God Wars Dungeon
Released17 October 2013 (Update)
Also calledTemple of Lost Ancients
MembersYes
Floors3
LocationTroll Country
League regionAsgarnia Asgarnia
InhabitantsVaries
MusicSee below
Map
Location on World Map
Lucien's camp
Ice Path God Wars Dungeon Forgotten Cemetery
Trollheim

The God Wars Dungeon (often abbreviated as GWD), originally known as the Temple of Lost Ancients,[1] is a dungeon where armies of various gods fight, left over from the God Wars.

The Dungeon was first released on 28 August 2007, 18 days after the 10 August 2007 archive of RuneScape that Old School is based on. Its quick return to the live game was enabled by the fact that most of its assets had already been made at the time of the archive and it thus took minimal development time to recreate. One of the first major content releases following the February 2013 server launch, it passed Old School Feature Poll #9 on 9 September 2013 with over 24,860 votes for the return, at an approval of 89%. GWD was then implemented on 17 October for Old School RuneScape servers.

To get Slayer assignments related to the God Wars Dungeon, such as boss tasks, players must complete the Death Plateau quest.[2]

Transportation

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Location of the entrance to the God Wars Dungeon
The blue route denotes coming from Burthorpe. The red route is taken from the Trollheim Teleport. Green indicates the use of Protect from Missiles, and cyan is where Protect from Melee should be activated.

God Wars Dungeon is located north of Trollheim. Accessing it requires partial completion of Troll Stronghold or full completion of the Easy Combat Achievements (in order to use the teleport on Ghommal's hilt 1)[3] and either Strength 60 Strength or Agility 60 Agility. A rope is also required the first time. Without Magic 61 Magic and the completion of Eadgar's Ruse (to be able to use the Trollheim Teleport), climbing boots are required each time. Strength potions may be used to boost past the boulder blocking the entrance, but cannot be used to reach the Bandos area. Before entering, items aligned to the gods should be equipped; otherwise, all the followers of those gods will be aggressive, which can quickly kill any player, as there are numerous monsters residing in the dungeon.

  • If you cannot use the Trollheim Teleport, teleport to Burthorpe (with a games necklace, for example). This route requires climbing boots, rope, the start of Troll Stronghold and a stamina potion or some super energies will make the trip faster. From there, follow the blue route either up past the wounded soldier and past Death Plateau, making sure to Protect from Range, or go south-west at the fork to Tenzing's house. Make your way north and follow the route through to where Dad is: either you will have to fight him, or he won't be there, depending on how far along the Troll Stronghold quest you are. From there, enter the cave to the north and follow the map route up to the north.

After arriving from either method, go to the northern side of the mountain, where there are thrower trolls, so turning on Protect from Missiles is recommended when close to them. Go to the small alcove in the north, go past the boulder or crack in the wall, and run north to the entrance, which is the large hole in the ground. This area's chill effect drains your stats by 1 every few seconds, and will also drain all of your run and special energy. This effect can be completely negated by building the Fire of Unseasonal Warmth found south-west of the dungeon entrance, which requires completion of Making Friends with My Arm and Construction 60 Construction. There are high-level ice wolves here, so using Protect from Melee is helpful. If it is your first time entering the dungeon, use a rope on the hole, and climb down.

Note: The Agility shortcuts (climb the rocky stoneholds) north-east of the entrance as well as to the east of Trollheim are one-way routes into level 22 and 31 Wilderness. Players cannot use the shortcut from the Wilderness to get to the GWD area.

The dying knight

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...When the Temple Knights discovered rumours of the ruined temple, they immediately feared the return of some ancient evil and sent a contingent of their strongest warriors to investigate. The knight that lies dying amidst the crumbling masonry is all that remains of that doomed expedition...
  • West of the dungeon entrance, talk to the Dying knight and receive the Knight's notes. The knight asks you to bring the notes to Sir Tiffy Cashien in Falador Park. You can enter the dungeon without bringing the notes to Sir Tiffy. You don't even need the notes to enter—just speak to the knight before entering the first time. (If you bring the notes to Sir Tiffy, he will take them whether you have read them or not.)
  • After you grab the notes from the dying knight, he will succumb to his fatal wounds. If you fail to bring the notes to Sir Tiffy (by destroying them), you can obtain another set of notes from his corpse.

God chambers

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  • At the edges of the main dungeon are special chambers belonging to each god, serving as a sort of "base" for each god's followers. Each chamber contains many minions of the chamber's god. Some Zamorak minions also appear in the Armadyl, Bandos, and Saradomin chambers, where they usually fight the inhabitants of those chambers. This means a Zamorak item should be equipped in those three god chambers, but Armadyl, Bandos, and Saradomin items only need to be equipped in their respective gods' chambers. This allows the player to swap out items like the Armadyl pendant for more powerful items.
  • Gaining entry to these chambers requires the players to have certain levels and sometimes use of equipment. Level requirements cannot be boosted.
  • At the end of each chamber are the most powerful generals of each god, with Combat levels from 580 to 650. There are also three bodyguards, each one using a single combat style in the combat triangle, and an altar for the player to use. This altar can only be used once every 10 minutes and only while the player isn't in combat. For each item affiliated with the appropriate god that the player is wearing, the altar will boost one prayer point above the player's maximum. In order to access this chamber, the player will need to kill 40 of the god's followers, which is decreased to 35, 30, 25, and 15 for completion of the Hard, Elite, Master, and Grandmaster combat achievements respectively.
    • The player can also right-click the altar to teleport out of the boss' chamber, even during combat. This will place them just outside the door to the chamber.
  • The Ecumenical key, obtained in the Wilderness God Wars Dungeon, allows players to skip killcount.
    • Spare keys are not needed in the event of death since dying inside one of the four God Wars Dungeon boss rooms will result in your grave appearing outside the boss room. Consumables, however, will remain inside.

Items

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Additional items

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The following items are needed to enter a particular god's lair.

Notes

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  1. ^ 1.0 1.1 1.2 In the long run, 2-5 Prayer potions or 6-8 Super restores if using a 2:1 Saradomin brew-Super restore combo is strongly advised in which 12-16 brews should accompany the said amount of restores.
  2. ^ Food, preferably sharks, can be subbed for Saradomin brews and vice versa.
  3. ^ Super sets are not required, but they are recommended for faster kills.
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All monsters in the dungeon are aggressive to any player unless they have equipped at least one item that is devoted to their god. Aggression remains for a monster until the battle is over whether this be one of the combatants dying or leaving the area. As such, unequipping and re-equipping a piece of equipment will cause monsters in your vicinity to become aggressive but not re-tolerant.

Only one item devoted to a god is required to soothe all of their soldiers and having items devoted to a different god or gods will not cancel out the effect of any other piece of equipment. Appropriately, full tolerance from all monsters in the main dungeon only normally requires four total pieces of equipment: one attuned to each god. For example, equipping an Armadyl pendant, ancient mace, Zamorak platelegs, and Saradomin cloak will render every combatant unaggressive.

When considering what protection is required to bring, it should be noted that in the main dungeon, there will be no followers of the god diagonally across from that section in the vicinity; the one exception to this is followers of Zamorak, who are dispersed everywhere within the main dungeon. The Ancient Prison is a separate section of the dungeon and only contains Zarosian followers, who are not found anywhere else in the dungeon; likewise, Zamorak's followers have no holding in there.

God equipment

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Area Protection required
Armadyl Bandos Saradomin Zamorak Ancient (Zaros)
Main dungeon
Armadyl's corner Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Bandos' corner Yes Yes No Yes No
Saradomin's corner Yes No Yes Yes No
Zamorak's corner No Yes Yes Yes No
Encampments
Armadyl's Eyrie Yes No No Yes No
Bandos' Stronghold No Yes No Yes No
Saradomin's Encampment No No Yes Yes No
Zamorak's Fortress No No No Yes No
Ancient Prison No No No No Yes

Remember that wielding respective equipment in the dungeon will make monsters following a respective god unaggressive. Without them, players will be subject to attack by that group of followers.

Slot Saradomin Zamorak Bandos Armadyl Zaros
Weapon
Shield
Head
Cape
Body
Legs
Hands
Feet
Ammunition
Neck
Ring N/A N/A N/A N/A
  1. ^ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Does not require a completed book of 4 pages.

Main Dungeon

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The dungeon consists of a large central shared chamber with four offshoots that lead to each general's base. This is where the majority of the fighting takes place, with a free-for-all between each god's forces. Apart from aviansie, all other monsters will not retaliate at the aggressor if they are in combat with another monster.

Accessing the bases requires 70 in their respective stat, which cannot be boosted. The Ancient Prison can be accessed by assembling a frozen key, obtained from defeating the four generals. Once used on the Frozen Door, the key disintegrates, but allows for permanent access to the Ancient Prison.

Armadyl's Eyrie

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A player grappling to Armadyl's Eyrie.

The pillar at the gap must be grappled using a crossbow and a mithril grapple. Just inside the Eyrie, there's a crate that can be searched for a spare mithril grapple and/or a bronze crossbow if the player does not have a grapple or crossbow in their inventory.

The Eyrie contains Armadylean spiritual mages, rangers, and warriors as well as regular aviansie.

Several minions of Zamorak: a bloodveld, two werewolves, and two Zamorakian spiritual rangers who regularly fight with the Armadyleans are also found here.

Bandos' Stronghold

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The big door, the entrance to Bandos' Stronghold.

The gong on the big door must be hit with a hammer to enter the chamber. The player will automatically enter the Stronghold when the gong is hit.

To leave, simply walk up next to the door and it will open, or click on the door ('Bang on big door'). The door does not always open. If this happens, walk about 3-4 squares into the Stronghold and try again. (Simply staying next to the door and repeatedly clicking it does not cause it to open.)

Inside the Stronghold Bandos' higher-level forces can be found: Bandosian spiritual mages, rangers, and warriors, orks, cyclopes, and jogres.

Several minions of Zamorak: a bloodveld, hellhound, imp, werewolf, and two vampyres are found lingering in the Stronghold, most of them regularly fighting the Bandosians.

Saradomin's Encampment

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The first rock in which a rope is required.

To enter Saradomin's Encampment, a rope must be tied to a rock by the waterfall, and another rope must be attached to another rock inside the Encampment to allow full access. Once the ropes are attached they will remain permanently.

Like the main area, all of Saradomin's forces can be found here: Knights, priests, and spiritual mages, rangers, and warriors.

Several minions of Zamorak: two werewolves, two vampyres, an icefiend, and a gorak are in the encampment, fighting the forces of Saradomin.

Zamorak's Fortress

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The broken ice bridge.

The player's prayer points are immediately drained to 0 upon crossing the river. In addition to that, the lighting is dimmed and cannot be illuminated by light sources, though it remains fairly easy to see. The light darkens as the player approaches the boss chamber. This darkness can be dispersed by consuming Saradomin's light, a drop from Commander Zilyana.

Inside the fortress many minions of Zamorak can be found: spiritual mages, rangers, and warriors, imps, bloodveld, goraks, and hellhounds.

The Fortress is the only one of the four gods' chambers that contains only the minions of its god. No minions of Saradomin, Armadyl, or Bandos spawn here.

Ancient Prison

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The Frozen Door leading to the Ancient Prison.

The Ancient Prison requires the player to have used a frozen key on the door to unseal it and access the prison. Followers of the ancient god Zaros reside within, far stronger than the combatants in the rest of the dungeon. Unlike other chambers, there are no followers of Zamorak in the prison.

The Prison is divided into four rooms; the initial entry room; the main area where Zaros' followers can be fought; a respite area that contains Ashuelot Reis, a nature spirit who can access the player's bank; and Nex's chamber.

The main area of the prison also contains an Ancient Forge, which is used to break down Bandos armour into Bandosian components to repair damaged Torva armour and oathplate armour into oathplate shards. If the player logs out in the main area, they will be sent into the entry room upon logging back in. A chest can be found in the entry and respite rooms that players can use to reclaim items if they die while fighting Nex.

The initial entry room contains no monsters and can be entered freely after it has been unsealed as a place of safety.

Generals

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The generals reside at the end of their strongholds, requiring 40 essence in order to access. This can be lowered by completing tasks from the Combat Achievements system, and beginning from the hard tier rewards, the chambers can be instanced, requiring 150,000 coins and lowering by 25,000 for each tier above it. The generals and their bodyguards do count towards essence count, which can be used to extend trips within the dungeon indefinitely with the addition of the banking room in Nex's Ancient Prison, as long as they have the kill count required to do so.

In non-instanced chambers, if the general is damaged but no one is inside, they will despawn.

Armadyl's general

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A group of players fighting Kree'arra, the graceful avatar of Armadyl.

Kree'arra is a massive aviansie; like his fellow brethren, he cannot be attacked with any Melee attacks apart from that of a salamander or halberds. He attacks with melee only when he is not under attack. His Ranged and Magic attacks hit all players in his chamber with a whirlwind attack that knocks players back and freezes them. His maximum hit is 69 with Ranged, 26 with Melee and 21 with Magic.

Bandos' general

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A group of players fighting General Graardor, a huge Bandosian war chief.

General Graardor is a very large, brutal, and heavily armoured ourg. Although he does not wield a weapon, he still hits very hard and should not be underestimated. He uses Melee and Ranged attacks. His Melee attack can hit up to 60, whilst his Ranged attack has a max hit of 35 (and can hit everyone in the room). Therefore, Protect from Melee is recommended for tanks, whilst the rest Protect from Ranged.

Saradomin's general

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A group of players fighting Zilyana, commander of Saradomin's forces.

Commander Zilyana is a female Icyene. Her max hit with Melee is 27 and Magic is 20; lower than the other bosses, albeit being very accurate, and are of the same speed as throwing knives. She will only use her magic attack when in melee distance.

Zamorak's general

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A group of players fighting K'ril Tsutsaroth, a servant of the god Zamorak.

A massive demon that leads Zamorak's forces, K'ril's Magic attacks are relatively weak compared to his Melee attacks. His magical attacks hit a maximum of 30, but are commonly used. His Melee attacks, however, can hit up to 46. He is also capable of using a melee special attack against targets praying Protect from Melee that hits through prayer and drains half of the target's current prayer points. K'ril can also inflict poison damage which starts at 16, so it is advisable to bring protection against poison.

Zaros' general

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A group of players fighting Nex, one of Zaros' most powerful generals.

A formidable and exceedingly powerful nihil known as the Angel of Death and the fifth general, Nex is an extremely powerful general of Zaros that forced the other four generals to work together to seal her and her armies behind their ancient prison. Unlike the other generals, Nex possesses multiple phases during her fight. She uses the Ruinous Powers, which are not accessible to players.

Combatants

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Armadyl

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Bandos

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Saradomin

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Zamorak

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Zaros

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Music

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Name Unlock details Music track
Armageddon Unlocked upon entering the God Wars Dungeon
Armadyl Alliance Unlocked upon entering Armadyl's Eyrie
Bandos Battalion Unlocked upon entering Bandos' Stronghold
Strength of Saradomin Unlocked upon entering Saradomin's Encampment
Zamorak Zoo Unlocked upon entering Zamorak's Fortress
The Ancient Prison Unlocked upon entering the Ancient Prison
Zaros Zeitgeist Unlocked during the fight with Nex
The Angel's Fury Unlocked during the fight with Nex

Changes

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Date Changes
6 November 2024
(Update)

Items dropped in private instances of the four original God Wars bosses will now remain on the ground for three hours rather than three minutes.

31 January 2024
(Update)

God Wars Dungeon Kill Count display now switches between red and blue to indicate whether players have enough kills to enter the boss rooms.

18 January 2023
(Update)

Group Ironman players will now be placed in the same instance when fighting the God Wars Dungeon Generals.

5 January 2022
(Update)

The Ancient Prison became accessible.

16 December 2021
(Update)

Added the Ancient Prison to the dungeon, containing the forces of Zaros. Removed the undeveloped underwater section of Zamorak's fortress.

20 October 2021
(Update)

The NPC Killcount overlay was updated, having been renamed to Essence.

14 July 2021
(Update | poll)

More bloodvelds have been added to the dungeon.

3 March 2021
(Update)

Loot broadcasts for pet drops will now appear correctly in the GWD boss rooms.

16 July 2020
(Update)

Raised the priority of various attack animations in the God Wars Dungeon to stop them being interrupted by defend animations.

8 October 2015
(Update)

Added blocking to a pillar in the God Wars Dungeon.

24 September 2015
(Update)

Adamant bar drops from Aviansie in the God Wars Dungeon are now noted for players that have completed the hard Fremennik achievement diary.

3 September 2015
(Update | poll)

when consumed, Saradomin's light permanently removes the darkness from the Zamorakian section of the God Wars Dungeon.

25 June 2015
(Update | poll)

Added a 'peek' option to the entrance of each of the boss rooms, allowing players to see the number of other players currently in the room.

3 April 2014
(Update)

Killing Bloodveld within the God Wars Dungeon now applies the correct killcount.

30 January 2014
(Update | poll)

Altars within the God Wars Dungeon now tell you how long before you may use them.

17 December 2013
(Update)

Some of the bodyguards in the God Wars Dungeon have been adjusted to help them reach players hiding at the sides of their rooms.

7 November 2013
(Update)

Leaving the God Wars Dungeon will now reset the players kill-counts.

24 October 2013
(Update)

Monsters in the God Wars dungeon that previously dropped medium-level clues have been upgraded to drop hard clues.

Historical

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The original version of GWD was released on 28 August 2007, less than a month after the source code of Old School RuneScape (10 August 2007). On the first official release, Jagex encountered many issues with bugs that arose in the following weeks (28 August 2007) after launch. These issues were fixed before the God Wars Dungeon was implemented into Old School RuneScape.

Adjustments pre-release

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Fixes included the following:

  • Server load - inefficient combat code running on certain monsters caused the servers to struggle.
  • Safespotting in boss rooms - Angled walls and doorways were edited to a rectangular form without angled corners which could be used to safespot bosses in relative safety.
    Commander Zilyana's angled room before being edited.
  • Monster settings - monsters are now able to walk through one another and players without causing them to be stuck. Certain monsters behavioural flaws were corrected (some monsters used weaponry and combat styles without code to specify how they would do this).
  • Excessive adamant bar drops - originally, Aviansie had a chance of over a 19.5% drop rate of Adamantite bars in bank-note form. The developers did not want bots re-appearing in Old School RuneScape, so to avoid aviansie bots, they only promised to release the GWD if the adamant bars the aviansie dropped were not noted. This has been remedied by having them drop the bars in noted form only when the hard Fremennik Diary has been completed. In addition, aviansie in the Wilderness God Wars Dungeon drop noted bars as well, but players can attack aviansie hunters there.
  • Minor general bugs:
    • Slayer experience is awarded if another monster deals the killing blow (assuming the player deals damage).
    • A section of the Wilderness near the GWD entrance had incorrect map blocking causing players to be stuck.
    • The familiar check at the GWD entrance was removed due to it not working correctly.
    • Killcount is more reliable (resetting to 0 after re-entering).
    • The snow overlay didn't always vanish correctly on leaving the area.
  • Changes that passed the feature poll include:
    • The four bosses and their bodyguards broadcast messages to all players in their rooms to state what items have been dropped, and to whom.
    • The boss room doors are entrances only, and the altars have a 'Teleport' option to let you exit.
    • When the four bosses drop stacks of herbs, they now do so in banknote form.
    • A new magic weapon similar in behaviour to the Staff of light is dropped by K'ril Tsutsaroth.

Nex and the Ancient Prison

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On 20 October 2021, the Frozen Door became interactable, with players hearing a threatening voice when interacting with it. This was assumed to be the voice of Nex, which was confirmed shortly thereafter. On the same day, the Tombs of Amascut & Nex Rewards Beta went live, allowing for beta testing of several proposed rewards from the boss.

After passing a poll in November 2021, the frozen key and first chamber in the Ancient Prison were made accessible on 16 December 2021, and the rest of the prison and the Nex boss fight were released on 5 January 2022.

There are many differences between Nex in RuneScape 3 and Old School RuneScape:

  • Pieces of the frozen key are dropped by each god's followers in their encampments, rather than from the generals and their bodyguards as part of The Frozen Door miniquest as in Old School RuneScape. It is also a chargeable item, losing charges every time the Ancient Prison is accessed, and permanent access can only be unlocked by paying Ashuelot Reis. In Old School RuneScape, the frozen key is a one-time-use item that permanently grants access to the Ancient Prison the first time it is used.
  • The Zarosian followers in the Ancient Prison are living beings, while in Old School RuneScape, the mages, rangers, and warriors are spiritual creatures.
  • The ancient ceremonial set can be used to bypass Zarosian kill count for accessing Nex. In Old School RuneScape, the ancient ceremonial set has no impact on kill count.
  • There is no altar present in Nex's chambers. In Old School RuneScape, one was added that not only allows for prayer restoration but, if the player is wearing a Zaros-aligned item, also restores Hitpoints, special attack energy, and run energy.
  • 40 Zarosian followers must be killed to gain access to Nex. In Old School RuneScape, 40 essence is still required, but Zarosian followers can provide multiple essence, meaning fewer than 40 kills are required.
  • Nex drops the Torva, Virtus, and Pernix armours, as well as the zaryte bow. In Old School RuneScape, her drop table was significantly changed:

Trivia

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  • Along with the Ourania Altar, the God Wars Dungeon is one of a small handful of new updates that recreated content from the original RuneScape 2 using archived assets.
  • On release, generals did not despawn if no players were in their chambers. This was added with an update on 29 March 2018 to accommodate for Ironman players.
  • An underwater section of the dungeon in Zamorak's Fortress was originally planned, but scrapped later on in development. Parts of the area could be seen from the entrance to Commander Zilyana's room via the use of an oculus orb before its removal in an update.
  • Prior to the release of Combat Achievements, access to the God Wars Dungeon was only possible with partial completion of Troll Stronghold. This means that players with limited builds (such as the obby mauler) with level 1 Attack can now enter the God Wars Dungeon using Ghommal's hilt, without having to accept the 3000 Attack XP reward from Death Plateau.

References

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  1. ^ Ashuelot Reis. Old School RuneScape. "Once Nex was no longer an immediate threat, they built the Temple of Lost Ancients around her. Most of the temple has since fallen to ruin, but you can still see some of the remains."
  2. ^
  3. ^