Runescape: The Wicked Hood is Wicked Cool!

I logged in a couple of days ago, and had a strange notice on the screen.  Something about being a loyal customer, and getting a new item as a thank you...

It turned out to be the Wicked Hood, and it was a pretty nice gift.  Have you gotten yours yet?  At first glance, it's kind of confusing, because it does several things, and each thing has it's own limiting factor.

But let's go with my favorite part first.  Teleports.  You know, I always love rewards that expand my teleport options.  When Drakan's Medallion came out, I was absolutely thrilled.  It really opened up the Southwest area of the Runescape map.

The Wicked Hood offers a large number of new teleports.  When properly prepared, it will teleport you to any runecrafting altar in the game (except for the ZMI altar.)  When you first get it, it only teleports you to the Air and Mind altars.  If you feed the hat a talisman (just use the talisman on the hood), it will 'learn' to teleport to that talisman's altar.  For example, if you use a Nature Talisman on the hood, it will permanently be able to teleport to the Nature Altar... 2 times each day.

Twice a day is pretty limiting, but if you plan your uses well, it can be an extremely useful two teleports.  You can feed one of each kind of talisman to the hood, to learn all the locations.  Or you can feed an Omni-talisman to it, and it will learn all the destinations in one sweep. You lose the Omni-Talisman, but the hood does everything the Omni-talisman does, plus much more.

You might think 2 teleports a day too limited to be of use, but in reality, it can be just enough to make life much easier.  I've been using it already on my daily battlestaff purchase.  I've been getting 80 a day at Varrock (thanks to the Varrock 4 task rewards) but it's been too much hassle to go over to Lunar Island for the 20 Baba Yaga offers.  Now with the hood, even if I'm not using the Lunar Spellbook, I can teleport directly to the Lunar Altar, run north to Baba Yaga, grab my battlestaves and be back in the Grand Exchange before I know it.
Another Lunar Isle example is if you're going after Jad in the Fight Cave.  Many people like to Vengeance Jad, which requires the Lunar Spellbook.  It's always been annoying to switch before, but now you can teleport straight there, change spellbooks, and be on your way to Jad without any wasted time.

Ok, so this one came to me...

One more example.  If you hunt penguins, or have any reason to go to Entrana, this is, hands down, the fastest way to get there.  Remove all weapons/armor as usual, use the Hood to teleport to the Law Altar, and you land right by the chicken pen!  No more long runs from Draynor, Rimmington, or your personal Spirit Tree... just go directly there.

But wait... there's more!  I'm sure you've heard those pitches before.  In this case, you also get free runes, and free essence every day.  I haven't tried this yet, but here's what I understand:  You get 100 elemental runes every day, or you can pick any other rune and get 5.  If you apply an elemental talisman to the Wicked Hood, you'll get to do this twice a day.  You also get 100 unnoted essence every day... and that's upgraded to 100 Pure Essence if you used an Omni-Talisman.

Don't get overexcited about the Soul Rune position on the graphic.  There is NO Soul Rune altar as yet.  I suspect they put that in for a planned upgrade.  The interface is pretty cool, too.  Attractive graphics, and easy to understand.  (Easier than when you've only read about it.)  Though I wish the volume was lower.  With that constant beeping, I feel pressured to pick my teleport quickly, like it's trying to hurry me along.

The Wicked Hood takes the place of any runecrafting tiara, and of any talisman.  I've already sold off all my talismans except the ones I use for Summoning.  Keeps on death (you don't lose it), and if you somehow lose or destroy it, the Wicked Hood can be replaced by Tam McGrubor.  For Free.  And it will still know all the locations you've taught it.

I haven't yet explored the other teleport locations.  If I remember right, the Earth Altar is near the lumberyard.  For penguin-hunting, that could be useful.  I'm sure if I look at a map, I'll see more uses.  Like I said, new teleport locations are my favorite rewards.  Even if I never use anything but the Lunar and Entrana ports, I'm ecstatic about the Wicked Hood.