Soul Wars

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Please note this is a 'Safe' activity, so you will not lose any equipment when you die.


Far to the west, upon an island long isolated from the rest of RuneScape, two great creatures vie for control of a powerful obelisk but without any clear victor. Recently, a curious man upon a strange pilgrimage found the island and, for his own obscure purposes, has opened the field of battle to any who wish to pit their mettle against the smaller creatures of the island, other adventurers, or even the mighty avatars themselves...


The island upon which the Soul Wars take place can be accessed through a portal concealed next to the ruined chapel in Edgeville. Quite why Nomad has chosen this location is unknown, but the aged ruins are surrounded by mysteries and rumours of strange rituals.


There are no specific requirements to take part in the Soul Wars, but a high Slayer level and good Combat skills would be a distinct advantage.


You cannot take any capes, food or other non-combat equipment into Soul Wars, but should come prepared for battle. Potions and familiars are permitted, and will doubtless prove to be exceptionally useful when the battle gets rough.


When you first arrive on the island, you will encounter Nomad and his imp familiar. Nomad will offer you a quick tour of the field of battle along with a brief explanation, or a book that explains the basics of fighting in the Soul Wars.

When you feel you are ready to battle, you can enter one of the portals to the south of Nomad. The blue portal will align you with the Avatar of Creation, the red portal will align you with the Avatar of Destruction, and the green portal will attach you to the team with the fewest players.

Only one game can be played at any one time per world, but in theory every single player on that world could be taking part. Games last twenty minutes, with a minimum three minute waiting period in between, so you may have to wait for the previous game to end before you can get in. If you're keen to join in, however, you can enter a portal, and once per minute new soldiers can be added to the battle provided the number of adventurers on each team remains equal.

	Avatar of Creation		Avatar of Destruction
	Soul Obelisk		Capturable graveyards

The battlefield is divided up into three main areas:

• The Avatar of Creation's Base
  Players on the blue team will begin here. None of the locations in this area can be captured by the red team.
• The Avatar of Destruction's Base
  Players on the red team will begin here. None of the locations in this area can be captured by the blue team.
• The Main Battlefield
  There are a number of locations here, the most important of which are the Soul Obelisk and the two graveyards. These can be captured by having a greater number of your own team within their bounds for a short period of time. Jellies and pyrefiends can also be found wandering in the ruins around the battlefield.

Your base is composed of three main features: the avatar itself, a supply room and your team's graveyard. The avatar cannot leave its enclosure, but your enemies can enter it to attack the great beast (at their peril, it should be noted!). The supply room contains bandages, which you can use to heal yourself and your team-mates, barricades and explosives (more information in the 'Supply Areas' section below). The graveyard is the location you will be resurrected in when you die (see the section on graveyards below for more information about this).

The object of Soul Wars is to defeat your opponents' avatar as many times as you are able within the 20 minutes. The avatars begin each battle with a Slayer requirement of 100, making them impervious to everyone (because capes of accomplishment cannot be brought to the field of battle). In order to reduce their Slayer requirement, you will have to kill some of the smaller Slayer creatures to gather soul fragments and offer them to the Soul Obelisk, which can only be done if your team controls it.

To help you keep track of all of the useful information, there is a display in the top-right corner of your screen.

The two grave symbols and the obelisk symbol indicate who (if anyone) has control over the graveyards and the Soul Obelisk.

The information on the right lets you know the current state of the avatars and how much time remains in the current battle.

Finally, the bar on the right shows how much effort you have been putting into the game. After two minutes, this bar will begin to decrease, but it will be topped up by performing various useful actions in the activity. If the bar completely empties, you will be removed from the game and prevented from joining a new one in the same way that you would if you had logged out.

Killing the Avatars

In order to kill your opponents' avatar, you must first weaken it to enable as many of your team-mates to fight it as possible. As noted above, this is done by killing the jellies and pyrefiends around the main battlefield and offering the resulting soul fragments to the Soul Obelisk. The more fragments you offer, the lower the Slayer requirement will be, as noted by the 'Avatar Level' entry in the top-right of your window.

You can attempt to restore your avatar's Slayer requirement by burying the bones of your defeated foes. Each time you do this, there is a chance that your avatar's Slayer requirement will rise back up towards 100.

As if this wasn't enough, the avatars have a Combat level of 525 and should not be underestimated.

Note that Summoning familiars are unable to harm the avatars, but are useful for killing off the smaller Slayer creatures and opposing players.

Death and Graveyards

When you are killed in Soul Wars (either by one of the creatures of the battlefield or another player), Nomad will protect you from the hunger of the Soul Obelisk and ensure that you are resurrected in the graveyard closest to where you died, provided that your team controls it. For a few moments, you will be a purely spectral form and unable to interact with anything, but you'll soon be restored to your usual state, along with any equipment you were carrying.

Because the two graveyards in the main battlefield can be captured, they are especially valuable resources for getting access to the smaller Slayer monsters, the Soul Obelisk and your opponents' base.

Supply Areas

Your base's supply area contains bandages, barricades and explosive potions, all of which are useful for ensuring the battle favours your side.

You cannot trade in Soul Wars, but you can use bandages on your team-mates to heal some of their lost life points. Equally, you can use them yourself for the same benefit. You can carry as many bandages as you have inventory space.

Along with the bandages, you'll discover that your base also has a table full of barricades. You can only carry one barricade at a time, and your team can only have ten barricades set up at once. You can set up a barricade in many places to hinder your opponents by simply clicking it in your inventory. If you find a barricade blocking your path, you can attack it or use explosives to remove the obstacle.

Explosive potions can be used on your enemies' barricades to destroy them in a single blast. You can carry as many explosive potions as you have inventory space.


Whichever team defeats their opponents' avatar the greatest number of times will be declared the victor, any other result will be declared a draw.


You will receive a number of 'zeal points' based on your performance in Soul Wars, at the rate of 3 points for a victory, 2 for a draw, and 1 for a defeat. These can be traded in with Nomad (or Zimberfizz, if you have completed Nomad's Requiem) for a variety of rewards:

• Experience
  You can claim experience in Attack, Strength, Defence, Constitution, Ranged, Magic, Prayer or Slayer. One zeal point is worth a set amount of experience depending on your level in that skill.
• Charms
  Charms of any colour are available, the number you can claim depends on your combat skills' levels.
• Other
  Most options here are new Slayer pets, resurrected from remains you bring along. If you bring a stuffed or unstuffed trophy of a crawling hand, cockatrice, basilisk, kurask or abyssal demon, Nomad will then supply you with a pet of that type. See Summoning - Pets for more information. You can also purchase a 'gamble'. The gamble option will grant you a random reward - there is a wide range of possible rewards, but you'll never know just what you're going to get.

The experience you gain from a Zeal Point is based on your skill levels, so you may want to store them until you have levelled up a few times. The same applies to the end-of-quest reward from Nomad's Requiem: you do not have to cash in your 70 Zeal Points immediately, and you can wait until you have gained a few levels before trading them in with Zimberfizz for combat experience. Additionally, you do not have to worry about levelling up before the end of the quest, as your Zeal Points reward can be cashed in at any time.

Developers: Chris E, Chris L
Graphics: Matthew M, Alex R, Matthew N, Daniel J, Mark C, Giuseppe G, Kavi M, Paul B, Wing C
QA: Vicki M, Ian H, Andrew E
Audio: Grace D

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