1. Welcome, Ironman

An Ironman on AREOS is a self-made player: you cannot trade with others, cannot use the Grand Exchange, and cannot pick up items dropped by or for anyone else. Everything you own, you earned. This handbook is your roadmap from your first sand crab to the server’s best-in-slot gear.

AREOS is a heavily customised server, so a generic Old School guide will steer you wrong. The facts in here were pulled directly from the live server — account modes, the 13-stage Starter Guide, XP modes, boss drops, the sacrifice and prestige perk systems, the BIS caskets, and the custom gear. Use the Table of Contents to jump around; the early sections build the foundation and the later ones are reference you’ll return to.

2. Account Modes & Restrictions

AREOS has six account modes. You choose yours during the tutorial and it is shown on your in-game profile. The mode controls what you can and can’t do, and it grants a permanent drop-rate bonus.

2.1 The six modes

“Default stock only” means ironmen may enter most shops but can only buy a shop’s built-in stock — never items another player sold into it, and never overstocked amounts. The pure gear-buying shops are blocked entirely (see Section 5.3).

2.2 Drop-rate bonus

Your account mode gives a flat drop-rate bonus that stacks on top of your XP-mode bonus (Section 3.2) and any perks (e.g. Veteran Luck, Loot Magnet):

• Standard: +0%
• Ironman / Group Ironman: +1%
• Hardcore / HC Group: +3%
• Ultimate Ironman: +5%

2.3 Death & Hardcore lives

• Hardcore (HCIM): one life. Any death revokes your Hardcore status and demotes you to a regular Ironman (a server-wide message fires if your total level is 100+).
• Hardcore Group: the group shares 5 lives. When the group loses all 5, everyone is demoted to regular Group Ironman.
• Ultimate (UIM): no bank — everything lives in your inventory and you drop it all on death. Plan your trips carefully.
• All other modes: standard death rules apply.

2.4 Becoming — and leaving — an Ironman

• Pick your mode at the tutorial: talk to Paul, the Iron Man tutor (NPC 7941). He opens the mode-selection screen once you’ve progressed far enough; you can freely switch between all modes while you’re still on the island.
• Adam at Edgeville (NPC 311) can only switch your restrictions downward — e.g. remove your Ironman status. This is one-way and cannot be undone. He also manages Group Ironman invites and hands out a free starter Ironman armour set.
• There is no ::ironman command — mode is set through the tutor / selection screen only.

3. Getting Started

3.1 Home base

You spawn and respawn at Edgeville (around 3080, 3470), which is the server’s hub. Everything you need early is clustered here:

• Starter Guide & onboarding — the guide interface opens when you log in.
• Sacrifice / Upgrade hub (~3085, 3472) — the Perk Store and Upgrade Table NPCs.
• Slayer hub (~3109, 3508) — Vannaka, Nieve and Turael.
• Adam (NPC 311) — free Ironman armour and rank management.

3.2 Choose your XP mode

Separate from your account mode, you pick an XP mode at the tutorial. Lower difficulties level you faster; higher difficulties trade XP speed for a bigger drop-rate bonus. (Rates below are the in-game advertised values; staff can change your mode on request.)

On top of your mode, XP stacks with: an active XP scroll (2×), your first three days (1.1×), training in the Wilderness (1.25×), and weekend / Well-of-Goodwill double-XP events.

3.3 The Starter Guide is your tutorial

AREOS has no classic Tutorial Island — the 13-stage Starter Guide IS your onboarding and your early questline. It starts you on crabs and walks you all the way to raids and world bosses, paying out boxes, scrolls, bonds and even Twisted Bow / Tumeken’s Shadow / Scythe of Vitur along the way. Section 4 details every stage.

3.4 Your ironman roadmap

4. The Starter Guide (Full Walkthrough)

The guide is linear — each stage unlocks only after you claim the previous one. Complete the listed tasks, then claim your reward. (Stage 3 is retired and auto-completes; it’s kept only so old saves stay valid.)

5. Skilling & Resource Sourcing

As an ironman you can’t buy your way to power, so knowing where every resource comes from is half the game. This section covers XP, the best training spots, and exactly which shops you can use.

5.1 XP boosts worth chasing

• Wilderness skilling bonus: training Mining, Woodcutting or Thieving in the Wilderness adds roughly +15–25% extra XP (scaling with wilderness level) on top of the flat 1.25× wilderness multiplier. Risky but fast.
• XP scroll: doubles XP while active — you earn these from boxes and the Starter Guide.
• Prestige perk tree: permanent small % XP boosts per skill category (Section 7.3).

5.2 Best training methods

• Wintertodt — Firemaking; its point shop sells supplies you otherwise couldn’t trade for.
• Tempoross — Fishing, plus a reward shop.
• Zalcano — Mining/Smithing hybrid with strong reward rolls.
• Tithe Farm — Farming points for produce and seeds.
• Ourania (ZMI) Altar — best multi-rune Runecrafting on the server.
• Wilderness Resource Area — an AFK gathering hub (note: XP inside is slightly reduced; it’s about convenience, not speed).

5.3 Which shops can ironmen use?

You may enter most shops and buy their default stock, but never player-sold or overstocked items. These gear/power shops are blocked entirely: the Magic Shop, all Melee/Ranged/Magic armour & weapon shops, every Blood Money gear shop, gambling shops, and the Starter Store. In their place you get dedicated ironman stores:

• Ironman Store — dragonhide sets, yew/magic shortbows, knives/darts, and bulk arrows & bolts.
• Ironman Magic Shop — all elemental + combat runes (100k stock), staves and ammo.
• Blood Money Ironman Shop — spends Blood Money you earn in the Wilderness.

5.4 Where to get every resource

6. Combat Progression & Bosses

Drops on AREOS come from two systems: ordinary NPCs roll JSON loot tables, while the four DT2 bosses use code-side weighted tables. You don’t need to know the internals — just where to go and what drops.

6.1 The #1 ironman farm: Catacomb mini-bosses

6.2 The DT2 rings (your first BIS chase)

Each DT2 boss drops a vestige and Chromium ingots; combine three matching vestiges + ingots into one of the four best rings in the game.

6.3 Major bosses

6.4 Wilderness bosses

Reached via the Wilderness → Bosses menu — risky (you’re skulled), but they drop the Voidwaker pieces, the claws of the ring, and wilderness-only uniques: Callisto, Venenatis, Vet’ion, Scorpia, Chaos Fanatic, Chaos Elemental and the Crazy Archaeologist.

6.5 Other custom bosses

AREOS also runs custom bosses you’ll meet through events and the later Starter Guide stages — including Barrelchest (Barrelchest anchor, granite hammer), Earll, Akkha’s Shadow, Galvek, Glacor, plus the Stage 13 world bosses Xamphur, Yama and Dark Wyrm.

7. Custom Progression Systems

Three NPC-driven systems give you permanent, account-defining upgrades. All are fully available to ironmen.

7.1 Sacrifice Points & Perks — Ghrim (NPC 15046)

Ghrim (around 3087, 3485) is your gear sink and perk vendor. He has three options: Perks, Offerings and Shop, all running on sacrifice points.

• Offerings: sacrifice gear you don’t need to earn points — from an Abyssal whip (25 pts) all the way up to Scythe of Vitur, Twisted Bow or Tumeken’s Shadow (9,000 pts each). This is what to do with duplicate boss drops.
• Perks: 37 one-time unlocks across five tiers. A few worth rushing:

• Shop: currently sells the four Celestial arrows (10 pts each).

7.2 Hell Sacrifice Perks — Sigmund / “Dave” (NPC 3894)

A separate, high-end perk grid. Each perk is powerful but carries a curse — a permanent downside. They persist until wiped by an admin. The cost is paid in top-tier weapons and armour, so this is genuinely end-game.

Perks 4–6 need all three armour pieces per claim, so a full 5-stack costs 150 pieces. Pick the curse you can live with: a pure-melee build happily takes Perk 4’s ranged/magic penalty.

7.3 Prestige & the Perk Tree — Prestige Master (NPC 1860)

Prestige resets skills for permanent rewards and perk-tree points. There are two independent tracks:

• Combat Prestige: requires all 8 combat skills at 99; resets only those.
• Skilling Prestige: requires all 15 non-combat (non-Slayer) skills at 99; resets only those.

Each prestige pays out tree points, sacrifice points, Prestige Tokens and boxes; every 5th prestige is a milestone giving extra tree points plus a mastery point.

• Two perk trees (Combat and Skilling), each with 3 paths × (45 small + 7 mastery) = 156 perks. Small nodes cost 1 tree point; mastery nodes cost 1 mastery point and need a threshold of small perks first.
• Combat perks: small % damage/accuracy/HP/crit/lifesteal boosts plus combat-XP rate; masteries like King of Kings (+5% all combat damage, +15 HP), Dead Eye, Archmage.
• Skilling perks: extra-resource/double-product/save-resource chances and skill-XP rates; masteries like Bountiful Harvest, Twin Forge and the Apex capstones (+5% all skilling XP).
• Prestige Token shop: spend tokens on Bonus XP Scrolls, Mystery Boxes, Rare/Pet Drop Scrolls, seed/herb packs, and full skilling outfits (Prospector, Lumberjack, Angler, Farmer, Pyromancer, Rogue, Graceful).

7.4 BIS Caskets

Caskets are mystery boxes that roll a tier, then an item within it. Important for ironmen: caskets come from the donation store (claimed in-game with ::claim) — they do not drop from bosses. The items inside are powerful but optional; nothing here is required to reach end-game.

The four themed caskets share a common/rare/ultra/legendary structure. The legendary tier (~1 in 101 opens) is a single per-style best-in-slot weapon; the ultra tier (~5%) gives a piece of that casket’s recolor armour set.

8. Best-in-Slot Gear Catalog

8.1 Melee

8.2 Ranged

8.3 Magic

8.4 The party hat — best head slot in the game

The Areos party hats carry a colossal stat block: +400 melee strength, +1000 to every defence, +240 ranged attack, +100 ranged strength, +128 magic damage and +8 prayer. They beat every other head slot for any style. Seven colours exist (Crimson, Tangerine, Sunflare, Lime, Cyan, Sapphire, Obsidian) and they come only from the Original BIS Casket (25590) party-hat tier — about 1 in 50 opens, then 1 in 350 per colour.

8.5 Custom weapon notes

• Khopeshes (Thunder, Anubis and 20 recolor variants) all attack at 1 tick with roughly +60 across the melee bonuses — excellent fast-hitting daggers.
• The Samurai Katana trio (Nile/Royal/Obsidian) is the raw damage king — 1-tick, ~8× damage — but is event/admin-only and has no farm or casket route.
• DT2 rings (Magus, Venator, Bellator, Ultor) are built from three matching vestiges + Chromium ingots and are the best rings available to a farming ironman.

Appendix: Quick Reference

Key NPCs

Useful commands

• ::vote — vote for rewards (used in Starter Guide Stage 2)
• ::claim — claim donation-store purchases (including BIS caskets)
• ::prestige — open the prestige interface
• ::tp — teleport anywhere (after unlocking the Nexus Magic sacrifice perk)

— End of the AREOS Ironman Handbook —