Gemstone dragons are dragons whose hides are decorated in gemstones. They are weak against ranged attacks, especially against arrows.
In combat, gemstone dragons use melee, magic and long ranged dragonfire. If attacked from a distance, gemstone dragons can also utilise a special attack which covers a 3x3 area. If hit by their special attack, it will deal heavy magic damage in addition to a secondary side effect, which is somewhat based on their enchanted bolt's effect. If the player is within melee range of the dragon, they will not use their special attack.
All gemstone dragons have a chance of dropping the draconic visage, and gemstone dragons have a chance of dropping different pieces of gemstone armour. Instead of dragon bones, gemstone dragons drop hardened dragon bones.
Gemstone dragons are located in the gemstone cavern under the Shilo Village mining site. They require the completion of the Hard Karamja Tasks in order to access them.
Kelhar guards the area to the gemstone dragons, and requests payments before he will allow the player to kill the gemstone dragons. He will only accept uncut gems of dragonstone, onyx or an incomplete hydrix. Once the gem(s) have been given, Kelhar will allow the player to kill any of the gemstone dragons, and will demand additional payments once the player expends all of their allotted kills. Players can store up to 60,000 kills at any given time.
| Uncut gem | Kills per gem | Cost per kill |
|---|---|---|
 Uncut dragonstone
|
2 | 6,039 |
 Uncut onyx
|
400 | 5,745 |
 Incomplete hydrix
|
4000 | 6,390 |
If the player is on a slayer assignment for gemstone dragons, Kelhar will allow the player to kill them free of charge. If the player has already paid Kelhar, he will not remove charges for gemstone dragons killed on a task.
Types
| Name | Combat level | Slayer level | Special attack | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Dragonstone dragon | 119 | 95 | Sends a purple trail to the player's initial spot, dealing up to 4500 magic damage and draining the timer on any antifire potions currently in use by 20 seconds. Protect/Deflect Magic will decrease the damage, but will not negate the secondary effect. | Dragonstone dragons are the weakest gemstone dragon and can drop gemstone gauntlets and gemstone boots. |
|
Onyx dragon | 126 | 98 | Steals some of the player's life points.
They will not use this special attack if you remain within melee distance of them. |
Onyx dragons are the second strongest gemstone dragon and can drop gemstone greaves and gemstone helms. |
|
Hydrix dragon | 133 | 101 | A row of spikes is sent towards the area that the player is currently standing on. After a short delay, there is a 3 by 3 square area where spikes appear, dealing magic damage and draining adrenaline to 0, while also applying a debuff where adrenaline gained is reduced to half for a few seconds. They will not use this special attack if you remain within melee distance of them. | Hydrix dragons are the strongest gemstone dragon and can drop gemstone hauberks. |
Trivia
- On release, gemstone dragons had less lucrative loot, which was changed in a hotfix several hours later. Some of the notable changes included converting their dragon bones drop into adamant dragon bones (which were then renamed a week later to hardened dragon bones) and dropping two drops at a time.
