Ashes

Ashes appear when a fire burns out, by picking the White lily, by equipping the Abyssal whip provided by an Abyssal minion, or as the end result of smouldering Fever grass, Lavender, or Tansymum. Fire spirits can also provide noted Ashes as a potential reward from bonfire-training. Ashes share a similar, often differently-coloured appearance with a number of items, mainly anything with 'ash' or 'dust' in the item name. Common examples of recoloured Ashes include tan-coloured Clay and brown-coloured Chocolate dust.

Although Ashes have limited uses in RuneScape, their role in Herblore-training by Serum 207 makes them valuable among Members. Free players can collect Ashes from burnt out fires and Fire spirits, though the main, and arguably only, Free-to-play use for Ashes is to sell them.

Uses (Members)

 * They are used in the Shades of Mort'ton and Desert Treasure quests.
 * They are used to make Serum 207.
 * They can be crushed with a Pestle and mortar to make a Ground ashes used to dust the character's hands. This helps when throwing a shotput in the Warriors' Guild for better grip.
 * They are used with a Fruit blast to make a Dirty blast for the first part of the Recipe for Disaster quest.
 * They are used as food for the Phoenix eggling and the Abyssal minion.
 * Used with the Phoenix familiar's scroll, Rise from the ashes, to activate its special move. (To use the special move, the ashes must be on the ground.)

Obtaining/Money-Making With Asses (Members)
''The player will need: Completion of most of  As a First Resort..., up to the 'Kebbit, Kebbit' section of "Accelerate The Action Point"; a Tinderbox in the inventory or Tool belt (the latter recommended); an item in the Weapon slot that can be unequipped easily using the Action bar (most weapons work, see Step #5 for details). 'Beast of Burden familiars are optional, but they can make collecting Fever grasses easier.'' Fever grass, available to the player only during and after As a First Resort..., can be used as a relatively quick way to obtain Ashes. Smouldering the Fever grass and waiting, or simply unequipping the smouldering grass, yields Ashes; untradeable Fever grass can be turned into Coins-fetching Ashes at a significantly faster rate than waiting for a fire to burn out. There is a patch of Fever grass just outside the western entrance of Oo'glog, a relatively short run from the town bank, facilitating Fever grass-gathering:
 * 1) Starting from the bank, with the player's choice of Beast of Burden, run west and fill up on Fever grasses. Hugging the south side of the grass patch helps to avoids prolonged combat with the nearby Ogresses. One click collects one grass.
 * 2) Run east to the bank and deposit any Fever grasses.
 * 3) Repeat Steps #1 and #2 until the desired number of grasses is collected. When finished, fill the inventory with Fever grasses and one equippable item (see Step #5 for details). Have a Tinderbox ready in the Tool belt or inventory as well. If Beasts of Burden were used to assist in grass-collecting, they are no longer required at this point.
 * 4) "Light" the Fever grass in the inventory to equip the now renamed "Smouldering fever grass" in the Weapon slot.
 * 5) * The most efficient way to do this is to have a Fever grass in the Action bar. One button press will "Light" the grass as long as nothing else is equipped in the Weapon slot. Any button presses while having a Smouldering fever grass already in hand tells the player that "You can only use one smouldering material at a time", while extra button presses with a non-smouldering material equipped in the Weapon slot will bring up that "You need to have your right hand free to keep the fever grass burning".
 * 6) Unequip the Smouldering fever grass to yield Ashes in the inventory by equipping an item in the Weapon slot. Deposit the Ashes.
 * 7) * The most efficient way to do this is to have an item for the Weapon slot in the Action bar, preferably with its assigned key close to the Fever grass' key. One button press will equip the item and, in the vast majority of circumstances, a second button press will unequip the item. In general, items that provide teleports, emotes, or other non-combat functions do not have unequip as the default action and should not be used for this step. For example, the player will attempt to 'Place' a Clan vexillum, '[Animal]-dance' with an Animal staff equipped, or teleport with the Skull sceptre equipped rather than unequipping anything.
 * 8) Repeat steps #4 and #5, withdrawing additional Fever grass when necessary, until the desired number of Ashes are converted from Fever grass.
 * 9) * Three button presses are all it takes to convert one Fever grass into Ashes. If the Fever grass and item are assigned to keys 1 and 2, for example, a player can simply press 122 122 122 and so on until the inventory is full of Ashes.

Notes and Restrictions

 * Nearby Platypus will attack and poison the player if the player has Smouldering fever grass near the Fever grass patch. The Thermal Bath in Oo'glog can alleviate any complications (only after As a First Resort... is completed), but the player can simply avoid smouldering fever grass near the native platypus and wait to smoulder grass inside the bank.
 * Smouldering Fever grass can only be done in the Oo'glog area. "There is too much wind to keep something smouldering" in any other location.
 * Fever grass is available on the Grand Exchange for a fraction of the price of Ashes, allowing a player to amass a stock of grass ready to be turned into Ashes and still turn a profit. That being said, the Exchange's supply of grass is questionable at best, as Fever grass is relatively useless after As a First Resort... and most players probably do not consider Fever grass worth stockpiling, let alone selling.
 * On the plus side, Fever grass weighs 0 kg, allowing constant or near-constant running. If Energy is a concern, the nearby Saltwater Spring can easily provide unlimited Energy for a decent period of time.

Trivia

 * Because ashes are occasionally used to raise Herblore (by making Serum 207), players can make some profit by selling them on the Grand Exchange, some times for a higher price. They can be commonly collected just off the ground around the Grand Exchange or near the Draynor bank left over from players training their Firemaking.
 * Some players collect ashes at the Grand Exchange (there are many players burning logs), instead of buying and burning the logs themselves. There have been numerous reports of players (almost always with a combat level of 3) using bots to pick up ashes at the Grand Exchange.
 * It appears that ashes vanish much faster on the floor than other items, disappearing after around 30 seconds when normally dropped tradeable items stay for three minutes. However, this might simply be due to the time while the fire burns is counted in the ashes natural destruction timer.
 * During the Draynor Bank Robbery, the victims dropped ashes when the Wise Old Man killed them.
 * On 7 August 2009 the price changed from 3 coins to 342 coins overnight, an increase of just over 11000%. The price then dropped to 4 coins after less than one hour of the change.
 * A fake Abyssal whip can be obtained from an Abyssal minion which will turn to ash when equipped.
 * Before 15 February 2011 demons, imps and fiends would drop ashes as a 100% drop, but they were replaced with impious ashes, accursed ashes and infernal ashes on that date.
 * There is currently a right-click option for free-players to grind the ashes even though only members can do it. Clicking on that option will show a message saying: 'You need a pestle and mortar to do that.' However, if the player is/was a member and has a pestle and mortar in a non-member world, they can grind the object to make a Members object.
 * Sometimes a player will drop a red bead on some ashes to make others think that a Santa hat was dropped on the ground. This was occasionally used in scams.