Barrows

RS

This is a dangerous minigame. Only bring items you can adequately defend or items you are willing to lose.

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A player participating in the Barrows minigame.

Location on World Map
Castle Drakan
↑
Mort'ton	←	Barrows	→	Meiyerditch
↓
Burgh de Rott

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 a high Defence level. 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

1.) Red is the longest and most tedious route.
2.) Sky blue is the moderate route if no additional quests are completed aside from In Aid of the Myreque. Those who have access to fairy rings can also use this route.
3.) Green is the penultimate shortest route and makes use of the Myreque shortcut.
4.) Dark blue is the shortest route making use of Morytania legs 3, 4, or Mort'ton teleports.

There are several different methods for travelling to Barrows and for banking. Some of which are:

• Casting Barrows Teleport in the Arceuus spellbook. Requires 83 Magic and at least 60% favour with the Arceuus House. Alternatively, using a Barrows teleport tablet will work just as well.
• Using the fairy ring code bkr to travel to the fairy ring inside Mort Myre Swamp and heading south through the swamp and then through Mort'ton to Barrows. Alternatively, at 50 Agility, players can use the fairy ring code bip, go east, and south, following the path through Mort'ton.

  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.
• 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

This is the six Barrows brothers' graveyard as well as each brother's combat discipline.

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.

A player safespotting a brother behind a ladder.

In the tunnels, melee-using brothers can be safespotted in many places, such as behind the ladder used to descend into the tunnels (this also works if there is no ladder visible) and rocks. Some players may force the melee tunnel brother to spawn by reentering a door so that they can safespot them and conserve supplies.

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!)
• 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 (which includes items like bolt racks and key halves), this value should be above 1000. For example, killing 5 level 77 Skeletons will contribute 385 points to this value.
• However, if players wish to receive more runes (which are generally worth more gold) instead of bolt racks and key halves, they should keep the total combat level of the monsters killed to around 880. Which means that aside from killing the 6 brothers, players should kill either 3 Skeletons, 5 Bloodworms, 3 Giant Crypt Rats, 6 Crypt Rats, 3 Giant Crypt Spiders, or 4 Crypt Spiders.
• For each brother you have killed, you will get a roll on the drop table. For example, if you kill all six brothers, you will get six rolls on 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.
• 88% reward potential is needed for maximum runes and 100% for maximum bolt racks.

Door puzzles

Solutions to the puzzles.

Entering the chest room

It's Barrows from the Crypt!

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.

Rewards

Runes

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Mind rune	1–2,889	Common	3–8,667
	Chaos rune	1–885	Common	89–78,765
	Death rune	1–557	Common	203–113,071
	Blood rune	1–236	Uncommon	367–86,612

Barrows equipment

Ahrim's Equipment

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Ahrim's hood	1	Rare	61,586
	Ahrim's robetop	1	Rare	2,900,631
	Ahrim's robeskirt	1	Rare	2,169,900
	Ahrim's staff	1	Rare	104,883

Dharok's Equipment

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Dharok's helm	1	Rare	243,630
	Dharok's platebody	1	Rare	978,025
	Dharok's platelegs	1	Rare	1,026,058
	Dharok's greataxe	1	Rare	652,656

Guthan's Equipment

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Guthan's helm	1	Rare	550,010
	Guthan's platebody	1	Rare	819,022
	Guthan's chainskirt	1	Rare	427,208
	Guthan's warspear	1	Rare	917,108

Karil's Equipment

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Karil's coif	1	Rare	62,835
	Karil's leathertop	1	Rare	1,972,648
	Karil's leatherskirt	1	Rare	224,442
	Karil's crossbow	1	Rare	107,192

Torags Equipment

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Torag's helm	1	Rare	95,267
	Torag's platebody	1	Rare	218,595
	Torag's platelegs	1	Rare	241,084
	Torag's hammers	1	Rare	97,256

Verac's Equipment

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Verac's helm	1	Rare	116,139
	Verac's brassard	1	Rare	177,411
	Verac's plateskirt	1	Rare	624,036
	Verac's flail	1	Rare	102,775

Miscellaneous

	Item	Quantity	Rarity	GE market price
	Coins	1–5,306	Common	Not sold
	Bolt rack	1–191	Common	94–17,954
	Loop half of key	1	Uncommon	10,307
	Tooth half of key	1	Uncommon	10,840
	Dragon med helm	1	Rare	58,488
	Clue scroll (elite)	1	Rare	Not sold

Odds

Calculations assume all 6 brothers are killed for each chest. Only "One RANDOM set" is an approximation, the average of 5 million simulations. Where for example "5 unique items" means you have 19/24 items and you need 5 more unique items to complete all sets.

Reward	Approximate chests needed
All 24 unique items	1541 chests
One unique item	408 chests
Two unique items	612 chests
Three unique items	748 chests
Four unique items	850 chests
Five unique items	932 chests
One random set	365 chests

Notes

• According to the formula released by Mod Kieren on his Twitter, the chances of getting at least one piece of Barrows equipment is 1/17.42 if you kill all six brothers. This chance is unaffected by the kill count of the other monsters in the crypt.
• The Dragon med helm can only be received with 100% (actually 101.2%, invisible) rewards potential and all brothers killed.
• In order to receive a piece of Barrows equipment, the corresponding brother must be killed before the chest is looted. Thus, if you wanted a piece of Guthan's equipment, you would have to kill Guthan before you are eligible to obtain his equipment.
• For every brother killed, you get an extra roll for rewards; so if all six brothers are killed, it is possible to obtain six pieces of Barrows equipment. However, this is extremely rare. It is possible to get multiple items from the same brother, contrary to popular belief.
• Killing all of the brothers is not required to receive loot; however, not killing all brothers decreases your chance of receiving a Barrows item, and you will not be able to receive the items from the brothers that you missed.
• It is possible to receive 50% more runes with the completion of the hard Morytania Diary.

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.