Barrows



The Barrows minigame is an area-based Combat minigame released on 9 May 2005. It is popular due to the potential of receiving valuable rewards, including the unique Barrows equipment. The objective is to defeat the six Barrows brothers: Ahrim the Blighted, Dharok the Wretched, Guthan the Infested, Karil the Tainted, Torag the Corrupted and Verac the Defiled. Each brother has his own burial mound and possesses a Combat level of 115, except Ahrim the Blighted and Karil the Tainted, who both have a Combat level of 98. To enter a mound, the player must stand on top of it and dig using a spade. (Note: As of Content Poll #14, there will be a spade spawn near the Barrows area.) The Barrows brothers are very strong, each with high Defence levels. Each brother also has a different special ability, which is the same as the set effect of the corresponding armour set. Because of this, special consideration should be given to the methods with and order in which the brothers are killed.

Getting there
There are several different methods for travelling to Barrows and for banking. Some of which are:
 * Using the fairy ring code to travel to the fairy ring inside Mort Myre Swamp and heading south through the swamp and then through Mort'ton to Barrows. (Note: Fairy ring travel requires Fairytale II - Cure a Queen to be started, and Nature Spirit is required to be started for travel through Mort Myre Swamp.)
 * With completion of In Search of the Myreque, players gain access to an alternative route to Mort'ton.
 * Casting Barrows Teleport in the Arceuus spellbook. Requires 83 Magic and at least 60% favour with the Arceuus House.
 * After completion of Ghosts Ahoy, players can use the Ectophial and travel from there. (It also serves as a one-click teleport in case of emergencies.)
 * Players can teleport to Varrock and head east (allows players to restore Prayer points at the temple on the way).
 * Players can teleport directly to Canifis using the Kharyll Teleport spell, provided they have completed Desert Treasure. This option can be made more convenient by adding a Kharyll portal in your player-owned house (50 Construction needed). This makes it so you can teleport to Canifis while on your regular spellbook and can benefit greatly should you also have an altar to recharge Prayer in your house (also 50 Construction). This method is best used in conjunction with the Myreque's alternative route to Mort'ton.
 * With the release of the minigame channels, players can quickly teleport to Mort'ton through the Shades of Mort'ton minigame channel (only if you have completed the quest, Shades of Mort'ton). This method is free and takes up no inventory or equipment spaces.
 * Using the Mort'ton teleport scroll and then running to Barrows.
 * Using the Morytania legs 3 or 4 to Burgh de Rott and running north through Mort'ton towards Barrows.

Completion of In Aid of the Myreque up until the point in which the bank in Burgh de Rott is restored is useful for a convenient banking method for multiple trips.

Exploring the Barrows
The above-ground portion of Barrows consists of six grave mounds inside a fence. A Prayer-using player should prepare to fight the brother in the mound before entering as preparing after entering the mound will waste prayer points, which constantly drain away when inside the Barrows. To enter a mound, stand on top of a mound, and dig with a spade. The player should enter a crypt with a sarcophagus in the centre. Open the sarcophagus and pray if using Prayer. Every time but once, the brother who is buried there will appear and attack. Kill the brother, leave and proceed to the next one.

At one of the crypts, the brother will not appear. Instead, there will be an entrance to a maze-like lower level of tunnels. If the player has not killed all the other brothers in their crypts yet, it is not recommended to enter the tunnels at this time. Once all the others have been killed, the player should return to this crypt and enter the tunnels.

The tunnels contain nine rooms in a 3x3 grid, connected by short and long corridors. The player must find the way to the central room and the rewards chest there. Some of the doors will be locked, so the player must explore.

The room in which the player enters the tunnels has a ladder leading out. It will often not have any monsters in it the first time the player enters it (but will if entered subsequently). All other rooms and corridors always have some monsters in them (if only the sixth brother) when entered. When passing through a door, the sixth brother may appear and attack. If he does not appear before the chest is reached, he will definitely appear when the chest is opened. Kill the last brother when he appears. Once the chest is opened, the player can get the treasure by searching the chest.

If Guthan is the brother in your tunnel, there is a small possibility he will die, but you will get a message saying "We'll finish this later...", and he will not count towards your kill-count, or loot, but he may not be able to be killed in the tunnel until you do another run after leaving.

After the chest is looted, the tunnels start collapsing, which will cause damage. Some players teleport away after looting the chest, while others with adequate supplies retrace their route back to the room with the ladder. This is HIGHLY recommended as players can easily rebank at Burgh de Rott or Canifis if needed, and players can restart the Barrows trip all over again without having to teleport there.

It is not required to kill all the brothers before looting the chest, but the chance of getting Barrows equipment from the chest increases as more brothers are killed. It is possible to skip every brother but the one in the tunnels.

A good method to heal, if you're not using Prayer to kill the brothers, is to find the tunnel in the middle of, or after killing the brothers, use Guthan's and/or a Saradomin godsword to heal off the low level monsters inside the tunnel, and then go back out and finish killing the brothers.

Monsters in the crypt

 * Barrows brother—One of the brothers' sarcophagi leads to a tunnel into the crypt.
 * Bloodworms
 * Skeletons
 * Crypt rats
 * Crypt spiders
 * Giant crypt rats
 * Giant crypt spiders

Kill count and loot

 * If one decides not to kill a specific brother (e.g. killing all the brothers except Ahrim), that brother's loot will not be available in the chest.
 * The order in which you kill the brothers does not matter. However, it is still recommended that you kill five brothers before venturing into the tunnels to kill the sixth. (When inside the tunnel, if you find an aggressive low level enemy, rat or bloodworm, you can continuously enter and leave a doorway to enable them to respawn to get killcount faster. ( WARNING:  BEWARE, THIS CAN ALSO ENABLE THE SIXTH BROTHER TO SPAWN RANDOMLY!)
 * If you want to only get a specific brother's items, you should only kill that brother. Your chances of getting that brother's item does not change at all, but this allows you to do more runs with the same time and supplies (you can loot more chests in a shorter time). This is especially recommended for ironman accounts who, for example, want to get full Guthan's, but not any of the other Barrows items. This was confirmed in the Runescape Mythbusting Special.
 * You unlock more drops in the loot table depending on the total combat level of the monsters you kill, including the barrows brothers. The brothers contribute 656 to this value, and for maximum loot, this value should be above 1012. For example, killing 5 of the level 77 Skeletons will contribute 385 points to this value. This was confirmed by Mod Kieren.
 * For each brother you have killed, you will get a roll in the drop table. For example, if you kill all six brothers, you will get six rolls at the drop table, which means you theoretically can get six Barrows items. It is possible to get two items from the same brother in one chest, although this is extremely rare.

Entering the chest room
Once the player locates the operational door that leads to the chest, he or she will have to solve a simple puzzle in order to open the door. Due to the monster that spawns when you go into the room, some players prefer killing it, while others simply move back and forth to chase it off. This is useful in the giant crypt rat room, as their large size can block enemies. If you get the puzzle wrong, the catacombs will move around, meaning that the ladder will be in a different room, and so will be the door to the chest room.

Runes

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Barrows equipment

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Miscellaneous

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Trivia

 * Prior to an update, Barrows did not tell you what brothers you had killed. In addition, before the aforementioned update, there was no looting interface upon searching the chest for your rewards.