So this has been a major pet project of mine for a while now, the mapping out of the entire runescape universe and beyond and i can finally reveal my newest version. Alot has changed since my previous version of this, tons of new worlds have been revealed, a whole system of runic hierarchy explaining how the elders went about creating them and loads more. Sadly i couldnt manage planet pictures this time around, there are WAY too many of them to attempt that atm and i still havnt figured out a good way of making planets to my standard yet. However, this time is alot more information based clearly marking out where everything is. I get the feeling that jagex still wants to keep to the whole "every world is in a completely separate plane" thing but honestly that looks terrible, its just a string of single worlds. I feel like the connectivity between worlds and their shared history is what makes it interesting so this is my compromise for what jagex intends to do with my own theories and head canon which i think will work way betterI must point out, all of this is just a theory. I have put in a ton of research to use as much canon information as i could but all of this is just my personal interpretation of how i see the runescape universe being. But enough of that, lets get into itFirst thing to note is the universe is made up of planes (star systems in my interpretation) which stack together like a honeycomb in a super plane known as the abyss, basically outer space. An important distinction here, the "abyss" in this definition is NOT the same as the runecrafting abyss location ingame. That location is actually the insides of a giant demon called Hostilus who Zamorak defeated long ago and chained up "between the stars". Years later the first wizards tower made a pact with the demons to use Hostilus's body as a nexus point to bind their teleport beacon to. Ever since then every teleport has actually been funneled through this demon chained up in the center of the abyss. My theory on this though is after countless years of teleports being funneled through 1 point in space, a "static charge" of runic energy began to build up. Over time this grew into an intense area of wild runic energy thus creating the runespan, with Hostilus secretly still chained up in its center to this day. Now i know one mod has said the runespan is a pocket dimension in the balance plane somewhere, but thats honestly terrible and just from the sound of their voice as they said it, they made it up on the spot and didnt really think about it much. This is my WAY better story for Hostilus and the runespanNext important thing to note is the elder gods. There are 5 elders who create the universe by destroying and building the previous one in order to create a world with the perfect anima to sustain themselves. Establishing a set of runic elements as they build up towards the perfect element, as such each world's anima has a runic alignment to it, hence the universe as a whole is a "rune-scape". Only 4 elders made it off Freneskae, the Gielinor of the previous universe, Mah was too weak to leave with the others and so did not create any new planets. This is why Jas used up her egg to create the catalyst to replace Mah's energy in the creation process-- The Lower Planes --These are the leftovers of the previous universe and are at the very bottom end of the universe. The runic elements here is actually where the elements of ancient magic comes from. Little note too, these elements currently do not have their own defined symbols as such i had already created symbols and new runes for each of them, please feel free to see my ancient runes picture in my gallery for themFreneskae: Home of the mahjarrat, where the elders hatched and where Zaros and Seren where created. This was the perfect world of the previous universe but when the elders awoke they drained the worlds anima dry leaving the planet has a desolate wasteland. This world was visited during "fate of the gods". I placed this as orbiting around a black hole, partly to imply this is the old black hole jagex used to toss rule breakers into, but also cus this whole world is very reminiscent of the impossible planet 2 parter from doctor who, which is the main inspiration for this designInfernus: Home of the demons, basically a twisted fiery hell-scape with 1 major settlement called "Pandemonium". This was the first world Zaros came across during his travels from Freneskae. My personal theory is this world is infact built up like hell from dante's inferno, many different levels each different from the last as they reach deeper into the planet's core, these levels creating whats called "the infernal dimensions" ingame. This would account for the many different elemental demons (like ice/jungle) which otherwise wouldnt make much sense all in a fiery landscape, and the very center is the smoke level as stated by zaros in the book "the promised gift" where he made his smoke power stone. I believe this world was briefly visited during "shadow before the storm"Vampyrium: Home of the vampyres and araxytes. A world with a blood red sky, many dark forests and huge black castles of the 8 vampyre lords. We know this is very close to Infernus cus it was the 2nd world Zaros came across. I placed this and Infernus both around a single red sun, red because it fits thematically and red suns also give off the least light, important when you're a vampyre and allergic to sunlight. This world was briefly visited during "lord of vampyrium" and also where Zaros made his blood power stone in the book "the promised gift"Leng: Home of the galcors. This is a a dark frozen wasteland with sharp jagged icy mountains. Its known to be inhabited by glacors, ice elementals who can grow to the size of mountains here. This world likely also has a global subterranean water ocean similar to Earths mantle, a dark ocean which never sees sunlight. There appears to be some mysterious figure walking around the planet in a single line over and over but its unknown what this means or where this will go. Another thing to note, is Leng is also a location prominent in lovecraft mythology and so this location might have something related to Xau Tak in the future. I placed this world around not a normal star but a white dwarf as something a little different and more "icy" as per suggestion by someone else i was discussing this with a while back. This world is where Zaros made his ice power stoneIaia: Home of the ilujanka, the dragon riders. This is a dark swamp like world with such a thick cloud cover it barely ever sees direct sunlight or starlight. Inhabited by what little remains of the ilujanka tribe who are a very superstitious people and who seem to have resigned themselves to their inevitable extinction. Zaros has stated he missed this planet on his first time through the lower planes. This was made to be the miasma rune which has recently been confirmed to be the 5th element in ancient magicsHomeworld of the dragonkin is next. We know this place existed at some point but was destroyed shortly after the elders had awoken. I thought this was a great place to introduce the wrath rune from osrs as an ancient element is the only place it would fit given the runic system jagex has devised for the current universe, and wrath just suits the dragonkin perfectly. I thought it important to place this is the same system as the ilujanka as the dragonkin seem to have a sibling connection to themThe Shadow Breach: This is a weird one because its not a planet and unlike the other ancient elements, its likely not even from the previous universe. This is a rift in space at the far bottom end of the universe Guthix speaks about in the memorial to Guthix which leads directly into the heart of the shadow realmThe shadow realm itself is a dimension invisibly present on all worlds leaking out from the breach. As such its strength is far stronger and more saturated in the lower depths of the universe. It's said that at the heart of the shadow realm is terrifying leviathans even Zaros doesnt want to mess with. It is my personal theory that the shadow realm is infact the plane of Mah's dreams, hence why its so twisted and nightmarish the further down you go, this is her way of trying to reach up through the universe since she cant travel herself and also why the mahjarrat being children of Mah are the ones who can enter it at will. To go further, i also think that Xau Tak is infact the pure embodiment of Mah's madness and nightmare who tore through into this reality creating the breach we know now. What with Xau Tak being able to create even life from nightmares like in 2018's halloween event, has the same life manipulating ability Zaros does, has the same ability Zaros and Seren has to effect others around them (them being love and loyalty while Xau Tak is insanity). The fact we had the shard of Zaros, then the shard of Mah and recently a very similar shard for Xau Tak, the fact Xau Tak seems to be all about black crystals and if this is kinda like all the bad parts of Mah set loose and obsessed with life/death, thats sooo similar to Seren going all dark lord. There are WAY too many connections saying Xau Tak is another child of Mah not to be something, i'd be very disappointed if jagex just tossed all this away and go "he's just another elder who came from outside"-- The Elemental Planes --Once the elders had awoken they tried to create planets but soon found out they were unable to do so for the first time ever. Without Mah they didnt have enough power to jump straight into it like they usually do. The point at which they first attempted to create worlds only resulted in a vast asteroid field of sacred clay (the raw material for creating worlds) around a half formed proto-star. This is the primordial realm you visit during the stealing creation minigameFrom this point, the elders split off into different paths to grow and learn first, creating the 4 paths Zaros speaks about in his account exploring the universe. At first the elders try to create worlds just using their own inherent elements, this results in just fields of the elements which were so primitive and unstable that no completed worlds ever came out of these regions. From this point on the elders had grown more and started combining their elements together creating the combination elemental worlds. These worlds where successful and mainly embodied the element they representYu-Biusk: Home of the goblins, trolls, ogres and the whole of the Bandosian empire. This was once a very rich and fertile world with an abundance of flora but once Bandos and his endless wars came along, the world was scorched and scarred beyond recognition. It is now a toxic wasteland where nothing lives. This world was visited during the goblin quest line a few timesThe dust world was mentioned by Armadyl in "the book of Armadyl" and is stated to be a desert of rocks and dust as far as you can see. I highly theorise that this is the homeworld of the dwarven race as being nothing but rocks it sounds perfect and there is no other known worlds that even comes close to a fitting "rocky planet" for themThe mist world was again mentioned in "the book of Armadyl" and is said to be a total water world with no land, nothing but wind and waves. Its likely some aquatic species came from here, maybe the sirens or mermaids?The steam world is another in "the book of Armadyl", this was stated to be an extremely toxic world with blistering heat and an acidic boiling sky, basically Venus. Armadyl did also note there seems to be black armored insect like creatures that live here but its unknown what these could beMuspell: Home of the auspah (char's race) and the world where Zamorak fled to after the end of the god wars. It is a world of perpetual flames, a harsh world but also said to be very beautiful as the flames rise up in every colour. I picture this world has having an ocean of lava instead of water and large fiery rings like in my previous mapThe smoke world is the final world mentioned in "the book of Armadyl" and is a huge gas giant with small flying creatures living in its clouds. Now jagex did once say that Abbinah is the smoke world but i MUST disagree, that just doesnt fit in any way. The combination worlds are stated to be the depiction of their elements and Abbinah is more advancely developed than that. This gas giant is clearly more primitive than Abbinah and as its been stated there are no worlds in the pure elemental planes, this can only be the smoke world-- The Catalytic Planes --Once the elders had grown even more and had experience making worlds for themselves, they began to use the catalyst to evolve their elements into new higher forms, hence the name "the catalyst", it was literally used as such in the creation process. At first they started with evolving just their pure elements starting with the primordial planes. Its also good to note that in my map, Bik and Wen stay on their own paths as their worlds being earth and water are very successful at cultivating life. Jas and Ful on the other hand being fire and air did not create very hospitable worlds, as such they combined their paths to work together early on to create better worldsThe body world has been talked about in lore books dropped by stalker creatures and in daemonheim as the homeworld of the behemoths. But its also been hinted at by jagex in a survey talking about a homeworld of giants. Its said to be a place where everything is huge, there are many different regions on this world ranging from jungles, arctic areas, mountains and so on. This vast diversity of landscapes results in the different elemental variants of giants. This world is one of the few which has a confirmed moon, that being Ocularis. Now this is an interesting and weird place, as its actually a whole living being. Many years ago the original stalker creature spawned inside the moons core and grew around consuming it whole, the whole moon is now just a stalkers brain, the nexus point of their hive mind across the universe. This original stalker infact being one of the 3 "deities" Xau Tak created, Yogsathla as stated in the "pestilent journal". This creature however didnt have any eyes, and so it took its flesh and molded the stalkers and seekers we know in dungeoneering to serve as its eyes through their hive mind. Its also strange because this moon seems to be able to move around by itself and even visit other planes, reported to go even as far as Infernus. Its currently unknown where the moon is atm, but it has been stated its runic energy is body, and being a giant living organism it makes sense to just list it in the body plane for nowTeragard: Home of the humans, though only the fremenik still call this place home. It is said to be cold in both temperature and temperament, basically it's a planet of fremenik isles with freezing oceans inbetween. The magister boss Oreb from the Sophenem dungeon was originally a magister to one of the houses on this world. It is said that there is a rift cracking with red lightning somewhere on the planet where the inhabitants have been using magic to siphon power from the abyssKethsi: This is a world visited during "ritual of the mahjarrat" and in the rune dragon area, was once a place of great intellect and wisdom. However the catalyst found its way to this world and their curiosity in studying it brought the dragonkin down on its people. The entire world is now scorched and burnt beyond recognition. It is curious however that these people studied the catalyst so much that the dragonkin destroyed the whole world, yet theres been no reports of a god having come from this world yetAbbinah: Home of the Aviansie, a world which has been fractured exposing its core to the open. Its covered in constant storms and hurricanes, the only land which is hospitable are the countless sky islands which float in the sky above the storms. But even these are dangerous and they constantly crash into eachother. I like to think that the killerwatt area is infact inside one of the storms on Abbinah. Jagex has once stated this to be the smoke world but again i must disagree strongly with that. This world is way more advanced than the gas giant (especially before the cataclysm which fractured its core) and so only makes sense to put this afterwards. Further more Armadyl in "missing presumed death" states that Kethsi is very close to his home world, in a universe where teleporting instantly is the only real transport between planes, this statement wouldnt make any sense at all unless Kethsi was in the same plane as his world. His worry about the dragonkin on Kethsi wouldnt make any sense if they where in another plane, cus all planes just 1 teleport away. Added to this, a world of storms and lightning where islands in the sky are constantly crashing into eachother is the very depiction of the element of chaos. Heck the first line in its official description is "a chaotic world". It ONLY makes sense for this to be the chaos world in the same plane as Kethsi, again those connected histories are important for good design and story!After the primordial set of catalytic planes, they went higher by combining their combined elements together with the catalyst. But at this point something happened to Jas, she evolved further than the others and went on ahead. As such worlds which combined with Jas's elements where higher in tier, the transcendent planesNaragun: Home of the naragi and Guthix. This was a huge jungle world where the trees where so large they stretched beyond the clouds, with its people living in their tree tops. Only seen in memories at the end of "the world wakes" showing when this world was ravished by the first god wars which also brought on Tuska, the world eater to their planet. I had this world around 2 suns with an orbit in such a way that this world would get ALOT more hours of sunlight than most, thus accounting for the giant plantlife which would flourish in such environments. I also theorise that the gnomes home world was infact one of the moons of this world as they are heavily nature based too and seem to have a kinship connection to GuthixJermyn: Home of ape kind and their corrupted kin, the mwanu horrors. This is a dark jungle world mentioned in the "decaying journal" where Xau Tak took refuge in a black lake. Its implied to have more than 1 sun so i put it having 2, orbiting another white dwarf, fitting for the planet of death being constantly bathed in the light of a dead star. Its also possible this has a few moons known as the "husk worlds" but theres no information on those at all yetThe blood world here is interesting cus by process of elimination this could only really be the world the karamjan gods came from in "the end of Gara-Dul". These 3 karamjan gods, though we may know little about them we can draw up some theories. One of them is Shaika (connecting to the shaikahan lion in Karamja), another is Rahani (connecting to the rahani wildcats), and the 3rd is Kharazi. We can see that atleast 2 of these are direct connections to feline species, which leads me to believe this is the world spoken about by Armadyl in "Sliske's endgame" where he met a tribe of felines who communicated only by singing, as such as per what Armadyl said, one of the suns there is dying out. I also have another theory, this is also the home world of werewolves too (cus they dont have a world yet, being another blood world would connect them to the vampyres and thematically fit), you could say theres a connection because the Kharazi jungle is notable for having unique wolves. My current theory/idea is this world had 2 major tribes, the wolves and the felines. The wolves where primitive and aggressive, while the felines where advanced but peaceful. This is basically a world for predatorsTarddiad: Home of the elves and where Seren made her home for a long time. It is a world entirely of crystal which is said to shine like a diamond in the sky. It is visited during "the light within" and rather fitting its right next door to Guthix's home world too given the history between these 2 godsHallow: Home of the Icyene and Saradomin's empire. While Saradomin may be from Teragard he left that world as soon as he became a god. This is a mostly water world with strings of islands going around it. This world is harsh to live on as one day lasts for a whole year, implying that the planet is very close to its star thus causing a bit of tidal locking. As such the part of the planet in the day side is very warm while the night side is a winter which nothing survives. The icyene must therefore keep hopping from island to island to always remain in the day side resulting in frequent mass migrations. This world also has a significant sky island called New Domina which always remains in the day side, this island is a vast fortress with a huge white tower and serves as Saradomin's personal strongholdCheanannais and Renmark: Now here is an interesting set which would warrant a whole map just by itself. Renmark was originally the seasonal world, a place with 1 court, 1 ruler and its impling people however each time the season changed, everything from the world to its people transformed with it with each form being unaware of the transformations taking place. Then Guthix appeared on the world, he found some kind of creature feasting on the planets core (most theorise Xau Tak) and so he used the elder blade to cut him away. Doing this though accidentally shattered the planet into pieces and infact separated the 4 forms into their own beings, sending them flying in various directions. These are the seasonal lands of snow, sunlight, glades and harvest. Cheanannias was the homeworld of the fairies (very similar to the implings of Renmark) and was likely very similar to Zanaris, probably also has the impling area "puro puro". In my current setup, Cheanannias was originally Renmark's moon, but when the planet was destroyed it sent the 4 seasonal lands out into orbits around the plane while the moon became the new center of gravity for the remaining debris, earning itself new rings of dust and a demi-moon being the land of holly and hawthorn. The orbits of these lands are in such a way that whenever its winter on Gielinor the land of snow is closest to the balanced plane while the land of sunlight is the furthest, and vica versa in summer. I know a mod has written that the land of glades is the summer land but this is factually incorrect to all existing lore and thematic sense. Sunlight has always been the driving force for summer time on Gielinor so this is the corrected version. Further more when spring and autumn come along, these 2 lands come close to Cheanannais which has the land of holly and hawthorn around it so that the 2 queens of these lands can battle and "pass the season" as shown in 2011 easter event. Other things to note about Cheanannias, its dust rings are likely the cosmic plane from the fairy tail quest line and the shooting stars which sometimes hit on Gielinor are also fragments of Renmark still flying through the abyss, meaning the star sprites within are likely also inhabitants of RenmarkAnd now the final plane at the very top of the universe, the balanced plane. This is where all the elder gods now fully grown up come back together and reattempt to create their perfect worldMazcab: Home of the goebies. Their first attempt just using their own elements together created a flourishing world rich in strong anima of all types but it still wasnt quite good enough. We know from the models in player owned houses and the observatory that Gielinor's system has 2 planets, the 2nd one with 2 moons, that is Mazcab. We know its close to Gielinor cus Tuska physically travels there from here and when we arrive there it really seems like the attack there had only just happened. Couple that with the sheer strength of the anima on this world, enough to create incredible elemental creatures like yakamaru and the 2 unused raids bosses, plus the fact theres no other runes left to fill, this must be the elemental rune in the balanced planeGielinor: The main homeworld the game takes place on, no real need to go into it as everyone knows this. Only real thing to note is Zanaris is officially confirmed to be its moon which begs the question is the moon rocky like earth's moon or a forest world like ingame? Jagex only keep calling this place the balanced world but i really dont like that name. They go through all the trouble of giving everything a runic alignment but throw it away on the most important one? I named this as the life rune as the whole point of this world is to create the best anima and anima is basically just life energy, so pure life would be the best anima-- The Spiritual Realms --Then we have the spiritual realms of the spirit plane (where summoning energy comes from) and the afterlife, with the river noumenon running inbetween them. Basic idea is energy flows down from the spirit realm, down the river into the physical world where it lives its life, then after death it flows down again into the afterlife. I did have the idea of then looping the afterlife back around to the spirit realm making them 2 regions in just 1 all encompassing spirit plane but i couldnt draw it well. The basic idea was after death you spend an eternity in the afterlife fading from memory and identity, returning to pure anima which returns up into the spirit plane rekindling into new life which creates a perpetual cycle for the universe to sustain itself withThe point at which the river noumenon passes through the physical plane is called the underworld and deaths office is the doorway into that underworld. Each planet has its own underworld station leading into the river, different currents taking you to different afterlifes. Plus each world has its own reaper, the first person to die on a world without a current reaper. From last years halloween event its possible we know quite a few reapers now. It seems that they may be named for how they died (total theorising here):Death - Gielinor's reaperWar - The giant's homeworld reaperFamine - Abbinah's reaperPestilence - The blood worlds reaper?Peace - Hallow's reaper?Horror - Infernus's reaper (maybe showed up in osrs's halloween event?)This universe sits inside an even greater expanse known as the void, this is a pure white endless void the elders never touched. I know the wiki has a picture of the void being black but i asked around and it turns out this is a graphical glitch, its supposed to be white to contrast perfectly with the black abyss. Guthix once tried cutting through the periphery (the border between the abyss and the void) which shattered the elder blade and let in the void pests which somehow travel through the void from universe to universeWhich brings us to the fact there are other universes! Two main ones have been shown ingame, most notable being the dimension of disaster. This is a world where the world guardian never existed and so basically the bad guys won in every quest line. I personally would like to say this is scaperune as the random events there such as prison pete looked very similar to falador in the DoD, but last time i tried saying that i just got flamed at by people whining at the idea of a theory. The other universe we know of is the dimension of the damned which was only in 1 event a few years ago and likely wont be seen again. However i came up with the interesting idea of saying this is a universe where the river noumenon fell apart, cutting off the spirit planes from the physical. As such no new life comes into the world, and those who die have nowhere to go, they just stay on the world rotting even morePhew that just about covers it all, atleast for this version of the map. As you can see there are still worlds yet unnamed and who knows how many unknown moons to explore. There are other places like the runecrafting alters but honestly i've no idea what the hell they are, its very unclear if they're supposed to be pocket dimensions, inside the runespan or on their respective planets, guess i'll leave that upto you to guess, though personally i'd put them on their planets. I did also think about adding "behind the scenes" to the multiverse map but overall i'm resigned to say that quest is just not canon at allSo until the next iteration, have fun with this mapAlso do check out my other runescape pieces too if you wish:Dark Runes: www.deviantart.com/gamez-x/art… Gold Piece: www.deviantart.com/gamez-x/art… Luck of the Dwarves: www.deviantart.com/gamez-x/art… Summoning Charms: gamez-x.deviantart.com/art/Run… Runes: gamez-x.deviantart.com/art/Run… Piece of Eight: gamez-x.deviantart.com/art/Run… Quest map (old): www.deviantart.com/gamez-x/art…