World Gate

The World Gate, also known as the Portal of Life, is a dimensional passage that allows travel between worlds. It was used to populate RuneScape and is said to have been sealed during the Second Age.

First Age
In the First Age, Guthix used the World Gate to bring creatures from other planes to Gielinor, such as Humans, Gnomes, Fairies, Ents and Dwarves. The elves were also brought to Gielinor from their ancestral homeland through the World Gate by Seren. According to The Book of Seren and the Crystal of seren, the World Gate was consumed by an 'emptiness' that enveloped the land, and sought to control and bend all to its will. This suggests that Zaros took control of the Gate during his reign in the Second Age, and may have been responsible for its closure. Why and how Zaros did this is still not clear, though it's likely that he sealed it to stop other races from joining his enemies. This cut off elven access to Crystal, their primary resource.

Kethsi
Elder Mage Etheron of the Mage Conclave of Kethsi spent six years in the outer planes on an expedition. He returned through the World Gate with the Stone of Jas, which allowed the Kethsians to cast spells to better their civilisation. However, the stone later brought the Dragonkin, which ultimately caused the demise and ruination of Kethsi.

Location
The World Gate was in Isafdar at the time of the elves' arrival, and due to its consistent link to Seren's ancestral homeworld for nearly two ages likely remained there. According to the humans in Meeting History however, it was located east of modern day Ardougne, on the other side of a mountain.

The World Gate can be found in game north-west of the entrance to Arandar (Arandar gate), southwest of the gnome stronghold and south of char's cave. You will need a ring of visibility to see the full portal.



Fate of the Gods teaser
The World Gate was released in game the week before the release of Fate of the Gods. The gate is only visible with the Ring of visibility. A mysterious force prevents you from entering most worlds, except one, "a volcanic, ash-covered world comprised solely of black rock", also known as Freneskae. However, this world cannot be accessed yet due to the gate being powered down, instead a message appears saying "The gate isn't powered."

Each world has a symbol that corresponds to it, which is actually a letter in Medieval runic script. A list of all messages and the letter in the latin alphabet that the symbol corresponds to can be found below. The gate can be powered up by switching to worlds in a correct combination. When a correct world of the combination is switched to, an animation occurs alerting you to this fact. Heading in the wrong direction once you've got the correct world will de-power the World Gate, forcing you to start again.

To power up the World Gate, you must use the following combination in the following order.
 * 1) Head RIGHT to "a world engulfed in flames. It's kind of beautiful." (Trident symbol)
 * 2) Head LEFT to "many rock islands floating in the sky above an exposed planetary core." (Symbol of a long vertical line with a short horizontal line going left from the center).
 * 3) Head RIGHT to "a huge ocean speckled with hundreds of small islands. One of which has a great white tower upon it" (Asterisk symbol)

The world gate will now be powered up, and cannot be powered down again. Heading left to "a volcanic, ash-covered world comprised solely of black rock" (the symbol on concept art of the World Gate) and trying to enter it will now prompt a message saying "The gate is powered, but it's in the Shadow Realm. I can't use it like this."

Trivia

 * Being close to the world gate unlocks the music track Zarosian Reprise.
 * The World Gate will feature in Fate of the Gods, a quest that's being developed by Mod Rowley.
 * In the concept art image of the World Gate, it shows a Younger Futhark rune which means "F". Its possible meaning is currently unknown.
 * With the information revealed about the World Gate's involvement in the Fate of the Gods quest, the rune could be a reference to Freneskae, which is where the gate will lead in that quest.
 * The way the World Gate looks like, with the inner ring, and the runic symbols plus the "dialling" a combination of different world symbols in order to use the gate to get to another world, might be a reference to the "Stargate" series and movies.