Ancient effigies

Ancient effigies are Distractions and Diversions released on the 15 June 2010. They can be restored, providing rewards, by nourishing them with knowledge; nourishment requires skill levels between 91 and 97, depending upon type of effigy. The rewards are significant amount experience in the skills used to nourish an effigy and a dragonkin lamp with a substantial experience reward upon full restoration of the effigy.

Each effigy can be nourished in one of two skills. The assist system can be used to nourish one, if the owning player does not have the required level in either of the two skills the effigy requires. The assisting player, however, receives the experience for nourishing the effigy, although the owning player will receive the dragonkin lamp when the effigy is fully restored.

There are no skill level requirements for a player to receive an effigy from a monster drop. The effigies are a rare drop, and are dropped by many low-level and high-level monsters alike. Receiving an effigy as a drop will show up on the player's Adventurer's Log and more than one can be held at one time. It has been confirmed that the ring of wealth does not affect the drop rate, but defeating a higher level monster will give a greater chance of receiving an effigy.

The unofficial world to give and receive assistance is 117 at Daemonheim.. Players can possess multiple effigies but they do not stack in the bank.

Since effigies can't be sorted by appearance, they can by sorted by placing them next to related materials in your bank. Example would be placing an effigy which needs construction assistance by some planks, placing an effigy which requires smithing assistance by ores and bars, placing effigies which require herblore assistance by potions, and so forth.

Players who intend to swap an effigy for a lamp while carrying several effigies with them must be careful, because Minas will not exchange the effigy you used on him,but the one that comes first in your inventory. It is recommended that you do not bring effigies that you do not intend to swap.This can be considered a bug and is not yet fixed as of 19 August 2010.

Stages
Starved ancient effigies are received as rare drops from a range of creatures. An effigy will always be found in the starved stage, and as it progresses to each new stage, the skills required may change. There are 4 types of ancient effigies:


 * 1) Starved ancient effigy - This will require at least a level of 91 in one of the two skills to investigate; after investigation it becomes nourished, rewarding 15,000 experience in the skill used.
 * 2) Nourished ancient effigy - This will require at least a level of 93 in one of the two skills to investigate ; after investigation it becomes sated, rewarding 20,000 experience in the skill used.
 * 3) Sated ancient effigy - This will require at least a level of 95 in one of the two skills to investigate; after investigation it becomes gorged, rewarding 25,000 experience in the skill used.
 * 4) Gorged ancient effigy - This will require at least a level of 97 in one of the two skills to investigate. After investigation, it provides 30,000 experience in the skill used and, then crumbles to dust, leaving behind a dragonkin lamp.

The formula for the lamp is $$\frac{x^3-2x^2+100x}{20}$$, in which $$x$$ is the skill level. For example, at a skill level of 60, the experience gained would be $$\frac{60^3-2*60^2+100*60}{20}=10,740$$. A complete table can be found here. A rough estimate of the exp gained can be found by simply cubing the level and then dividing by 20.

After players have enlightened an entire ancient effigy - from its starved form to its gorged form - they will have received a total of 90,000 experience across the skills used and a Dragonkin lamp which has the same use as an Xp lamp but with greater EXP depending upon the level in the skill used.

Requirements
Players will need various skills levels of 91, 93, 95, and 97 to feed the effigy with knowledge and retrieve the object stored within them. The level required depends on the stage that the effigy is in. If players do not have the required levels themselves, they can request assistance from other players via the Assist System, however not all skills are available in this system (also you have to remember every person has a assist cap of 30k after this is reached you will have to change your assistant partner.) If the Assist System is used, the assisting player will receive the experience instead (as long as the 30k experience cap per day isn't reached, in which case the player's assistance will not work).

Note: Assisting players do not need to have the full amount of xp available to assist. For instance: If a player has assisted another player for 25K xp, they will be able to assist another 5K xp. The rest of the xp will be lost and the effigy will go to the next stage.

Players will be able to get assistance in 1 skill out of a pair that an ancient effigy craves.

Boosts will work, as well as for those assisting.

The paired skills which can be used to successfully investigate an effigy are:

If a player does not possess the skill levels required to feed the effigy, and does not wish to search for someone to assist them in doing so, he or she can hand the effigy to Historian Minas on the first floor of the Varrock Museum in order to gain an experience lamp worth 5k experience to any skill over level 50. This is almost the same experience as using the dragonkin lamp in a skill of level 47. After the player has exchanged the effigy for a lamp and the dragonkin lamp and it is used, they receive a message that says they have gotten xp, "but at what cost?"

There are certain clan chats that will help you get assistance for ancient effigies. This reduces the effort of searching for players and lets you keep your end reward instead of the smaller 5k one for trading,

Monsters
All Slayer Assignments from Kuradal, with the exception of Spiritual Mages, are monsters that drop Ancient Effigies.

The following monsters are known to drop ancient effigies.


 * Aberrant spectre
 * Abyssal demon
 * Abyssal guardian
 * Abyssal leech
 * Abyssal walker
 * Ankou
 * Aquanite
 * Armoured zombie
 * Aviansie
 * Baby black dragon
 * Baby blue dragon
 * Banshee
 * Basilisk
 * Big Wolf
 * Black demon
 * Black dragon
 * Black Knight
 * Black Unicorn
 * Bloodveld
 * Bloodworm
 * Blue dragon
 * Brine rat
 * Bronze dragon
 * Brutal green dragon
 * Catablepon
 * Cave crawler
 * Cave horror
 * Chaos dwarf
 * Chaos dwogre
 * Chaos dwarf hand cannoneer
 * Cockroach soldier
 * Commander Zilyana
 * Corporeal Beast
 * Dagannoth (but not the Dagannoth Kings)
 * Dark beast
 * Deadly red spider
 * Desert strykewyrm
 * Dust devil
 * Earth warrior
 * Elf warrior
 * Fenris wolf
 * Fire giant
 * Flesh crawler
 * Frost Dragon
 * Gargoyle
 * General Graardor
 * Ghoul
 * Giant Crypt Rat
 * Giant Crypt Spider
 * Giant mole
 * Giant Rock Crab
 * Gnoeals
 * Goblin
 * Greater demon
 * Greater reborn ranger
 * Greater reborn warrior
 * Green dragon
 * Harpie bug swarm
 * Hill giant
 * Hellhound
 * Hobgoblin
 * Ice giant
 * Ice strykewyrm
 * Ice warrior
 * Infernal Mage
 * Iron dragon
 * Jelly
 * Jogre
 * Jungle horror
 * Jungle strykewyrm
 * Kalphite guardian
 * Kalphite Soldier
 * Kalphite queen
 * Kalphite worker
 * Khazard trooper
 * Killerwatt
 * King Black Dragon
 * Kree'arra
 * K'ril Tsutsaroth
 * Kurask
 * Lesser reborn ranger
 * Living rock patriarch
 * Living rock protector
 * Living rock striker
 * Mighty banshee
 * Mithril dragon
 * Moss giant
 * Mummy
 * Mutated bloodveld
 * Nechryael
 * Ogre
 * Pyrefiend
 * Red dragon
 * Rock crab
 * Scorpion
 * Shadow warrior
 * Skeletal Wyvern
 * Skeleton
 * Steel dragon
 * Suqah
 * Terror dog
 * Troll General
 * Tormented demon
 * Tormented wraith
 * Turoth
 * TzHaar-Ket
 * TzHaar-Xil
 * Vampire
 * Warped tortoise
 * Waterfiend
 * Werewolf
 * Yeti
 * Zamorak warrior
 * Zombie

Boosts

 * Notes
 * A percentage boost is always rounded down.
 * A reduction of x or more levels means the actual amount reduced depends on the player's level in the skills listed.

Trivia

 * When trading a starved effigy to Historian Minas, he mentions that he'll "have his top men look into this right away," to which your character replies, "Who?" To this, Minas only says "Top...men...", an almost direct quote from the Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
 * A close up of an Effigy reveals a Dragonkin holding/embracing the Stone of Jas.
 * Even with it being an item that you cannot trade, it has a "Carried Wealth" value of 100,000. Also, if you try to give it to a familiar, it does not say it cannot be traded; instead, it says it is too valuable.
 * Some players expressed concern on the RuneScape forums that the effigies allow those with high skill levels to gain experience too quickly, particularly criticizing the fact that they can be completed using the "request assistance" system.
 * As the assist system was intended to replace what free trade took away for players wanting to help another with their skills, it is inconsistent that effigys can be completed via the assist system, as effigys cannot be traded. This is controversial, considering the amount of experience effigys offer.
 * Even though summoning is a combat skill it is still used as a required skill, while slayer is not.