Early game
Rune essence mine
Members with 30 Mining get pure essence here. The rocks never run out, and your pickaxe sets the speed rather than your level. Aubury in Varrock teleports you in.
Needs: Rune Mysteries · 30 Mining
Guardians of the Rift
Makes its own guardian essence inside the minigame, so you skip essence mining entirely while you train.
Needs: Temple of the Eye
Essence pouches
The abyssal needle from Guardians of the Rift stitches your pouches into a colossal pouch holding up to 40 essence.
Needs: 25 Runecraft · 56 Crafting
Mid game
Wizard Cromperty
Gives free noted pure essence each day: 100 after the medium Ardougne diary, 150 after hard and 250 after elite.
Needs: Medium Ardougne diary
Temple Trekking
Pure essence is one of the reward options, scaling up to 660 per trip on the hardest path.
Needs: In Aid of the Myreque
Hardcore note
Temple Trekking is a dangerous activity. A death there counts, so keep your escort and yourself well fed.
Late game
Daeyalt essence
Mine shards in Darkmeyer and trade them to Noranna Tytanin. Each one gives 50% more Runecraft XP than pure essence, but not more runes.
Needs: Sins of the Father · 60 Mining
Dense essence
For blood and soul runes, mine dense essence at Arceuus. It needs no other essence supply.
Needs: 38 Mining · 38 Crafting
Best monster drops
The monsters that drop the most per kill, from the wiki's drop data. Plenty of these are bosses you'd kill anyway, so the supplies come on top of the gear.
Pure essence
| Source | Level | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zulrah | 725 | 10/249 | 1500 (noted) |
| Corporeal Beast | 785 | 21/512 | 2500 (noted) |
| Phantom Muspah | 741 | 5/235 | 2314 (noted) |
| Zalcano | 336 | 1/36 | 784–5500 (noted) |
| Screaming twisted banshee | 144 | 21/128 | 65 (noted) |
| Shadow Wyrm | 259 | 3/76 | 200–300 (noted) |
| Abyssal Sire | 350 | 5/139 | 600 (noted) |
| Marble gargoyle | 349 | 6/128 | 150 (noted) |
Drop data from the Old School RuneScape Wiki (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), fetched 2026-10-01.
Questions
- How do Ironmen get pure essence?
- Mine it at the rune essence mine with 30 Mining after Rune Mysteries. Add Wizard Cromperty's free daily essence once you have the medium Ardougne diary.
- Is daeyalt essence worth it?
- For XP, yes: 50% more per essence. For rune output it is the same as pure essence.
- Do I need essence for Guardians of the Rift?
- No. You mine guardian fragments inside the minigame and turn them into essence there.
See where you stand
Look yourself up to see which of these you can do now, and exactly what's missing for the rest.