Elemental Workshop IV and the Soul Altar

[Jard_Y_Dooku]

Years ago I'd have probably agreed with you about the soul altar coming with Prifddinas, and there's definitely GOT to be something interesting occupying all that blank space to the north, but I'd have to say no for two reasons: one, the elves already have the death altar in that area, and two, there's other places in RuneScape that seem to have a lot more to do with soul - especially the recently mentioned ritual stone of the Mahjarrat, or Arposandra (even though that's in the same area as far as we know, I think it's a lot more likely than Prifddinas).

 

Ooh, just got an interesting thought. Perhaps Arposandra occupies the long-hidden space north of Prifddinas? No reason those tunnels near the poison waste can't lead up north, right? Plus... that poison waste is pretty much AT the coast. There's no space to put anything there. Unless Arposandra is underground like I mentioned before. North of Prifddinas is a fascinating speculation though, I never considered that potential...

[Karvinen]

Prifddinas is a good candidate for the location of the soul altar. Seren is the goddess of Anima Mundi.

[Hippodo]

 

Now, one thing I never understood about altars. Why do you use a talisman on them to get to them? The originals were destroyed by the Fremennik. Do the talismans use magic to recreate an original representation of them? Why do the insides look weird though? This is especially interesting. Many of them look logical. Law DEFINITELY does not. And death... trees growing underground? What? I just really don't get it. Are the talismans supposed to "restore" them to their original states? Why do the environments look SO different?

Also I can only understand the Fremenniks destroying the first 10 altars. How did they find the death altar hidden WAY deep underground, not to mention protected by the Temple of Light?! And blood... wouldn't the vampires have ripped them to shreds before they even got close? This is assuming them even knew the locations. And - (assuming soul's up near the Mahjarrats)... wouldn't they have bestowed skeletal death upon them? No matter where the soul altar's located, I'm sure that when it's revealed I'll be wondering how they found it...

Ooh, just before I post, Fire Altar on Wikia says "If the theory is true, that the inside of an altar is the past of the altar outside, the northern Kharidian Desert would be a volcanic area, however, there are no history records of this.". I read through them all, this was the only one that mentioned anything besides the Law altar being about Saradomin stepping foot there. Again, trees in the death altar? -.- UNDERGROUND?

Also, Water Altar says "Some theorize that the water altar's inside is the past of the water altar's outside. This seems unlikely, as Wizard Elriss explains that the isolated locations the Runecrafting Altars are located within are actually "pocket dimensions" created by the rune energy of the altars. He could, however, easily be referring to time dimensions, rather than spacial dimensions.".

Spatial dimensions would make more sense than time dimensions, though, seeing from the areas, such as tiled floors and the like. Then again, Mind altar says "The altar may be the remains of a former Zarosian fortress. A Zarosian symbol can be found south of the altar." That would explain the tiled floors. However, we come to underground trees yet again...

I remember an NPC stating that the altars the Fremennik destroyed never were the REAL altars. Wizard Elriss tells us about every Runecrafting Altar being so powerful that they warp the space around themselves and create their own pocket dimension. This already was the case since the beginning. The Moon Clan apparently sought out a suitable place in RuneScape for a portal to an altar which was in another dimension altogether. The Fremennik destroyed the gate, so to speak, but not the place. My guess is that, with the talisman, you can revive/use the portal to the pocket dimension again.

 

As for EVERY altar being beat up by the Fremennik, I'm just as puzzled as you. I realized too that it's a mystery how they got through the Temple of Light unharmed, there's no historical explanation for it. Likely a fault on Jagex's part. There is always the chance that the Soul Altar wasn't damaged, like the Astral Altar. However it would be a whole lot more interesting if the Soul Altar WAS destroyed while the Mahjarrat need it for their rejuvination ritual...

[Jard_Y_Dooku]

Now, one thing I never understood about altars. Why do you use a talisman on them to get to them? The originals were destroyed by the Fremennik. Do the talismans use magic to recreate an original representation of them? Why do the insides look weird though? This is especially interesting. Many of them look logical. Law DEFINITELY does not. And death... trees growing underground? What? I just really don't get it. Are the talismans supposed to "restore" them to their original states? Why do the environments look SO different?

 

Also I can only understand the Fremenniks destroying the first 10 altars. How did they find the death altar hidden WAY deep underground, not to mention protected by the Temple of Light?! And blood... wouldn't the vampires have ripped them to shreds before they even got close? This is assuming them even knew the locations. And - (assuming soul's up near the Mahjarrats)... wouldn't they have bestowed skeletal death upon them? No matter where the soul altar's located, I'm sure that when it's revealed I'll be wondering how they found it...

 

Ooh, just before I post, Fire Altar on Wikia says "If the theory is true, that the inside of an altar is the past of the altar outside, the northern Kharidian Desert would be a volcanic area, however, there are no history records of this.". I read through them all, this was the only one that mentioned anything besides the Law altar being about Saradomin stepping foot there. Again, trees in the death altar? -.- UNDERGROUND?

 

Also, Water Altar says "Some theorize that the water altar's inside is the past of the water altar's outside. This seems unlikely, as Wizard Elriss explains that the isolated locations the Runecrafting Altars are located within are actually "pocket dimensions" created by the rune energy of the altars. He could, however, easily be referring to time dimensions, rather than spacial dimensions.".

 

Spatial dimensions would make more sense than time dimensions, though, seeing from the areas, such as tiled floors and the like. Then again, Mind altar says "The altar may be the remains of a former Zarosian fortress. A Zarosian symbol can be found south of the altar." That would explain the tiled floors. However, we come to underground trees yet again...

I remember an NPC stating that the altars the Fremennik destroyed never were the REAL altars. Wizard Elriss tells us about every Runecrafting Altar being so powerful that they warp the space around themselves and create their own pocket dimension. This already was the case since the beginning. The Moon Clan apparently sought out a suitable place in RuneScape for a portal to an altar which was in another dimension altogether. The Fremennik destroyed the gate, so to speak, but not the place. My guess is that, with the talisman, you can revive/use the portal to the pocket dimension again.

 

As for EVERY altar being beat up by the Fremennik, I'm just as puzzled as you. I realized too that it's a mystery how they got through the Temple of Light unharmed, there's no historical explanation for it. Likely a fault on Jagex's part. There is always the chance that the Soul Altar wasn't damaged, like the Astral Altar. However it would be a whole lot more interesting if the Soul Altar WAS destroyed while the Mahjarrat need it for their rejuvination ritual...

 

You are right about the "real" altars, I started refreshing myself more on RS Wikia and read about the Runecrafting crusades and everything.

 

One interesting thing to consider is that they only possibly "destroyed" the first 10 of them, the ones they had access to (even so, how would they get into Zanaris?). The others (death/blood) may have simply fallen into disrepair, given their remote locations compared to the others. And I give a 0% chance that the soul altar wasn't destroyed nor fell into disrepair. It's one of the original 13 runes, and soul talismans, tiaras, staff-thingies, etc., have all been found in the cache, waiting to be released. In fact I can even give you the ID number of the soul talisman - 1460. You used to be able to see images of it on the GE. It sits between Law (#1458) and Nature (#1462). The reason there's 2 between each is that for every notable item, the notable form is the item's ID# plus 1. So noted soul talismans are #1461.

[Hippodo]

One interesting thing to consider is that they only possibly "destroyed" the first 10 of them, the ones they had access to (even so, how would they get into Zanaris?). The others (death/blood) may have simply fallen into disrepair, given their remote locations compared to the others. And I give a 0% chance that the soul altar wasn't destroyed nor fell into disrepair. It's one of the original 13 runes, and soul talismans, tiaras, staff-thingies, etc., have all been found in the cache, waiting to be released.

Altars don't have to be destroyed for them to have talismans. Didn't the Duke of Lumbridge just find one somewhere? My guess is that, whether the altar is destroyed or not, you need a talisman anyway to get to the actual altar. So the Soul talisman being in the cache doesn't prove much.

[Jard_Y_Dooku]

One interesting thing to consider is that they only possibly "destroyed" the first 10 of them, the ones they had access to (even so, how would they get into Zanaris?). The others (death/blood) may have simply fallen into disrepair, given their remote locations compared to the others. And I give a 0% chance that the soul altar wasn't destroyed nor fell into disrepair. It's one of the original 13 runes, and soul talismans, tiaras, staff-thingies, etc., have all been found in the cache, waiting to be released.

Altars don't have to be destroyed for them to have talismans. Didn't the Duke of Lumbridge just find one somewhere? My guess is that, whether the altar is destroyed or not, you need a talisman anyway to get to the actual altar. So the Soul talisman being in the cache doesn't prove much.

 

However, consistency is very relevant, and I guarantee you the soul altar will be in ruins just like the rest of them. You watch...

 

I wonder if that Mahjarrat part 5 final ending quest will reveal the altar, and possibly tie in all 13 altars being rediscovered be some important part of the storyline. That'd be cool.

[A_Mace]

Very nice read indeed.

 

You have some nice speculations there.

It at least looks like it all makes sense. Now just wait for the soul altar and see. :smile:

[Emmentail]

Soul Runes need more uses before the altar needs to be introduced.

 

Also don't believe everything you read on RS Wiki. It's written by people with delusions of grandeur.

[Jard_Y_Dooku]

Soul Runes need more uses before the altar needs to be introduced.

 

Also don't believe everything you read on RS Wiki. It's written by people with delusions of grandeur.

 

I actually find RS Wiki to be orders of magnitude more helpful, accurate and comprehensive than Tip.It nearly all the time. I've been using it as my primary source of information for a while now. This shall actually be the subject of my next long and controversial topic. Don't take this one off topic though, because I'm sure you'll be dying to defend classic ol' Tip.It without first hearing my argument. Patience, grasshopper.

[jettrider]

Also, you think EW will go beyond 4? I was kind of thinking EW4/Soul would be the last. That would give us a full armor set - helm, body, legs, shield. I don't think capes, gloves and boots are generally considered to be part of an armor set by Jagex. For one, a cape sort of can't be armor, and gloves and boots have almost never been included in armor sets. Think about "rune sets" on the grand exchange, or the original set of metal items we could smith. It was helm, body, legs, shield (2 versions of each) and the rest were all weapons. Still is, I think.

 

Well, judging from what we have so far:

 

Elemental Workshop I - 20 mining, 20 smithing, 20 crafting

This is a very quick quest, all you have to do is click on the machines to fix them. No puzzles, level 20 requirements.

 

Elemental Workshop II - 20 magic, 30 smithing

This has one tiny pipe-matching puzzle, the rest is once again a "retrieve and click to fix" type of quest.

 

Elemental Workshop III - 20 mining, 33 smithing, 33 defence

This quest is entirely based around one puzzle, which is luckily harder than the single puzzle the series has produced so far (the pipe matching). Unfortunately, it's only about on par with a regular 5x5 slider because you get unlimited moves to solve the complicated parts and there are multiple ways to achieve every solution instead of having a set model to work with. It is nowhere near the difficulty of the Temple of Light, an actual 3d puzzle. The reason it seems so hard is that the controls are maddeningly slow, making it seem like a much longer puzzle.

 

 

So, following the trend, EW4 should have a 40-50 smithing requirement and produce a slider-difficulty puzzle combined with a retrieve and fix quest. Hopefully EW5 will start to see a smithing requirement near 60 and will surpass the Temple of Light as the hardest puzzle in 'scape. EW6 should have both the smithing level and puzzle difficulty required to unlock the highest rune altar in the game.

 

Of course they'll probably release it with a 10 minute puzzle-less quest with level 40 requirements just to spite this, but I for one would like to see it appropriately rewarding and rigorously accessed when they finally do release it.

[Wkw]

Perhaps the frems destoried the first 7 alters (air, fire, water, earth, mind, body, chaos), because that is where they would of been.

Law, nature, and cosmic are just portals to the pocket dimensions where the alters are. They were always ruined, or were once maintained but fell into disrepair.

 

The Death alter was possibly maintained, but destroyed by the elves and had a temple built around it.

Blood alter had activity, because it was decorated to look like skulls. Possibly was never "maintained" and after turned into skull rocks, abandoned.

 

Soul alter, everything points to the fact that it is mainteined..

[opeious]

 

 

This is where the Elemental Workshop comes into play. We've had 3 quests so far, focusing on: elemental, mind, and body. I'm sure you're all aware of the popular "mind, body and soul"... saying, or whatever you refer to it as. As much as Jagex loves puns, there's no doubt that Elemental Workshop IV will involve crafting "Soul legs" or some other nonsense.

 

Knowing Jagex, they'd release a pair of boots, and name it soul sole =/

[Wkw]

Already did that with the nardah quest

[michel555555]

In regards to the alters:

 

The death alter could have been destroyed by the elves to prevent the death guard from contacting their dark lord or from the cave in when the tunnel was collapsed.

 

Blood alter could have been destroyed in the war of the barrows brothers. After all, they'd want to destroy something symbolic of the vampires.

 

Nature could have been destroyed by the volcanoe on karamaja.

 

cosmic and law i have no explanation for because i don't think the fairy god father would have wanted the cosmic alter destroyed.

 

This threads got me thinking about the law alter.... Why law alter for the place where saradomin first set foot? Wasn't Armadyl thought of as the god of justice/law while saradomin is more of wisdom? In the temple of senntisten we learn how the saradominists stole artifacts of zaros and put their own markings on them and claimed them as their own. So might this be the same with the law alter? What if it was originally one of Armadyls strongholds, or the place where he first set talon, and when he left the world after the god wars the saradominites?? just moved in and the alter was destroyed when the avanasies were forced out?

[Jard_Y_Dooku]

This is where the Elemental Workshop comes into play. We've had 3 quests so far, focusing on: elemental, mind, and body. I'm sure you're all aware of the popular "mind, body and soul"... saying, or whatever you refer to it as. As much as Jagex loves puns, there's no doubt that Elemental Workshop IV will involve crafting "Soul legs" or some other nonsense.

 

Knowing Jagex, they'd release a pair of boots, and name it soul sole =/

 

Nice one! They already did mind helm and body body, that wouldn't be that unlikely I bet.

[SomeNut]

i think i'll give my two bits of opinion into this:

my guess is the ritual site, with it being pretty much right next to the wilderness

 

do you think jenneca's ring and the spirit world could come into play, i mean the old man at the barrows knows about it and he showed a more interesting side of himself in temple of sennestian, what do you think the chances are?

spirit -- soul

some speculation, perhaps the Mahjarrat ritual stone may be the soul alter in the spirit world, just a thought

 

i remember hearing about the moonclan creating the altars, but i forgot where, could someone tell me where it was brought up(official- where ingame or what lore or what postbag) about the moonclan and runecrafing altars

 

for the person who was asking about how they could get to some altars

i haven't been to the temple of light yet, but as far as the vampires at the blood altar go, the moonclan can already read minds actively, so it might be possible for them to send false messages to the vyres mind-reading (vyres seem to think we're worthless cattle so why would they expect any human to be able to read minds)

 

and for the elemental cape, i don't find it all that unbelievable, we have an obsidian one after all, although i think cosmic cape sounds more appealing

 

just my thoughts

[Jehosaphat]

This is where the Elemental Workshop comes into play. We've had 3 quests so far, focusing on: elemental, mind, and body. I'm sure you're all aware of the popular "mind, body and soul"... saying, or whatever you refer to it as. As much as Jagex loves puns, there's no doubt that Elemental Workshop IV will involve crafting "Soul legs" or some other nonsense.

 

Knowing Jagex, they'd release a pair of boots, and name it soul sole =/

 

Nice one! They already did mind helm and body body, that wouldn't be that unlikely I bet.

Well, what would they call the leg armor?

 

......I'm going to stop this post here before I put in something gross.

[Troacctid]

This threads got me thinking about the law alter.... Why law alter for the place where saradomin first set foot? Wasn't Armadyl thought of as the god of justice/law while saradomin is more of wisdom? In the temple of senntisten we learn how the saradominists stole artifacts of zaros and put their own markings on them and claimed them as their own. So might this be the same with the law alter? What if it was originally one of Armadyls strongholds, or the place where he first set talon, and when he left the world after the god wars the saradominites?? just moved in and the alter was destroyed when the avanasies were forced out?

Probably there weren't any followers of Armadyl around. Since the fall of the Aviantese in the God Wars, Armadyl has been mostly an obscure god with very little influence on Gielinor.

 

Anyway, despite the potential associations with the concept of "Soul" that could develop in future Elemental Workshop quests, I think it's very unlikely that there will be a Soul Altar involved. According to RS Wiki, the workshop was created by a metallurgist named Vitruvius sometime in the early 5th age. Its primary purpose seems to be experimenting with new methods of smithing magical items, not crafting runes. If there is a Soul Room behind that rubble, it'll be for Soul Bars, not talismans or altars.

[kazumaishimaru]

This is where the Elemental Workshop comes into play. We've had 3 quests so far, focusing on: elemental, mind, and body. I'm sure you're all aware of the popular "mind, body and soul"... saying, or whatever you refer to it as. As much as Jagex loves puns, there's no doubt that Elemental Workshop IV will involve crafting "Soul legs" or some other nonsense.

 

Knowing Jagex, they'd release a pair of boots, and name it soul sole =/

 

Nice one! They already did mind helm and body body, that wouldn't be that unlikely I bet.

In fact, the Soul Soles would be perfect. Our best mage footgear amounts to a pair of jester boots. (or the mage training ones; your pick)

[Naive]

Soul Greaves sounds cooler imo. Good read.

[HunterDexter]

"Will there be an Elemental Workshop 4 due to soul being left out of the saying mind, body and soul?"

 

No, there will not be a sequel due to soul being left out. There may however be a sequel for other reasons.

 

From the updated FAQ, means we can scrap the idea of having the soul altar contained within the EW series.

[Emmentail]

Doesn't mean they aren't going to have a Soul workshop, it just means they weren't thinking of the mind body and soul mantra that every has hammered into their brains for some reason.

[magzar]

I'm gonna go out on a big gnarly limb here and say what about Port Phasmatys? Perhaps the altar is beneath the Ectofunctus. After all ectoplasm is basically the liquefied by product of a soul, and a ghost is basically a soul sans body. This probably isn't right, but I could definitely see a possibility for it there.

 

The chances are somewhat slim considering the proximity to the blood altar, but I wouldn't rule it out offhand.

[kazumaishimaru]

"Will there be an Elemental Workshop 4 due to soul being left out of the saying mind, body and soul?"

 

No, there will not be a sequel due to soul being left out. There may however be a sequel for other reasons.

 

From the updated FAQ, means we can scrap the idea of having the soul altar contained within the EW series.

Now that doesn't mean soul wont pop up at one point. It just means the sequel wont have it.

[Jard_Y_Dooku]

"Will there be an Elemental Workshop 4 due to soul being left out of the saying mind, body and soul?"

 

No, there will not be a sequel due to soul being left out. There may however be a sequel for other reasons.

 

From the updated FAQ, means we can scrap the idea of having the soul altar contained within the EW series.

 

Where did you find that and what is that supposed to mean...?