RuneScape Trivia
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This RuneScape trivia quiz has 96 free questions with answers and spans the whole 25-year history of Gielinor, from the Java applet the Gower brothers ran out of their family home to the two live games that exist today. It covers the big turning points - the RuneScape 2 engine, paid membership, the December 2007 removal of free trade and the referendum that brought it back, the 2011 Bot Nuke, and the 2013 poll that resurrected an August 2007 backup as Old School RuneScape. There is plenty for players of both versions. Expect the first quest and its birthday cake, Dragon Slayer and Elvarg, Recipe for Disaster, the gods and their symbols, the origins of partyhats and other rares, the Falador Massacre, skill counts and level-99 experience, and Old School staples like the abyssal whip, the Inferno, Zulrah, Ironman mode and Leagues. Roughly a third of the questions are easy warm-ups; the rest climb toward the trivia only a long-time Gielinor resident would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the official RuneScape and Old School RuneScape wikis, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 96 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The earliest RuneScape servers ran out of the Gower family home in which English city?
Nottingham
Nottingham. Andrew Gower ran the whole game from a bedroom in his parents' house there for most of its first year, until a company was formed to run the business side.
Q 02What is the name of the fantasy world in which RuneScape is set?
Gielinor
Gielinor. Paul Gower gave the world its medieval-fantasy theme, drawing on the tabletop games he and his brother Andrew had grown up playing.
Q 03Andrew Gower's earlier game, the direct predecessor of RuneScape, was called what?
DeviousMUD
DeviousMUD. Gower began it as a student in 1998 and, by his own count, started again from scratch three or four times before a version finally launched as RuneScape.
Q 04After RuneScape 2 arrived, the original game stayed online under what one-word suffix?
Classic
Classic. It outlived the relaunch by fourteen years, until Jagex shut it down in August 2018 because its bugs could no longer be fixed with the company's modern tools.
Q 05Old School RuneScape was copied from an August 2007 backup, so it launched without which feature, added that November?
The Grand Exchange
The Grand Exchange. Jagex chose 2007 by accident, having stumbled on an old save file that still booted, and Old School players then went without the marketplace until February 2015.
Q 06Which Old School RuneScape venue did Jagex shut down in 2022 after years of trouble with betting and scams there?
The Duel Arena
The Duel Arena. Jagex first capped stakes at 10 million coins per fight in November 2021, then replaced the arena outright the following year with a tournament-style PvP Arena.
Q 07RuneScape 3 was originally developed as a version built on which web technology?
HTML5
HTML5 was the web technology behind the planned client, which never left beta; at RuneFest 2014 the company announced a replacement standalone client instead.
Q 08The October 2011 anti-bot update nicknamed the 'Bot Nuke' had what official code name?
ClusterFlutterer
ClusterFlutterer was the code name; Jagex estimated it wiped out 98 percent of bot accounts and celebrated with a week of bonus in-game events.
Q 09The release of which skill triggered the infamous Falador Massacre?
Construction
Construction's player-owned houses held the bug: players ejected from a house party kept player-versus-player rights and killed others across Falador.
Q 10Which player behind the Falador Massacre returned as a boss in its 10th anniversary event?
Durial321
Durial321. During the anniversary event players were randomly possessed by his ghost and set loose on bystanders, before a giant version of him appeared for everyone to fight.
Q 11The original coloured partyhats came out of which item during RuneScape's first Christmas event?
Crackers
Crackers. Jagex scattered them across the world for players to pick up, and pulling one with another player gave the paper hat inside to just one of the pair.
Q 12To mark its 20th anniversary in 2021, RuneScape added a seventh partyhat, pieced together from shards, in which colour?
Gold
Gold. It was the first new partyhat since the six originals of Christmas 2001, and Jagex let each account make only one before the hunt closed for good.
Q 13In the Draynor Bank Robbery, the Wise Old Man telegrabs and puts on a partyhat of which colour?
Blue
Blue. The hat had just been dropped by a bank customer he killed during the raid, and he smashed the security camera on his way out, too late to hide what it had filmed.
Q 21Which god of RuneScape's pantheon is the god of balance?
Guthix
Guthix. He slept deep underground for most of history, waking once to end the God Wars by banishing the other gods from the world.
Q 22The White Knights of Falador fight in the name of which RuneScape god?
Saradomin
Saradomin. When Asgarnia's old king fell ill, the order seized its chance, took control of the kingdom and stripped the rival Black Knights of all political power.
Q 23Which god began as a Mahjarrat, became the Zarosian Empire's top general, and dethroned Zaros?
Zamorak
Zamorak. His coup against Zaros ended the Second Age and set off the God Wars, thousands of years of fighting between rival gods that fill the game's Third Age.
Q 14In which quest do players wield the sword Silverlight to banish Delrith?
Demon Slayer
Demon Slayer. In the original quest the sword is locked in a case that needs three keys, and one of them has to be flushed out of a palace drain with a bucket of water.
Q 15Lumbridge's cook needs a bucket of milk, an egg and which third ingredient for his cake?
A pot of flour
A pot of flour. Players make it the long way: pick wheat in a nearby field, carry it up the windmill, tip it into the hopper and pull the lever, then collect the flour in a pot.
Q 16The Lumbridge cook is baking a birthday cake for which noble?
Duke Horacio
Duke Horacio. The cook has left it too late to gather the ingredients himself, so the player runs the errand in what was the first quest RuneScape ever released.
Q 17In the free-to-play quest Dragon Slayer, what is the name of the dragon players must kill?
Elvarg
Elvarg. Years before the quest she laid waste to an entire island, and only three wizards escaped to split up the map that leads back to her lair.
Q 18The Dragon Slayer quest sends players by ship to which island to face the dragon?
Crandor
Crandor is reached aboard the ship Lady Lumbridge, using a map torn into three pieces by the surviving mages Melzar, Thalzar and Lozar.
Q 19In Old School RuneScape, completing Dragon Slayer lets free-to-play players finally equip which piece of armour?
Rune platebody
Rune platebody. Its maker, Oziach, sets the dragon hunt as the test that would-be champions must pass before he will sell them one.
Q 20What is the capital city of the kingdom of Misthalin, ruled by King Roald from his palace?
Varrock
Varrock. In the game's lore it grew out of Avarrocka, a forest settlement of once-nomadic tribes that the boy hero Arrav defended against goblin raids.
Q 24A player referendum carried with 91% of the vote restored RuneScape's old Wilderness player-killing in 2011, along with which other feature?
Free trade
Free trade. Jagex had capped trades and stopped Wilderness player-killing in 2007 to choke off the real-money market in coins and items, then restored both on 1 February 2011.
Q 25As its own currency collapsed, players in which country turned to earning Old School RuneScape coins for a living?
Venezuela
Venezuela. With hyperinflation making local wages nearly worthless, players spent hours hunting dragons for in-game coins that could be sold abroad for real money.
Q 26What did Jagex introduce in February 2002 after the dot-com crash cut RuneScape's advertising income?
A monthly membership
A monthly membership. Around 5,000 players signed up in the first week, enough to make the new company profitable at once and pay for its first staff.
Q 27Which skill, released in April 2010, sends players through the floors of Daemonheim?
Dungeoneering
Dungeoneering. Almost nothing can be carried in or out of Daemonheim, so every dungeon starts players from scratch, making and finding their gear as they go.
Q 28Which combat style, added to RuneScape in 2023, sits outside the traditional combat triangle?
Necromancy
Necromancy. Jagex built it to be neither stronger nor weaker than melee, ranged or magic, and its fighters go into battle beside the undead they conjure.
Q 29RuneScape 3's Invention skill requires level 80 Smithing, Crafting and which other skill?
Divination
Divination. The energy it gathers is what Invention runs on: the augmentors and divine charges that power upgraded gear are both woven from it.
Q 30Which Old School RuneScape skill starts at level 10 instead of level 1?
Hitpoints
Hitpoints. A new character starts with 1,154 experience already banked in it, the only skill with a head start, which is why fresh accounts begin at combat level 3.