The Well of Souls is a beacon, a guiding light to all the vagrant dead. My ritual site is yours now, apprentice. I am done with it. - Rasial, The First Necromancer.
Rasial, The First Necromancer, has enthralled the souls of the underworld. The City of Um, the residence of the undead, is a wasteland. As the hero of this story, it's going to be up to you to risk it all to free and partner with the undead - and put a stop Rasial's plans to destroy the cycle of death.
Rituals, our non-combat skilling pillar of Necromancy, is how you will free these undead souls from The First Necromancer's grasp and restore the City to its former glory.
Non-Combat Skilling
Rituals are a core activity of Necromancy, producing resources that are used in combat, and narratively, attracting Um's previous residents back to the Well of Souls.
Rituals form a crucial part of the Necromancy experience, interwoven with the narrative and your power growth amid your combat-driven adventures across Gielinor. They also offer an alternative way to earn XP in Necromancy outside Combat, with ways to customise the experience to focus more on resources you need, more intensive XP based Ritual Skilling or even a more AFK playstyle.
What Is A Ritual?
Rituals take place at the Ritual Site at the entrance of the City of Um, a place of power in front of the Well of Souls - the vessel that holds the resident souls of Um. This is a non-instanced area, so you'll be surrounded by other Necromancers on their own journeys too!
You begin by selecting the Ritual you want to perform from your available roster. Each Ritual has requirements that must be met, which will generate an output of various rewards.
Input
The input is called a Focus, a unique centerpiece for each Ritual usually based on its intent (ie. bones to attract Souls). These can be stored in a box on the Ritual site.
Ritual Site Setup
Along with the Focus, you'll also need to set up the Ritual Site with two components:
- Glyph: Use Ghostly ink to write in the language of the dead. These can be functional, or later, be alteration glyphs that change elements of the Ritual (more on that later)
- Light Source: What Ritual would be complete without candles?
Outputs
Each Ritual offers different potential rewards, but these are the core outputs that can come from completing a Ritual:
- XP: You know what this is! Complete the Ritual for XP gains.
- Reagents: These are resources used in Necromancy, such as Impure Essence for Necrotic Runecrafting or an equipment upgrade
- Souls: The number of Souls you will attract to the Well of Souls, which is needed to access more Talents
Requirements
These are elements of the Ritual that require certain Necromancy levels or certain Quest completions.
Performing Rituals
You start by selecting a Ritual to perform at the pedestal in the centre of the Ritual Site, which will place down your Focus Object.
Next, you'll need to proceed to clean all the Glyph stones (a simple click to clean!), followed by drawing Glyphs in Ghostly Ink on the highlight locations.
Finally, you need to place Light Sources for the Ritual.
With all the necessary items in place, you begin the Ritual from the reciting spot. The Ritual will last a set amount of time, based on its level and alteration glyphs (we'll get to those shortly). No inputs are required once the Ritual begins
While additional inputs are not required for Necromancy Rituals, you may want to be paying attention.
Soul Attraction percentage is an indication of the chance and types of random events that could occur, housed at the top of your screen. These random events throughout your Ritual can be interacted with for a chance to gain extra rewards, from XP bonuses to additional resources. While we don't want to spoil the experience of discovering these for yourself, these events are an optional way to boost your gains from Rituals.
Once your progress timer hits zero, the Ritual is over and you'll gain your Outputs! Outputs head straight to a Ritual Chest so you can focus on completing as many as you'd like before picking up your hard-earned rewards.
While we've shown an example of a low-level Ritual above, more potent Rituals will be unlocked as you level Necromancy. Don't fret about remembering all these Rituals though - the Ritual interface will highlight all the things you need to do.
Customise To Your Playstyle
Remember the alteration glyphs we mentioned? As you progress your Necromancy level, you'll gain access to these bonus forms of Glyphs that allow you to customise elements of your Rituals to fit your needs or playstyle. Here are the various types of Alteration Glyphs you can unlock:
- Multiply: Represents growth and expansion. Increase the items gained from the Ritual when completed.
- Speed: Represents speed and rapidity. Decreases the time it takes to complete the Ritual
- Attraction: Represents guidance and attraction. Increases the Soul Attraction percentage.
With these alteration glyphs unlocked, you'll have more control over your Ritual experience - however, at a cost of more complex or rarer components. Do you focus on gaining more reagents at the cost of more XP potential, or do you ramp up the intensity of random events looking for maximum potential gains? The choice is yours.
Rewards
Now you have the knowledge of how Rituals work, it's time to tell you why they are important in your journey as a Necromancer.
One of the most critical parts of Rituals is to commune with the dead and return them to the Well of Souls. The number of Souls in the Well of Souls (which is permanent and does not deplete) is tied to accessing more potent Talents, which accelerate your Necromancy powers with new or upgraded abilities. As you venture across Gielinor growing your Necromantic power, you'll want to regularly return to the Ritual site to bring more souls back to the City.
Rituals also have an important part to play in your Combat gameplay loop in a more direct fashion. For example, if you want to use Incantations - Necromancy spells outside your Core abilities that offer additional benefits such as accessing Shield Defensives without a Shield - you'll need to convert Rune Essence into Impure Essence for use in creating Necrotic Runes.
And of course, for those times when engaging in Combat doesn't fit around your schedule or you're simply looking for a change of pace, Rituals are another route to levelling Necromancy in a way that works for you.
That's all we're revealing on Rituals today. Now it'll be over to you to learn the potential of these Rituals and restore the City of Um to life once your Necromancy journey begins on August 7th!
 - Shopify)