Beginners' Guide

During Unstable Foundations, you should become relatively familiar with how to play RuneScape, but it's a good idea to get your bearings in Lumbridge before heading off into the wider lands.

Lumbridge contains many things to do. From here you can start to improve on those skills that you were taught to use in the introduction, you can visit the shops, windmill and castle, kill some goblins or start a quest.

Be sure to talk to Roddeck if you have questions that need answering. You can call on him at any time with one click of the advisor button (represented by a question mark), situated next to your minimap, or on the top-right corner of your objectives side interface (which is represented by a signpost icon). Click here to find out more about advisors.

You can also visit the shops in Lumbridge to receive free items - a taster of what the shops have for sale. There is a limit to the number of times you can receive these free items in a short period, but they are useful for replacing the odd fishing rod or pickaxe that has been lost.


RuneScape is a massive world, and it's pretty easy to get lost if you're new. To help you find your way around, you'll probably find the world map a useful tool. Simply click on the globe in the top-right of the game screen to open a map centred on your location. You can read more about the world map by clicking here.

Some important locations also feature signposts. You can use these to find out what cities or towns are nearby, along with some basic directions to get there. To read a signpost, simply click on it.

A vast wall bounds the edges of Misthalin, hemming in Lumbridge, Varrock and Draynor Village - the area considered to be the 'starting area'. Guards keep watch at a number of gaps in the wall, warning anyone with a total skill level of below 60 that they are about to cross into more dangerous areas. Adventurers of a higher level are free to pass without incident.

A similar warning will be given to any lower-level player who enters a dungeon that leads out of the starting area.


As you travel about RuneScape you'll undoubtedly discover several places that can be hazardous, when you enter these a warning will pop up, usually looking like the warning to the right. After you have visited these locations several times you will be able to turn the warnings off. If you'd prefer to have them turned on, you can visit the Doomsayer in Lumbridge.


There are different levels of quests in RuneScape - Novice, Intermediate, Experienced and Master.

To find the starting location of possible quests to begin, look for the Quest Start symbol on your minimap. You can read more about how to use the different maps in RuneScape by clicking here.

To start you off, there are a selection of quests you can do in and around Lumbridge. We recommend the following:

• Cook's Assistant
  Start by speaking to the cook in the kitchen of Lumbridge Castle, which is on the ground floor.
• The Restless Ghost
  Start by speaking to the priest in the church opposite Lumbridge Castle.
• Rune Mysteries
  Start by speaking to the Duke in Lumbridge Castle on the first floor.

For a list of all of the novice quests available in RuneScape please see the Novice Quest listings.

When you've completed a couple, you might like to look through your Quest Journal for more to do. There are well over a hundred quests in RuneScape, so you might like to order them by difficulty, your progress, or whether they are free or members' quests. You can do this using the drop-down menu at the top of the quest list, and you can remove any quests you cannot start by checking the 'Filter' option.

To show you where the quests begin, you can right-click any quest in the list and select 'Show on the world map'. This will load the world map and centre it on the quest start, so you can quickly determine where you need to go. You can also right-click on a quest and set it as an objective.


When you first arrive in Lumbridge you may find that you need to obtain various items before you can start training your skills. To get yourself used to the skills used in RuneScape we recommend that you start by training the following skills:


Once you get to Lumbridge you can immediately start to train this skill because the only item you'll require is a Woodcutting hatchet, which you can get for free from Bob's Axes, in the southern end of Lumbridge. This skill is useful because it enables you to obtain a ready supply of logs that you can burn to cook food, or fletch into bows and arrows. For more information on this skill please see our Woodcutting Guide.


This is one of the easiest skills to start training. All you need is a tinderbox and some logs. You can also get a tinderbox for free from the general store, just north of Lumbridge Castle. Firemaking is useful for cooking meat or fish when you are not near a Cooking range. For more information on this skill please see our Firemaking Guide.


In RuneScape, food heals you when you eat it, so Cooking is a useful skill to provide yourself with food to heal those lost life points. The chicken pen to the north-west of the general store in Lumbridge will provide you with raw meat to start building this skill. For more information about the Cooking skill please see the Cooking Guide.


This skill gives you a method of obtaining food other than by killing an animal and cooking its meat. It is an essential skill throughout the game, as fish can be caught in most waterways and along much of the coastline. You can get free fishing tools from the fishing store in Lumbridge, north of Lumbridge Castle. For more information on this skill please see our Fishing Guide.


Mining allows you to extract different materials from certain rocks. You can smelt these ores into bars and smith the bars into useful items. For a beginner, these two skills can be useful because from a low level you can make useful items to help you in battle. It's a good idea to make some armour to protect yourself against attacks when building up your combat skills. See the Mining Guide or the Smithing Guide for further information on these skills.


Visiting the halls of Daemonheim can be a great way to introduce yourself to the skills and combat of RuneScape. It is here that people arrive to raid dungeons by themselves or in parties in an attempt to gain spoils and experience. By starting at complexity level 1 and working your way up to complexity level 6, you can enjoy a shallow learning curve that slowly introduces you to the various skills of RuneScape. Training your Dungeoneering is also safe, so you don't have to worry about dying and losing your hard-fought items.


Melee combat is divided into many skills - Attack, Defence, Constitution and Strength. You can start to train these skills as soon as you have a weapon. You can get a bronze dagger for free from the general store north of Lumbridge Castle. Your first enemies will probably be giant rats, giant spiders and goblins, which you can find all around Lumbridge. By improving your combat skills you can kill larger monsters more easily, and receive more valuable rewards. For more information about combat please see our Combat Guide.

For more information about all the skills available to train in RuneScape please see the Skills section of the Manual.


Playing an online role-playing game like RuneScape will require you to communicate and sometimes rely on the help of others in order for you to complete your tasks. Some players make use of this opportunity by trading with others and creating alliances to build up a network of friends that they can rely on in-game to help them. For more information about the advantages of having friends in RuneScape please see our Controls guides on Friends and Trading.

More articles in Miscellaneous Guides Beginners' Guide The Races of RuneScape History of the World of RuneScape History of the Goblins Faruq's Tools

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