The corrupt dragon helm was released on 15 October2008 along with the PvP worlds. It is the strongest medium helm available to non-members, but it will crumble to dust after being worn for 30 minutes. It is for this reason that many players choose to cast the High Alchemy spell on the corrupt dragon armour pieces just before they turn to dust to recover some of the cost from purchasing them. The Corrupt dragon helm requires 60 Defence to wear.
Players can obtain this item either by trading with another player, or receiving it as a very rare drop from killing Revenants and the Chaos Elemental.
Once you wear this item for longer than a few seconds, it will have the word (deg) added to its name and it becomes untradeable. Using this item in combat adds the (deg) to its name almost instantly, also rendering it untradeable.
On 10 November2008 the price of the corrupt dragon helm shot up by over 300%, over one million higher than the previous day. It exactly matched the price of the corrupt dragon chainbody. This was corrected by Jagex the next day and the price was set to its former value.
Despite its name and stats, the corrupt dragon helm more closely resembles a dragon full helm than it does a standard dragon helmet.