Old School RuneScape’s sixth League event — Demonic Pacts — launched on April 15, 2026 and runs until June 10, 2026. With less than five weeks left at the time of writing, this guide walks through everything you need to know to clear a Dragon trophy: how the new Pacts system works, which regions to pick, the nine echo bosses you’ll grind, and the reward-shop unlocks worth saving for.
Amoxliatl — the elite echo boss tied to Varlamore, your starting region.
What is Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts?
Leagues are seasonal time-limited game modes in OSRS where every player starts a fresh Ironman account, accelerated XP and drop rates apply, and a region-locking system forces creative gear choices. Leagues VI — the sixth such event — pulls a new lever: instead of relics-only progression, players spend points on a sprawling skill tree of Demonic Pacts, each granting a combat or skilling buff in exchange for a budget of just 40 Pact Points.
- Launch: 15 April 2026, 11:45 AM BST
- End: 10 June 2026 (approximately 8 weeks)
- Mode: All players are Ironmen — no trading, no GE
- Starting region: Varlamore (Misthalin completely inaccessible)
- Region unlocks: Karamja auto-unlocks at 80 tasks; pick three more at 200 / 300 / 450 task milestones
- Combat masteries: Replaced by 130+ Demonic Pact nodes; spend up to 40 Pact Points
- Sailing: Disabled for this league
If you played Trailblazer Reloaded or Raging Echoes, the structural skeleton will feel familiar. The big change — and what makes this league worth its own guide — is the Pacts system. It’s deeper, less linear, and rewards specialisation more aggressively than any combat mastery tree in past leagues.
How the Pacts System Works
You earn Pact Points by completing tasks. With over 130 nodes spread across attack styles, defence, prayer, magic, ranged, and skilling, no character can buy more than a fraction of the tree. The hard cap of 40 points enforces meaningful trade-offs — you can’t be the best meleer, ranger, and mage in the same season.
Notable Pact effects players are gravitating toward:
- Bows attack 1 tick faster — turns a 5-tick weapon into a 4-tick weapon, a roughly 25% DPS increase before any other Pacts apply
- Two-handed melee range doubled — lets two-hand weapons safe-spot certain mechanics that previously required a halberd
- Spell regeneration heals the player — magic builds get sustained healing during long boss kills
- Prayer penetration +25% — cuts through Protect prayers, enormous on PvM
You get five free Pact resets over the league: one automatic, one from killing Hueycoatl, and three from echo bosses. That’s enough to test two or three full builds before committing to your final spec.
The Region Decision: Pick Three at 200 / 300 / 450 Tasks
Varlamore — the locked-by-default starting region.
You start in Varlamore and Karamja unlocks free at the 80-task mark. After that, three region picks are gated behind 200, 300, and 450 task milestones. Eight options are on the table: Asgarnia, Desert, Fremennik, Kandarin, Morytania, Tirannwn, Wilderness, Kourend.
Region picks shape your kill list, your gear access, and which echo bosses you can fight. Common four-region builds for 2026:
| Build | Regions | Why |
|---|---|---|
| All-PvM | Varlamore + Karamja + Asgarnia + Kandarin + Tirannwn | Cerberus, Thermonuclear Smoke Devil, Corrupted Hunllef — three of the strongest echo drops in one ticket |
| Range-stack | Varlamore + Karamja + Desert + Wilderness + Kourend | Drygore Blowpipe, King’s Barrage, and Nature’s Recurve all in the ranged slot |
| Magic-bursting | Varlamore + Karamja + Kandarin + Morytania + Kourend | Shadowflame quadrant + Lithic sceptre + access to Catacombs bursting routes |
| Slayer-XP | Varlamore + Karamja + Asgarnia + Morytania + Kandarin | Maximum slayer task density — key for the Dragon trophy task pool |
The Wilderness pick is divisive: King Black Dragon’s King’s Barrage is one of the league’s strongest ranged weapons, but the region locks you into more dangerous tasks. If you’ve never done a Wilderness league before, sit it out and grab Tirannwn instead for the safer Crystal Blessing.
Echo Bosses: The Nine Drop Targets
Each region has one echo boss — a stat-buffed version of a familiar OSRS encounter that drops a unique league reward. After 2× nominal drop rate you get a guaranteed drop. Once you have the orb you don’t need to kill it again.
| Region | Echo Boss | Tier | Drop | Slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Varlamore | Amoxliatl | Elite | Infernal tecpatl | Melee weapon (all 3 styles) |
| Asgarnia | Cerberus | Master | Fang of the hound | Melee weapon (3-tick) |
| Kandarin | Thermonuclear Smoke Devil | Elite | Shadowflame quadrant / Devil’s element | Magic |
| Kourend | Hespori | Elite | Nature’s recurve | Ranged |
| Fremennik | Dagannoth Kings | Master | V’s helm | Head |
| Wilderness | King Black Dragon | Elite | King’s barrage | Ranged |
| Morytania | Grotesque Guardians | Elite | Lithic sceptre | Magic |
| Desert | Kalphite Queen | Elite | Drygore blowpipe | Ranged |
| Tirannwn | Corrupted Hunllef | Master | Crystal blessing | Ammo |
Cerberus (Asgarnia) and Hespori (Kourend) — two of the most-farmed echo bosses.
Master-tier bosses (Cerberus, Dagannoth Kings, Corrupted Hunllef) are the gatekeepers. If you’re new to leagues, get them out of the way before chasing trophy points — the unique drops are worth thousands of points in indirect XP and reduce future task friction.
Relics: The Eight-Tier Power Curve
While Pacts handle combat customisation, the relic system handles raw progression. Every tier costs more cumulative Pact Points and unlocks broader passive multipliers:
| Tier | Cost | Notable Relics | Passive Multipliers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free | Endless Harvest, Barbarian Gathering, Abundance | 5× XP, 2× drops, 4× minigame points, infinite run energy |
| 2 | 600 | Hotfoot, Friendly Forager, Woodsman | XP → 8× |
| 3 | 1,200 | Bank Heist, Evil Eye, Map of Alacrity | +1.5× combat XP, free Big&Badder, 5× slayer points, 1/50 superior |
| 4 | 2,600 | Transmute, Conniving Clues, Butler’s Bell | 5× drops, 8× minigame points, XP → 12× |
| 5 | 5,200 | Nature’s Accord, Larcenist, Soul Harvest | — |
| 6 | 8,500 | Grimoire, Eternal Sustenance, Culling Spree | XP → 16× |
| 7 | 16,500 | Flow State, Reloaded | — |
| 8 | 28,000 | Executioner, Minion, Flask of Fervour | — |
The big jumps live at Tier 4 (12× XP) and Tier 6 (16× XP). If you’re trophy-hunting, those are the priority milestones — everything between is a slow grind. The free Big & Badder unlock at Tier 3 is also a sleeper pick: it doubles superior monster spawns from 1/200 to 1/100 effective rate, which compounds with the 1/50 superior relic on the same tier.
Trophy Tiers: How Much Time to Each Trophy
Static point thresholds determine your trophy:
| Trophy | Points | Realistic Time Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 2,000 | A weekend casual |
| Iron | 4,000 | ~10-15 hours |
| Steel | 10,000 | ~25-35 hours |
| Mithril | 22,000 | ~50-60 hours |
| Adamant | 32,000 | ~80-100 hours |
| Rune | 47,500 | ~140-180 hours |
| Dragon | 65,000 | ~250+ hours |
Most players target Mithril or Adamant; Rune and Dragon are dedicated-grinder territory. With about five weeks left as of early May 2026, the realistic ceiling for someone starting now is Adamant at 32,000 points — assuming roughly 2-3 hours per day of focused play.
Reward Shop: What to Buy with Your League Points
The reward shop is where league points convert to keepable cosmetics and ornament kits. Standout buys:
- Demonic trident ornament kit (4,500 pts) — the marquee weapon cosmetic of the season; resells well in main game
- Soulreaper axe ornament (10,000 pts) — pricey but limited-edition
- Relic Hunter T1 outfit (1,000 pts) — cheap pickup just to have
- T2 outfit (5,000 pts) and T3 outfit (20,000 pts) — full sets, scale with your trophy ambitions
- Banner (500 pts) — flag yourself to the world post-league
Soulreaper Axe — the base for the 10,000-point ornament kit reward.
Patches Since Launch (Worth Knowing About)
Two patches have rebalanced the league since April 15:
- April 23 patch: Pact rebalancing — added +10% accuracy on small nodes that were under-tuned. Hueycoatl task grants now reset properly. Quests with region requirements auto-complete on region unlock.
- April 29 patch: Toxic Blowpipe ammo regeneration fixed (it was de-charging incorrectly). Canoe transport corrected. Seed transmutation finally works. Crystal Halberd / Bow of Faerdhinen now regenerate ammo and charges naturally.
If you started the league early and have Pact resets banked, the April 23 buffs may make a previously-marginal Pact path actually competitive. Don’t sleep on the small accuracy nodes — the new buffs stack with the Slayer Helm bonus on combat tasks.
Tips for the Final Stretch (May – June 10)
- Lock in your three regions before task 200. Re-rolling a region pick is impossible. Plan your kill list around echo bosses, not on a whim.
- Save Pact resets for after Tier 4 relic unlock. 12× XP changes the math on which Pacts are worth the points.
- Master-tier echo bosses (Cerberus, DKs, Hunllef) before Mithril trophy. The drops accelerate later tasks more than another 5,000 points of grind.
- Don’t sleep on Slayer. Slayer tasks dump task points and league XP simultaneously — one of the best XP/hr activities in the league.
- Use a DPS planner before you commit a Pact. Some Pacts double a stat bonus that’s already capped against your target boss; spending those points elsewhere can be worth multiple thousands of trophy points over the league.
What This Means for Main-Game OSRS
League rewards stay with your main account after Leagues VI ends on June 10. The cosmetic ornament kits keep their value (and resale price) for years — Trailblazer Reloaded ornaments from the 2023 league still trade at multi-million GP. If you have any league points left going into the final week, dump them into the highest-tier ornament kits you can afford even if you don’t plan to wear them — flips post-league are reliably profitable.
Once Leagues VI wraps, attention will shift to the Blood Moon Rises Grandmaster quest in summer (concluding the Myreque storyline with The Maggot King boss), the Summer Sweep-Up #2 rebalance pass, and finally The Fractured Archive raid in late 2026. Your league trophy gets you ornaments and bragging rights; your league experience gets you sharper at managing the gear-vs-Pact trade-offs you’ll see again in OSRS’s next combat content.
Resources
- OSRS Wiki: Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts — full task list, all 130+ Pact nodes, current patch notes
- XP Gained: Leagues VI launch patch notes
- OSRS official news — for any in-league hotfixes
Tools to Help You Plan
Building a Pacts kit is a numbers game — small Pact accuracy bonuses stack multiplicatively with Slayer Helm and Salve Amulet effects, and the wrong attack-style choice on an Elite echo boss can cost you 30%+ DPS. Three of our tools help:
- OSRS DPS Calculator — load your league stats from the OSRS hiscores, equip your gear, pick the echo boss as your target, and see max hit, accuracy, DPS, and time-to-kill across melee / ranged / magic. Indispensable for picking the right Pact build per echo boss.
- BiS Calculator — rank every item by your active combat style. Useful when a region unlock opens up new gear and you need to know what slots got upgraded.
- Boss Gear Guides — full setups and drop tables for every major OSRS boss, including the 9 echo bosses. Pair this with the DPS calculator and you can pick the cheapest viable kit per region.
Image attribution: monster, region, and item images from the Old School RuneScape Wiki, used under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Game data verified against the Wiki’s Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts article on May 1, 2026.
