Combination rune

A combination rune is any rune made of two types elemental runes (fire, earth, air, and water), and serving as both those runes at once.

Crafting combination runes

To make combination runes, players need to bring equal amounts of pure essence and elemental runes, and a talisman or tiara to enter the altar for the other type of rune (unless accessing the altar via the Abyss however a talisman is still needed to craft the combination rune). Enter the altar, and use the talisman (not a tiara) on the runecraft altar. For example, if a player wishes to make 10 steam runes, they could bring one of the following sets of items:

• Ten pure essence, ten Water runes, and a Water talisman to the Fire Altar
• Ten pure essence, ten Fire runes, and a Fire talisman to the Water Altar

It is not strictly necessary to bring the exact amount of runes as pure essence to the altar, making it beneficial to carry enough runes to cover multiple trips.

The pure essence, elemental runes, and talisman will be consumed, producing the newly-crafted combination runes.

The chance of successfully binding each rune together is only 50%. Upon failure it does not provide experience, and any failed runes simply vanish from the player's inventory. The talisman used to make the combination runes is consumed regardless of how many runes were successfully crafted. Elemental talismans will not work, nor do tiaras of any kind. A worn Binding necklace increases the chance of success to 100%, and can be used sixteen times before crumbling to dust (charges are used per interaction with the runecrafting altar, not per rune).

The Lunar Magic spell Magic Imbue allows players to make combination runes without needing the opposite talisman for roughly 12 seconds. After casting Magic Imbue, players can simply use the opposite runes on the runecraft altar with pure essence in their inventory.

When the player casts a spell with combination runes in their inventory, it will prioritise using those runes first - even while having sufficient runes otherwise.

List of combination runes

Level	Rune		Components		GE Price			Equivalent staff
					Combo	Individual	Difference
6		Mist		Air and Water	117	10	107		Mist battlestaff (mystic)
10		Dust		Air and Earth	9	10	−1		Dust battlestaff (mystic)
13		Mud		Water and Earth	117	10	107		Mud battlestaff (mystic)
15		Smoke		Air and Fire	47	10	37		Smoke battlestaff (mystic)
19		Steam		Water and Fire	115	10	105		Steam battlestaff (mystic)
23		Lava		Earth and Fire	19	10	9		Lava battlestaff (mystic)

Complementary combination rune sets

Combination runes can be very useful in scenarios where the player is using one or more spells that require two or more types of elemental runes, when efficient use of inventory space is preferable. When fighting bosses, when completing clue scrolls or when doing other activities that require one to teleport around, it can be beneficial to carry combination runes instead of regular elemental runes. When using a divine rune pouch, one can carry law runes for teleportation, nature runes for high alchemy spells, bones to peaches and entangle spells, and two complementary sets of combination runes to cover the four elemental runes.

The three complementary sets of combination runes are:

First		GE Price	Second		GE Price	Total price
	Mist	117		Lava	19	136
	Dust	9		Steam	115	124
	Mud	117		Smoke	47	164

For regular accounts, a cheap set of complementary runes is to carry dust and steam runes, especially because dust runes are the cheapest combination runes, and many teleportation spells require multiple air runes, which are covered by the dust runes. Dust runes also contain the earth rune required for house teleports, which is especially useful when using the player-owned house for other transportation methods during treasure trails for example.

For ironman accounts, it might be beneficial to carry complementary sets that include easily obtainable combination runes. While crafting combination runes can be a good source of obtaining them, especially when using extracts, many combination runes can be obtained in large quantities as drops from bosses and slayer monsters. For example:

• Mist runes are dropped in high quantities as a drop from the Kraken, Duke Sucellus and non-Zarosian spiritual mages.
• Dust runes are dropped in quantities of 200 at a time by dust devils at a rate of roughly 1/12 and non-Zarosian spiritual mages drop them too.
• Mud runes are dropped commonly by all spiritual mages and warped creatures.
• Smoke runes are dropped commonly by Zarosian spiritual mages, the nuclear smoke devil and regular smoke devils, and in high quantities by the Phantom Muspah and The Leviathan.
• Steam runes are dropped in high quantities by The Whisperer, but are otherwise somewhat harder to obtain.
• Lava runes are dropped in high quantities by Vardorvis, Zarosian spiritual mages and uncommonly but in high quantities by locust riders and scarab mages.

• Spiritual mages commonly drop moderately high quantities of multiple combination runes. The ones in the Ancient Prison drop different runes than the ones outside.

Profit per rune for each combination rune

Base rune	Air altar		Water altar		Earth altar		Fire altar
Air rune	N/A		Mist rune	112	Dust rune	4	Smoke rune	42
Water rune	Mist rune	112	N/A		Mud rune	112	Steam rune	110
Earth rune	Dust rune	4	Mud rune	112	N/A		Lava rune	14
Fire rune	Smoke rune	42	Steam rune	110	Lava rune	14	N/A