The second World Event, focusing on the newly-introduced skill of Divination and the two less-focused-on gods, Armadyl and Bandos.
It's after Sliske's stunt with the god-killing contest, and Bandos has decided to get a good start on that by using divination energy to power up a superweapon called the Scarecrow, housed on a tower near the Goblin Village. Armadyl has decided to stop him with his own tower-based divination-powered superweapon, the Divine Focus, located south of Falador near the Clan Camp. Whoever powers up their weapon first will kill their opponent.
Players could help their chosen side in several ways: they could gather divination energy themselves, protect convoys carrying divination energy, attack opposing convoys, help manage the army, and/or help build golems to attack the other side or protect their own.
Each side had a "general"note , Head Diviner, Golem Master, Quartermaster, Record Keeper, and Recruiter. Bandos's chief engineer was the Ourg Zarador, his Head Diviner was the former Wilderness bandit Davosi, and his Golem Master was the ogre Crush. Armadyl's Head Warmage was the Aviansie Taka'ra, his Head Diviner was the former Varrockian street rat Kamiee, and his Golem Master was the Aviansie Gee'ka.
In the event, players could speak to the gods and their followers to learn their personal history and a good deal of backstory, like what race Bandos was and what Armadyl has been doing since the God Wars. This was the first time that Bandos and Armadyl had personally appeared onscreen — not counting the Bandos Avatar in "The Chosen Commander" — and for Bandos at least, it would be his last.
Armadyl won the event by a high margin, as Bandos had accumulated a terrible reputation amongst the RuneScape fandom for his reprehensible actions in quests and lorenote . The Divine Focus achieved full power first, and Kamiee fired it, decapitating Bandos and destroying his tower. Armadyl then approached Bandos's body and smashed his petrified head with Bandos' own mace, before lifting it up and screeching in victory.note
Bandos was counted as Armadyl's kill to participate in Sliske's Game, and his death prompted the final quest in the Goblin series, "The Mighty Fall", wherein the power vacuum among Bandosians is to be resolved with a traditional Kyzaj tournament, and the player must participate on behalf of Zanik and the Dorgeshuun.
And if you're wondering what ultimately happened to Bandos' followers after his death, they took it in stride. After all, Bandos's philosophy was that the strongest win, and since Armadyl won, obviously he was stronger. Davosi's story also didn't quite end there, but that's a tale for another time — and for the Player-Owned Port adventurers.
Tropes
- Added Alliterative Appeal: "The Bird and the Beast".
- Asshole Victim: Nobody shed a tear for Bandos when he bit it, not even his own followers.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Armadyl. Doesn't like to fight and would rather gods be guides instead of leaders, but he still matched Bandos in power and eventually killed him.
- Bird People: The Aviansie are humanoid birds.
- Combat Pragmatist: Kaimee admits that before she became a diviner, her fighting style was mostly kicking people in the 'nads and running away.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Armadyl ended up defeating Bandos by a significant margin. Even while the event was in progress, it was not uncommon to see worlds where Armadyl's side had buildings controlling all or virtually all of the caravan checkpoints.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Armadyl and Bandos, as well as the Divination skill. For Bandos, it was also ...
- A Death in the Limelight: The first time that Bandos showed up in person. He died at the end of the event.
- Escort Mission: Players could choose to play this straight by protecting Divination convoys, or invert it by attacking their enemy's convoys.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Bandos.
- Eyes Always Shut: Davosi.
- Foil: Davosi and Kaimee. Both are humans who were at one point fighters (Davosi was a wilderness bandit, Kaimee was a street rat) with no real social standing who worked their way through the ranks by their prowess at divination, and originally studied it for the benefits to themselves. Kaimee however, has decided to rise above it and fight for Armadyl's vision of peace, while Davosi just decided to keep doing what he always did, just with Bandos to point him in the direction of foes.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Bandos wears a helmet throughout the event, while Armadyl goes bareheaded. The impracticality part doesn't apply since they are deities, and it's not like Bandos's helmet protected him from the Divine Focus when it fired.
- He's Back!: The event was this for Armadyl. He had faded into obscurity and the Aviansie had disappeared from Gielinor, but now he has returned and he isn't going to die without a fight.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Bandos initiated the fight against Armadyl, which gets him killed. Armadyl also uses Bandos's own mace to crush his petrified head.
- Hypocrite: Bandos accuses other gods of being this, while he's at least honest about being a Social Darwinist asshole. This is probably more due to Evil Cannot Comprehend Good than anything, since Bandos doesn't seem to believe in idealism and morality.
- Karmic Death: Bandos's philosophy was that the strong kill off the weak, and he believed that he was the strongest. He thought Armadyl's compassion was weakness, so he tried to off Armadyl for the Stone of Jas. It turned out that Armadyl was stronger, or at least was able to rally more people to his side than Bandos, resulting in Bandos's death in the contest that he himself started.
- Killed Off for Real: As advertised by Jagex, the loser of the contest died permanently. Fortunately, this turned out to be Bandos.
- Last of His Kind: Averted; Zarador's introduction marked the end of General Graardor being considered the last of the Ourgs.
- Off with His Head!: The Divine Focus' attack does this to Bandos.
- Oh, Crap!: Bandos has a brief moment of this when he sees the Divine Focus's beam coming his way. Then he's decapitated.
- Player Versus Player: Safe Player Killing (i.e. no items lost) was implemented for this World Event, in contrast to the Battle of Lumbridge, as a means of showcasing the then-recent Evolution of Combat.
- Popularity Power: Armadyl had it to a great extent, though it helped that Bandos was rather unlikable. A lot of people supported Armadyl because he came off as the only reasonable god, and more supported him because whatever he was, he was not Bandos.
- Punctuation Shaker: Taka'ra and Gee'ka. It's apparently standard for Aviansie.
- Shout-Out: A rare random event could see a caravan guard contract dysentery, in a clear reference to an infamous misfortune in The Oregon Trail.
- Team Switzerland: Once again, the Godless functioned as the neutral faction who allowed players to switch sides if they so chose, but also launched their own ambushes on both sides' convoys.
- Technical Pacifist: Armadyl doesn't like to fight, but he will if that's what it takes to stop Bandos. And damnit, if he's going to fight he's going to end it as quickly as possible.
- Tonight Somebody Dies: Jagex specifically advertised the event this way, in contrast to the Battle of Lumbridge, where the consequences were kept nebulous until the very end.
- Unreliable Narrator: Bandos says he's the Last of His Kind of rhino-esque humanoids because they were a Proud Warrior Race (and yes, he does use those words) who fought each other to the death to prove their strength until only Bandos remained. Bandos's Memories, found on Yu'Biusk after "The Mighty Fall", state that Bandos is the Last of His Kind because he killed Jodudu Otoku, the god protecting his planet from meteors. He ascended to godhood and his world was destroyed, leaving him the sole survivor of his race — much to his delight.
- Winged Humanoid: All Aviansie. Armadyl takes this up a notch, as he has several sets of wings.
- Worthy Opponent: If spoken to about the events of "The Chosen Commander", where the Player talked down his intended puppet Zanik and then helped her kill the next guy Bandos possessed, robbing him of a fair chunk of his power, Bandos will reveal that he doesn't hold a grudge; he considers any victory commendable, even if it's against him. It's pretty much the closest thing he has to a redeemable trait.
