UnEx: Ancient Graveyard

''In the Second Age of this world, the warrior Zamorak overthrew his master Zaros to become a god in his own right. The followers of the two dark lords waged war across the face of Gielinor for centuries until the Lord of Chaos reigned supreme. However, the powers of Zaros are manifold and Zamorak knew that the Empty Lord had many necromancers at his disposal. With this in mind, Zamorak imprisoned the very souls of Zaros’ most powerful followers deep in the now barren Wilderness where no necromancer could get at them. These ancient workshops, empty halls and infested caverns now lie in wait for the most intrepid adventurers to explore and discover their untold secrets and treasures. Welcome to the Ancient Graveyard…''



The Ancient Graveyard is a new, high-level dungeon in the far north-east of the Wilderness where players can battle ancient monsters of Zaros imprisoned during the Third Age by Zamorak. It could be referred to as being similar to a Zaros section of the God Wars Dungeon – except it is much larger with many more unique creatures and their new, high-level drops. The dungeon can be accessed by anyone brave enough to venture into this high-leveled wilderness but only the strongest will survive. The upper level of the dungeon has three distinct areas, each with different requirements (much like in the God Wars Dungeon). The player enters the dungeon in the center of these first three rooms and must obtain a key from these monsters to descend further into the final boss room. The entire dungeon is multi-combat so summoning familiars can be used and monsters can be killed in teams, but a dwarf multicannon may not be used and multiple monsters can attack the player at the same time. In the map below, the pale yellow area is the entrance, the pale purple areas are the halls of the dead, the pale green areas are the ancient workshops and the brown areas are the arachnid caverns.



Halls of the Dead
The first area of the dungeon are the halls of the dead, where Zamorak imprisoned Zaros's most powerful magical beings. To enter this area, players must pass through a magical barrier that requires 70 magic and for the player to be on the Ancient Magicks spellbook to dispel. The barrier only needs to be dispelled once and can then be passed through an infinite amount of times without being on the Ancient magicks spellbook. On the dungeon map above, the ancient crypts are coloured light purple.

The long corridor in the center of the crypts is inhabited by Zarosian mages and skeletal necromancers. Zarosian mages come in four level varieties - 104, 105, 106 and 107. In ascending order, each uses a progressively stronger element from the regular spellbook - air, water, earth and then fire. The necromancers are all level 86 and use air and earth magic spells. Despite their low levels, these necromancers are particularly deadly because they can summon zombie hordes to fight for them. While only being level 44 per zombie, these zombie hordes are the only monsters in this entire ancient crypts to use ranged and melee exclusively. With this unique attack and the fact several are often summoned at once, the zombies provide a threat to players who try to escape damage by using Protect from Magic prayers.

Each of the rooms branching off from the central corridor is home to an ancient elemental - smoke, shadow, blood, ice and miasma. The higher-leveled elementals are found further inside down the corridor. Only one or two elementals can be found in each crypt at any one time. Each of the elementals is only different due to their levels and drops - their styles of attack vary very little apart from in strength and effect. Each elemental casts a strengthened version of the blitz and barrage spells of their element. Each also has a strong yet slow melee attack and the miasmic and ice elementals also have a ranged attack. Each attack of each elemental has the same effect as the spell does with player spells - smoke elementals poison, shadow elementals lower your attack, blood elementals heal themselves with your lifepoints, ice elementals freeze you and miasmic elementals halve your attack speed for a rime. The table below gives the basic statistics of each elemental:

Ancient Workshops
The ancient workshops are home to the most powerful melee warriors of Zaros. To enter this area, an evil spirit needs to be exorcised from the entrance door. This requires 70 Prayer and completion of Temple at Senntisten, but will not affect your current prayer points. Once opened, the door never needs to be unlocked in this way again. Unlike the ancient crypts, the ancient workshops are composed of one large area so it is possible to be attacked constantly. However, the monsters in this area are generally lower-leveled, with a few exceptions.

The workshops contain the next class of Zarosians from the Zarosian Mages - Zarosian warriors. These have exactly the same levels (104 to 107) and are distinguished by their weapons not their elemental spells. 104s use daggers, 105s use battleaxes, 106s use longswords and 107s use mauls. There are lots of workbenches and anvils and furnaces around the room where skeletal engineers are working. These are level 86 and also use melee, attacking with their metal-working equipment. Like the skeletal necromancers before, these engineers can summon creatures to fight for them. In this case, engineers summon level 44 mechanical drones to attack you with ranged and melee. While a much lower level than the zombies before, many more are often summoned at once and attack rapidly with either magic or ranged. The main monsters in this area of the dungeon however are the golems. Each golem is constructed from a different metal or rock, as shown in the table below:

The melee attack of golems is medium speed and accurate, the ranged attacks are fast but inaccurate and the magic attacks are fast and yet still quite accurate. The main 'boss' of this area is also a golem - an Ancient Golem. This golem is double the size of regular golems and much more dangerous. Ancient golems are combat level 515 and can hit 250 with melee, 100 with ranged and 200 with magical attacks.

Arachnid Caverns
The final area on this floor of the dungeon are the arachnid caverns - a large cave system filled with the ranging beasts of Zaros. To enter this area, players will need to disarm a trap which requires 70 Thieving and 60 Dungeoneering. Once disarmed, the traps doesn't have to be disarmed again. The final class of Zarosians can be encountered in this area - Zarosian rangers. As before, they ranged from level 104 up to 107 and are separated by their weapons - throwing knives for 104, shortbows for 105, throwing axes for 106 and longbows for 107. In this area of the dungeon can also be found skeletal archers who, at level 77, aren't particularly dangerous themselves but can summon huge amounts of level 44 ghostly scouts who will attack you en masse with magic and melee.

The major occupants of the dungeon are an undead arachnid hive of giant spider-like creatures who are very similar to cockroaches or kalphites. All the monsters in the hive can poison and use ranged and the higher level ones also use melee, magic and can even disease. The lowest level hive members are arachnid larvae at level 6 and so pose no real threat to anyone. Next are arachnid drones, who are again a very small threat at level 24. The arachnid workers at level 63 are the first major obstacles within the hive but still aren't particularly good. The first monster capable of using two attack styles are the level 95 arachnid soldiers - who can use both ranged and melee. Arachnid guardians, level 150, can also use ranged and melee. A whole new class of insects is required to bring magic attacks into the fray with arachnid spinners. At level 267, these use all three styles of attack with their magic attacks being particularly deadly - trapping the player in a poisonous web and holding them still for several seconds. The best of all the arachnids is the arachnid queen. At level 499, it can utilize all the attacks of it's predecessors - using ranged, melee and entrapping magical webs. It also has an extra, ultra-accurate ranged attack that can also disease the player as well as poison them.

Guardhouse


All of the monsters in the dungeon have a chance of dropping part of a key. The monsters in the halls of the dead occasionally drop an enchantment tablet, the ancient workshop creatures will sometimes drop the tooth half and the occupants of the arachnid caverns can drop the loop half. The two halves of the key must be combined and then enchanted. Once created, the key can be placed on the key ring from One Small Favour for future access as it isn't destroyed when used. This key gives access to the lowest level of the dungeon where Zamorak stationed his guard for the prison - a Mahjarrat named Honrak. Honrak cannot attend the Ritual of Rejuvenation because of his constant duties so must feed on the souls above. This means he is weak enough to be challenged by a a mortal but still presents an incredibly hard fight - he is the highest level monster in the whole of RuneScape at level 798 and is, like the Corporeal Beast, near impossible to solo and extremely difficult to kill even in large teams of high level players.

Honrak attacks with an elemental spell, much like the one used by Kuradal, that can hit up to 600. The attack also has a small chance of draining attack, strength or defence levels so some kind of restore potion is high advisable. Honrak can also attack with a similar, black version of this spell that can hit the same amount of damage but drains magic, ranged or summoning instead. A third version is the same colour as miasmic spells and can drain constitution, prayer or special attack energy. All three spells have their max hit reduced to 400 with the Protect from Magic prayer but this does not neutralize all damage or any of the special attack. Honrak also has the ability to teleport around the room, entangling up to three enemies with every teleport. Honrak will teleport when he reaches 80% then 60% then 40% then 20% of his total lifepoints. The Mahjarrat can also summon a chaotic healer at 75%, 50% and 25% health. The healer floats in the air so must be killed with ranged, magic or a halberd. The healer will disappear when Honrak has regained an extra 25% of his lifepoints.

Honrak can also use a ranged attack of throwing knives, which hit very rapidly - sometimes twice or even three times per attack on multiple players. These throwing knives have a max hit of 175 but can also poison or disease occasionally - starting at 102 damage. This is his only attack that can be blocked completely by prayer but the poison or disease can still get through. Honrak's melee attack is a very strong, very accurate but very slow sweep with a halberd that can hit up to 750 on several players within 3 squares of him. This attack can only be reduced to 650 damage with protection prayers. Honrak's final ability is that he becomes enraged by Zarosian items or prayers so Ancient Curses and Ancient Magicks are likely to trigger this attack. When enraged, Honrak will rise into the air and spin around for several seconds and become completely invulnerable to attack. He then launches a barrage of attacks on everyone in the room, hitting rapid damage up to 200 in a random combat style - making healing much more useful than prayer.

Unique Drops
The monsters in this dungeon are some of the hardest to kill in all of RuneScape and so have some of the best drops - including new dragon items and a whole new set of level 90 equipment for each combat class.

Dragon sword
The dragon sword, or dragon shortsword, is a rare drop from Zarosian mages and skeletal necromancers alike. It requires 60 Attack to wield and cannot be made with the smithing skill, just like all other dragon equipment. Its special attack Powerslash has exactly the same effects as the dragon two-handed sword, it hits multiple surrounding enemies in a multi-combat area at the cost of 60% of the special bar, except is is a slashing attack and has a lower max hit because it is a weaker weapon. The stats are shown below:

Dragon hasta
The dragon hasta is a rare drop from Zarosian warriors and skeletal engineers. It requires 60 attack to wield and cannot be made with the smithing skill. The special attack of a dragon hasta is Skewer, which takes up 25% of the special bar and massively increases accuracy but decreases strength for one hit. The stats of the hasta are shown below:

Dragon knives
Dragon knives, or dragon throwing knives, are rare drops from Zarosian rangers and skeletal archers. Dragon knives have the special attack Assassin, where the player throws two knives at once with increased accuracy and strength. This takes 100% of the special attack bar. The bonuses of the dragon knives are shown below:

Accursed robes
The dungeons introduced with them a new set of level 90 equipment. Accursed robes are the new range of armour for magic users and all items require 90 Magic to wield. Accursed robes are created in a two-stage process. First, ancient silk has to be picked from plants growing around the ancient crypts and spun into cloth which can then be fashioned into ancient silk robes with 80 Crafting. These aren't tradeable and have no stats as of yet. The next step is to obtain the essence of smoke, shadow, blood, ice or miasma a as a rare drop from one of the elementals. These are also untradeable and are used at 80 Magic to enchant ancient silk robes into accursed smoke, shadow, blood, ice or miasmic armour. A full set is comprised of a hood (2 silk), robe top (5), robe bottom (3), gloves (1) and boots (1). Each essence can enchant five pieces of ancient silk equipment - enough for a full set. The end armour is tradeable but requires 90 Magic and 45 Defence to wield. While all the armour has the same combat bonuses, they don't only vary on appearance. Each set boosts the effect of it's respective ancient magick element: for example, accursed smoke armour increases the amount of poison damage dealt with smoke spells while accursed blood armour increases the amount blood spells heal you by. To cast miasmic spells, Zuriel's staff must still be used as well as accursed miasmic armour. As mentioned before, all the armours have the same combat stats. The total bonuses for a full set of hood, robe top, robe bottom, gloves and boots is given below:

Accursed staff
Accursed staves are the weapon that compliments the accursed robes. They are a rare drop from Honrak and an extremely rare drops from the elementals in the halls of the dead. Accursed staves do not need to be constructed and are dropped fully completed and tradeable. They require 90 Magic and 45 Attack to wield. It is a two-handed weapon. This staff is the only staff to provide infinite amounts of one of the catalytic runes - giving infinite blood runes. Accursed staves act as Zuriel's staff in a way as they allow miasmic spells to be casted. When combined with accursed robes, the accursed staff boosts magic max hits 10% more than usual - up to 25% from 10%. The special attack of the accursed staff increases the max hit of the next spell by an extra 40%, bringing the bonus up to 50% alone or 60% with the robes as well. This takes up 50% of the special bar. The stats of the accursed staff on its own are given below:

Augmented armour
Augmented armour is the new level 90 melee armour that can be gained from the Ancient Graveyard. All pieces require 90 Defence and 45 Strength to wear. To create the armour is a two-stage process, like with accursed robes. Metal plates must be obtained by searching workbenches in the ancient workshop. These must be then hammered into shape with 80 Smithing. A full set requires 12 plates: 5 for platebody, 3 for platelegs, 2 for helm, 1 for gloves and 1 for boots. Each piece of armour then needs to be augmented with a set of schematics found by killing golems. There are two sets of schematics so there are two sets of armour: augmented berserker armour and augmented guardian armour. To augment a piece of armour, it must be used on any anvil in the ancient workshop with the schematics in the player's inventory. Five pieces of armour can be augmented before the schematics crumble to dust. The schematics, metal plates and non-augmented armour are non-tradeable but the finished armour is. Both sets of armour have different combat bonuses and different appearance. The stats for the augmented berserker armour are shown here:

While the augmented guardian is much for defensive, as follows:

Augmented weapons
There are only two types of augmented weaponry: maul and broadwsord. Both are two-handed and the longsword requires 90 Attack and 45 Strength while the maul requires 90 strength and 45 Attack to wield. They are dropped fully constructed and tradeable by Honark and by golems on very rare occasions. Both has the same special - Augmentation - which drains 100% of the special bar. This attack doubles accuracy for the longsword for a minute or doubles strength with the maul for a minute. The stats for both weapons are shown below, with the maul being first and the broadsword second:

Arachnid armour
The final set of high-level armour is the level 90 arachnid ranging armour. This is the only armour not to require a two-stage process to create it as the arrows for the bow must also be created in a similar way. To craft arachnid armour, players need to get arachnid hide, which is a 100% drop from all arachnids except larvae and drones. The hide must then be made into hide armour with 80 Crafting - a full set of chaps, vambraces, coif, body and boots will take 12 hide to make. This armour requires 90 Ranged and 45 Defence to wear and gives the following bonuses:

Arachnid bow and arrows
Arachnid bows are a rare drop from Honrak and an even rarer drop from creatures in the arachnid hive. It is a two-handed longbow that requires 90 Ranged and 45 Strength to wield. The bow can fire any arrows, up to and including dragon, but works best when combined with the new, level 90 ranged arachnid arrows. These must be fletched by taking the arachnid spine, a rare drop from arachnid queens, spinners, guardians and soldiers, and attaching it to a headless arrow. The result is a highly potent arrow that can automatically poison - starting at 68 damage. The bow's special attack with regular arrows gives them a single poisoning shot starting at 68 while poisoned arrows and arachnid arrows the damage from poison is double. This takes up 60% of the special bar. The combat bonuses for this bow are:

Slayer Trophies
The Arachnid Queen and Ancient Golem both have a rare chance of dropping their heads. These can be stuffed and then put on display in a player-owned house's Skill Hall. Both will require 78 Construction, 2 mahogany planks and 2 gold leaf to mount and will give the same amount of experience as mounting the Kalphite Queen head or King Black Dragon heads.