Shattered Heart


 * Quite a lot of this article is copied verbatim from the RuneScape Game Guide, and is thus copyrighted by Jagex.

Shattered Heart is a Distraction and Diversion centred around collecting strange rocks. It was first mentioned on 12 February 2010 in the developer blog "A History of Non-violence". Shattered Heart is linked to all non-combat skills, and was released on 3 March, 2010.

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D23:20, March 8, 2010 (UTC) =p==

The Second Age was a chaotic time when magic was largely unharnessed by the mortal races. The supply of runestones was limited to those created by Guthix himself, so for scholars engaged in magical study they were a valuable commodity over which wars were often waged.

The detritus of such battles can be found to this day; farmers may be heard to curse as yet another plough breaks upon shards of masonry lodged in a field, miners may unearth artefacts resonating with ancient power or runecrafters may find that runestones form into anomalous shapes, arcane echoes moulding the essence independently of the craftsman’s will.

More often than not these articles are discarded or left to gather dust on a mantelpiece, but there is knowledge to be gained from these remnants of a lost age. Such artifacts are steeped in history and the memory of stone is long; anyone wishing to learn more should present their findings to the archaeological team at Varrock Museum. They will gladly recount the tale of the hapless mage Dahmaroc; a worldy scholar and craftsman who had the misfortune to be born into an era of strife.

Requirements
You will need to be a member in order to be able to find the rocks and to access all skills needed, but there are no minimum level requirements (except 23 Hunter for deadfall traps).

Players must wait one week between completing statues.

Getting started
Players occasionally receive a strange rock while training non-combat skills. This is usally in their inventory, but the rock from Construction appears on the floor of a player-owned house, near the entrance portal. They can then go to Varrock Museum to have the stones appraised and to discover that these are parts of the statue of Dahmaroc; a mage who was turned to stone during a duel and whose cursed remains have been scattered across the world.

Initially, you can obtain two rocks from any particular skill. When you have received the first rock for a skill, the drop chance for the second will be reduced "by half." In practice, it appears to be rather more than that, but like any random draw, some people will get the second half almost instantly. It is even possible to receive both rocks from a single action!

A rock in one skill does not seem to change your odds of getting a rock in another skill. Once you have received two rocks from practising a skill, however, you will receive no more from that specific skill until the statue is rebuilt entirely.

You can have more than two stones from a particular skill at once. (Example: You can have two Runecrafting stones, and have a stone or two from another skill at the same time.) You don't have to build up the statue one piece at a time.

A rock can replace an item in your inventory. When this occurs their will be a message such as "Something odd happens to the Yew longbow (u) and you are left with a strange rock." Players may wish to avoid making more expensive fletching items, or cooking expensive fish, if they do not want one replaced by a strange rock, or just by simply having 1 free inventory room.

Actions that can yield a rock include those detailed below. It's a good idea to mix up your training; perhaps try out a new skill in which you've yet to dabble:

(Construction does not currently alert a player who receives a strange rock, neither does any rock arriving in a non-full inventory.)

Skills
Players will receive strange rocks while training non-combat skills. Strange rocks can be found while training the following skills:

Rewards
By acquiring a pair of stones from a particular skill you may add a piece to the statue, which will grant additional experience in that skill. The higher your current level in the relevant skill, the more experience you will receive as a reward. Handy hint: those just about to level a skill might delay adding that particular part of the statue to get a bigger reward after levelling.
 * Experience for each pair of pieces
 * 10 Kudos when completed for the first time
 * Statue plinth when completed for the first time
 * Replica statue piece when completed for the first 30 times

There is a piece of the statue for each of the non-combat skills mentioned above. Each one is made up of 2 strange rocks found while training. Once you have obtained a pair, you will receive no further strange rocks from that skill until you have collected the pieces from all other non-combat skills.

After getting all of the pieces and assembling the statue, a cutscene plays where the statue tries to come alive, but turns back to stone and explodes, as the curse is still active. You are then given a Statue plinth and a Replica statue piece. The statue plinth can be placed in the study of your Player owned house, though the replica statue piece apparently needs its twin in order to be put onto the plinth in your house. There are 30 replica statue pieces required to fully build the statue in your study (15 'twins'); this indicates that the statue in the Varrock museum will need to be fully rebuilt 30 times (a total of 900 overall statue pieces found) in order to obtain all 30 replica statue pieces.

After the statue in the museum has exploded, you can immediately begin collecting strange stones again in the same manner as before, and add pairs of stones to the now empty plinth. However, when you try to add the last pair of rocks the archaeologist will get annoyed at you causing explosions and will stop you saying one explosion a week is enough. The message 'You may complete the statue in another "x" days.' will show on chat log. This means getting all 30 replica pieces and building a full statue in your house will take a minimum of 30 weeks.

You also receive 10 kudos the first time you build the statue in the Varrock museum, bringing the maximum total possible to 183.

It is unknown what the fully assembled statue in your house will do, if anything.

Experience reward formula
The formula for experience is $$y = x^2 - 2x + 100$$, where
 * y = Experience earned
 * x = Skill level

There appears to be no advantage to using the skill-cape boost to level 100.

Since the curve of the exponential experience curve is greater than the parabolic curve of this experience reward formula, you effectively get less experience at higher levels.

Trivia

 * A bug on the release date allowed players to get multiple stones while fishing. This has now been fixed.
 * Smelting Gold Ore did not yield stones on the day of release