Update:Skill Bonanza: Urns, Ashes and Shortcuts
This update was added on 15 February 2011.
Today's update is a skiller's paradise, with updates for crafters, prayer-lovers and agility fanatics. Make urns that benefit a number of other skills, scatter demon ashes, and build permanent agility shortcuts.
Urn Crafting
No matter what your Crafting level, you are now able to make urns for Cooking, Fishing, Mining, Smithing, Woodcutting and Prayer (but more on the Prayer urns later) at any pottery oven. Form it, fire it and attach an appropriate rune to it and you’ll be able to carry the urn when training the related skill. There’s no effort required, as your urn will fill up passively as you train, until it becomes full and you can teleport it away for a tidy batch of XP.
Urns can be made from Crafting level 1 all the way up level 81; the higher your Crafting level, the higher quality your urns will be. Higher quality urns are able to collect by-products from a wider range of fish, logs, ores, etc. For example, a cracked fishing urn (made at level 1 Crafting) will fill up if you're fishing catches below Fishing level 10; however, a decorated fishing urn (made at level 76 Crafting) will fill up when you are catching any type of fish.
Urns are made just like any other pottery, but require two pieces of soft clay. Once it has been fired, you can either trade it or add a rune to 'activate' it. You can then start to fill up activated urns – with the ability to check how full they are – and then teleport them away once full. Wondering where all your urns go? In south-east Varrock there is an interesting newcomer: Ernie, the urn collector. Ernie will offer help on making or using these urns.
Potter Improvements
To ease the pottery process, you can now make soft clay directly at a water source (you no longer need a container for the water). Additionally, new clay mining sites have been discovered south of Barbarian Village and near Draynor Village, and there is also a new pottery building in south-east Varrock, on the bottom floor of Ernie's house.
Demon Ashes and Prayer Urns
Demon slayers will find that, from now on, their demonic prey has a new 100% drop. These will be impious ashes (from imps and fiends), accursed ashes (lesser and greater demons) or infernal ashes (black and abyssal demons, nechryaels, boss demons), depending on the demon defeated. Any ashes you currently own will remain as just that: ashes, like you get from burning logs.
Much like bones can be buried for some immediate Prayer XP, these ashes can be scattered (including at a POH altar). Alternatively, you may want to keep hold of ashes to use at the Ectofuntus, where they effectively work as pre-ground bones, which will save you a bit of grinding... To tie in with the pottery crafting update, you’re also able to make prayer urns – urns that automatically collect the ash of any demons you defeat, and which can be teleported away for bonus Prayer XP in the same way as the other urns.
Shortcut Improvements
Finally, we've made some changes to a handful of shortcuts and transportation methods to streamline their use. First off, we've made the River Lum canoe system available to free-players. At points along the Lum, you can build canoes to take you on a one-way trip into the Wilderness. You can even now borrow a hatchet off one of the canoe tutors.
Members can also use their Construction skill to build hidey-holes at crossbow shortcuts and rope racks at eagle eyries/Baxtorian Falls. In these will be stored crossbows/grapples and ropes, so you won’t need to carry these items in order to make use of these shortcuts and transport methods.
Mod Ana (urns and pottery updates) and Mod Dylan (ashes and shortcuts)
RuneScape Content Developers
In other news...
The legendary wolf, Hati, has retired to a colder land, so players will no longer be able to hunt him. The gloves fashioned out of his paws still have his lingering magic effects on them, but this will disperse on Tuesday 10th May, so make sure to use their power up if you haven't already!
An exotic delicacy awaits you near a banana plantation...
RuneScape Wiki note: The links no longer work.