Shades of Mort'ton (minigame)

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On death, Hardcore Ironmen will lose their status.
Unprotected items will be moved to a grave.

Shades of Mort'ton
Released								18 October 2004 (Update)
Type								Minigame
Members								Yes
Location								Mort'ton
League region								Morytania✓
Participants								1+
Skills								Combat, Crafting, Firemaking, Prayer
Reward currency								None
Tutorial								No
Music								Lair
Map
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Shades of Mort'ton is a combat and skilling minigame that takes place in Mort'ton. Players are to defend and build the Flamtaer temple and create pyre logs to cremate shade remains, which have a chance to yield keys used for unlocking special chests. The minigame can also yield Combat, Crafting, Firemaking, and Prayer experience.

Requirements

• Completion of Shades of Mort'ton quest
• It is highly recommended to have first used a dose of Serum 208 on Razmire Keelgan to gain permanent access to his general and builder supplies shop.

Getting there

• Mort'ton teleport
• Shades of Mort'ton minigame teleport
• Fairy ring BKR (take Swamp Boaty)
• Morytania legs 3 or 4 teleport to Burgh de Rott, then run north
• Canifis shortcut through Myreque base (behind pub), then take Swamp Boaty
• Barrows Teleport

Official world

The following official world is assigned to Shades of Mort'ton:

World	Location	Members	Activity
377	United States (east)	1	Mort'ton temple, Rat Pits

Gameplay

Loar Shades

A combat level of at least 81 is recommended to avoid being targeted by the Loar Shades whilst building the temple and cremating the shade remains. Loar Shades are tenacious. Once a shade targets a player, it can be lured through the entire length of the wandering path and halfway through Mort Myre Swamp before the shade is forced to turn back at a predetermined boundary. They will also actively wander to aggro on to a player from far distances and around objects. Mort'ton is a single-way combat zone, however other shades in the area will still aggro towards the player and tend to line up while waiting for the player to finish combat. The shades also appear in large numbers throughout the town which makes avoiding them difficult. When many players are at the temple, such as on World 377, the shades are less problematic for lower combat players since their aggression will be dispersed.

Note for Ironmen: You can access Fiyr Shades on the hard paths in Burgh de Rott Ramble by starting a hard run in Burgh de Rott. You will often have an encounter right away in Mort'ton with several of the shades. If you don't get an encounter in Mort'ton, you can instantly teleport back to Burgh de rott with the Morytania Legs 3 and try again. You can get Fiyr remains very easily this way allowing you to skip the need for low level keys; you can get Silver keys or even Gold keys this way.

Building/defending the temple

Players will first need a hammer, imcando hammer, or Flamtaer hammer to build the temple, with the Flamtaer hammer being significantly better. A flamtaer bag is recommended to save inventory space as it can hold up to 60 timber beams, 60 limestone bricks, and 500 swamp paste. A flamtaer bracelet is highly recommended to speed up the building and significantly increase the speed at which Sanctity is gained.

When starting, three figures will appear in the top-right corner of the screen:

• Repair State - Indicates the condition of the temple, and is therefore shared among players. This value is raised by repairing the temple walls, and will gradually fall as shades attack and destroy them.

• Resources - Represents the player's personal supply of building materials. All of these can be bought from Razmire Keelgan in Mort'ton. As the player repairs the temple, their resources will be consumed. 5% resources are added for each set of the following items used:
  • 1 x Timber beam or plank - Players can buy beams from Razmire's builders store or planks from the Grand Exchange.
  • 1 x Limestone brick - Can be bought from Razmire's builders store or the Grand Exchange, or crafted from limestone using a chisel, both of which are also sold by Razmire.
  • 5 x Swamp paste - Can be bought from Razmire's store, but is relatively expensive. Plenty of swamp paste can be received from the chests in the Shade Catacombs, so rarely will there be a need to buy much if opening the chests. Swamp paste is also an occasional thank you gift when "curing" afflicted residents (see Serum 208 below). It can also be made from combining swamp tar and flour.

• Sanctity - A resource required to make sacred oil and Serum 208. Each player has their own level of Sanctity, which starts out at 0%. It increases by repairing or reinforcing the temple, or by killing the shades around it. When building the temple, approximately 5% Sanctity is earned for each 1% of resources spent, while killing the nearby shades will grant 2% Sanctity per kill. The player loses 1% Sanctity per minute, and will have their Sanctity reset to 0% upon log out. Repairing with a flamtaer bracelet equipped is recommended over killing shades due to its comparably higher Sanctity gain. Killing the shades is only recommended for players with high combat so as their Sanctity gain from kills doesn't get too offset from the natural drain.

Note: The temple occasionally goes through a phase of 'resetting', where any attempts to repair it are outpaced by the walls decaying. In this case, it is advised to wait it out for a few minutes until repairing is possible again.

Sanctifying the oil

Sacred oil is created by sanctifying olive oil. Olive oil is sold in Razmire's general store or can be obtained by using serum on the afflicted. The olive oil must be sanctified by using it on the fire altar in the temple. This process requires the player to have at least 10% Sanctity, with each sanctification costing 0.9% of Sanctity per dose of olive oil (2.7% for a 3 dose vial, 3.6% for a 4 dose vial). It is recommended to decant the olive oil into 4 dose vials before bringing them to save on inventory space.

Serum 208

Serum 208 is created by using a Serum 207 on the temple's fire altar. Doing so requires the player to have at least 20% Sanctity and costs 5% Sanctity per dose. Serum 208 can be given to the Afflicted that wander the town to temporarily cure them, and they will reward the player with some coins and other small gifts. Both serums can be used to cure the Afflicted, however Serum 208 yields a greater reward, including the occasional Bronze key.

Creating the pyre logs

Shade remains can only be cremated using pyre logs, which can be created by using sacred oil on various types of logs, providing a small amount of Firemaking experience. The table below shows what kind of pyre logs are required to burn which kind of shade remains, as well as the dosage of sacred oil required in creating them. The amount of Firemaking experience gained from cremating shades is increased by 50% upon the completion of the Morytania Elite Diary.

Type of log		Firemaking		Required doses of sacred oil	Remains that can be cremated						Cost of pyre log	Cost per XP
		Level	Experience		Loar	Phrin	Riyl	Asyn	Fiyr	Urium
	Regular	5	50	2			N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2,165	43.30
	Oak	20	70	2			N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2,099	29.99
	Willow	35	100	3				N/A	N/A	N/A	3,143	31.43
	Teak	40	120	3				N/A	N/A	N/A	3,325	27.71
	Arctic pine	47	158	2				N/A	N/A	N/A	2,456	15.54
	Maple	50	175	3				N/A	N/A	N/A	2,911	16.63
	Mahogany	55	210	3				N/A	N/A	N/A	2,992	14.25
	Yew	65	255	4					N/A	N/A	3,391	13.30
	Magic	80	404.5	4						N/A	3,853	9.53
	Redwood	95	500	4							3,622	7.24

Killing the shades

To kill the shades, the player must first have access to them. Loar shades are accessible by default as they just wander around Mort'ton and the temple. The other Mort'ton shades, however, are primarily found in the Shade Catacombs just north-west of the town, or as possible encounters during the Temple Trekking minigame. To get to these shades, players will need various types of keys to get through the different doors. Fortunately, higher level keys will open the matching type of door as well as any lower tier door. For example, a steel key will open steel and bronze doors. The keys will not disintegrate when passing through the doors. For more information about the levels of keys and how to get them, see Cremating the shades.

Shades are classified as undead, therefore the Salve amulet and its imbued forms will boost accuracy and damage when fighting them.

Bleached bones can be saved from undead zealots (who rarely appear when unlocking chests) to fully restore prayer points at the Shade Catacombs altar.

Because getting a key for the later areas can take some time, it is recommended for players to have at least one key of their highest accessible tier in the bank.

Shade	Combat level	Key needed
Loar shade	40	N/A
Phrin shade	60	Bronze key
Riyl shade	80	Steel key
Asyn shade	100	Black key
Fiyr shade	120	Silver key
Urium shade	140	Gold key

Cremating the shades

A shade being cremated.

Once a player has shade remains and the appropriate pyre logs, they can cremate them by clicking on a funeral pyre with a tinderbox in their inventory; this will automatically place the pyre logs and shade remains, prioritising the highest tier log in the inventory. To manually cremate shade remains, the player must do the following:

1. Place pyre logs on any of the funeral pyres located around the south and west edge of Mort'ton.
2. Place the shade remains on top of the pyre logs.
3. Click the pyre to light it.

An animation of a shade's spirit will float up into the air, then either a key or a stack of coins will appear on the pedestal nearby. The type of key depends on the type of shade remains used. The number of coins are roughly equal to the High Alchemy value of the item the player would have gotten from the key's corresponding chest. Players can leave the reward on the pedestal and then collect them all at once, however, they can despawn should the player take too long. Both keys and coins will despawn in 5 minutes (if no new coins are spawned to refresh the coin stack timer).

All shades, except Loar Shades and Urium Shades, give keys of two metals - low tier trims (red/brown/crimson) for the higher tier metal and high tier trims (black/purple) for the lower tier metal. The amount of coins and type of key per remains is shown in the table below. The Fraction indicates the probability to obtain that metal key from that type of shade remains. For example, black keys are obtained fastest by burning riyl remains (0.665 > 0.282), and silver keys are obtained fastest by burning Fiyr remains (0.634 > 0.508).

Each shade remains has a 0.21 chance of yielding coins, otherwise a key is obtained instead.

Shade remains		Coins	Low metal keys	Fraction	High metal keys	Fraction
	Loar	200-300	N/A	N/A		0.79
	Phrin	400-500		0.125		0.665
	Riyl	600-700		0.125		0.665
	Asyn	800-900		0.282		0.508
	Fiyr	2000-4000		0.634		0.156
	Urium	2000-7000		0.79	N/A	N/A

Prayer experience is gained by burning the shades. The amount depends mainly on the type of shade cremated, and to a lesser extent on the type of log used. The experience obtained from each combination is shown in the table below. The amount of Prayer experience gained from cremating shades is increased by 50% upon the completion of the Morytania Hard Diary.

Type of log		Loar	Phrin	Riyl	Asyn	Fiyr	Urium
	Normal	25	37.5	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Oak	33	45.5	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Willow	33.5	46	61	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Teak	33.7	46.2	61.2	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Arctic	33.9	46.4	61.4	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Maple	34	46.5	61.5	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Mahogany	34.3	46.8	61.8	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Yew	34.5	47	62	79.5	N/A	N/A
	Magic	35	47.5	62.5	80	100	N/A
	Redwood	35.5	48	63	80.5	100.5	120.5

Unlocking the chests

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The layout of the rooms of the catacombs.

Once you have your keys, you can go into the catacombs and unlock the chests which the keys open. The entrance to the catacombs is north-west of town, a little north-east of the bridge, through some doors built into the north side of a hill. Look for a torch on the bank of the swamp.

Each time you unlock a chest, the key will dissolve in the lock. If you want to come back and fight more of the shades in a certain area, make sure you save at least one key to get back through the doors with. Again, it might be a good idea to leave one key in your bank when you finish, in case you want to come back and play again later or are killed to retrieve your gear.

To open a chest, match up the colour of the key with the lock of the chest, such as a Steel Key Black with a steel-trimmed chest with a lock painted black. If you're not sure the colour of the lock, you can examine the chest for more info. Once opened, the player will be rewarded in various loot (see #Unlocking chests below).

Rewards

Sacred Oil

Players often play the minigame to get sacred oil, which can be utilised to create pyre logs for cremating shades or sold to other players. For more on selling sacred oil for profit, see the making sacred oil guide.

Experience

The Shades of Mort'ton minigame provides a variety of experience, primarily in Crafting (repairing the temple), Prayer (burning shades), and Firemaking (burning shades). Repairing the temple is one of the cheapest methods to gain Crafting experience, but at around 12 experience points a second (with flamtaer hammer) it is very slow for the money saved. Players can also gain combat (killing shades) and Herblore (creating serums) experience.

Unlocking chests

The intended rewards from this minigame come from using the shade keys on chests in the Shade Catacombs. These chests contain a variety of rewards that vary greatly in value. Inside the chest will usually be a few coins and one main reward which includes runes, armour, or a clue scroll. There is frequently swamp paste in the bottom of the chest as well. The tiers of armour and clue scrolls depend on the type of key:

• Bronze chests yield Steel to Mithril items and easy clue scrolls
• Steel chests yield Steel to Adamant items and medium clue scrolls
• Black chests yield Black to Adamant items and medium clue scrolls
• Silver chests yield Black to Rune items and hard clue scrolls
• Gold chests yield Adamant to Dragon items and elite clue scrolls, as well as Zealot's robes

Additionally, the colour of the loop defines the probability of the key yielding one of the more valuable items available. The order, from worst to best, is:

Red < Brown < Crimson < Black < Purple

For example, a Silver key black is more likely to yield a better treasure than a Silver key brown, but all silver keys have the exact same set of possible rewards. Purple keys will have the highest chance of receiving a clue scroll.

Coin amounts

The amount of coins received from a chest partly depends on the other loot you obtained from the chest; if you receive expensive loot, you will receive less coins.

The exact coin drop mechanics are as follows:

The integer $\mathrm {RandomRoll}$ is rolled between the following bounds:

• Bronze chest: 400 - 600
• Steel chest: 900 - 1100
• Black chest: 1500 - 2000
• Silver chest: 3600 - 7000
• Gold chest: 4500 - 9500

The integer $\mathrm {MainLootValue}$ is the value of the main loot. For each item, the value can be found in the infobox on its page. This value is then multiplied with the received quantity. For example, 15 death runes have a value of $15*180=2700$, and a single bronze locks has a value of $800$. Swamp paste and flamtaer bags are not included in this value.

If $\mathrm {MainLootValue} \geq \mathrm {RandomRoll}$, no coins are dropped.

If $\mathrm {RandomRoll} \geq \mathrm {MainLootValue}$, the amount of dropped coins is $\left\lfloor {\frac {\mathrm {RandomRoll} -\mathrm {MainLootValue} }{3}}\right\rfloor$.

Uniques

In addition to the various loot obtained from the chests, there is also a chance to receive various unique rewards:

Item		Info
	Amulet of the damned	An amulet with the same stats as an amulet of glory that also provides buffs to barrows equipment.
	Flamtaer bag	A bag that can store a large amount of temple building supplies (timber beams, limestone bricks, and swamp paste).
	Fine cloth	A material required for crafting splitbark armour. Higher tier chests have higher chances of yielding fine cloth.
	Coffin locks	Locks required to upgrade the broken coffin into a wearable coffin.
	Coffins	A large coffin that can be equipped to the cape slot which can store a set number of shade remains.
	Runescroll of swampbark	A scroll which upon reading unlocks the ability to craft swampbark armour from splitbark armour.
	Runescroll of bloodbark	A scroll which upon reading unlocks the ability to craft bloodbark armour from splitbark armour.
	Zealot's robes	A set of robes with high Prayer bonus which also provide a small chance of saving remains while training Prayer.

Obtaining and using the wearable coffin

Dampe, an NPC located outside the entrance to the catacombs, will give the player a broken coffin after speaking to him. He will repair the coffin once he is given bronze, steel, black, silver, or gold locks, all found as rewards within the catacombs. Each coffin is equipable in the cape slot and can be used to store shade remains of any type. The higher the tier of locks, the more shade remains that can be contained inside the coffin.

Broken coffin upgrades

Coffin	Locks	Shade Storage
Bronze coffin	Bronze locks	3
Steel coffin	Steel locks	8
Black coffin	Black locks	14
Silver coffin	Silver locks	20
Gold coffin	Gold locks	28

Changes

Date	Changes
[[{{#explode:31 July 2024| |0}} {{#explode:31 July 2024| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:31 July 2024| |2}}]] (update)	Added a left-click option to the sacred fire to let players sanctify olive oil and Serum 207 more conveniently. Sanctifying an item with the sacred fire will automatically continue sanctifying the vials in the inventory. Sanctifying Serum 207 into Serum 208 now uses 5% sanctity per dose, rather than a flat 20% regardless of dosage. A "make-all" menu will now appear when using sacred oil to make pyre logs. Adjusted the Firemaking experience of making pyre logs to be a flat 5 experience per dose of sacred oil consumed, instead of a variable rate based on how many doses are in the vial. The pyres now have left-click options for adding pyre logs and shade remains automatically, prioritising the best pyre logs available; remains may still be manually cremated. Players will be warned if trying to burn pyre logs without the appropriate shade remains.
[[{{#explode:8 May 2024| |0}} {{#explode:8 May 2024| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:8 May 2024| |2}}]] (update)	Keys and coins awarded from cremated shades now despawn after 5 minutes, up from 30 seconds. Other players cannot take them during this time.
[[{{#explode:30 November 2022| |0}} {{#explode:30 November 2022| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:30 November 2022| |2}}]] (update | poll)	Clue scroll drop rate boosts earned via Combat Achievements now correctly apply to the Shades of Mort'ton chests.
[[{{#explode:7 April 2021| |0}} {{#explode:7 April 2021| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:7 April 2021| |2}}]] (update)	The Shades of Mort'ton coffins have been adjusted to prevent graphical issues with shields.
[[{{#explode:24 February 2021| |0}} {{#explode:24 February 2021| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:24 February 2021| |2}}]] (update)	Shade coffins in Shades of Mort'ton have had their 'Open' and 'Remove lock' options swapped.
[[{{#explode:27 January 2021| |0}} {{#explode:27 January 2021| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:27 January 2021| |2}}]] (update | poll)	Urium Shades are added in game, which drop the new golden keys. The Shade Catacombs receive a makeover, and the chests within contain new and better loot.
[[{{#explode:5 March 2015| |0}} {{#explode:5 March 2015| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:5 March 2015| |2}}]] (update | poll)	You now receive 50% more Prayer experience and 50% more Firemaking experience from burning all types of shade remains if you have completed the Morytania Hard Diary and the Morytania Elite Diary respectively.
[[{{#explode:6 November 2014| |0}} {{#explode:6 November 2014| |1}}]] [[{{#explode:6 November 2014| |2}}]] (update | poll)	The amulet of the Damned is added to the game. The Flamtaer bag is added to the game.