Abyss

This article is about the Runecrafting area. For another part of the same plane, see Abyssal Area. For other uses, see Abyss (disambiguation).

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The Abyss
Release						13 June 2005 (Update)
Members						Yes
Teleports						Mage of Zamorak
Music						Into the Abyss
Map
See map section

The Abyss is an area of Abyssal dimension, which contains rifts providing access to all the existing rune temples and runecrafting altars without the need for a talisman, tiara or talisman staff (with the exceptions of the Necromantic Rune Temple, the astral altar and the Ourania Runecrafting Altar). Accessing this area of the Abyss requires completion of the miniquest Enter the Abyss.

The area consists of two rings; a dangerous outer ring in a multiway combat zone with abyssal monsters, and a safe inner ring with rifts leading to the Runecrafting altars. In appearance, it seems to be oddly organic, with eyes, boils, and strange-looking tendrils, possibly being the organic detritus considered to be mistakes and cast into the Abyss by the Elder Gods.

Players have to travel through part of the low-level Wilderness to reach the Mage of Zamorak, who teleports the player to the Abyss. In addition to the abyssal monsters inhabiting it, entering the Abyss via Monk of Zamorak is also dangerous because players who enter the Abyss will have their prayer points drained to 0.

Getting there

To enter the Abyss, the player needs to complete the Enter the Abyss miniquest. Once players have completed the miniquest, they can use the 'Teleport' option on the Mage of Zamorak north of Edgeville in level 4 to 6 Wilderness to enter the Abyss.

Strategy

Players will be able to attack another player upon entering the Wilderness if they are opted-in to PvP or being skulled, for example when wearing the demonic skull.

For convenience, players can make the Mage of Zamorak teleport them straight away with a left-click by going through his 'Configure' option; this only has to be done once.

Once in the Wilderness, players should run until they reach the Mage of Zamorak. To avoid being stunned by player killers, skulled players should use Anticipation once they cross the Wilderness border. Movement abilities such as Surge, Dive, and Barge (on the wandering skeletons nearby) allow reaching him faster.

Other notes

Inside the Abyss, the player is no longer in the Wilderness and cannot be attacked by other players. However, if a player attacks immediately before a player enters the Abyss, the attack can hit after the player has been teleported inside due to lag. If the player is teleblocked by another player before entering, using the 'Teleport' option on the Zamorak Mage will not work.

Navigation

The interior of the area is roughly circular with an 'inner' and 'outer' ring. After the player is teleported into the outer ring, they will have to find a way through to the inner ring where the rifts leading to the runecrafting altars are located.

Wielding a Wilderness sword 3 or 4 provides a chance that the Mage of Zamorak will teleport the player to the inner ring of the Abyss. If the Nexus Mod relic power has been activated, the player will always be teleported to the centre of the Abyss instead of the outer ring.

Outer ring

The outer ring contains a large number of abyssal monsters:

• 

  Abyssal leech, level 72

• 

  Abyssal walker, level 77

• 

  Abyssal guardian, level 79

These have max hits under 300 and often miss against tier 60+ armour. Although guardians and leeches use magic and ranged respectively, their attacks remain melee-ranged. However, the abyssal monsters should still not be underestimated as, due to their large numbers, a player may take several hits per second. No damage is taken from these monsters while passing through to the inner ring.

Access to the inner ring is is blocked by various obstacles found surrounding it, whose positions will randomly change for each player when the Abyss is entered. Passages can be freely crossed. Blockages are impassable. The remaining five obstacles require level 30 in a corresponding skill, and grant 25 experience upon crossing them.

Obstacle		Requirement
	Blockage	Impassable
	Tendrils	30 Woodcutting
	Rock	30 Mining
	Eyes	30 Thieving
	Gap	30 Agility
	Boil	30 Firemaking
	Passage	Guaranteed

Inner ring

The Dark Mage, deep in concentration.

The inner ring of the Abyss contains no monsters. There are rifts leading to nearly every rune temple except the astral altar, Necromantic Rune Temple, and Ourania Runecrafting Altar, which makes the Abyss useful for crafting a lot of different types of runes very quickly. Talismans, tiaras or staves are not needed to access the altars via the rifts.

The following restrictions apply to entering some rifts:

• The cosmic rift cannot be accessed until the quest Lost City has been completed.
• Weapons or armour can be taken to access the law rift but cannot leave from the portal inside the temple as it is located on Entrana.
• The death rift requires the quest Mourning's End Part II to be completed.
• The blood rift requires the quest Legacy of Seergaze to be completed.
• The soul rift requires the altar to be discovered using a soul talisman after completing the quest 'Phite Club.
• The time rift requires the ruins to be anchored using the enchanted key from Making History or the enchanted key from Meeting History

The dark mage is present at the centre of the inner ring, maintaining the rift so the ZMI can use the Abyss to craft runes. He will repair degraded runecrafting pouches for free.

Runecrafting buff

Players who enter runecrafting altars through the Abyss receive 250% experience when runecrafting and have a chance to receive magical thread. The buff lasts for one minute starting when you craft runes at the altar. The buff continues even if you leave or go to another altar.

Usage with demonic skull

A demonic skull can be bought from the Mage of Zamorak for 550,000 coins which will increase the experience bonus to 350% and gives 3 times more magical thread.

When entering the Wilderness, regardless of being opt-ed out of PvP, players with a demonic skull will be forced into skulled. Players of any combat level can attack the player in the Wilderness if the demonic skull is in the backpack or being worn. If the player is killed, the skull will drop as 500,000 coins at the same location.

Using the Abyss as a method of transportation

Since the altars are located throughout the world, it is possible to use the Abyss as a method of teleportation. Some useful teleports include:

• Air altar - Champions' Guild, Cooks' Guild, West of Varrock
• Blood altar - Quick access to mutated bloodveld for completing slayer assignments.
• Death altar - End of the Temple of Light from the quest Mourning's End Part II
• Earth altar - East of Varrock
• Fire altar - Al Kharid, Het's Oasis
• Law altar - Entrana
• Nature altar - Karamja, Shilo Village, Tai Bwo Wannai, Brimhaven Dungeon
• Soul altar - Menaphos
• Water altar - Lumbridge Swamps, Zanaris

To use a teleport, simply enter the Abyss, find and enter the altar, then leave via the portal. No tiaras or talismans are necessary when entering the portals to go to the various altars via the Abyss.

Combat training

Main article: Abyss/Combat training

Training combat in the Abyss is one of the higher experience per hour away from keyboard (AFK) training methods in RuneScape, granting 500,000-600,000 combat experience per hour.

Map

Abyss

• Abyssal guardian
• Abyssal leech
• Abyssal walker
• Dark mage
• Rifts to Runecrafting altars:
• 
  Chaos
• 
  Law
• 
  Death
• 
  Water
• 
  Soul
• 
  Air
• 
  Mind
• 
  Body
• 
  Earth
• 
  Fire
• 
  Blood
• 
  Cosmic
• 
  Nature
• 
  Time

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included – see here for how to help out!

• hotfix 11 March 2025 (Update):
  • Crafting runes at the astral altar will no longer grant bonus from entering the Abyss.
  • Logging into a runecrafting altar now forgets that the player entered it through the Abyss.

• update 3 March 2025 (Update):
  • Time rift added.

• hidden 3 March 2025 (Update):
  • Graphically updated.

• patch 8 August 2022 (Update):
  • The Abyss can now be entered without the requirement of being opted-in to PvP. The 250% Runecrafting XP bonus still applies for opted-out players who runecraft via the Abyss.
  • The Forinthry bracelet no longer consumes charges when entering the Abyss while equipped. The examine has been updated to reflect this change.
  • Players who do opt-in for PvP and use the demonic skull receive the 350% XP bonus.

• patch 4 October 2021 (Update):
  • Interacting with any of the skill check barriers to the inner circle of the Abyss will now play a shorter animation.
  • Players can no longer fail obstacles in the Abyss. Instead, there's now a hard level 30 requirement in the respective skills to cross the obstacles.
    • Adjusted some outdated messaging regarding the obstacles.

• patch 23 September 2019 (Update):
  • The abyss bonus now correctly refreshes when re-entering an altar with it active.

patch 15 August 2016 (Update):

• • Moved a piece of scenery to prevent you getting blocked occasionally when teleporting directly to the centre of the abyss.

• ninja 28 September 2015 (Update):
  • Runecrafting altar rifts in the Abyss had their click areas increased.

• ninja 20 July 2015 (Update):
  • Entering an altar through the Abyss will now provide 2.5x Runecrafting experience.
  • The Mage of Zamorak found in the Varrock Chaos Temple and north of Edgeville is now selling a mysterious object that may prove enlightening when Runecrafting using the Abyss:
    • Entering an altar through the Abyss with the item equipped will now provide 3.5x Runecrafting experience. A head icon will show that the player is currently wielding the item.
    • Players killed wearing the item will drop 500k upon death to another player.

• patch 13 August 2013 (Update):
  • The camera transition is now much smoother when passing through into the middle of the Abyss.

• patch 11 January 2010 (Update):
  • Clarified the messages when using the Abyss to get to Entrana with Summoning items.

• patch 9 November 2009 (Update):
  • The Death Altar portal in the Abyss is now a little more informative if you don't have the requirements.

• update 13 June 2005 (Update):
  • Added to game.

Trivia

• When the Abyss was released, it was possible to attack other players inside the Abyss by using Ancient Magicks multi-target spells on a monster near the player. You could also select an attacking spell from the spell list and manually use it on a player. Because of the relative obscurity of the recently-released Abyss, many people explored the Abyss with expensive armour, and were a target for the bug abusers. The glitch was later fixed; however, the people who profited from it were not banned.
• After the update on 10 December 2007, Abyss Runecrafting was made much safer due to the fact that there were no player killers around and revenants only occasionally wandered close to the Zamorak Mage. However, the player killers returned with the Wilderness and Free Trade update on 1 February 2011.
• It is possible to see the Abyssal Area at the far north of the Abyss, even without the Orb of oculus.
• According to the game's background, whenever a person is teleported with magic, they are in the Abyss for a split second. Hence the Lost and Found random event. Accordingly, as the Mage of Zamorak during the miniquest with the same name theorises, The Abyss is a dimension in which the dimensional barriers may be weakening. If this is indeed the case, then many more teleportation methods would be failing, not simply the initial spell that caused the Zamorakians to discover the Abyss as well as allowing all of the abyssal creatures into the same area. As most teleports are quite accurate, this has caused controversy pertaining to the storyline of this miniquest.
  • It is worth noting, however, that the Mage of Zamorak claims that Zamorak has devoted some of his energy to stabilising the Abyss, and that the Dark Mage at the Abyss' centre was placed there by the ZMI to stabilise the Abyss as well. It is possible that, as a result, there is now less risk of teleportation spell failure.
• On 6 June 2009, with the release of the Hunt for Red Raktuber, the Thieving obstacle did an emote even if a player failed to pass.