OSRS – “Free” Prayer Potion Alternative (Ironman Friendly)

If you’re playing an early to midgame ironman account or just don’t have a lot of gold on Old School RuneScape and aren’t particularly amazing at PVM (like me), then you probably know how painful it can be to stock up on prayer potions. We burn through them so fast while learning new content, or even when doing certain slayer tasks.

Luckily, with the addition of Varlamore, there’s actually a “free” alternative that’s hilariously easy to gather that few people seem to know about. You just need to do a certain grind to get it first…

And yes, this is also great for the current Raging Echoes league, assuming you picked Varlamore as one of your regions. It’s what I used to get my fire cape, since I had little to no prayer potions at the time. Ranarrs are annoying/expensive to get when you’re just starting out!

In a Nutshell: You Just Need 75 or 73 Hunter

The only requirements for this are that you reach level 75 hunter (73 can work too) and have access to Varlamore, which requires completion of the “Children of the Sun” quest. The former might seem pretty high, but the grind isn’t all that bad when you actually make use of the region’s features. Hunter is pretty fast in general, at least until around 80-ish.

Long story short, this level unlocks the ability to catch Moonlight Moths. These things are kept in butterfly jars, and they give you around 20+ prayer points when released.

In addition to that, you can add any form of raw hunter meat that you get from certain creatures to a jarred moth to create a Moonlight Moth mix, which gives it two uses instead of one! It’s basically a 2-dose prayer potion that requires much less effort and money (literally just buying 1-2gp reusable jars) to get if you have the level for it.

Where Do You Catch Moonlight Moths?

Moonlight Moths are mainly found in two different places as far as I know, but the only one worth noting are the spawns within the Hunters’ Guild.

Since I’m going to assume that some of you might not have even explored this region yet, you’ll find the Hunters’ Guild just a little southwest outside of Civitas Illa Fortis in Varlamore. Access to it requires level 46 Hunter, and it’ll open up the Hunters’ Rumours activity that you should be doing if you plan on catching moths.

By the way, there are free mugs of Trapper’s Tipple all around the bar where you get Hunters’ Rumours. These give you a temporary +2 boost in hunter, which is why you can start doing this at level 73.

Here’s what the moths look like and where you can find them:

TIP: If you’re using Runelite with the NPC Indicators plugin, you can shift + right-click one and then “Tag All” so that they’re easier to spot! Even better if you have “highlight true tile” enabled in the plugin.

What Do I Need?

In order to catch these things, you just need to have a butterfly net equipped. You’ll also need a lot of butterfly jars, and you can get all of these from Imia, who’s a trader in the northernmost edge of the guild.

Since the guild has a bank at the eastern corner, you can very easily go down to the lower floor to catch an inventory full of Moonlight Moths and then just deposit them upstairs. With how fast they respawn, you can get hundreds in no time.

Time is the only resource you’ll be spending to get these, but you only need a few minutes to get over a hundred doses worth of moths. It takes around a minute and a half to get a full inventory of moths, and maybe another minute to turn them into mixes.

The entire process flows like this:

• Step 1 – Grab a net and some butterfly jars, then run to the lower floor of the Hunters’ Guild.
• Step 2 – Click on Moonlight Moths until you’re all full.
• Step 3 – Run back upstairs and bank.
• – Repeat above steps until satisfied with amount of jars in bank –
• Step 4 – Get a mortar and pestle, then set a custom withdrawal quantity of 13.
• Step 5 – Finally, grab your jars + hunter meat and combine them. Wait for all mixes to be made, bank, and then repeat until you’re done!

Catching them is a decent bit of extra training too. I believe it’s roughly 2k+ hunter XP per inventory, which isn’t too bad considering you’d just be doing it for supplies.

Hunters’ Rumours – Getting Levels & Meat

When you first gain access to the guild, I recommend that you start doing Hunters’ Rumours as your main training method for the skill. This will help you build up your stock of meat to the point where you have a virtually unlimited supply by the time you can get moths.

It’s a simple activity where you have to catch whatever creature you’re tasked with until you get a “rare” part out of them. Luckily, this has a pity system, so you’re never going to go dry for long.

I’ll let you figure the rest out on your own, but all you need to know is that each turn-in rewards you with a Hunter’s Loot Sack, which can also contain the types of meat needed for Moonlight Moth mixes, among other useful stuff. They can give you prayer XP via the blessed bones, for instance.

Birdhouse Runs

In addition to Hunters’ Rumours, you can also gain some decent “passive” XP by unlocking Fossil Island and setting up birdhouses. I won’t go into too much detail as this is a whole different activity and is entirely optional, but you will need a decent crafting level and various types of logs and seeds.

Depending on your current hunter and crafting levels, birdhouses can amount to around 1000 to a few thousand hunter XP every hour. It ain’t much, but it adds up if you remember to do it every now and then.

That’s really all there is to it. I don’t really know how to close this out, so just get out there and start catching moths if you’re running low on supplies and/or money. If your hunter is still pretty low, rumours will help you build up stacks of stuff for other skills (prayer, herblore, some logs, etc), so it’s nice to train regardless of whether or not you need the prayer pot alternative, especially if you’re an ironman.