Analysis, Discussion and Tips for Success

General Discussion

The Shades of Mort'ton minigame involves several steps that provide experience in several skills, as well as rewards of item and money. A lot of players also find it fun to participate in. One of the skills that has XP benefits in this minigame is Crafting -- you earn approximately 300 Crafting XP per minute when you participate by helping to build or reinforce the temple at Mort'ton, which is under continuous attack from monsters called loar shades.

To engage in this activity you start by buying inexpensive building materials, and then you use a special hammer to work at the temple. As you do this, you slowly gain "sanctity", a measure of how much assistance you've provided at the temple. This sanctity can be used to make sacred oil, a component used to continue the minigame; alternately, you can sell the sacred oil, or just keep working at the temple for the XP.

Temple building does not provide very fast Crafting XP -- in fact, it is actually rather slow. But it has some advantages, including being excellent for multitasking, having very low material costs, and providing consistent profit potential.

Just building the temple is the way to maximize your XP with this activity. The alternative is to use the sanctity you earn to make sacred oil -- this can be sold for a nice profit, but it takes time to run the oil to and from the bank, so you get less XP. There's an obvious trade-off involved -- I describe the method that includes making sacred oil here, and the XP only technique on a separate page.

I have shown this activity as being for level 58 and above, which I should explain. You don't really need a high level of Crafting to do this activity -- I chose that number because having 58 in all combat skills gives you a combat level of 81. Both the temple area and the town of Mort'ton are constantly overrun with aggressive loar shades, which are level 40. Having a combat level of 81 is pretty much essential to being able to build the temple in peace,

Location and Access

First of all, log in to World 77. This is the world dedicated to temple building at Mort'ton, and so the only place where you are likely to find a temple being worked on by others. (You can't do this by yourself.)

This activity must be performed at the temple just northeast of Mort'ton. You must have completed the quest Shades of Mort'ton to participate; this quest also teaches you how to build the temple. The only bank nearby is in Burgh de Rott, which requires at least partial completion of In Aid of the Myreque; ability to use that bank makes temple building much easier, and is really mandatory if making sacred oil.

The easiest way to get to Mort'ton is to teleport to your house and heading through a Kharyrll portal to Canifis; this will put you in the pub there. Go through the trap door behind the pub and go through the secret door to the south. Continue to the doors that lead into the swamp; go through them, then run to the makeshift bridge and cross it. Continue south until you get to the small boat, which will carry you to Mort'ton; the temple is just to the northwest of there, while Burgh de Rott is well to the southwest.

Required and Recommended Equipment

You need, at a minimum, a regular hammer to build the temple. However, you get much more XP if you use a special flamtaer hammer, which is sold by Razmire in Mort'ton. This is a one-time expense of 13,000 gp that I consider essential if you want to do temple building. It is non-tradeable.

You also want a tinderbox for lighting the temple flame, and a chisel as well if you want to chisel your own limestone bricks.

Required and Recommended Supplies

To build the temple you need swamp paste, limestone bricks and either timber beams or planks. You can get all of the supplies you need at Razmire's building store, but I recommend keeping a supply of swamp paste in your bank, because it is cheaper to buy it in bulk on the Grand Exchange than to buy it from Razmire. (If you do the minigame a lot, you'll also get it as a reward from chests in Mort'ton.)

Sacred oil is made from olive oil, which is also sold by Razmire. This is tradeable, so you can buy it from other players, as well. The tradeoff here is that buying it from Razmire is cheaper, but it takes time to go to him, buy the oil, and combine it into four dose potions (for more efficient inventory use). In my tests, I found that using 4-dose oil bought from players provides slightly more XP per hour, and also a little more profit per hour -- the higher profit is because even though the oil costs more, you make more of them per hour. Since this also saves you the annoyance of combining 3-dose oils into 4-dose oils at Mort'ton, it's my recommendation.

Familiar Suggestions

When I first started making sacred oil, I assumed that a beast of burden would be a natural choice for the activity -- being able to carry more olive oil means less banking, after all, giving you more time at the altar making sacred oil and earning XP. However, after extensive tests, I found that the increase in the number of oils you can make is rather modest, even when using a pack yak. The reason is because you have to take extra time to load the olive oil into the beast, and then swap the olive oil for sacred oil when you are half done a particular load. Making oil without a beast of burden is a lot simpler, and allows you to use a magpie for its valuable foraged items, so that's what I do now.

Technique and Tips

Start at any bank. Take out a stack of coins, a stack of swamp paste, a chisel, flamtaer hammer and a magpie pouch. Travel to Mort'ton by whatever means you find most convenient (see above).

Go to Razmire's building in the center of Mort'ton, and right-click him to access his building store. Buy 12 timber beams and 12 limestone. Now use the chisel on the limestone to make it into bricks; you can buy bricks instead, but you get 6 Crafting XP for each brick you make, and the plain limestone is cheaper, so why not?

Run to the temple and start building; this will take the materials from your inventory, leaving you with about 60% resources. Now return to Razmire and buy 10 more limestone and 10 beams. Open up his general store and buy a tinderbox. Use the chisel on these 10 limestone to make them into bricks, then drop the chisel. Run back to the temple and resume building; you'll get up to 100% to 104% resources, then the game will stop taking items from your inventory. Just keep building sanctity until all of the materials are "absorbed". Be sure to light the temple altar whenever you can -- 100 Firemaking XP for free!

For the first load we're going to get oil from the store, just so we don't go back to the bank "empty-handed". So head back to Razmire, open his general store, and click "Buy 50" on the olive oils. You'll get 24, assuming you have four inventory spaces used (coins, swamp tar, tinderbox and hammer). Go down the second column of oils using each on the corresponding oil in the first column, then do the third column on the fourth; then combine the second and third columns so you have 18 4-dose oils and 6 empty vials. Temporarily drop two full vials. Open the general store again, sell the 6 vials to Razmire and buy 8 more olive oil. Combine those 8 into 6 4-dose oils, drop the two empty vials and pick up the olive oil you dropped before.

Run back to the temple and continue building sanctity until you are nearly full. Now click each olive oil and then click the flaming altar; this will turn it into sacred oil and reduce your sanctity by 3-4%. Keep going until all of the oils are converted, building sanctity back up if necessary.

Run to Burgh de Rott and go to the bank there. Store the sacred oils you made, and any remaining swamp tar. Withdraw 25 4-dose olive oils and run back to the temple; repeat the process. Be sure to periodically dump the foraged items from your familiar, and dismiss it and summon a new one if its time remaining gets low.

One final but important tip: your sanctity drops to 0% whenever you log out, so if you need to take a break, do it after you finish sanctifying a load of oil. (This does not apply to resources, which are maintained when you log out.)