the King Black Dragon, the Corporeal Beast.
 * By 'regular' monsters - all monsters in the wilderness, with the exception of passive monsters, are aggressive, even if elsewhere they are not. This can lead to unexpected attacks by monsters, and can lead to death if unprepared.

Features
All of the area to the right except the Red Dragon Isles 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 Warriors' Fortress
The Dark Warriors' 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, the Mage Arena teleport lever, and the Edgeville teleport lever. To activate the portal, touch any of the pillars on the side. The portals are found in the following locations:

Be Warned: using this may also teleport Revenants if they are caught in the 3x3 square when the teleport activates.

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 six 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.

Effects on Bounty Worlds
Any player within a particular level range of Combat level can be attacked on Bounty Worlds. The range is calculated with this formula:


 * $$\text{level range} = ( 0.1 * \text{Combat level}) + 5 + \text{Wilderness level}$$

Note that the result is always rounded down.

For example, a player with a Combat level of 100 may attack players with Combat levels between 85 to 115 (a 15-level range). If the player is in the Wilderness, the range increases as the player travels deeper, (directly based off the level of Wilderness the player is in).

Note: A player CAN be attacked by another player outside their range, if the other player has the player within their range. This player CAN of course retaliate if they are attacked this way, even though the other player is outside their level range.

The various Combat level colours:


 * Green - Lower in Combat level
 * Yellow - Equal in Combat level
 * Red - Higher in Combat level
 * White - Cannot be attacked (i.e. outside the Combat level range or in a safe area.)

Quests

 * Spirit of Summer
 * Summer's End (started in the Wilderness, though majority of the quest takes place in Spirit Realm)
 * Defender of Varrock (Part of the quest takes place in the Wilderness)
 * The Curse of Arrav (Part of the quest takes place in the Wilderness)
 * The Temple at Senntisten (Part of the quest requires you to go into the Wilderness)

Trivia

 * Before the 10 December 2007 update, the Wilderness was the only place free players could duel with other players as well as clans warring against other clans. The area just North of Edgeville and just North of Varrock were very popular duelling areas while the Demonic Ruins was a very popular area to stage clan wars.
 * Oddly enough, just south of the Dark Warriors' Fortress, there seems to be a gravestone with a cross on it.


 * In the Dark Warrior's Fortress, there's several respawns of runes of all kind.
 * The skull on the wilderness level meter looks like a Scream mask or the face of a Fear reaper.
 * On 6 May 2009, player killing in the wilderness returned (see Bounty Worlds).
 * It's worth noticing that players can mine coal and iron ore, smelt them in the east ruins, and then run to the western ruins and smith the bars into steel weapons and armour. This is definitely not the safest way to train smithing, although all the areas are rather close by.
 * Just to the west of the Mage Arena is a lava pool which happens to look like Guthix's symbol.
 * Although unconfirmed, the location of the Wilderness may be a reference to a quote from the film Crocodile Dundee II when Mick & Sue first walk in to Walkabout Creek Pub; "The Northern Territory IS the wilderness".
 * There are rumours of a ghost cat that lurks around the wilderness. Models have been found of it and there is a thread about it on the official RuneScape forums. Source
 * A new Castle has emerged to the east of Clan Wars arena on 22 February 2010, along with the Impetuous Impulses update. This Palace could be partially seen with the use of the Orb of Oculus before the Dungeoneering Update. The castle is now accessible for the new skill, as the Fremennik Warriors no longer block your path.
 * The wilderness was added the 13th of August, to RSC
 * The rumours about a Ghost Ship in the Wilderness actually do have a basis in fact. Up in the top part of the North-East Wilderness Volcano (not the former Bounty Hunter Crater) is a ghost ship that is unexaminable and you are unable to walk onto it.