The Winter Finals will begin at approximately 12pm GMT (7am EST) on Monday 4th December! The Finals will run until Saturday 9th, culminating in the Permadeath Stage beginning at 7pm GMT. We'll be live from 7pm GMT, Saturday 9th December, on twitch.tv/runescape, make sure you tune in to see who will take home the $20,000 prize!

Now that the logistical information has been shared, it's fitting to inform you all of what the Winter Finals has in store for you. The rest of this page will be split into displaying the core content mechanics, and then finally the way the Permadeath (the final hours of the Finals) will be played.

Town Protection High level guards patrol major towns across the map keeping them safe. If they spot a player with a PK skull they will attack them. The map below is an approximation of the map changes within Deadman Mode. The areas highlighted in green on the map to left are the safe areas. The areas highlighted in red on the map to left are multi-way combat areas.

XP Gain

There is no cap on XP gain. The XP rate when training all skills (combat & non-combat) in a guarded area is 10x. The XP rate when training combat skills in an unguarded (dangerous) area is 15x. The XP rate when training non-combat skills in an unguarded (dangerous) area is 10x. There is a 50x rebuild rate on XP in stats previously lost on death.

PK Skulls

The standard skull timer for attacking a player is 15 minutes. If you're already skulled, and you attack another player, the timer will be extended by 2 minutes up to the regular 15 minute timer There is a skull penalty for all players attacking a skulled player. The skull penalty will last for 5 minutes. If you previously had a skull with less than 5 minutes remaining it will revert to 5 minutes. If you previously had a skull with longer than 5 minutes remaining it will remain unchanged. There is a 1 minute grace period for reasonable kills. This grace period will be a temporary status of immunity from the attacks of other players. A reasonable kill can be defined as killing a player within 30 combat levels of yourself. If killing a combat level higher than yourself you will always receive this grace period of immunity (e.g. a level 90 killing a level 126 will receive the grace period). If you die or attack another player within this minute then you will lose the remaining grace period. The grace period will be lost upon logging out.

Items & XP Lost On Death

Unskulled players protect all XP lost on death. Skulled players who are killed by another player will lose XP dependent on the combat level of the player killing you. You can insure your HP level by talking to Gelin, found in Lumbridge graveyard. You'll permanently be able to protect your HP at level 25, level 50, and level 75. You can protect 5 skills in total: 2 combat skills and 3 non-combat skills. You can do this by opening the items lost on death interface from the equipment tab. If you die to another player you will lose the 10 most valuable stacks of items from your bank, along with all items you have equipped or in your inventory. For items lost on death, you will only lose 80% of an item's stack. This applies only to stacks of 5 or more. For example: if you had 4 Abyssal whips, you'd lose them all. If you had 5 Abyssal whips, you'd lose only 4 of them.

Bank Raiding & The Safe Deposit Box

If you manage to kill a player in Deadman mode you will receive a key drop. This key will give you access to chests found within safe arenas that, when opened, will allow you to take the 10 most valuable stacks of items from the bank of the player you killed. You are able to protect up to 10 of your items by talking to Financial Wizards found within banks in safe zones. When you give him 10 items they are securely stored within a Safe Deposit Box. When killed you will not lose these items. You can only place single items within the Safe Deposit Box, and not stacks of items (for example, 10 Rune arrows will count as 10 items).

Other Misc. Changes

The Protect from Magic protection prayer does not halve the duration of the Bind, Snare, and Entangle spells. Dying with, or dropping, a stack of Chinchompas will cause it to appear on the ground, visible to all players. All rune and arrow shops restock at a much faster rate. Fletching & Crafting supply stores will also restock at a faster rate. Lower tier equipment will restock faster than higher tier equipment, for example: an air rune will restock faster than a death rune. Changes remain in place to prevent door spamming. We received reports that specific areas were still troubled by issues of door spamming. POH pools are unavailable for 3 minutes after combat. In Barrows there is also a chance to obtain potions and potion ingredients. For potions, there is a 1/2 chance of gaining a stack of 3 (4)-dose potions when you roll on the Barrows armour table. You will receive either Saradomin brews, Super restores, Ranging potions, or Super combat potions. There is a small chance of obtaining potion ingredients on the normal Barrows table. Note, due to limitations of the Barrows interface it's possible that any items gained may instead appear in your inventory or on the floor. It is possible to receive the following: Crushed nests, Red spiders' eggs, Wine of Zamorak, Limpwurt roots, White berries, or Grimy torstol. In addition to the normal loot offered by killing them, Callisto, Venenatis, Vet'ion and the Chaos Elemental also have a 1 in 3 chance of dropping a single 4-dose Saradomin brew. In addition to the normal loot offered by killing them, Scorpia, Crazy Archaeologist and the Chaos Fanatic also have a 1 in 5 chance of dropping a single 4-dose Saradomin brew. A safety deposit box can be found in both banks within the Grand Tree. Turael will not assign Kalphite tasks.

Restricted Content

Raids, Zulrah, the Revenant Caves, the new Wilderness Prayer altar, and Lava dragons are inaccessible for the entire week of the Finals. The following mini-games are disabled: Duel Arena, Castle Wars, Trouble Brewing, Fight Pits, Rat Pits, Pest Control, and Last man Standing. The nature rune chest in East Ardougne is inaccessible. Count Check will not be able to teleport players to the Stronghold of Security.

Permadeath Stage

Supply chests: The chests will appear each time the fog advances. We will announce the location of these chests in two different stages: the first notification of the location will remain vague (e.g. Falador), whilst the second notification will be specific (e.g. Falador Party Room). We intend for these chests to encourage fights throughout the entire duration of the Permadeath stage, and also to offer a modest advantage for those courageous enough to attempt to loot them. Contained within each chest will be one of the following: an XP lamp which will level any skill to 99, a Bandos chestplate and Tassets, an Armadyl chestplate and chainskirt, a Dinh's bulwark, an Infernal cape and an Amulet of fury, and lastly an Elder maul. Final areas: The next change comes with the addition of a second 'final area'. We will evenly split players between the two final areas: the area north of Falador, and the Demonic Ruins in the Wilderness. Players will be assigned a final area location randomly once the Permadeath stage begins, with the fog being specific to each player. The last surviving 64 players in each final area (128 players in total) will be transported to the final arenas, which are detailed below. The aim of this is to split up large groups of players and to promote a more varied viewing experience with two groups of players having to adapt to different tactics depending on their designated final area. Final 1v1 Stage: The remaining 128 survivors will be teleported to an area containing 64 individual Arenas. Players will be teleported to a random arena regardless of level, location, gear etc. for a set of 7 brackets of 1v1 fights.

The structure is as follows:

Bracket 1: 128 players | 64 Arenas Bracket 2: 64 players | 32 Arenas Bracket 3: 32 players | 16 Arenas Bracket 4: 16 players | 8 Arenas Bracket 5: 8 players | Quarter-final Bracket 6: 4 players | Semi-final Bracket 7: 2 players | Final

Players will be teleported with the gear, stats, and supplies that they left the mainland with. They will be expected to fight using these supplies.

Items that are manually dropped by players cannot be picked up or traded whilst they are in these Arenas.

Healing supplies will not be dropped on death.

A slow ticking fog will begin to chip away at players health in order to prevent intentional stalling. This will occur 3 ½ minutes into the Arena fights.

When one player remains in an Arena they will automatically be teleported to the next Arena. They will have a short period of time in which to loot from their opponent.

Players who are successful at progressing beyond the first Arena will have their inventory wiped of supplies (food and potions) and for each fight thereafter we'll restore all health/stats/special attack, as well as resupplying inventories. The supplies will consist of the following, also note that if your inventory is full then any excess supplies will appear on the floor:

1x Saradomin brew (4) 2x Super restore (4) 1x Super combat (2) 1x Ranging potion (2) 13x Shark 2x Karambwan

We previously shared a mock-up of the final concept, seen from afar. We've instead opted to stylize the arenas to fit thematically with Deadman. Below are some examples of the appearance of the arenas, as combatants descend from the top to the bottom. .

The top of the arena. The middle of the arena. The final 16

Prize Money