TruthScape.com - Ultimate Power Barrows Guide - Introduction and Overview, Including Benefits, Risks and Costs

The Barrows is one of the most popular minigames in RuneScape because it is challenging, requires strategy and thinking, and has the potential to pay off handsomely with great rewards. Done the right way, Barrows can not only gain you lots of gold, useful items and experience, it can be a great deal of fun as well!

Let’s take a look at what The Barrows is all about, starting with the backstory behind the minigame and an overview of what is involved in it. I’ll tell you about the rewards that make The Barrows such a popular activity—and the risks that make it well-known as a place where the unprepared go to die.

The story behind the Barrows is a woeful tale of six brothers who were renowned soldiers during the time of the god wars. Four were warriors, one a powerful mage and the last a fearsome archer; they fought together against the evil tide that threatened to engulf the land. Their reputation grew over the course of many years, and legends were told about their heroic feats.

The forces of darkness, unfortunately, recognized the threat that the brothers represented, and put into motion a plan to defeat them. After a particularly difficult attack they were stricken with a horrible illness from which they could not recover—suspicion was that this was in fact the work of dark magic. The brothers died, and with their loss, the forces they led were unable to continue their campaign. Out of respect for these fallen heroes, the soldiers that accompanied them built a set of six stone tombs for the brothers and covered them with earth: these are The Barrows (Figure 399).

**Figure 399: The Barrows Mounds**
Here I am standing on Dharok’s crypt looking roughly southwest; you can see Guthan’s crypt in the upper left, Ahrim’s in the center and upper right, and beyond them parts of Karil’s and Torag’s barrows.

It seems, though, that the bitter end of these heroes of good went beyond the loss of their mortal forms. Their spirits were warped and twisted by the magic that caused their deaths, and the ghosts of the six brothers now lay in wait to attack any who dare to disturb them.

In a room in the northern part of The Barrows you can find a book on a table simply called “Crumbling tome”. Read it to get a more detailed account of the story behind The Six Brothers (Figure 400).

**Figure 400: Crumbling Tome**
On a table in the small room just north of the actual Barrows mounds you can find a book that will give you lots of details on the six brothers.

The Barrows are located just east of Mort’ton, deep in the land of Morytania. Each of the six barrows has within it a stone sarcophagus (coffin) that contains the spirit of one of the six fallen Barrows brothers. When the coffin is searched, the ghost of the brother appropriate to that coffin will appear, express his displeasure, and attack the one who searched it (Figure 401).

**Figure 401: Disturbing Verac’s Rest**
When you click on a sarcophagus, you will immediately be attacked.

Each brother is capable of inflicting major damage, and is ideally defeated by keeping in mind the RuneScape combat triangle—in particular, the melee brothers are best attacked with magic attacks. Each brother also has a special attack effect that is the same as that provided by the Barrows armor set that corresponds to him. For example, just as the Dharoks set allows a player to do more damage when hurt, so too can the Dharok ghost inflict over 50 points of damage when nearly dead! To make matters even more challenging, the crypts will constantly drain your prayer, and Verac can damage through prayer just like his set effect does for players.

Every time you visit The Barrows, five of the six crypts will contain the specters of these fallen brothers, each of which is described as a “vengeful spirit corrupted by dark magic”. The sixth tomb will be empty, instead leading into a maze of tunnels filled with aggressive creatures. In the center of the maze is a room that contains a chest, which you open to get your reward after killing one or more of the brothers. Only one of the four possible doors leading to the chest will open, and then only after a puzzle question is answered.

The crypt containing the entrance to the tunnels and the location of the door to the chest is selected randomly each time The Barrows is visited, and is unique to each player. The last brother (the one whose crypt led to the tunnels) will normally be waiting to attack you at the chest, or he may pop up when you open a door in the tunnels.

The ghost of each brother that is killed will deposit a reward into the chest, which can range from gold coins to combat runes, ammunition for Karil’s crossbow, one of the rare Barrows armor or weapon items, a half key or a dragon medium helm. The reward is random, but is affected by the number of brothers and other monsters killed. After the chest is opened, the screen will begin to shake, and rocks will occasionally fall on your head causing minor damage until you either go back out the way you came in or teleport out. Leaving the tunnels resets the minigame until you visit again, when the crypt containing the tunnel entrance will change once more.

Well, I’d like to have put here a long list of benefits of The Barrows, but I have to be honest in saying that the main reason why RuneScape players visit is for the goodies they get out of that chest. J Done right, The Barrows can be a very lucrative way of getting some rather useful and expensive armor and weapons (see Figure 402), and even a nice amount of handy runes.

**Figure 402: Barrows Loot**
I got these nine pieces of Barrows equipment doing a bunch of runs as part of the preparation of this guide.

Each brother’s ghost that is killed will provide a reward. Routine rewards include gold, runes (minds, chaoses, deaths and bloods), and bolt racks for Karil’s crossbow. A less common reward is a loop or teeth half key. Rare rewards include Barrows armor or weapon items, or a dragon medium helm. The odds of getting a Barrows item are approximately one in 16 or so chests if all six brothers are killed.

Aside from this loot, there are some other reasons why people do The Barrows. It’s not the fastest way to get combat experience but you do get some, and many find it far less monotonous than killing the same monster over and over again. For some folks it is also a social occasion, with groups of friends going to The Barrows together. This is somewhat complicated by each player starting in a different place in the tunnels, but that can be worked around.

The Barrows is designated by Jagex as a “dangerous” minigame, in that if you die you will lose all but three or four of your most valuable items. The danger level is mainly due to the potential that most of the brothers have for inflicting high damage, combined with the fact that prayer drains away quickly in the crypts. This can leave you unexpectedly exposed to a large amount of damage if you are unprepared, don’t pay attention, or experience lag.

Many of the risks associated with The Barrows can be mitigated through proper technique and being cautious in how you fight the various brothers. Even then, however, it can in fact be a very dangerous place—I have died in RuneScape probably only around 10 or 15 times total in my career and at least three of them were at The Barrows. In at least one case this was because I was trying to be too cost effective and didn’t take a prayer pot dose when I should have—this ended up being an expensive mistake!

The costs associated with the Barrows are mainly in the supplies needed to kill the brothers. The exact costs will depend on the method chosen, but will generally include runes for maging, food, prayer potions to restore drained prayer, enhancement potions (super attacks and super strengths, for example) and super energy potions to keep run energy up.