Thank you for your patience.
But how much do we really know about these giants? What do they think about? Where did they come from? Would they enjoy making massive swords in some kind of… gargantuan workshop?
All these questions, and more, will be answered in Sleeping Giants, a new novice quest! You’ll help Kovac, a friendly giant who’s discovered an ancient forge build to his giant-size proportions!
To start the quest, head to the Giant Plateau east of Al Kharid, near Citharede Abbey.
Quest Requirements (SPOILERS)
- 15 Smithing
Quest Rewards (SPOILERS)
- Access to the Giants’ Foundry
- 6,000 Smithing Experience
- 1 Quest Point
Completing Sleeping Giants will also give you all the know-how you need to start Smithing in the Giants’ Foundry!
The Giants’ Foundry is a non-instanced, non-combat safe area accessible to members.
Here, you’ll work on Kovac’s commissions, picking out the perfect sword design, choosing an appropriate-level metal to work with, and carefully Smithing the blade with a variety of tools.
Each commission will come with two customer requests – for example, they might want a sword that’s ‘narrow’ and ‘spiked’. You’ll need to pick a mould from Kovac’s extensive Mould Library that matches that description. The closer the match, the higher quality your sword will be – so choose wisely!
Next, you’ll need to choose a metal to work with and place it in the crucible – the big stone bucket chained over the river of lava. It’ll accept Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril, Adamant or Rune Bars, or any metal item you want to recycle. We’re eco-friendly, here!
A Giant’s Sword requires 28 Bars worth of material, which is conveniently the exact same amount the crucible can hold. It’s like we did it on purpose!
The higher the tier of metal you choose, the longer the sword will take to shape, and the more precise the temperature range will have to be.
Kovac also believes that swords made of an alloy – a mixture of two or more different metals – will be better. Something to bear in mind!
Now, it’s time to cool off as we begin to work the blade!
Refinement
The refinement process lets you shape the raw preform you just created into a blade fit for a mighty giant!
You’ll have a variety of tools at your disposal:
- Trip Hammer: Requiring a hot, hot, hot sword, this tool is used to hammer out the imperfections on the blade.
- Grindstone: Swords must be at a medium temperature to allow this tool to grind out the edge of the sword and make it smooth.
- Polishing Wheel: Get that sword to a cold temperature to use this tool, which cleans up the blade and gives it a lovely shiny finish.
- Lava Pool – Dip your sword into the lava and heat it up, ensuring it’s hot enough to use particular tools.
- Waterfall – Use the crashing waves of the waterfall to cool your sword down in order to use certain tools.
Use the right tool at the right time, and you’ll increase the sword’s completion to 100%. You can track which tool to use at which heat range using the in-game HUD:
Using tools changes the temperature of the preform, which will also naturally cool down over time. Using the incorrect tool or using the right tool outside the correct temperature range, will result in a lower-quality sword. If the quality of the sword reaches 0, you’ll have to hand it over to Kovac and try again. Be warned that quality can only ever be lost – so be extra-careful!
Here’s an example of the refinement process:
- Decrease the initial temperature using the waterfall until the preform is cool enough to try the trip hammer.
- Cool the preform again to just below the yellow temperature range, then work it with the grindstone.
- Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the sword is almost complete.
- Cool the preform to the green temperature zone, then use the polishing wheel to finish the job!
- Hand the finished sword to Kovac to complete the commission.
If you manage to reach 100% completion without ruining the sword, you can hand it in to Kovac, who’ll reward you with some juicy XP and some Foundry Reputation. The higher the quality, the more rewards you’ll get!
Experience
We’ve messed with the XP rates quite a bit, so here’s a refresher. The table below is based on a player who makes between 10 and 20 swords an hour, using 28 Bars per sword.
| Alloy Tier | Swords Per Hour | Average XP Per Sword | Average XP Per Hour | Average GP/XP | Profitable |
| Lowest | 20 | ~2,400 | ~48,000 | 0.2 | No |
| Low | 17 | ~5,000 | ~85,000 | -0.3 | Yes |
| Medium | 15 | ~9,000 | ~135,000 | -0.2 | Yes |
| High | 13 | ~15,000 | ~195,000 | 0.5 | No |
| Highest | 12 | ~23,000 | ~276,000 | 6.6 | No |
We’ve also crunched the numbers for other skilling methods:
| Method | XP Per Hour (Estimate) | Average GP/XP | Profitable |
| Gold at Blast Furnace: no Goldsmith Gauntlets | ~150,000 | 8.7 | No |
| Gold at Blast Furnace: with Goldsmith Gauntlets | ~375,000 | 3.5 | No |
| Steel at Blast Furnace: with Coal Bag | ~90,000 | -12.3 | Yes |
| Creating 5 Bar Mithril items | ~190,000 – 210,000 | 3.7 | No |
| Creating 5 Bar Adamant items | ~240,000 – 260,000 | 1.3 | No |
| Creating 3 Bar Rune items | ~290,000 – 310,000 | -0.8 | Yes |
Kovac has acquired some ancient Dwarven-wear… somehow… and since it’s a bit small for him, he’ll let you purchase it in the Reward Shop! The Smiths’ Uniform consists of Gloves, Boots, a Top, and a pair of swanky Bottoms. It also offers two suitably smithy bonuses:
- Each piece of the outfit will give you a 20% chance to reduce your anvil Smithing speed by 1 tick, which adds up to 100% chance when wearing the full outfit. This evens out to a 15-20% speed buff while anvil Smithing.
- Each outfit piece equipped also gives a 20% chance for extra completion while Smithing, which again rises to a 100% chance when wearing the full set.
You can also combine the Smiths’ Gloves with the Ice Gloves, giving you the benefits of both. Should you wish to return to your usual icy business, you can separate them again at your leisure.
Ore Packs
Ore Packs are a great way to purchase lots of coal in one go, making it easier to prepare for your next trip to the Giants’ Foundry. You will have a small chance to obtain other ores from these packs too, but the focus is mainly coal.
Moulds
We thought it would be interesting if you could buy tools to help you improve your sword-smithing process within the Foundry.
These extra moulds will help with all kinds of commissions and give you a leg up on quality before you even start Smithing. The better the mould, the higher the Smithing level you’ll need to train and gain all in one location.
Eight-Cannonball Mould
With Leagues III you got an eight-sided cannon, so it’s only fitting that you now get an Eight-Cannonball Mould! This mould lets you use two Steel Bars to smith eight Cannonballs at once, doubling your production speed!
Smithing Catalyst
Using this unstackable item when creating Bars at a furnace will not only halve the amount of Coal required but will also double the XP given! However, the Catalyst will be consumed when the Bar is made, so you’ll need plenty of them to go around.
You can also use Catalysts at the Blast Furnace, where they’ll give you double XP for any Bar produced using Coal. However, it won’t cut the Coal cost down.
As an added extra, you’ll also be allowed to use Catalysts at the Blast Furnace Bank, so you can use lots of them in one run.
Kovac’s Grog
A brew made by Kovac himself! This (supposedly) tasty Grog will give you a temporary Smithing boost of +4. Just don’t tell health and safety you’re drinking on the job…
Colossal Blade
This mighty sword is strikingly similar to the one you helped Kovac make, and requires 60 Attack to wield.
Alongside this, we’re giving it a special effect that fits the theme of the Blade. Depending on the size of the enemy you’re fighting, it will now increase your Max Hit according to the size of the NPC:
The NPC Size will be capped at 5 (NPCs that take up a 5×5 area and above), meaning that you’ll be dealing the most damage against bigger enemies. We feel like this weapon now fits a good niche comparatively to the Dragon Scimmy and could prove more useful in certain situations, whilst looking great to boot. Remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall!
You will only the need the visual design of the weapon to qualify for entry but you are more than welcome to include stats or lore surrounding your design.
Competition Details – Weapon Design Competition – Click to Expand
Dates & Times:
- The competition begins at 00:01 BST on June 8th and closes at 23:59 BST on June 20th.
- The four finalists will be chosen by the Old School team and will feature in a poll in July.
Submissions:
Complete the Weapon Design Competition form with the following information:
- Your design in one of the following formats: .jpg | .png | .gif | .mp4
- Your RuneScape Username (RSN)
- Your country of residence
The winner will receive 12 months of membership with the other three finalists receiving 3 months of membership each.
Enter your submission here and for the full T&Cs, head over to the forum thread. We look forward to seeing all of your designs!
Now for this week’s other changes:
- Pressing space to Smith or Craft the last item again will no longer also add a space to the Chat.
- Reduced the time required to make Guardians in Guardians of the Rift.
- In addition, multiple Guardians can now be made from the same pile.
- Meiyerditch Laboratories have been added to the World Map.
- Group Storage will now be locked during the 30-minute timer before the game reboots.
- The Draynor multiway combat area now covers the path and the teleport arrival point.
- Player Owned House lock settings will now be remembered across logins.
- Players may now use spare Farmer’s Outfit pieces on Gricoller for a 80% refund, in line with other reward shops.
- An animation is now played every time your Abyssal Lantern gives you a benefit, with the exception of the Redwood’s rune pouch degrading prevention effect.
- The in-game GIM Boss Bash info has been corrected to reflect that Zalcano gives 3 Tickets rather than 2.
- Fixed typos in the Guardians of the Rift chat.
We’ve also made some tweaks to Group Ironman notifications:
- The wording of the level up broadcast has been changed to “[Player name] has reached [skill name] level [level]”.
- Enabling the post-99 level XP broadcasts sets the amount to 1 million by default.
- PKing a player as a GIM now also tracks how much the other player lost.
- The description for the PK Broadcast value setting now correctly refers to coins.
- 539 – (US) – PvP World
- 548 – (Germany) – High-Risk PvP World
- 577 – (US) – Free-to-Play PvP World
- 559 – (UK) – LMS Competitive
World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.
Go back and meet the Lumbridge Guide, Goblin and Noob. Bring back those early memories of chopping wood with these Bronze and Rune Axe Keyrings. Ahh, nostalgia!
Speaking of which, with this Mini Teleport Icon Pin Set, you can travel back to other iconic game locations as Angels Scapes continues this new series based on her favourite places in Gielinor – where will she go next?
Last but by no means least, don’t forget to snag your copy of RuneScape Kingdoms: Shadow of Elvarg! There’s only 48 hours left to back the game and get your Kickstarter-exclusive goodies! You can read all about it here, on Steamforged’s Kickstarter page.
Want to know more? You can check out Gunschilli as he gets hands-on with a demo of the board game at the Yogscast!
Love the minis? Today at 7pm you can watch Steamforged live-sculpt a new base for the Bob the Cat mini. Which base did you vote for?
Mods Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Brow, Bruno, Curse, Daizong, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Havik, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kamon, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Matheus, Maylea, Markos, Meat, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Nylu, Oasis, Peppers, Regent, Redfield, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Sigma, Skylark, Soffan, Sova, Squid, Steve W, Tide, Torrance, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy
The Old School Team.