The humungous and deathly strykewyrms are happy to harmlessly tunnel about RuneScape, but they have trained senses that can smell a slayer from a mile off. Those who are assigned a strykewyrm task will find that they lure strykewyrms from the ground, but they may wish they hadn’t; once roused, a strykewyrm will do their very best to take them down!

Three breeds of strykewyrm are known to the Slayer masters of Runescape: jungle strykewyrms (level 73 Slayer) can be found near the coast north-west of Oo’glog; desert strykewyrms (level 77 Slayer) stir the sand east of Al Kharid (over the stile by the palace); and ice strykewyrms (level 93 Slayer) churn up the ice in a cave near to where you find the Muspah (but only after you’ve completed the Tale of the Muspah). Ice strykewyrm assignments are unique to Kuradal. You will need to own a TzHaar fire cape to be assigned them, and you will need to wear a fire cape to inflict any damage.

As with other Slayer creatures, each strykewyrm has a rare drop, which should prove to be very useful for slayers, mages and rangers. The jungle and desert strykewyrms, respectively, drop the hexcrest and the focus sight, which give combat and Slayer bonuses for Magic and Ranged (much like the black mask already does for melee). Indeed, anyone with a slayer helmet, focus sight and hexcrest can combine them all into a full slayer helmet, which incorporates all of these items’ bonuses into one slayertastic piece of headgear.

The ice strykewyrms’ unique drop, the staff of light, can be used as a slayer staff, has stats roughly equivalent to a dragon weapon, causes +15% Magic damage, has a special attack that reduces any melee damage that is received by 50% for one minute AND has a 1/8 chance of not using up runes each time a damage-dealing spell is cast with it!

The rune-saving effect can be combined with a full set of combat robes (improving the chance to 1/5) or battle robes (for an impressive 1/2 chance of saving runes). Also, any time the staff does not save your runes, the robes themselves will still have their usual chance of saving you any mind, chaos, death or blood runes used by the combat spell you are casting. These robe sets can both be earned as rewards from the Fist of Guthix minigame.

From beneath it devours… Happy slaying everyone!

Mod Chris L
RuneScape Content Developer

In other news...

After listening to your feedback, the F2 key will now toggle the chat window when you're holding the orb of oculus, otherwise known as the machinima camera. This should help you direct your actors on camera!

Today we have launched an update to the Standard Detail graphics mode for players with the Windows operating system (Windows 2000 onwards) and with Sun Java 1.4.2 or higher. The new Standard Detail mode is faster than the previous version. It also has options to turn on textures, shadows and lighting, which can make it look very close to the quality of High Detail mode.

For players who do not have Windows, or who wish to carry on using the old Standard Detail mode, there is a new ‘Safe Mode’ graphics detail option.

Mod Nick
Head of Core Technologies

For those who like to listen to RuneScape’s music while playing the game, you can now set up a custom playlist of up to twelve of your favourite tracks. When the playlist option is turned on, the game will play the tracks from your playlist; turned off, music will randomise as before, but your playlist between will be saved between sessions.

Adding to and removing songs from your playlist requires just one click, and you can reorder them by dragging them up and down the list. We’ve also taken the time to make ‘shuffle’ and ‘clear playlist’ buttons. As with randomised music, the only time your playlist is interrupted is when a new song is unlocked or a jingle (such as for gaining a level) is played.

We hope you enjoy this new feature and we welcome your feedback.

Mod Bond and the Audio Team

Three awesome new items have been added to the Jagex online store, and are available from today. Continuing with our plans to stock the online store with more stuff, check out our latest additions:

Zamorak hoodie
Bear the crest of the ZMI with this dark, deep red hoodie, lined with the horns of Zamorak inside the hood, and thick enough to keep even the coldest blood warm.

99 Hitsplat shirt
When it comes down to pwnership, the shirt of death says it all! We designed this iconic T-shirt in response to the huge demand we received for a ‘hit-splat’-tee. Enjoy!

Zaros cap
Look and feel like the most stylish of avatars in this Flexfit Zaros-brimmed cap featuring a silver embroidered Zaros icon on the front, with Jagex Game Studios across the back.

Head over to the store now!

Mod Dan H
Business Development

All of the questions asked in this round of Q&A sessions have been forwarded on to the relevant teams to be answered in their own sessions. The vast majority of those posed to Andrew made more sense to be answered by other people – e.g. any and all questions related to game content have been sent over to the RuneScape Content team – or have already been covered in Mark Gerhard’s Q&A last week.

As a result, we shall only be holding a live Q&A session with Andrew this time around. Also, the time of Andrew’s live Q&A will now be taking place an hour earlier than previously stated, at 3pm (GMT). Players will be able to ask questions in this thread, with the answers being posted to this thread.

Mod Kelvin
Head of Community Management

Based on player feedback to last November’s Runecrafting update, we’ve extended the ability of double-crafting runes to include law, death and blood runes. As the Runecrafting level to guarantee double-crafting of these runes would lie much higher than level 99 (following the pattern established in the rest of the skill), you will only have a chance of doing so, with that chance increasing the closer your Runecrafting level gets to 99.

The ability to double-craft law, death and blood runes now means that it is possible to receive more than one of each type of rune from a single essence. The greater chance, at higher Runecrafting levels, of crafting two law, death or blood runes per essence should provide more incentive to train the skill through the last few levels.

Mod Nancy
RuneScape Content Developer

How much wealth you are able to trade with your friends has been made more generous. Exactly how much depends on how long you’ve been friends (i.e. how long you've been on each other's Friends Lists).

If you’ve been friends for at least one month, your trade limit will be doubled; for two months your limit is tripled; and for three months your limit is quadrupled!

As before, when trading, you will continue to be limited by whomsoever has the lower trade limit, but remember that you are able to increase your trade limit by earning Quest Points.

Mod Hope
RuneScape Content Developer

As discussed in the recent blog, the Orb of Oculus is a new item, available to all players from Faruq in Al Kharid, which should help budding RuneScape filmmakers to more easily set up shots for their videos. Held in the hands, it gives you more control over the in-game camera, allowing you (or a friend) to act as a cameraman and set up shots for you to then capture with your preferred video capture software.

The hope is that it will make things easier for any players who enjoy making RuneScape videos, and encourage a wider number of players to enter our imminent machinima competition. So, if you’ve ever wanted to make a video of someone taking on the KBD with a bronze dagger (or joke about what you might do should you ever meet Jagex’s CEO...), then the Orb of Oculus should help you to realise your vision.

Although the orb’s primary function is to help make things a bit easier for budding filmmakers, we also fully expect it to be put to other, equally inventive uses, much like Faruq’s other 'emergent gameplay' tools for games.

Mod Fnord
RuneScape Content Developer