Quests are one of the fastest ways to improve an Old School RuneScape account because they unlock transportation, equipment, spellbooks, bosses, regions, skills, raids, and large XP rewards. This OSRS quest guide covers the most valuable quests for account progression and explains why their unlocks matter.
A good quest can improve several parts of an account at once.
Completing one quest might give:
Experience
Quest Points
A new transportation method
Access to a new region
Better equipment
A spellbook
A boss
A raid
A new training method
Access to another major quest chain
That is why questing is often more efficient than spending all your early playtime simply training skills.
Experience rewards are useful, particularly at low levels.
However, permanent unlocks usually have greater long-term value.
Fairy rings, for example, remain useful from early progression through endgame PvM. The same is true for Ava's devices, spellbooks, Prifddinas, and major transportation networks.
When choosing between two quests, ask:
What will this quest allow my account to do afterward?
That is often more important than the XP reward shown on the quest completion screen.
Several quests provide enormous experience relative to their requirements.
They are especially valuable on new accounts because early skill levels require very little total XP.
Waterfall Quest is one of the most famous early-game quests for a reason.
It has no skill requirements and rewards:
13,750 Attack XP
13,750 Strength XP
That is enough to move a fresh account to roughly level 30 in both skills without manually training them.
Instead of fighting low-level monsters with weak weapons, you immediately gain access to:
Better melee weapons
Higher accuracy
Higher damage
Faster future combat training
Waterfall Quest is also a prerequisite further down several important quest chains, including Desert Treasure I and parts of the elven storyline.
It is therefore valuable both for its immediate XP and its long-term progression.
The Knight's Sword is one of the best skilling quests for a new account.
It requires only 10 Mining and awards 12,725 Smithing XP.
That takes an account with no previous Smithing XP to approximately level 29.
Low-level Smithing can be slow and provides few useful unlocks.
The Knight's Sword lets you bypass most of that early grind immediately.
For free-to-play accounts in particular, it is one of the highest-value early quests available.
Fight Arena provides:
12,175 Attack XP
2,175 Thieving XP
It requires combat against several enemies but does not demand high skill levels.
Combined with Waterfall Quest and other early combat quests, it can eliminate a large amount of low-level melee training.
The main value is not a permanent unlock but the amount of Attack XP available at a stage where that experience is extremely powerful.
Tree Gnome Village gives 11,450 Attack XP and unlocks the Spirit Tree transportation network.
That combination makes it substantially more useful than a simple XP quest.
Spirit Trees provide permanent transportation between several important locations.
As your account unlocks additional destinations, the network becomes even more useful.
Tree Gnome Village is also required for Monkey Madness I, meaning it progresses you toward another major combat milestone.
The Grand Tree is another valuable early-to-mid progression quest.
Rewards include:
18,400 Attack XP
7,900 Agility XP
2,150 Magic XP
Access to the Gnome glider network
It also expands Spirit Tree access when combined with Tree Gnome Village.
A teleport or travel system may not look as exciting as a new weapon, but travel time affects practically everything you do.
Quests, Slayer, clue scrolls, farming, bossing, and skilling all become faster when your transportation network improves.
For that reason, Tree Gnome Village and The Grand Tree are strong early account upgrades.
Druidic Ritual should be completed early on almost every member account because it unlocks Herblore.
Until the quest is completed, normal Herblore training is unavailable.
The quest rewards 250 Herblore XP, putting the player at level 3 and allowing potion-making to begin.
Herblore eventually provides access to:
Combat potions
Prayer potions
Antipoisons
Antifire potions
Restore potions
Stamina-related supplies
Many quest requirements
It is especially important for Ironman accounts because potion supply becomes a major component of PvM progression.
Priest in Peril unlocks access to Morytania.
It has no skill requirements and opens an enormous amount of future content.
Morytania contains or leads toward:
Canifis
Barrows
Slayer Tower
Port Phasmatys
Vampyre questline
Theatre of Blood
Nightmare
Several Achievement Diary tasks
Multiple Slayer and skilling activities
Priest in Peril is an example of a quest whose real reward is the area behind it.
It also becomes a prerequisite for many other important quests, including Animal Magnetism, Ghosts Ahoy, Desert Treasure I, Nature Spirit, and several Morytania quest chains.
Lost City unlocks Zanaris and the ability to wield several dragon-tier weapons, most notably the Dragon dagger and Dragon longsword once you meet their combat requirements.
Requirements are:
31 Crafting
36 Woodcutting
Ability to defeat the quest enemy under Entrana restrictions
Zanaris gives access to additional content including:
The Cosmic Altar
Chaeldar as a Slayer master
Dragon weapon access
Progression toward fairy rings
Several later quests
Lost City is required for Fairytale progression and Lunar Diplomacy, making it a foundation for two extremely important systems.
Fairytale II contains one of the strongest travel unlocks in the entire game:
Fairy rings.
Importantly, you do not need to complete the entire quest before using them.
After completing Fairytale I and progressing Fairytale II far enough to receive permission and learn how the network works, fairy rings become available. The higher Thieving, Farming, and Herblore requirements are needed for full quest completion, not for initially unlocking the transportation network.
Fairy rings provide access to locations across the game and are particularly useful for:
Slayer
Questing
Farming
Clue scrolls
Bossing
Wilderness access
Remote skilling locations
Achievement Diaries
Later, players can further improve the system through their player-owned house.
Fairy rings are one of the clearest examples of why quest progression can save more time than raw skill training.
Ghosts Ahoy requires Priest in Peril, The Restless Ghost, 25 Agility, and 20 Cooking.
Its defining reward is the Ectophial.
The Ectophial provides a reusable teleport directly to the Ectofuntus.
The teleport is valuable for:
Morytania travel
Ectofuntus Prayer training
Port Phasmatys access
Questing
Farming routes
Emergency teleporting
It also helps build a stronger transportation network before high-level teleports become available.
Ghosts Ahoy is additionally required for Dragon Slayer II.
Animal Magnetism is effectively a core Ranged progression quest.
Requirements include:
18 Slayer
19 Crafting
30 Ranged
35 Woodcutting
The Restless Ghost
Ernest the Chicken
Priest in Peril
Completing the quest awards an Ava's device based on your Ranged level.
At 50+ Ranged, Ava's accumulator becomes available.
Ava's devices recover much of your fired ammunition and provide valuable Ranged bonuses.
That makes Animal Magnetism important for nearly any account intending to use Ranged seriously.
It also forms part of the progression toward Ava's assembler, which is unlocked later through Dragon Slayer II and Vorkath.
Bone Voyage unlocks Fossil Island.
The major gate is obtaining 100 Kudos at the Varrock Museum.
Fossil Island provides access to useful content including:
Birdhouse trapping
Ammonite crabs
Volcanic Mine
Herbiboar
Fossil activities
Hardwood farming
Seaweed farming
Wyvern-related content
Various Ironman resources
Current Ironman guidance specifically highlights Fossil Island for birdhouses, ultracompost-related progression, tree seeds, and Ammonite Crab combat training.
Bone Voyage is therefore one of the best examples of a short quest opening an entire progression hub.
Once your account has basic transportation and skill unlocks, quest rewards begin moving from early XP toward meaningful combat equipment and spellbooks.
Monkey Madness I is one of the most important melee progression quests.
Completion unlocks the ability to buy and wield the Dragon scimitar.
The quest also offers a large optional combat XP reward through Daero, distributed between:
Attack
Strength
Defence
Hitpoints
Depending on your choice, two skills receive 35,000 XP each and the other two receive 20,000 XP each.
At 60 Attack, the Dragon scimitar becomes one of the strongest general melee weapons available before stronger mid-game upgrades.
For many accounts, it remains the primary Strength-training weapon until significantly better equipment becomes accessible.
Monkey Madness I is also required for parts of Recipe for Disaster and eventually Monkey Madness II.
Recipe for Disaster is one of OSRS's defining account progression milestones.
It consists of an introduction, multiple subquests, and a final battle.
The ultimate reward is access to Barrows gloves, purchased from the Culinaromancer's Chest after completing the full quest.
Barrows gloves provide powerful offensive and defensive bonuses across melee, Ranged, and Magic.
Unlike equipment specialized for one combat style, they remain useful across a huge range of PvM and quest encounters.
Recipe for Disaster also forces players to progress many different skills and quest chains.
That is part of why it works so well as a mid-game account milestone: an account capable of completing RFD has usually built a strong general foundation.
Desert Treasure I unlocks the Ancient Magicks spellbook.
Ancient Magicks introduces powerful spells including:
Burst spells
Barrage spells
Blood spells
Ice spells
Ancient teleports
Ancient Magicks become important for:
Slayer
Magic training
PvP
Multi-target combat
Healing through blood spells
Certain bosses and raids
Bursting and barraging stackable Slayer monsters becomes one of the strongest ways to train Magic while simultaneously progressing Slayer.
Desert Treasure I also awards roughly 20,000 Magic XP and access to the Ancient staff.
Lunar Diplomacy unlocks Lunar Isle and the Lunar spellbook.
Key requirements include:
61 Crafting
40 Defence
49 Firemaking
65 Magic
60 Mining
55 Woodcutting
Several prerequisite quests including Lost City and The Fremennik Trials
The Lunar spellbook is primarily focused on utility and support.
Its spells support activities such as:
Skilling
Teleportation
NPC interaction
Item processing
Group PvM
Spellbook manipulation after further unlocks
Additional Lunar spells become available through later progression such as Dream Mentor.
Lunar Diplomacy is particularly valuable to accounts interested in efficient skilling and high-level utility.
A Kingdom Divided is one of the strongest utility quests for a developing PvM account.
Its requirements include several Kourend quests and skills such as:
54 Agility
52 Thieving
52 Woodcutting
50 Herblore
42 Mining
38 Crafting
35 Magic
Completion unlocks 24 additional Arceuus spells along with the Book of the Dead.
Among the most important combat additions are resurrection spells commonly referred to as thralls.
Thralls become extremely useful in PvM because they add extra damage while you continue attacking normally.
They appear in bossing, raids, Slayer, and many efficiency-focused PvM strategies.
Under the current game state, completing A Kingdom Divided also grants the ability to fight Yama.
This gives the quest even more relevance for accounts progressing toward modern endgame PvM.
Travel upgrades save enormous amounts of cumulative time.
Several quests should therefore be valued primarily for transportation rather than their direct XP.
Unlocks Spirit Trees.
Unlocks Gnome gliders.
Unlocks Fairy Rings after partial quest progression.
Unlocks the Ectophial.
Twilight's Promise unlocks the Quetzal Transport System across Varlamore along with the Civitas illa Fortis Teleport spell.
As Varlamore contains more skilling, questing, and PvM content than it did when first released, this transport network has become increasingly useful.
A strong account should eventually combine these systems with jewellery teleports, spellbooks, Achievement Diary teleports, and a developed player-owned house.
Varlamore now contains important mid-game and endgame progression.
Twilight's Promise follows Children of the Sun and serves as an important regional progression quest.
It unlocks:
Quetzal transportation
Civitas illa Fortis Teleport
Additional Varlamore quest progression
Players interested in Varlamore content should not ignore this quest simply because its immediate combat rewards are small.
It acts as a gateway into several later unlocks.
Perilous Moons requires Twilight's Promise and several modest skilling requirements, including 48 Slayer.
Completion awards:
40,000 Slayer XP
5,000 Runecraft XP
5,000 Hunter XP
5,000 Fishing XP
Access to Neypotzli
Access to the Moons of Peril bosses
The Moons provide three mid-game equipment sets:
Blood Moon
Blue Moon
Eclipse Moon
They also teach active boss mechanics without requiring outside supplies during every part of the activity.
For developing PvM accounts and Ironmen, Perilous Moons is one of the most useful modern mid-game quest unlocks.
Modern OSRS quest progression also includes Sailing.
To begin training Sailing, players complete the introductory quest Pandemonium.
It has no skill requirements and introduces ship control and the basic Sailing systems before giving access to the skill's wider progression.
Sailing is now part of normal account progression rather than future or pre-release content.
The skill opens access to:
Ships
Sea charting
Courier activities
Shipwreck salvaging
Barracuda Trials
Maritime resources
New islands
New PvM and skilling interactions
Any current quest guide that treats Sailing as unreleased is outdated.
Grandmaster and Master quests frequently provide some of the largest permanent account upgrades in the game.
Beneath Cursed Sands is the direct gateway to Tombs of Amascut.
Requirements include:
62 Agility
55 Crafting
55 Firemaking
Completion of Contact! and its prerequisites
The quest awards 50,000 Agility XP and grants access to Tombs of Amascut.
Other rewards include:
Keris partisan
Circlet of water
Additional desert transportation options
Tombs of Amascut is one of OSRS's three raids and has a scalable invocation system.
Its major rewards include equipment such as:
Tumeken's shadow
Masori armour
Osmumten's fang
Lightbearer
Elidinis' ward
Beneath Cursed Sands therefore moves an account from ordinary bossing into raid progression.
Dragon Slayer II remains one of the largest PvM progression quests.
Requirements include 200 Quest Points alongside skills such as:
75 Magic
70 Smithing
68 Mining
62 Crafting
60 Agility
60 Thieving
50 Construction
50 Hitpoints
Completion grants:
Myths' Guild access
Repeatable Vorkath
Adamant dragons
Rune dragons
Wrath Altar access
Ability to create Ava's assembler
Additional dragon equipment-related unlocks
Vorkath is one of OSRS's most reliable solo PvM money makers.
This means Dragon Slayer II does more than provide equipment.
It permanently improves an account's ability to generate GP.
After Dragon Slayer II, a Vorkath head can be used to upgrade Ava's accumulator into Ava's assembler.
This becomes an important Ranged upgrade for bossing and raids.
Song of the Elves is one of the biggest account progression milestones in OSRS because it unlocks Prifddinas.
The quest requires level 70 in eight skills:
Agility
Construction
Farming
Herblore
Hunter
Mining
Smithing
Woodcutting
It also requires completion of the long elven quest chain.
Prifddinas contains:
The Gauntlet
Corrupted Gauntlet
Zalcano
Elf pickpocketing
Crystal equipment progression
Additional shops
Skilling locations
Agility content
Player-owned house access
Useful transportation
Current progression guidance continues to consider Prifddinas one of the most important late-game account hubs.
Corrupted Gauntlet is particularly important for Ironmen because it provides:
Crystal armour seeds
Enhanced crystal weapon seed
Crystal shards
These unlock major crystal equipment progression without requiring expensive outside gear to enter the encounter.
Song of the Elves is therefore valuable for PvM, skilling, money making, and Ironman progression simultaneously.
Secrets of the North is an important bridge between the Mahjarrat storyline and high-level solo bossing.
Completion gives access to the stronger repeatable version of the Strange Creature:
The Phantom Muspah.
It also provides 40,000 Hunter XP and access to ancient essence resources.
The boss offers:
Ancient essence
Venator shards
Ancient icon
Frozen caches
Muphin pet
It is an excellent solo PvM encounter between bosses such as Vorkath and harder endgame content.
Secrets of the North is also directly required for Desert Treasure II.
Desert Treasure II is one of the most demanding quest unlocks in modern OSRS.
The quest introduces four major bosses:
Vardorvis
The Leviathan
Duke Sucellus
The Whisperer
After completing the quest, all four can be fought repeatedly, including their awakened variants.
The quest itself awards:
5 Quest Points
Three lamps granting 100,000 XP each to eligible combat skills
Ring of shadows
Access to the Scar essence mine
Ability to use Ancient rings
Repeatable access to the four bosses
The post-quest bosses provide progression toward:
Ultor ring
Venator ring
Bellator ring
Magus ring
Virtus robes
Soulreaper axe
The rings use vestiges from the bosses alongside corresponding Fremennik ring components and chromium bars.
For players interested in endgame PvM, Desert Treasure II is one of the most important quests to complete.
The Final Dawn concludes a major section of the Varlamore questline.
Requirements include:
66 Thieving
52 Runecraft
52 Fletching
The Heart of Darkness
Perilous Moons and their prerequisite quests
The defining reward is access to the Doom of Mokhaiotl, OSRS's delve-style boss.
The encounter allows players to continue deeper after successful kills for increased difficulty and stronger unique-drop opportunities.
This makes The Final Dawn particularly valuable to accounts approaching endgame solo PvM.
The answer depends on what your account needs.
Strong choices include:
Waterfall Quest
Tree Gnome Village
The Grand Tree
Monkey Madness I
Recipe for Disaster
Animal Magnetism
These provide combat XP, weapons, gloves, and Ranged progression.
Prioritize:
Tree Gnome Village
The Grand Tree
Fairytale II
Ghosts Ahoy
Twilight's Promise
These unlock Spirit Trees, gliders, fairy rings, the Ectophial, and Quetzal transportation.
Important milestones include:
Desert Treasure I
Lunar Diplomacy
A Kingdom Divided
Together they unlock Ancient Magicks, Lunar Magic, and major Arceuus combat/utility spells.
Important unlocks include:
Perilous Moons
Dragon Slayer II
Secrets of the North
Song of the Elves
Desert Treasure II
The Final Dawn
These lead to Moons of Peril, Vorkath, Phantom Muspah, Corrupted Gauntlet, DT2 bosses, and Doom of Mokhaiotl.
Beneath Cursed Sands is especially important because it unlocks Tombs of Amascut.
Other raid progression requires broader questing and account development, but ToA provides one of the clearest direct quest-to-raid unlocks.
Pandemonium is essential because it introduces and unlocks normal Sailing progression.
Unlocking fairy rings, Spirit Trees, gliders, Quetzals, teleport spellbooks, and useful quest items reduces travel time in almost every quest you complete afterward.
This creates a compounding benefit.
Before manually training a weak skill, check whether a quest can provide the experience you need.
Examples include:
Waterfall Quest → Attack and Strength
Knight's Sword → Smithing
Grand Tree → Attack and Agility
Beneath Cursed Sands → Agility
Perilous Moons → Slayer and several skilling skills
Quest XP is most valuable when it replaces slow early training.
Do not automatically destroy every quest reward.
Items such as:
Dramen staff
Ectophial
Ava's devices
Book of the Dead
Keris partisan
Ring of shadows
continue to have uses after their respective quests.
When you need 60 Mining for one quest but know Song of the Elves eventually requires 70, pushing slightly farther may reduce repeated training sessions.
The same principle applies to:
Agility
Herblore
Crafting
Mining
Smithing
Woodcutting
Magic
This does not mean following a rigid route. It simply means considering future unlocks when choosing training goals.
Players often delay Fairytale II or Tree Gnome Village because their direct combat rewards seem modest.
That creates unnecessary travel time across dozens of future quests.
Transportation unlocks should be treated as core account upgrades.
Grinding Smithing from level 1 before completing The Knight's Sword is a classic example.
The same mistake can happen with early combat skills.
Check quest XP rewards before starting low-level grinds.
Ranged training becomes much more convenient once you have an Ava's device.
If you plan to use Ranged heavily, there is little reason to postpone Animal Magnetism once you meet the requirements.
Quest Points matter for certain requirements, including Dragon Slayer II and Recipe for Disaster progression.
But completing random quests purely for points while ignoring major unlocks can leave an account with poor transportation, weak equipment, or missing spellbooks.
Prioritize both Quest Points and unlock quality.
Meeting a quest's minimum skill requirements does not guarantee the final boss will be comfortable.
Grandmaster quests such as Dragon Slayer II, Song of the Elves, and Desert Treasure II involve serious combat encounters.
Better equipment, Prayer, Hitpoints, and mechanical experience can make the difference between a frustrating fight and a manageable one.
Modern OSRS contains major quest unlocks that did not exist in older guides.
Examples include:
Varlamore
Moons of Peril
Desert Treasure II
Phantom Muspah
Doom of Mokhaiotl
Yama
Sailing
Pandemonium now introduces the live Sailing skill, while A Kingdom Divided provides access to Yama under the current game state.
A quest progression guide that ignores these systems is incomplete for current OSRS.
Questing is even more important for Ironmen because many rewards cannot simply be replaced through the Grand Exchange.
Important examples include:
Animal Magnetism → Ava's devices
Recipe for Disaster → Barrows gloves
Bone Voyage → Fossil Island resources
Moons of Peril → Mid-game armour sets
Song of the Elves → Crystal progression
Dragon Slayer II → Vorkath and Ava's assembler
A Kingdom Divided → Thralls
Beneath Cursed Sands → Tombs of Amascut
Desert Treasure II → Endgame ring and equipment progression
Bone Voyage is particularly useful for Ironmen because Fossil Island provides birdhouses, farming resources, Ammonite Crabs, and several skilling activities.
For an Ironman, a quest reward that provides a permanent equipment or resource unlock can be worth substantially more than its nominal GP value.
Eventually, yes, if you enjoy broad account progression.
Completing all quests forces your account to develop:
Combat
Skilling
Transportation
Bossing ability
Puzzle solving
Regional access
More importantly, many of the requirements naturally prepare your account for Achievement Diaries and higher-level PvM.
However, the Quest Cape does not need to be the immediate objective.
Focus first on quests that improve the content you actually want to play.
Waterfall Quest, The Knight's Sword, Druidic Ritual, Tree Gnome Village, The Grand Tree, Priest in Peril, Lost City, and Animal Magnetism are all excellent early priorities because they provide major XP or permanent unlocks.
Waterfall Quest is one of the strongest options, giving 13,750 Attack and 13,750 Strength XP with no skill requirements.
Fairytale II – Cure a Queen unlocks fairy rings after progressing far enough into the quest. You do not need the skill levels required for full completion simply to begin using the network.
Completing the full Recipe for Disaster quest allows you to purchase Barrows gloves from the Culinaromancer's Chest.
Desert Treasure I unlocks the Ancient Magicks spellbook.
Lunar Diplomacy unlocks the Lunar spellbook and access to Lunar Isle.
Completing Dragon Slayer II unlocks the repeatable post-quest version of Vorkath.
Completing Song of the Elves unlocks Prifddinas, which contains both the Gauntlet and Corrupted Gauntlet.
Beneath Cursed Sands grants access to Tombs of Amascut.
Secrets of the North unlocks the repeatable Phantom Muspah encounter.
Completing Desert Treasure II – The Fallen Empire unlocks repeatable fights against Vardorvis, the Leviathan, Duke Sucellus, and the Whisperer.
Under the current game state, completing A Kingdom Divided grants the ability to fight Yama.
Completing The Final Dawn grants access to the Doom of Mokhaiotl delve boss.
Pandemonium serves as the introductory Sailing quest and opens normal Sailing progression.
The strongest quest rewards are not always the ones that give the most experience.
Waterfall Quest and The Knight's Sword are excellent because they eliminate weak early training. Tree Gnome Village, The Grand Tree, Fairytale II, and Twilight's Promise improve transportation. Animal Magnetism, Recipe for Disaster, and Monkey Madness I provide equipment progression.
Desert Treasure I, Lunar Diplomacy, and A Kingdom Divided fundamentally expand Magic.
Later, Beneath Cursed Sands, Dragon Slayer II, Song of the Elves, Secrets of the North, Desert Treasure II, and The Final Dawn unlock some of the most important PvM activities in modern OSRS.
The best way to approach questing is therefore simple:
Prioritize quests that make the rest of your account better.
Every major transportation network, spellbook, region, boss, raid, equipment upgrade, or new skill you unlock makes future progression easier.
More Reads
Choosing the right gear upgrades in Old School RuneScape can improve your damage, survivability, and access to harder PvM far more than simply buying the most expensive item available.
Read more
Bossing is one of the most rewarding parts of Old School RuneScape, offering valuable gear, GP, pets, Combat Achievements, and account upgrades. This OSRS bossing guide explains the best bosses for different progression levels, their requirements, major rewards, mechanics to learn, and how to prepare for harder PvM.
Read more
Making GP efficiently in Old School RuneScape depends on your stats, gear, starting cash, skill level, and tolerance for risk. This OSRS money making guide covers profitable PvM, skilling, Sailing, processing, and beginner methods while explaining which options provide consistent income and which rely heavily on valuable drops.
Read more
Leveling efficiently in Old School RuneScape is about more than chasing the highest XP rate. This OSRS leveling guide covers faster ways to train combat, gathering, production, support, and Sailing skills while balancing cost, attention, useful unlocks, and account progression.
Read more