Royal crossbow

The royal crossbow is a level 80 two-handed crossbow that bears the likeness of the Queen Black Dragon. Using the royal crossbow requires: It is currently the second strongest two-handed crossbow in the game after the Wyvern crossbow. As a level 80 weapon, it is comparable to the zaryte bow, attuned crystal bow, chaotic crossbow with the off-hand chaotic crossbow, and the attuned crystal chakram with the off-hand attuned crystal chakram, all of which are currently the 3rd highest-levelled Ranged weapons available to players. It is beaten by the wyvern crossbow, death lotus dart (and its off-hand variant), the ascension crossbow (and its off-hand variant), and the noxious longbow.

Despite the examine information saying that the crossbow will inflict heavy damage in prolonged encounters, this is now outdated as it was the crossbow's ability prior to the Evolution of Combat - it will deal the same damage regardless of the length of a fight.

Parts
The core of the royal crossbow is the coral crossbow, which is untradeable but freely obtained after completing Song from the Depths. Players who have lost their coral crossbow may retrieve another from Sir Rebrum outside the Grotworm Lair. Each player may only own one royal crossbow at any time since Sir Rebrum will not supply coral crossbows needed to create additional royal crossbows.

Aside from the coral crossbow, four other items are required to assemble the royal crossbow, all of which are tradeable and available as drops from the Queen Black Dragon:
 * Royal frame
 * Royal bolt stabiliser
 * Royal torsion spring
 * Royal sight

The total cost of the components of the crossbow when bought from the Grand Exchange is. (Excluding the coral crossbow, which is rewarded free upon completion of Song from the Depths.)

Assembly
Once a player has acquired the four pieces plus the coral crossbow, they must take them to Thurgo at Mudskipper Point, who will gladly combine the pieces into an unforged royal crossbow. He will also comment that incredible heat will be required to complete the weapon, far greater than any furnace can provide; in fact, only the fire of an ancient dragon could produce enough heat. At this point, the crossbow gains a left-click "Brandish" option, as well as an option to disassemble the weapon into its pieces. 70 Smithing is required to successfully brandish the bow.

The only ancient dragon remaining in RuneScape is the Queen Black Dragon, who slumbers deep beneath Asgarnia in the Grotworm Lair. Players must enter her lair and battle her up to her fourth phase, at which point she will begin using her extremely hot dragonfire attack (see her strategies article for more information). The Queen Black Dragon's normal dragonfire attack is not hot enough to forge the crossbow; it must be done in her extremely hot attack. Players must stand directly in the middle of the attack (next to the centre artefact) while facing the Queen Black Dragon, taking its full damage, and brandish the unfinished royal crossbow. Only click once and wait until the animation finishes or else the process will not complete. Doing so will forge its components together into a usable weapon. Note that the Queen Black Dragon is a very dangerous, very powerful monster, and standing in the middle of her extremely hot dragonfire will result in very high damage. Actually defeating the Queen Black Dragon is not a requirement for forging the crossbow - even if you die, you can select to keep it on death. The crossbow can be forged in practice mode, which ensures all items are kept on death for free.

It should be noted that once the royal crossbow has been forged by the Queen Black Dragon, it can never be split apart again, so it becomes permanently bound to the player unless lost on death or if you destroy it, in which case it will not be reimbursed. Upon death in the Wilderness, 100,000 coins appears on the ground to the killer.

Recharging
As the royal crossbow is used, it begins to degrade. It has 30,000 charges of combat before degrading fully and becoming royal crossbow (degraded). In this state, it has stats equal to a bronze 2h crossbow. Upon death, if the royal crossbow is equipped, it will degrade by 20% when retrieved from a grave, but does not lose any charge if it was in the inventory instead or is reclaimed from Death. Prior to it fully degrading, any of the four components can be used on the royal crossbow to recharge it by 25%. If it fully degrades, it can only be repaired by taking the degraded royal crossbow along with all four royal crossbow components to Thurgo; re-brandishing it at the Queen Black Dragon is not necessary.

Analysis
As a level 80 Ranged weapon, the royal crossbow is among the strongest and most accurate ranged weapons in the game. It shares this position with the zaryte bow, attuned crystal bow, chaotic crossbow with its off-hand and the attuned crystal chakram with its off-hand. While it is slower than said weapons, it has a longer range, meaning it can shoot targets further away. Unlike the zaryte and attuned crystal bow, the royal crossbow gains extra damage from its ammunition. It can fire any type of bolt, but when firing ascension or ascendri bolts, they have reduced damage that makes them equal to royal bolts.

The royal crossbow's purchase cost is a small fraction of the zaryte bow's, though depending on the ammunition fired, the royal crossbow may be more expensive per shot than the zaryte bow. There are more requirements to obtain an attuned crystal bow and the main hand/off-hand attuned crystal chakram as Plague's End is required to get an attuned crystal weapon seed needed to create either weapons. Use of one of Ava's devices to automatically retrieve bolts can significantly reduce the cost per shot of the royal crossbow. Given that royal bolts, the most commonly used ammunition, cost each, purchasing ammunition is not a costly endeavour.

The Royal crossbow is a difficult weapon for ironmen to create and repair. All four crossbow pieces are required to create it, and the only way to recharge it is to use additional pieces on the crossbow. Obtaining the pieces may take an impractical amount of time, as they are fairly rare drops from the Queen Black Dragon.

Trivia

 * Prior to the Evolution of Combat, the royal crossbow was a one-handed weapon with a requirement of 85 ranged rather than 80. It could only fire royal bolts. It also had a unique ability in that all shots fired would deal their damage to targets in a damage-over-time effect, rather than dealing their full damage all at once. The total damage dealt per shot tended to be higher than with other crossbows. It was designed to be most useful when fighting boss monsters. Because the weapon was designed to deal damage over a long period of time, it was relatively weak against monsters without many life points. It was also ineffective against players, dealing very little damage to them.
 * Prior to an update on 7 January 2014, the only option to recharge the crossbow was to brandish it again during another fight with the Queen Black Dragon (just as it was completed the first time). Since then, players are able use any royal crossbow piece on the completed crossbow, consuming the piece and recharging 25% of the crossbow's durability.
 * Its degraded form has 63 damage and 150 accuracy.
 * Even though the King Black Dragon is known to be the second dragon ever created (as referenced the Dragonkin Journals), the King is supposedly not "ancient," due to its inability to charge the Royal Crossbow. This means that the Queen Black Dragon is not only the single "ancient" dragon on Gielinor, but also the only "ancient" dragon to ever exist.