It’s pretty obvious in any video game that whenever you slay a monster, that beast is going to drop something for you. Sometimes it might be something good, sometimes it might be something bad, sometimes it might be bones. In most games bones are the trash item, the loot that no respectable merchant wants to buy, so you just dump them in the junk pile. Not so in the world of Gielinor.
In the world of Old School Runescape, almost all monsters drop bones at a near consistent rate, and you can’t really do much with them until the completion of the quest “Death to The Dorgeshuun.” Then you can sell long bones to Barlak the goblin for coins and also for construction experience.
Long Bones and Construction
Most players in Runescape who are members have found themselves wanting to have a home space. Somewhere that belongs to them, and a place they can return too after fighting monsters and putting down evil cults. Now, in order to do that players need to buy one of many various houses in the game, and then start building furniture for them.
Or they can accept the quest “Mahogany homes’ which lets them build furniture for various NPCs of the world. Still, no matter what you do you will be building furniture until you level up your construction skill high enough. Unless you reach construction level 30 and start giving all your long bones to Barlack, who will reward you with 4,500 experience points and the 1,000 coins per bone.
So if you collect quite a few long bones in your travels and then return to Dorgesh-Kaan, you can easily level up your construction spell. This is a nice alternative to simply grinding furniture to build your player homes, unless you are one of the players who loves to build and customize your home.
Where To Get Long Bones
Almost all the monsters in the game drop them whenever they are slain, at a constant rate of 1/400. All monsters will drop one long bone when you slay them at that rate. Now, the only two creatures in the game who have a lower rate of dropping bones at 1/64 are the deranged archaeologist, and the crazy archaeologist. These two demi-bosses can be found at the southern end of the Tar Swamp, and the Forgotten Cemetery respectively.
They drop long bones at a much faster rate than your typical monster, so you can grind them for a while to get some if you want.
What About Curved and Big Bones?
Of course, not every monster’s bones are the exact same. Curved bones are much rarer than their long bone counterparts, coming in with a drop rate of 1/5012.5, so you won’t be seeing a lot of them. Still, when you do see them you can repeat the process of taking them to Barlack the cave goblin, who will give you 2,000 gold for them. Additionally, at level 30 construction you will be able to get 6,750 construction experience for these bones.
These curved bones are pretty rare, and are often inside the bodies of really high level creatures such as ice giants, giant frogs, mammoths, ogres, and trolls. So you won’t be seeing too many during your playthrough. But when you do have them, make sure to give them to Barlak.
Big bones, and regular sized bones, are not available to be given to Bartak and must instead be buried or offered for some prayer experience.
How To Unlock Bartlak
To get to the cave goblin and all he offers, you will need to complete the quest ‘Death to The Dorgeshuun’, which is the 2nd quest you will complete during the Dorgeshuun quest series. The first quest had you meeting the Dorgeshuun, a friendly tribe of goblins who were found beneath the earth under Lumbridge, and will also discover that Sigmund, an advisor to the duke, is in fact a traitor.
Sigmund is a member of the H.A.M organization, or humans against monsters, and the quest ends with him being fired and a peace treaty being signed between the Duke and the Dorgeshuun. In the second quest, Sigmund has returned to wipe out the Dorgeshuun, and he’s brought an army of H.A.M agents with him!
The Quest
The goblins want to infiltrate the H.A.M hideout and see if an attack is being planned. They plan to have you lead their goblin agent Zanik to the surface, but first you will both need disguises. You can pickpocket the robes, kill H.A.M agents to get them, or simply buy them on the Grand Exchange. Once you both have the robes, you and Zanik go around the town of Lumbridge, helping to get her acquainted with surface life.
After this, you will both don your robes and enter the H.A.M hideout, discovering that something big is being planned to take out the Dorgeshuun. With a little snooping and some stealth kills, you both manage to get through a secret part of the H.A.M hideout, before you are surrounded by guards and arrested.
You awake in jail alone, and after escaping you find Zanik dead, and will need to take her to the Chasm of Tears.
The Chasm of Tears
A large serpent named Juna (who you would have met before if you had completed the ‘Tears of Guthix Quest’ before this one) tells you to collect 20 tears to restore Zanik to life. You will then need to play the ‘Tears Of Guthix’ minigame and collect 20 tears in Zanik’s bowl. Once this is done and you restore Zanik, she will tell you what she heard.
Sigmund and his H.A.M agents want to use a drilling machine to flood the tunnels and drown the dorgeshuun, and it’s up to you to stop them.
The Battle
Once you get back to Lumbridge, still in your H.A.M disguise, you will be able to head to the water mill and find an empty crate, which will conceal Zanik while you walk down to the trap door that leads to the drilling machine. Sigmund and two guards will be there, and you will need to defeat them.
Sigmund will always cast a protection prayer on himself based on whatever attack you are using, so it’s best to kill the henchmen first. When Zanik starts to attack Sigmund with her crossbow, he will swap his prayer to defend against her missiles, and you can attack him however you wish.
Sigmund will teleport away from the battle site and then you can smash the drilling machine, ending the threat once and for all. The Dorgeshuun leaders will give you access to their city and that is how you find Barlak.
The End Of the Questline
If you are interested in hearing how the story ends, you discover that Zanik is the goblin’s chosen one and meant to lead the goblins. You also find several artifacts while digging a tunnel for a train going from the lands of the Dorgeshuun to the lands of the dwarves, including ancient armour shards, and fragments of a shield, sword, and axe. The only thing still undamaged is a mace, which you are both told to take to goblin village for investigation.
The mace is found to have the power of the goblin god Bandos, but before you can investigate further the village is attacked by H.A.M agents. Zanik is kidnaped in the ensuing melee, and you and the goblins set out to save her.
Sigmud has tied Zanik to the train tracks, hoping she dies and her death is blamed on the dwarves, starting a war that will wipe them both out. After sneaking your way through the caves with the goblins distracting the guards, you will face Sigmund one last time.
You can use the ancient mace to drain the powers of his protective prayer and defeat Sigmund, causing him to flee in defeat. You free Zanik, avert the war, and then watch the grand opening of the railroad, giving you a fast pass between the lands of the dwarves and the land of the goblins. And the train is pretty fun to ride too!
What Else Does Access to Dorgesh-Kann Give You?
Along with the experience points, quest point, and everything else, you will get a few more things from completing this quest. First is access to the tunnel that you have made, allowing you another mode of travel. You can also buy and use bone daggers and dorgeshuun crossbows and special attacks for both weapons, and access to the various shops and NPCs in the city.
The bone daggers have the same stats as an iron dagger, although they can be poisoned and do have the special attack backstab, which is a guaranteed hit if you weren’t the last enemy to attack a target. It also lowers the enemy’s defense by the damage.
Dorgeshuun crossbows are one handed crossbows that can use the cheaply made bone bolts, making this an excellent weapon for training. It also has an attack speed of 5, which is higher than all the other crossbows in the game. It also has the special attack snipe which is a guaranteed hit if you are facing the back of the target, and lowers their defence by the damage.
Long Bone OSRS FAQ
Question: Is There Anything I Can Do To Increase The Drop Rate?
Answer: If you find yourself struggling to get all the bones you need to level up your construction skill to 99, then you might wonder if there’s anything you can do to increase the drop rate of long bones or at least the amount of experience that they give.
Sadly, you can’t, but you should make it a habit to carry as many long bones as you can with you in your bank or on your person. If you complete the Death to the Dorgeshuun quest line before reaching level 30 in construction, all Bertack will give you is the gold for every bone. Make sure to save all the bones that you can even if you aren’t level 30, and then turn in the mountain of bones all at once.
Also, although the carpenter’s outfit does increase the experience points gained whenever you do a construction task with it on, the bonus does not apply whenever you are turning in the bones. So the only way to increase the drop rate is to keep slaying monsters and lowering the odds of the bone dropping.
Question: How Do I Fight The Crazed Archaeologist and The Deranged Archaeologist?
Answer: If you want to grind your way to a much faster drop rate with bones, then consider fighting these two demi-bosses. He uses ranged and melee attacks, mostly by throwing books at you and occasionally hurling explosive books that explode in an area.
Now, he doesn’t have a lot of magical defense, so if you protect yourself from ranged damage and avoid getting hit by his special attack, you can cut him down quite easily with magic based attacks. Just make sure to avoid his special attack, because that is the one thing that can cause some serious damage to you. Otherwise the fight is pretty simple.
The Deranged Archaeologist is pretty much the same, except his special attack hits much harder. Still, you can use the same strategy to overcome him as well. Now you just need to keep grinding these bosses and not getting complacent with things. Then you’ll get a lot of bones for very little effort.
Question: Can I Bury Long Bones?
Answer: You can bury long bones, however they only give 15 prayer experience when buried. It’s much more efficient to bury the big bones and regular bones that you find, because you can offer them up at various locations to get more prayer experience. For long bones, you should always be giving them to Balrak.
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