Prayer

Prayer is an unusual skill, as it is not increased by practicing it.

For non-members, experience is gained in this skill by burying bones, while members have some extra options that can fast-track their progress.

The advantage of prayer is that it can give a temporary statistics boost, or other benefits, but the disadvantage is that it needs to be recharged at an altar or, for members, using a prayer potion. Once you reach level 31, you can use the Monastery altar which recharges to +2 above your level, making a prayer last slightly longer, though not granting access to any higher level prayers.

It also contributes toward your overall combat level, so do not raise your prayer level unless you intend to use it in combat.

Building experience
A simple way to build your level, pick up and bury every bone you see - the roadkill from other people's combat can be a free source.

Bones
While big bones are often stated to be great for prayer, it may be more effective to slaughter chickens and giant rats, if you can do it at least 3 times as fast. There are some bone respawns in the wilderness, but you need to be careful not to join them! There are also Ice Giants in the Blurite cave, but they are massively outnumbered by the Ice warriors - not a good place to go for big bones.

Members can use Dragon Bones and other higher level bones, but have other ways to use them that are better than burying.

Prayers
One of each prayer type may be used together (defence, strength and attack), with the last 6 forming another group of which only one may be active. Using multiple prayers will drain your prayer faster, so pay particular attention to prayers that need to be active when you die (Protect Item, Retribution)

Random events
Burying bones can result in two "guardian" type of events, a Zombie or Shade attack, as with all of this type of monster, it's level is related to, and higher than yours.

The Zombie is vulnerable to the "Crumble undead" spell, and may drop some good stuff (especially for members), but most commonly drops a large quantity of fishing bait.

The Shade can drop shade robe top or bottom, bones, or nothing at all - they also seem to be a tough fight, at least at some points on the level scale.

These can kill you, especially if some door slamming joker traps you in a confined space with them, otherwise you can always run away. They can strike when you bury a single bone, and getting suckered like that leaves you furious. Never bury bones in a small room, you have been warned!