Wilderness

The Wilderness, also called the wild or Wildy, is a large and dangerous wasteland which makes up nearly the entirety of north-eastern Gielinor, with the exception of the Daemonheim peninsula, directly north of the kingdoms of Asgarnia and Misthalin.

Upon dying in the Wilderness, whether it's from a player or monster, players will lose all of their items, except their three most valuable items. However, Skulled players will lose everything equipped or in their inventory. In both cases, up to two additional items can be saved by using the protect item prayer or curse and eating a fury shark.

Development history
The Wilderness 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 minigames were introduced. Later when the classic Wilderness was reintroduced, Bounty Hunter was removed. All the minigames that once were located in the Wilderness are now in the Gamers' Grotto north of Falador.

As of 15 October 2008, players were allowed to attack each other here (and across the rest of RuneScape in PvP worlds) on special Bounty Hunter worlds (These worlds have been rendered obsolete as of the first of February as the classic Wilderness area has been reintroduced). They could not, however, attack each other here on non-PvP worlds. A reworked version was implemented on 14 November 2016.

In the months between July 2008 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 1 July 2008, however with the arrival of Bounty worlds the Wilderness returned to being like old player killing. Players had to be careful entering the Wilderness as they could be attacked and likely killed by revenants.

From 24 December 2010 to 14 January 2011 a referendum to bring back the old Wilderness and free trade was conducted, in which ninety one percent of votes were a yes. As of 18 January 2011, the "Attack" option was secretly added to the menu while right-clicking on a player in the Wilderness in certain areas. Clicking it yielded "You can only attack players in a player-vs-player area". The Wilderness has now been returned to its original state as of 1 February 2011.

Following the Evolution of Combat, players who entered the Wilderness would be "auto-skulled", making them drop all items upon death unless the Protect Item prayer/curse was active. The now-removed abilities Single and Multi-Way Wilderness allowed players to dictate how the Wilderness will be towards them. This made the Wilderness very dangerous and unpopular with players, until Wilderness Warbands were released, as they provide free experience rewards with very little risk. Following the release of Legacy Mode, the Wilderness had its old mechanics back. There are also rocks scattered around the surface of the Wilderness with two blood red crossed swords on them; these signal the borders between single and multi-way combat areas.

A wilderness task set, alongside a massive overhaul, was implemented on 8 August 2016.

In-game history
The area that is now the Wilderness was formerly known as Forinthry. Like the rest of Gielinor, it was shaped by the god Guthix during the First Age and was an area filled with nature and life.

Forinthry was very rich in resources, and so a perfect place to build settlements. Zaros, a god who entered Gielinor after Guthix entered his sleeping state at the end of the first age, fully conquered this area during the Second Age. Many settlements were built, whose most powerful were Dareeyak, Carrallangar, Annakarl and Ghorrock. Forinthry formed a very big part of Zaros' mighty empire, which was the most powerful of Gielinor at that time, and stretched from northern Forinthry, through the north-west of Misthalin, and to the North-east of Morytania. Near the end of the second age, Zaros' Mahjarrat general Zamorak wanted to overthrow Zaros and was able to collect a group of followers. Those included (but were not limited to) the Elder Demon Thammaron, the vampyre Lord Drakan, the human warrior Viggora and the other Mahjarrat Zemouregal and Hazeel. When Zamorak got his hands on the Staff of Armadyl, he attacked Zaros' castle and after an intense battle, a large part of Zaros' powers were transferred via the staff to Zamorak, leading to his banishment. After that, the other gods banished Zamorak for defeating one of their kind, however, Zamorak returned as a God, with an army so big that he could conquer the world and declared war against all the other Gods, starting the God Wars.

During the God Wars, Forinthry was under constant attacks of Zamorak and Saradomin's armies and soon started to crumble, the fortresses were dominated and many of Zaros' remaining followers sided with Zamorak to not be his victims, and soon, the remaining settlements of Forinthry were destroyed with the exception of Ghorrock, which was dominated by Zamorak, until it became so cold that it became impossible to control it.

After 4,000 years of battle, Zamorak managed to take the Stone of Jas from Saradomin, and used its power to sear the entire continent of Forinthry (likely to eliminate evidence of Zaros), turning it into the cursed wasteland today known as the Wilderness. As a result, the Anima Mundi cried out in agony, which awoke Guthix 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 wept, saddened by the effects the God Wars had had on the world that he had shaped and loved. The Wars ended, but the damage was done, many races like the aviansies, icyenes, ourgs and wyrms were almost wiped out of existence, and all of Gielinor suffered from the effects of the wars, but not one kingdom suffered as heavily as Forinthry.

Forinthry is today known as the Wilderness and is now nothing but a cursed wasteland feared by adventurers. Today, many ruins of the once mighty cities still remain in these lands, barely recognisable as the great cities they were but rather piles of bricks and spirits of the creatures who died during the God Wars who were forced by the gods to look after the Wilderness. They started patrolling the Wilderness, attacking anything alive they would encounter, these spirits became known as the revenants. Many of those who died in the Wilderness after that point, have ended up within a Spirit Plane, created by the Spirit Beast. The origins of this beast are unknown. Everyone unlucky enough to die in the Wilderness will be trapped in this realm for the rest of eternity. While the spirit beast slowly drains the souls of the unfortunate mortal victims, it makes itself even more powerful.

During the Fourth Age, there were many attempts to recolonise the Wilderness. A new city was built at Dareeyak's old location and the Bonde family managed to build a successful farm in the 1700s, however, they were massacred by a group of rogues. There are still many creatures wandering around in the Wilderness, like many species of giants and demons. Due to the Wilderness being a site of ancient battles, it is also a place where dragons reside. Some outlaws, mostly Zamorakians, have also managed to set up their bases there, like bandits, dark warriors, rogues and pirates.

In year 169 of the Fifth Age, many adventurers, who had grown tired of the revenants' constant terror, teamed up to fight the revenants and reclaimed the land from their tyranny. The adventurers' efforts were successful, and the revenants were banished to a cave known as the Forinthry Dungeon. Despite this, the revenants still remain dangerous to anyone wishing to explore the cave, but are not nearly as powerful as they were above ground.

Teleport restrictions
Most teleports will not work above Wilderness level 20, but there are some exceptions. However, the Teleport Block spell will prevent using any means of teleportation for 5 minutes.

Items that allow players to teleport up to level 30 Wilderness:


 * Amulet of glory
 * Combat bracelet
 * Skills necklace
 * Pharaoh's sceptre
 * Ring of wealth
 * Grand seed pod
 * Ring of life
 * Saradominist, Zamorakian, Armadylean and Bandosian tokens (discontinued, the only teleport item useable for free players)
 * Wilderness sword 4

The following teleport options entirely ignore the Wilderness level restrictions:


 * Wilderness obelisks and be used to teleport to different obelisks randomly. After completing the hard Wilderness tasks, players are able to choose their destination.
 * If you have completed Spirit of Summer, you can use Jennica's ring to access the Spirit Realm throughout the Wilderness. Some portals aren't available until completion of Summer's End. Players can't enter the realm while teleblocked or in combat.

The Wilderness wall
The Wilderness is separated from safer areas by a wall on its southern edge, requiring players to click on it to enter the Wilderness. Formerly a ditch, it required the same action to enter the Wilderness; jumping over. 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 wall, 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 wall. Above it, there are a few safe spaces. This has, however, reduced the level 1 Wilderness to 4 tiles.

Jagex added the ditch/wall 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. Before the Z-buffering update, the Wilderness Wall was actually a ditch, but due to problems with graphics coding, it was changed into a wall.

Player killing
Reintroduced into the Wilderness on 1 February 2011, player killing can take place in the Wilderness. When a player is killed in the Wilderness, none of their lost items are protected by a gravestone. Instead, they are dropped on the ground and available to the killer, or if the player was killed by a monster, to everyone. Depending on combat level, player killers risk nothing to hundreds of millions worth of gear.

PKing also saw the return of looters, low level accounts with the purpose of picking up the remains of a drop after the killer finished taking the most expensive items. They are a hindrance to PKers since they almost always stand on top of the loot and plant marker plants to hamper the killer from picking it up quickly. If a player gets a kill and must teleport away or is killed right after by a PKer, all of the loot could become visible to everyone after a short amount of time, and experienced looters will often pick up the best right away.

PKing also saw the return of griefing/griefers, who target players who are in the wilderness for non-combat reasons (such as penguin hunting). This is often pointless, as these targeted players often carry nothing into the wilderness and thus only drop bones, and the main result is the frustration of the grieved player.

Economic effects of player killing
In the weeks following the return of player killing, the price of commonly used PKing gear, including armour, weapons, and food plummeted. The abyssal whip, rune platebody and platelegs, and sharks crashed to almost half their price before the update. Rune scimitars went from 30k to 17k. Barrows equipment also crashed significantly. While its demand rose, this can be explained: However, the special PvP drops that were formerly only acquired from PvP, and now from revenants, such as vesta's longsword, skyrocketed. This is because they were much easier to get from PKing rather than killing revenants now, whose drop rate of these items is extremely low.
 * With Bounty and PvP worlds, not all of the victim's items became the killer's loot - oftentimes the loot was a lot worse than the value of their lost items. Ancient artefacts were introduced, items that could be sold to an NPC named Mandrith for a set amount of coins. As a result, the supply of gear was low as it was constantly removed from the game and the coins added into the game caused inflation; therefore prices rose.
 * After 1 February 2011, the drop system changed. All tradeable items such as the gear used in PKing lost upon death remained in the game as players picked them up and sold them. So the supply remained constant, unlike its decrease in PvP worlds. The effect of prices was particularly strong on Abyssal whips, which were mostly not transferred when one was lost in a PvP world. All of them now remain in the game as well as new ones coming in from abyssal demons.
 * The return of free trade came with the return of real world trading. They began using bots again to gather resources, including high level fish: sharks, rocktail, monkfish, etc. The supply of them increased dramatically and lowered the prices. Unused food lost in player killing was also picked up by looters.

Skilling
While extremely dangerous, the Wilderness offers a multitude of exclusive skilling options, as well as a 33% faster respawn rate for non-exclusive ressources compared to other locations.

Players may equip a Demonic skull in order to increase slayer, farming, hunter and divination experience gained by 20%, as well as increasing the experience reward for skilling in the abyss and granting a level scaling experience modifier for the Wilderness Agility Course. On the other hand, wearing the skull further increases the risk because it disables Wilderness level restrictions, which allows wearers to be attacked by anyone, and permits the use of Vengeance, Retribution and Wrath.

While in the Wilderness, brawling gloves grant 300% more experience (up from the regular 50%).

For access to the Abyss
Members can use the Abyss, which provides access to all the Runecrafting altars, excluding the Astral and Ourania Runecrafting Altars, without the need of a talisman. The Zamorak mage that teleports players to the abyss is in level 5 Wilderness. Runecrafting runes from the Abyss will provide 250% experience, or 350% when wearing the Demonic skull.

Many players will risk being killed to craft runes here as it is the fastest way available to train Runecrafting for profit; normally only runes above cosmic are crafted here as any rune below this is not considered worth the risk, or it takes less time to reach the appropriate altar by other means. It should be noted that there will not always be player killers waiting by the rift since the average runecrafter does not carry expensive items with them, so it is usually seen as a waste of time and resources to kill them.

While wielding a Wilderness sword 3 or higher, players have a chance to be instantly teleported to the center of the abyss, saving a few more seconds for crafting runes.

For Agility training
Members have an Agility training course in the deep Wilderness. It is one of the fastest Agility training areas, though also the most dangerous, as almost any player can attack you in there due to its location.

When wearing the Demonic skull, Agility experience gained from the Wilderness Agility Course is given a scaling increase starting at level 50; each level past 50 increases the experience by 4%. This means that at level 75 Agility experience from the course is doubled, and at level 99 Agility experience is 296% the usual experience. Using agility boosting items such as a summer pie will earn you a bit more experience based on what level is acquired. When wielding or carrying the Wilderness sword 2 or higher, you will gain +5% XP per lap completion at the Wilderness Agility Course.

For Divination
A Cursed wisp colony can be found at the Sword of Edicts. The Cursed energy can be transmuted into any other energy type, excluding elder and ancestral energy, at a ratio of 100 Cursed Energy into 150 Energy of the player's choice.

For Dungeoneering
Because Daemonheim is located in the Wilderness, some players may walk through the Wilderness to get to the peninsula. However, it is faster to get to Daemonheim by taking the Fremennik ship at Al Kharid or Taverley or to simply teleport there via the ring of kinship.

For Farming
A flower patch can be found at the Western Ruins where flower seeds may be planted. With the Wilderness Expansion update of 8 August 2016, a herb patch can be found just north of the end point of the canoe. This herb patch can be used to grow any herb, although it is the only patch where bloodweed seeds can be planted to grow bloodweeds. Bloodweed is used for luck, camouflage, and aggression potions. The herb patch is protected from disease after completing the hard Wilderness tasks.

For Hunter
Black salamanders and charming moths can be caught for Hunter XP. Black salamanders can be used as a tier 70 crossbow and a secondary ingredient for camouflage potions. Charming moths give a complete charm when caught, and when wearing the Demonic skull, experience will be increased by 20%.

For Prayer training
The Chaos Altar at the Chaos Temple (Level 12 Wilderness) functions as a Gilded altar without the need to light burners. When offering bones or ashes, this provides 350% Prayer experience that would be gained by burying or scattering them.

After completing the hard Wilderness tasks, you gain the ability to un-note items with Harrison, who is near the Chaos Altar. This is very useful because you can un-note a stack of noted bones or ashes for fast Prayer training.

For Thieving
Players can loot chests in the Magic axe hut (Level 54 Wilderness), which requires a Lockpick to enter, at level 23 Thieving. You must search for traps first to be able to loot the chests, or you'll get damaged.

Players can loot chests, which requires a Lockpick to loot, in the Rogues' Castle (Levels 50-54 Wilderness) on the. Players may also auto-pickpocket Rogues, Rogue Enforcers, and Rogue Captains at level 32, 62, and 92 Thieving respectively. Upon your first pickpocket on a floor, you get 30 seconds of uninterrupted pickpocketing, and after that, it goes to skill checks until you get caught. Once you've been caught, you can't pickpocket on that floor for 2 minutes. With 4 floors and 30 seconds of immunity, you should be able to rotate efficiently.

Combat and Slayer
The Wilderness offers a multitude of monsters, mostly also available in other places, but still including a few exclusive ones. Free players find the only place to fight Greater demons and Hellhounds. Members also can kill green or red dragons, which elsewhere only can be found as a more powerful version or in a more remote location, for their hides, bones and other potentially valuable drops.

Slayer
Players can get Slayer contracts from Erskine in Edgeville. For every kill, the player will gain 20% the Slayer experience that the monster would have given if they were on a Slayer assignment. Slayer experience can also be increased by a Wilderness slayer xp enhancer, which the experience is doubled for tasks completed in the Wilderness or by 20% for tasks completed in the Chaos Tunnels.

The wilderness is home to many high leveled slayer monsters including Dark beasts, Abyssal demons, Ice strykewyrms, Gargoyles and Kal'gerion demons.

It also exclusively houses the Lava strykewyrm, dropping searing ashes as the highest source of prayer experience and secondary ingredient for aggression potions, and it can drop fury sharks, which provides protection to an additional item upon dying and stacks with protect item. It also may drop components for upgrading the abyssal whip, the dark bow, and the staff of light to tier 85 variants, which are the lava whip, the strykebow, and the staff of darkness respectively.

Revenants
Many players also seek out revenants in the Forinthry Dungeon to kill them for their valuable drops, such as Corrupt dragon armour, Ancient artefacts, and Ancient Warriors' Equipment. The dungeon can be entered in either level 17 or 31 Wilderness near the western wall. Revenants are able to use all three attack styles and generally utilise the one a player is weak against. Using a charge of a Forinthry bracelet renders them unaggressive for 1 hour as well as granting damage immunity for 1 minute.

Be warned that the dungeon is still considered a PvP area, which makes it extremely dangerous.

WildyWyrm
The WildyWyrm, which is a more powerful version of the Lava strykewyrm, can rarely spawn in the Wilderness. The WildyWyrm has more valuable loot and a higher chance to drop the Wyrm spike, Wyrm heart, and Wyrm scalp. The WildyWyrm is extremely powerful to kill solo, so teams or multiple trips are usually required.

Bosses and Soul Reaper
With the release of Soul Reaper, the King Black Dragon, the Chaos Elemental, and Corporeal Beast are three of the potentially assignable bosses for reaper tasks. Additionally, players must kill increasing amounts of them in order to unlock the reaper title, parts of the vanquisher override, and the Final Boss title. Additionally, their pets are required for the Insane Final Boss title.

Being the only Wilderness boss available to free players, the King Black Dragon can be accessed by using an artefact. Easiest access for members is using the Edgeville artefact. As a dangerous alternative and mandatory for free players, players also can use the artefact by climbing down a ladder (Level 42 Wilderness) located west of the Lava Maze Dungeon. While this access requires players to go through the Wilderness, the King Black Dragon's Lair itself isn't located in the Wilderness. Using this access, players are awarded a 10% damage boost.

Located in the highest levels of the Wilderness, the Chaos Elemental can be found west of the Rogue's Castle.

The Corporeal Beast can be fought after completing the quest Summer's end and safely be access using a games necklace.

For money
Many players engage in player killing throughout the Wilderness to obtain valuables. When they kill a player, they will get all or nearly all of the items that the player was holding. Then the player killer takes the dropped items and does whatever they may wish to do with them. This includes using the High Level Alchemy or Low Level Alchemy spells on them or selling them for money. Another form of player killing for profit is bot slaying, where players can kill Bots that attack green dragons for the bones they have collected. This can be an easy and reliable way for players to gain profit and acquire kills.

The Bandit Camp is home to two stores: Tony's Pizza Bases and Bandit Duty Free. In order to safely enter the camp, players are required to be skulled, or they will be attacked by the bandits.

Bandit Duty Free sells items common to general stores alongside more valuable items like vial of water packs, broad arrowheads, gold leaves, marble blocks, stones of binding, reinforcing plates, and algarum threads for 90% of their usual store price, as well as exclusively bloodweed seeds.

Tony's Pizza Bases sells pizza bases and offers cheese and tomato spawns. Additonally, rats can be killed nearby for meat, and anchovies can be fished, thus offering a good spot for making plain, meat, and anchovy pizzas.

For resources
There are many useful spawns in the Wilderness, and players can collect them and run back and forth from a bank, such as a cape merchant, to make money. Particularly, picking them up is the only option for free players to obtain planks (besides trading), which are required for the Dragon Slayer quest:


 * Five can be found in the Graveyard of Shadows, level 25-30 Wilderness. This place is filled with aggressive zombies, so lower levels may want to bring some food and/or armour.
 * One spawns near the eastern ruins.
 * Ten spawns are scattered in the western ruins.

The Lava Maze (level 55-61) contains several item spawns such as iron full helm, gold necklace, staff of earth, steel platebody, along with coin respawn points. Bring food, as it contains Black Knights, king scorpions, hill giants, and lesser demons. At the end of the maze, players can loot the muddy chest (Level 43 Wilderness) with muddy keys for various loot to make profit. While free players are able to open the chest, they cannot obtain most of the rewards since most items are members-only, which massively diminishes potential profit.

There are also many respawns for bones in the Chaos Temple and the Boneyard, and members can collect white berries at Red Dragon Isle.

At level 47 Wilderness, there is a small hill south of the border where a cut sapphire will spawn. It is guarded by low-level spiders.

The Wilderness is location to several mining sites, including the Bandit camp mining site, the Lava Maze Dungeon mine, the Southern Wilderness mining site, the South-western Wilderness mining site, and the Lava Maze runite mining site, which is open to all players. Members can additionally access the Pirates' Hideout mining site. While the mines offer huge amounts of low levelled ores (and in case of iron and mithril, the largest concentrations ingame), they also can be obtained by safer and more convienent methods. While it offers no exclusive mining ressources, the Wilderness is one of two locations for free players to obtain runite ore.

Around level 45 Wilderness on the east coast, there is a second free-to-play fishing spot for lobsters, tuna, and swordfish. However, it's easier and safer to fish from Karamja to avoid the risk of player killers, as well as more convenient since the implementation of Stiles. The Lava Maze is the only lava eel fishing spot besides the one in the Taverley Dungeon near the group of baby blue dragons.

Three bloodwood trees can be found throughout the Wilderness and are the only ones accessible without quest progress. They are located at next to the Chaos Temple, north-east of the Demonic Ruins, and south of the Pirates' Hideout. They require level 85 Woodcutting to chop, and level 93 Fletching is required to fletch the wood to make bakriminel bolts. The bloodwood logs can't be burned. The deeper the bloodwood trees are in the Wilderness, the more logs they'll yield. Bloodwood logs and bakriminel bolt shafts disappear if you move too far from the tree, so players should bring bakriminel bolt tips, which can only be bought from Mami Rimba, before cutting the bloodwood trees if they plan on fletching bakriminel bolts.

A cursed magic tree can be found in the Spirit Realm, which is accessed from the ruins, north-east of the flower patch, with Jennica's ring. The cursed magic tree requires level 82 Woodcutting to chop, and the cursed magic logs can't be fletched, but they can be burned with level 75 Firemaking. The cursed magic logs turn to normal magic logs after leaving the Spirit Realm. When the cursed magic tree is cut down, a normal magic tree will appear in the Wilderness. After cutting the magic tree, the cursed tree will respawn. This means that a player is able to cut magic logs constantly without the wait of the respawn.

For runes
Nature runes and law runes can be extremely hard to come by for Ironmen without the necessary Runecrafting levels. Members can buy law and nature runes from the magic shop beside the Mage arena. The level 60 Magic requirement for the mage arena does not apply for the shop. The Mage of Zamorak also sells better runes after the Abyss miniquest has been completed. Some places in the Wilderness spawn runes, which players may collect for free. Although, it can be quite dangerous if other players pass by.

For team capes
A team cape can help you tell if someone is an ally or an enemy. If you and another player wear the same team cape, the player will show up as a blue dot on the minimap rather than white, and the left-click "Attack" option will be moved to a right-click. If two players are wearing different team capes, then the "Attack" option for each other will both be left-click, regardless if one player has a higher combat level. 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 buy these capes from cape merchants (men with big bags on their backs). Their locations are in different places but are always near one place. Team capes can also be sold for a slight profit in the Grand Exchange.

Since the Wilderness Improvements & Task Set update, players can now access their bank at a cape merchant as long as they are not in combat.

For quests and miniquests
In most cases, quests that require players to enter the Wilderness will instead take them to safe, instanced versions of the relevant areas, making them completely safe. There are, however, a few exceptions:


 * Devious Minds requires players to use The Abyss, which can only be accessed by talking to the Zamorak Mage in low-level Wilderness.
 * While Guthix Sleeps briefly places players on the roof of the high-level chaos temple. However, it can only be accessed from Lucien's camp, and players are here very briefly, so there is very little threat.
 * One of a Kind requires players to travel to the green dragon area of Forinthry Dungeon, which will create a safe instance that may be teleported from.

Additionally, the miniquest The Curse of Zaros may require players to enter the Wilderness, depending on which ghost locations the player gets.

For the Wilderness task set
Wilderness Tasks can be completed by doing tasks related to the Wilderness. Completing the task set gives a Wilderness sword and variety of useful rewards and benefits.

For minigames
There are a few minigames that may take place or only occur in the Wilderness.

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 minigame All Fired Up. The beacons in the Wilderness are in the following locations: two beacons are north-east of the Lumber Yard, one beacon is located in the low-level Wilderness north of the Grand Exchange, one beacon is located north of the altar at level 43 Wilderness, one beacon is on the Frozen Waste Plateau.

Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter can only be played on Bounty Hunter worlds, which are World 79 (Legacy Mode) and World 106 (Evolution of Combat). Players would be assigned a target to kill to earn and upgrade bounty emblems, which can be cashed in for points to buy rewards. Players are matched based on their Rating and combat level. Players can gain Rating if they kill their target, or lose Rating if they die. Rogue kills, or non-target kills, have a small chance to upgrade a Bounty emblem and would gain (or lose if the player dies) little Rating than from a bounty kill.

For D&Ds
There are a few Distractions and Diversions that may take place or only occur in the Wilderness.

Demon flash mobs
Demon Flash Mobs, released on 28 January 2013, occasionally spawn in the Wilderness. Mobs found in the Wilderness tend to have greater rewards than mobs that spawn outside of it.

Penguin Hide and Seek
Sometimes, penguins from Penguin Hide and Seek will be in the Wilderness, so if a player would like to maximise their weekly reward, they would have to go into the Wilderness to find the penguins. However, penguin hunting Clans and Friends Chats can often lead the penguins to relatively safe spots and thus reduce the risk.

Shooting Stars
Shooting stars can land in the Wilderness and often have fewer players mining it due to the dangers of the Wilderness.

Treasure Trails
Members can obtain clue scrolls from monsters. Some steps in hard and elite clue scrolls may require the player to traverse into the Wilderness to complete them. With the update on 1 Feburary 2011 update, the chances of getting a step involving the Wilderness have been greatly decreased.

Be warned that you can still be attacked by other players while fighting off any of the wizards that may attack you while digging for a casket, so be prepared for anything. Most of the time, you will be incapable of teleporting, so you should be sure to bring a lot of high level food, some prayer potions, and a shield.

Wilderness Warbands
Wilderness Warbands, released on 25 March 2013, is a very dangerous Distraction & Diversion, which happens every seven hours. The three possible locations of the warband camps are all in the Wilderness. The locations are Dark warrior fortress also known as DWF, east of the Lava Maze also known as ELM, and Red Dragon Isle abbreviated as RDI. The minigame is very rewarding in experience or money.

For Strange Switches
A pair of strange switches (Levels 9-15 Wilderness), switch A and switch B, can be found in a forest in the south-eastern edge of the Wilderness, east of the Chaos Temple. Pulling these switches has no effect other than for fun and to reach a high personal record, which can also be found from a Quick Chat. One score will be added for each lever pulled, and the chain of pulls would continue to record until you leave the Wilderness by any means (logging out, teleporting, hopping over the Wilderness wall, or getting killed).

Reaching a score of ten is required to complete an easy Wilderness task.

For music
Players working on unlocking enough tracks for the Air guitar and the Demonic Rock Off emotes can exclusively unlock the following tracks in the Wilderness:


 * Army of Darkness
 * Close Quarters
 * Complication
 * Crystal Sword
 * Dangerous
 * Dark
 * Deep Wildy
 * Doorways
 * Eruption
 * Everlasting Fire
 * Faithless
 * Inspiration
 * Darkness
 * Mage Arena
 * Pirates of Peril
 * Regal
 * The Route of All Evil
 * The Route of the Problem
 * Scape Sad
 * Scape Wild
 * Wilderness I
 * Wilderness II
 * Wilderness III
 * Wildwood
 * Witching

For the thrill
Some players like to get together with friends and take the risk of hanging out in the Wilderness just for the fun of it.

Reasons not to 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 other players - the level of players that can attack you increases as you go deeper into the Wilderness, so a person can be killed by a player whose combat level is much higher than their own.
 * By high-level monsters - some of the chief Wilderness attractions are some of the most likely places to die. Powerful monsters such as green and red dragons can be dangerous, and the Chaos Elemental makes the region from the scorpion pit to the skeletal fence to the Wilderness North Volcano very unsafe.
 * By 'regular' monsters - almost all monsters in the Wilderness attack players on sight even if they are passive elsewhere. These creatures attack everyone - level 100+ players will still be attacked by giant rats.
 * By revenants - only in the Forinthry Dungeon. These undead creatures are much more dangerous than their combat level suggests. After the return of the Wilderness update, killing revenants is much more rewarding than before.

Features
All of the areas to the right except the Red Dragon Isle are available to free-to-play users.

Features
This area is only available to members. 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 attempt Kolodion's challenge. Successful players receive the God cape and the God staff of their chosen God. Players here can also use Gundai to bank.

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. You must be in the 3x3 area between the pillars to be teleported. It will not teleport you if you are teleblocked, and it is useful for sending PKers away to another location.

With the completion of the Hard Wilderness Tasks, players can set which area they would like to be teleported to rather then being randomly teleported.

The portals are found in the following locations:

Using this may also teleport other players if they are caught in the 3x3 square when the teleport activates. Thus, if you are teleported deeper into the Wilderness, they will be able to attack you.

Wilderness area of Edgeville dungeon
Although most of the Wilderness is an open area, the north part of Edgeville dungeon is considered the 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.
 * A resource dungeon that has chaos druids and several herb spawns, requiring 10 Dungeoneering to access. Although it is not in the Wilderness section of the dungeon, the entrance is in the Wilderness section.
 * 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.
 * 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 15 Agility to cross the monkey bars to get to them.

Southeast corner
Ever since the Missing, Presumed Death release and Silvarea graphical update on 15 October 2013, the rather large area in the southeast corner of the Wilderness below level 9, just south of the path to Daemonheim (where the track, "Undercurrent" was unlocked), somehow got blocked off in the free-to-play world and became a members only area, even though there are no barriers surrounding it. That error has still not been fixed.

Wilderness levels
Any player within a particular level range of your combat level can be attacked in the Wilderness. The range is calculated by taking your current user level and adding or subtracting the current Wilderness level you are in. The maximum Wilderness level is 56.

For example, in Level 1 Wilderness, a player who is level 100 can attack players who are level 99, level 101, or the same level. Also, if a player who is level 100 is in level 24 Wilderness, they are able to attack players between level 76 and level 124 combat.

The various combat level colours:


 * Green - Much Lower in Combat level.
 * Lime 1 - A medium amount lower in Combat level.
 * Lime 2 - A small amount lower in Combat level.
 * Yellow - Equal in Combat level.
 * Orange 1 - A small amount higher in Combat level.
 * Orange 2 - A medium amount higher in Combat level.
 * Red - Much Higher in Combat level.
 * White - Cannot attack (i.e. outside the Combat level range or in a safe area.)

Quests/miniquests
No quest starts in the Wilderness, but several take place partially or mostly in the Wilderness. However, according to Jagex, there is no PvP combat in quest areas in the Wilderness, and players on quests that enter the Wilderness have safe ways to transit the PvP parts of the Wilderness. Quests taking place partially or mostly in the Wilderness are:

Quests

 * Spirit of Summer
 * Summer's End
 * Defender of Varrock
 * The Curse of Arrav
 * The Temple at Senntisten
 * While Guthix Sleeps
 * Family Crest
 * The World Wakes (Sliske takes the player there in a cutscene)
 * One of a Kind
 * What Lies Below

Miniquests

 * The Curse of Zaros
 * The Abyss

Monsters in the Wilderness



 * {| width="55%"


 * Abyssal demon
 * Ankou
 * Bandits
 * Black demons
 * Black dragons
 * Black knights
 * Black unicorns
 * Chaos druids
 * Chaos dwarves
 * Chaos elemental
 * Dark warriors
 * Dark wizards
 * Dark beasts
 * Kal'gerion demons
 * Deadly red spiders
 * Gargoyles
 * Giant rats
 * Giant spiders
 * Greater demons
 * Green dragons
 * Grizzly bears
 * Guard bandits
 * Hellhounds
 * Hill giants
 * Hobgoblins
 * Ice giants
 * Ice spiders
 * Ice strykewyrms
 * Ice warriors
 * Lava strykewyrms
 * Lesser demons
 * Moss giants
 * Poison spiders
 * Rats
 * Red dragons
 * Revenants
 * Rogues
 * Skeletons
 * Spiders
 * Waterfiends
 * WildyWyrm
 * Zombies
 * }
 * Lava strykewyrms
 * Lesser demons
 * Moss giants
 * Poison spiders
 * Rats
 * Red dragons
 * Revenants
 * Rogues
 * Skeletons
 * Spiders
 * Waterfiends
 * WildyWyrm
 * Zombies
 * }
 * Spiders
 * Waterfiends
 * WildyWyrm
 * Zombies
 * }
 * }

Updates

 * 13 August 2001 - Update:Wilderness system online
 * 22 February 2005 - Update:Wilderness Capes, and Changes
 * 23 February 2005 - Update:Wilderness Capes Change
 * 14 March 2005 - Update:Magic and Wilderness Updates
 * 24 April 2006 - Update:Wilderness graphical update
 * 18 April 2007 - Update:Wilderness Ditch
 * 10 December 2007 - Update:Wilderness Changes, Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars!
 * 1 February 2011 - Update:The Wilderness and Free Trade Return!
 * 11 November 2011 - Update:More Loot = More W00t!
 * 13 December 2011 - Update:The Real Wild Rework - New Wilderness Surface Environment Graphics (free and members)
 * 25 March 2013 - Update:Wilderness Warbands
 * 8 August 2016 - Update:Wilderness Improvements & Task Set