2011 Easter event

The 2011 Easter event, officially named Holly and Hawthorn, was released on 19 April 2011. In the Land of Holly and Hawthorn, the Queen of Sunrise and the Queen of Snow require assistance in transitioning the season from winter to spring.

The event is split into two different quests, with one being members only. There is the "Holly" quest and the "Hawthorn" quest, the latter of which can only be completed by members.

It has also been announced by Jagex that the player that has cut down the most trees during the event will receive a special "goody bag" whose contents has not yet been identified.

Players who manage to successfully complete the Holly quest will receive a sunbeam crown and the emote Invoke Spring, while members who complete the Hawthorn quest will receive an icicle crown.

Walkthrough


Firstly, head south of Falador to the Easter portal. Enter the Easter portal and you will appear in the Land of Holly and Hawthorn. Head north-east until you get to the area around the Season Tree. From here, talk to the Queen of Sunrise to start the Holly portion, or talk to the Queen of Snow to start the Hawthorn portion.

There are two areas in the Land of Holly and Hawthorn: Holly, the Queen of Snow's area, and Hawthorn, the area of the Queen of Sunrise. In Holly, it is winter - snow has fallen on the ground, and the trees are laced with snow. In Hawthorn, it is spring - the ground is covered with grass and flowers.

Evil holly trees are used by the Queen of Snow to fight, while evil hawthorn trees are the preferred warriors of the Queen of Sunrise. Saplings of the type of evil tree used in the area spawn when an evil tree in the area falls, creating a non-stop loop of evil trees. It should be noted, however, that no interaction with any of these evil trees yield any experience.

The Easter Bunny and Jack Frost will give out hatchets and tinderboxes; alternatively, you can use the provided bank chest to withdraw them. Note that they would only give out these tools to players doing their respective parts, i.e. Easter Bunny would only give out tools to players doing the Holly part and Jack Frost the Hawthorn part.

Holly and the Sunbeam Crown
''This section is for the portion of the event started by talking to the Queen of Sunrise. For the portion started by talking to the Queen of Snow, see below.''

Talk to the Queen of Sunrise to begin. Ask her if she has a task for you. She will explain that this year, her and the Queen of Snow are fighting for the Year using evil trees. She then explains that the Year is an item which can change what season it is in Gielinor, and it is winter because it is in possession of the Queen of Snow. Then, she asks the player to chop down an evil holly tree to obtain the Year for her, and explains that the Queen of Snow has it in her trees.

An Evil holly tree
To do this, find the current evil holly tree in the holly area. You can chop it, but if it is not fully grown, nurture it until it is. (It will take three minutes for the Evil Holly Tree to grow.) Once you have interacted with the evil tree (or its roots) at least once by either nurturing or chopping, and it falls (i.e., dies) you can collect a reward by interacting with the fallen tree, as with a normal evil tree. (However, no matter how you interact with the tree, it will take 7 minutes until it falls/dies.) Your reward will be the Year; take it to the Queen of Sunrise.

It's not the real Year!
After a cutscene in which the Queen of Sunrise attempts to turn winter into spring by performing Invoke Spring and fails, subsequently discovering that the Year you obtained is not the real Year. She has a new assignment: retrieve the true Year.

The spirits
To obtain the true Year, you must first talk to the Stone, River, and Cloud spirits to obtain keys of their elements. They are found to the north-east, south-east and north-west, respectively. To obtain the keys, ask each spirit how the player can obtain the true Year. The spirit will give a cryptic hint depending on its element (e.g., the River spirit will say that it is submerged in deep water, while the Cloud spirit will say that it is high in the clouds) and then give you a key of their respective elements. They explain that the key will help you find the true Year. It is required to get all the keys.

The purpose of the keys
After you have obtained all the keys, head south-west of Holly. You will see that the river ends abruptly with a boulder in the way. Use the Stone key on the boulder to make it disappear, opening the entrance to a cave. Enter it.

The river is still flowing inside the cave. Follow it and you will see a large pool of water with bubbles forming in the middle. Use the Water key on the area with bubbles, labelled "pool". The water will then drain away, exposing a tunnel beneath the pool. Climb down the nearby stone wall and enter the cave.

Follow the tunnel and you will see another pool of water with steam forming in the middle. Use your Cloud key on it. The player proceeds to jump in, blasting him/her up through the ceiling and into another room.

Ice sculptures
You will appear in a room with the Queen of Snow sitting, surrounded by ice, with a large block of ice nearby. Talk to her, and ask her about what she is doing there. She explains that it is the only ice cave that hasn't melted, due to the transition from Winter to Spring. Exclaim that she has the Year. Don't command her to give you the Year, however, because she will say that she is a queen, and that you have no right to talk to her like that, which will be proceeded by the conversation ending.

She admits that she stole the Year. She then explains that she can only see Winter, and anything else is dark and empty, and she can't understand why anybody would want a world like that. She only stole the year to protect the world from becoming barren and empty in her eyes.

Tell her that you could help her appreciate Spring. She says that she would like that, but that you would have to carve what you want to show her out of ice, because that is all she can see. Pick up the hammer and the chisel from near the entrance of the room (Note: If you have a Golden Hammer in your inventory, the hammer will not appear on the ground). Use one of them on the large block of ice. She will then ask you what you are going to carve into the ice. Your options are:

Pick any of the options (it does not matter which one you pick; the outcome will be the same). Talk to the Queen of Snow. A cut-scene will play, in which she stands up and begins to contemplate your sculpture. Depending on which sculpture you carve, it yields a slightly different reaction from the her, but this is irrelevant, and the quest progresses as normal regardless.
 * A stag
 * Cute baby animals
 * The Easter Bunny bringing eggs
 * Cute baby animals... impaled on swords!

She then says that the player made her believe in Spring, and that she feels okay about passing the Year on. She then exits the room to a ledge outside and disappears in a shower of snow.

After the cut-scene, you appear back near the Season Tree, with the true Year in your inventory.

Finishing up
Once back at the Season Tree, talk to the Queen of Sunrise. You will hand her the true Year, and she will ask you where you found it. You can choose to tell her the truth, that the Queen of Snow was hiding it, or just tell her that you found it lying in a cave. Either option will progress the quest.

A cut-scene plays where the Queen of Sunrise attempts to turn Winter into Spring by performing Invoke Spring again, and succeeds. Quest complete!

Reward



 * A Sunbeam crown, which can be charged by chopping down evil holly trees for teleportation to evil trees.
 * The Invoke Spring emote (and any other Easter emotes if they weren't unlocked in previous events).
 * Members can speak to the Queen of Snow for an extra task for a reward.
 * The ice sculpture made during the quest will be standing near the DKS fairy ring.

Hawthorn and the Icicle Crown
''This section is for the portion of the event started by talking to the Queen of Snow. For the portion started by talking to the Queen of Sunrise, see above.''

Note: This section is members only.

Talk to the Queen of Snow to begin. Ask if she has a task for you. She explains that she and the Queen of Sunrise are fighting for the Year using evil trees. She then explains that the Queen of Sunrise is guaranteed to win. Then, she asks the player to chop down an Evil hawthorn tree to damage the Queen of Sunrise's offence, and says that she will give the player an Icicle crown for helping her.

An Evil hawthorn tree
To do this, find the current Evil hawthorn tree in the Hawthorn area. If it is fully grown, you can chop it, but if it is not fully grown, nurture it until it is. Once you have interacted with the evil tree (or its roots) at least once by either nurturing or chopping, and it falls (i.e., dies) you will get a confirmation message that you have defeated an Evil hawthorn tree. Go back and talk to the Queen of Snow.

Finishing up
The Queen of Snow will say that she sensed that you had killed an Evil Hawthorn tree. She will thank you for fighting for her. She will then give you the Icicle crown. Quest complete!

Reward

 * Icicle crown, which can be charged in a similar way to the sunbeam crown by chopping down Evil hawthorn trees.

Music unlocked

 * Lament of the Snow Queen
 * Spring Song

Trivia

 * The Queen of Sunrise NPC that first made an appearance in this event is Eostre, the Germanic Goddess of the Dawn, who is commonly associated with hares and rabbits (The "Easter Bunny"), and the source of the name of the Easter festival.
 * The examine of the bank chest in The Land of Holly and Hawthorn reads "Interest rates have been frozen".
 * If Antipodean squirrel is spoken to during the event, your character makes the remark to "stop breaking the fourth wall" while the squirrel replies "Like you stay in character all the time".
 * If Jack Frost is spoken to during the event, he will make a remark to the Easter Bunny how people never eat easter eggs as they have become rare items and people leave them in their bank.
 * If you obtained a Snow Imp during the 2009 Christmas event (or the other Christmas events with snow imps), then the Snow Imp that you obtained during one of those events is right there north of the Queen of Snow.
 * The sculpture you make during the event appears north-east of the Snowy hunter area fairy ring DKS after the quest.
 * A glitch on the day of the quest's release showed the Evil Holly Tree's health as always below 5%, even if it had just been born.
 * Another glitch has been discovered regarding the evil trees. If you log into the right locations, you can appear inside of a tree, or inside of the roots. If you are inside of the roots but outside the tree you can chop at the tree without being attacked by the roots. The only way out is to kill the root, or the whole tree. When you kill the root from inside you will not get any kindling.
 * Using a chisel and/or a hammer with the finished ice sculpture used to yield the following message: "The statue is perfect. To modify it further would be a crime against art." Jagex later implemented a change allowing players to change their sculpture by using a chisel and/or a hammer in response to complaints on the forums.
 * If a player interacts with an alive Evil Holly Tree, they could receive the fake year by searching the recently fallen tree (which would remain for some time after it was defeated). They do not need to kill an Evil Tree at all. It is unknown whether it is a bug.
 * For some reason, new evil trees, or the seedlings, seem to always spawn close to the last evil tree.