What is a Rapid Rundown? It’s a new thing I just made; don’t know how often I’ll do them. Basically it’s a short article on a specific topic to shed some light on perhaps unused or disused features of Runescape. It’s also somewhat a challenge to me since my short articles are usually 1k words.

Now, without further ado…

Sinkholes, What are they?

In Lore: They are huge creatures which burrow underground and after sometime ‘fold up’ and capture everything above them inside to be digested later. Bilrach used them as storage rooms.
In Game: They are a minigame! Well, actually a Distraction & Diversion. While I don’t usually encourage doing D&D’s because of how time consuming they are, this one is fairly quick, taking at most 15 minutes(5 on a good day). The goal is to enter the Sinkhole (which is laid out and played much like a fast paced dungeon) and gather as many Totems as possible and deposit them before the other 4 players can in order to gain the most points. It is a 5 player game, but the Sinkhole lobby auto-groups so finding other players isn’t an issue. World 134 is the Official world for this. They open on the half hour (1:30, 2:30, etc). While most players ‘Do their Sinks’ at the half hour after rollover, you can nearly always find enough players on world 134 during sinkhole times, so it’s not terribly important when you do it(just remember it only happens on the half hour). Sinkholes are only open for 15 minutes, so it’s best to get there a few minutes before 30 and get in as quickly as possible.

To Start

1. Go to Daemonheim.
2. Bank all your gear(Daemonheim ring can be worn). It is essentially like a dungeon in regards to what you can/can’t bring.
3. Run a little west of the rewards trader and Thok and talk to Telsar. If on world 134 at the right time you’ll just need to follow the trail of people.
4. When it’s time or up to five minutes before (25-30), right click and teleport on Telsar.
5. You’ll be teleported to the Sinkhole Entrance’s location in Gielinor, left-click and then confirm to teleport to the Sinkhole Lobby.
6. Once in the lobby immediately right-click on the Gorajo in the center of the room and click the Ready option.
7. Now you wait! It can take up to 10 minutes to get into a group depending on when you do it and how quickly you enter the Sinkhole after it opens. This is why it is important to get there early and enter quickly.

How To Play

It’s fairly straightforward – collect totems and amass points!
Now, what does that look like?
You’ll start in a room with your 4 teammates. Though ‘Team’ really doesn’t fit in this game because Jagex has designed it to where you are actually competing against these 4 players.
Even though they’re your competitors, it doesn’t mean you should be an idiot to them. I will touch on this more throughout the article.

So to begin you should go through the door with the least people at it. This is smart for two reasons: It’s mean to go down the same route as someone else and secondly: It’s stupid to. After all, only one person can collect each totem, so if there are two people going down a route the totems will be split sporadically and you might wind up with none. It’s best to try to find a route with no one going down it. Granted, with 5 players and only at most 3 starting routes, you’ll more often than not always start going down a route with someone else. This is fine, just try to branch off if you can.

In each room there is the possibility to collect 3 types of totems; Combat, Exploratory, and Resources. These give 30, 20, and 10 points respectively. All rooms have 1 Exploratory, most have 2-4 monsters, and usually have 1-3 resource nodes, though it is possible for a room to have no resources.
Other things you’ll encounter in some rooms is Chests which can be opened with Thieving to gain a Card for later use and Deposit Chutes which let you deposit all of your gathered totems without having to go back to the first room.

Note: Always deposit your totems as quickly as possible. Every time you come across a chute, deposit even if you only have 1 totem. This is because even though you may have 20 totems and the goals still need 20, someone else could deposit 20 they have gathered which would make you get no points for yours. Late in the game when most of the goals are near max it is best to deposit every time you have a few totems. Waiting even to do just one more room could be the difference between rank 1 and rank 5 for you in the end.

Each game has a varying requirement of each totem that is needed to complete the goal for that totem. Each completed goal is worth 1/3 of the end reward, so it’s always best to finish all the goals. Most games finish all the goals within 3 minutes, which causes the game to end and all players be teleported to the Reward Room. If all the goals are not finished before 7 minutes is up, the game will end and the end rewards will be reduced by 1/3 for each failed objective.

Ending

When the game ends all players are teleported to the rewards room where they are lined up based on how many points they gained during the game. The player with the least points goes first. This allows the players with higher points to have a chance to act after the lesser players, which is why it’s always best to be a high rank when the game ends.

The possible rewards (not counting those granted by cards) are: Huge Lamp, Large Lamp, Medium Lamp, Small Lamp, and Dungeoneering Tokens(1-5k based on your Dungeoneering level).
The rewards in each chest are randomly assigned, though 1st place almost always gets the huge lamp.

For this part of the game it is almost entirely up to luck. Throughout the Dungeon part of the game you will have gathered various ‘Cards’ which can now be used. On your turn you may use one(1) card, so choose well. Below is a brief list of the cards.

Beguiling smoke devil: Randomizes all chests.
Cloning mosquito: Gives you the contents of the chest below you in rank.
Consistent yak: Your reward, regardless of your chest, will be a Medium Lamp.
Preening ibis: A Hoardstalker outfit piece, Ring, of ‘The Naabe’ title will be added to your chest.
Protecting titan: Prevents one card from effecting your chest.
Reversing phoenix: Reverses the effect of the last card played.
Scavenging meerkat: Adds a Medium Lamp to your chest and gives all other players a random card.
Thieving locust: Trades your chest with the last chest.
Trading leech: Trades your chest with the chest below you.
Trading mantis: Trades your chest with the chest above you.
Whimsical bunyip: Plays one of the other card effects randomly.

I should note a few things about some of these cards.
The Trading Mantis & Leech and the Thieving Locust are ones you should always try to have. This is because they give you access to up to 3 chests if in 2nd or 3rd place. Even if in 1st they are invaluable because sometimes the best reward is in last place or 2nd. I would consider these Essential Cards.
The Cloning mosquito(usually referred to simply as ‘Clone’) and the Scavenging meerkats are also good ones. A common tactic is if 1st place has a clone and the huge lamp then 2nd steals the huge lamp which 1st then clones, allowing both to get a huge lamp. Meerkats are great because they add a Medium lamp to any other reward. 2x Medium lamps is better than a Huge Lamp. These would be Desired Cards.
Consistent yak, Protecting Titan, and Reversing phoenix are good Backup Cards. If you don’t have lots of the first two categories, keep one of these cards if you find it. Reason being the yak guarantees you a decent reward, the Titan protects whatever you have, and the phoenix can reverse an opponent’s move. Of special note here is the Titan. Usually using a Titan will guarantee your reward because anyone who tries to take your chest will just be wasting a card, so there’s no reason for them to do it. This card is most useful when you’re in rank 3-5 and start with a good chest.
Finally we have the Preening ibis, Whimsical bunyip, and Beguiling smoke devil. I’ll address these separately as they don’t really fit in one group together.
The Ibis is a general filler card. If you have no good cards or have your desired reward by the time it’s your turn then you can use this one to add some cosmetics to your chest.
The Bunyip is a Luck-of-the-Draw card. You have a chance to get any of the above cards, but only a few of them are guaranteed good outcomes. I generally avoid this card because it is too unpredictable and can easily screw other players.
And lastly we have the Smoke Devil. As crude as this sounds, this is essentially a giant ‘F YOU!’ to the 4 other players. This is because it scrambles all the chests which messes up everybody who has already played and usually leaves those remaining with few if any good plays. This is most often played by mean players or dumb ones when they have a Small Lamp. Another reason it is foolish to use is because of all the times I’ve seen this card used, the person that used it still ended up with the small lamp and so didn’t help himself at all. Other players will remember a player who screws up their reward with this card and will intentionally cause that player hell any time they are in a sink together. I avoid this card entirely. If I get it as a drop I leave it, if I gather it from a chest or node I destroy it. Taking a Small lamp reward is much better than screwing the other 4 players.

And lastly, you can only carry 5 cards at a time, so always make sure you don’t have duplicates. You can right-click destroy duplicates. A good strategy is to always have less than 5 cards until you have all the ones you want(usually this would be the Essential and Desired cards). Collect all non-duplicate cards until you’re nearing your limit and then destroy those which are less useful to make room for others as you need.

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Well, I suppose that failed. My short article is currently at 1,700+ words, oh well.

I hope this article has given you a new look on the Sinkholes D&D. When I first started doing Sinkholes I was reluctant, not knowing how beneficial they are. On a good night I can get 8k tokens, that’s upwards of 56k tokens a week. If you’re wanting some of the Dungeoneering rewards I highly suggest Sinkholes as their token reward is much greater and much faster than even a good dungeon.