Cold War

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This article has a quick guide found here.

Cold War is the first quest in the penguin quest series. It involves two agents finding out about the plans of the penguins.

Official description[edit | edit source]

At the Ardougne Zoo, one of the zookeepers has become a bit preoccupied by penguins. In fact, he's downright paranoid about them. He needs your help to observe their habits on the iceberg in the Lunar Sea.

What begins as a peaceful bird-watching expedition opens a new world of espionage and bad musicians.

Overview[edit | edit source]

Penguin spotting[edit | edit source]


Speak to Larry at the southern entrance of the Ardougne Zoo, located in the southern section of East Ardougne. He seems a bit paranoid, and is looking for somebody to help with his "research project" - on learning about the habits of penguins in their natural environment.

He instructs you to collect 10 oak planks and 10 steel nails for building the lookout, and to meet him at the entrance to Keldagrim just east of Rellekka. If you have the materials in your inventory, talk to him again and he will directly teleport you to the lookout location.

He can otherwise be found on the pier north-west of the Keldagrim entrance in Rellekka (the fairy ring code dks, Fremennik Province lodestone, lyre teleport, polar eagle ride or teleport to house (if your house is in Rellekka) can be used to reach the pier).

Hello world[edit | edit source]

The finished lookout
Items needed: 10 oak planks, 10 steel nails, and a spade in inventory

Upon arrival on the Iceberg, look for a firm snow patch next to Larry. Build the bird hide structure here by using an oak plank on the patch. Click on the lookout again and you will be prompted to cover it in snow using a spade. When the snowy bird hide is ready, speak to Larry.

You see a rather strange cut scene, but it is important to keep note of the emotes that the penguin does as it shows a penguin greeting code that is unique for every player. If you do not keep note of these emotes, you can click on the bird hide to observe the penguins again, or alternatively read it from the quest journal later. There are 8 different penguin emotes in all, similar to the normal character emotes, and the greeting will consist of three of those.

Spying, uhm, researching penguins.

After the cut scene, speak to Larry and suggest to him that the behaviour of the penguins in the cut scene was suspicious. He insists that you move on to the docks to prevent eavesdropping. Return to the dock and speak to Larry again; now here's where things get strange. Larry wants you to spy on the penguins by creating a penguin clockwork suit. He gives you a book filled with instructions on how to make one.

Clockwork penguin[edit | edit source]

Audio options icon.png
Spying on the penguins
Penguin emotes

To make a clockwork suit:

  1. Collect a regular wood plank, a piece of silk, and a steel bar.
  2. Use a Clockmaker's bench 3 or 4 to make a clockwork.
  3. Then, use the crafting table again and select clockwork suit to make a clockwork suit.

If you haven't already made a Crafting table 3 in your house, you will need 4 oak planks, 3 molten glass and a workshop in your house, along with 34 Construction, using boosts if required. You need to create the Crafting table 1 with the planks, and then upgrade it to a level 3 using the molten glass. A friend's house can be used, but it shouldn't be too hard to make your own table.

Return to Larry at the Fremennik Province (north-east of Rellekka) dock or Ardougne Zoo (recommended) after finishing the suit. Jointly return to the Iceberg to test the suit out. After returning, you see that the lookout has been completely destroyed and that all the penguins are missing. Speak to Larry and, no surprise, he blames the penguins. Now, since there are no penguins, it appears impossible to test the suit. However, you — the clever adventurer — suggest Larry that you test the suit on the penguins at the zoo. Larry kindly assists with a teleport back to Ardougne.

Suit up![edit | edit source]

Free your hands and cape and talk to Larry. He casts a magic spell, causing the player to shrink and enter the penguin suit! Now to test out the disguise. Head into the penguin enclosure and talk to the penguin who is really an undercover KGP agent. He will be the only penguin with a "talk" option. Use the emote sequence that the earlier cutscene showed.

If you cannot remember, or did not write down the emote sequence, then you can take off the suit and it will now be available in the quest journal. Alternatively you can view the emote sequence without exiting the suit by opening the Quest tab of the Adventures Icon in the Ribbon interface. Otherwise, you can go by trial and error until you get it right. If you get the emote sequence wrong enough times, the correct sequence will be displayed in the quest window; at this stage your character will also tell you if you have chosen the correct emote in the sequence.

Fortunately, the agent responds. Now apparently, penguins are trying to learn to fly and escape from Ardougne Zoo. The penguin gives you a mission report to return to the outpost and asks you to also speak to the penguins in Lumbridge.

Exit the enclosure and speak to Larry to get out of the suit. When you tell him about the conversation with the penguin agent, Larry ponders as to how the penguins could be hiding in Lumbridge. You now need to track down the agents in Lumbridge, and Larry will catch up with you later.

Incognito[edit | edit source]

Fred's farm

Items needed: raw cod, or wearing the Ring of Charos.

Those of you who have a keen eye may already know where the penguin operatives are. If not, head to Farmer Fred's sheep pasture where you find Larry, standing on the western side of the farm; use the 'tuxedo-time' option with him. Now head off inside the pen and locate a sheep with flippers.

Before speaking to them, perform the secret greeting. Once you have done the greeting, the penguins still don't speak to you, demanding the secret phrase and also angry at attempting to blow their cover. Speak to Larry and he helps you both return to Ardougne Zoo.

Re-tuxedo before entering the penguin enclosure and speak to the penguin again. If you have a raw cod in your inventory, the penguin will trade the phrase for its favourite food, as explained by Larry. Alternatively, if you are wearing a ring of charos, the penguin simply provides the phrase, and you do not get the usual (Charm) option. Either way, the penguin will reveal that the secret phrase is "Do not trust the walrus".

Intelligence[edit | edit source]

Items needed: Some good food, 5 feathers (coloured ones won't work), 1 swamp tar, the mission report, clockwork suit, mahogany plank, and leather.
Items recommended: A weapon
Speaking to the penguins in the sheep field, and convincing them that Fred is the king of Lumbridge

Return to Lumbridge and go to Farmer Fred's sheep pen and penguin suit up! Now the penguins tell you to talk to Farmer Fred to see if he's an undercover agent for the humans. Speak to Farmer Fred about penguins and use either the bully option or warn option; both work.

When you are done talking to Fred, return and speak with the penguin again. Pick either option in the conversation with the penguins and they give you the location of the outpost; it is on the Iceberg you visited earlier under what appears to be an avalanche. They also give you the password "cabbage".

Speak to Larry again to be teleported to the Iceberg. If you need to leave the Iceberg for any reason, you can return by speaking to Larry near the rock crabs east of Rellekka.

Surprise, surprise[edit | edit source]

The penguin army are being drilled by the Army Commander for their invasion.

Wear the penguin disguise again and head north-west until you see a KGP agent. Use the emote greeting, then tell him the password. He then asks you for an ID, which you do not have.

Now speak to Noodle, the black-market merchant near the KGP agent. He'll trade you a Kgp id card and mission report for one swamp tar and five feathers. With the counterfeit documents, speak to the KGP agent and he'll let you through. "Investigate" the avalanche behind him to enter the outpost.

Once inside, go into the first room on the left and de-brief the KGP agent. He will take all 3 mission reports from you and tell you to move on through the door at the west end of the room. Head up the corridor, and go through the door at the end.

Once through the door, the camera pans showing a penguin army! Suddenly, you seem to realise their intentions are a little more devious than just flying! If you speak with the Army Commander, he tells you the penguins are "Getting ready for the invasion." Follow the signs with arrows to the agility course, and when the path ends at the checkerboard starting line, click it to start the agility course.

Agility course[edit | edit source]

If you want to quickly exit the course, un-equip the penguin suit, resulting in you being caught and stunned, but otherwise returned to where Larry is on the Iceberg. Also, the Surefooted Aura makes this part of the quest extremely easy.

Jump, I say! Jump!
  1. Climb down the steps and into the water.
  2. Avoid the moving ice in the water.
  3. Climb the stepping stone at the end.
  4. Jump across the next stones until you reach an ice platform.
  5. After you manage to cross, continue on the path until you come to a shelf with icicles on it. Use the tread softly option to get across. You have to repeat this several times at each shelf. If you fail, you will be hit taking a small amount of damage.
  6. Next, you have to climb up the ice. This can be very annoying, as you take 20 life points each time you fail, and the failure rate is surprisingly high. If you have only the minimal agility — level 30, for example — a small amount of food may help.
  7. After that, you have a small cutscene of you sliding down a hill.

Speak to the Agility Instructor, and you are done with the agility course and free to go wherever you wish in the lair. Return to Larry and tell him what you've seen. He tells you that according to his new research, there is a secret room deep inside the glacier, where he thinks all the war plans are being made.

'Berg bards[edit | edit source]

Audio options icon.png
The Ping and Pong song
Ping and Pong play a tune on their new instruments.
Ping and Pong with their new instruments

Have Larry put you back into the suit and return to the outpost but instead of turning left this time head straight up until you come to some massive doors. Ask the KGP agent in the little control room to the left of the doors to let you in. He says his orders are to let no one go through the doors.

Head back down the hallway and enter the second room on the east. Speak with Ping and Pong there, who represent penguin rebels and ask you for a cowbell and set of penguin bongos to replace their outdated musical instruments, as they need to make a new song.

Return to Larry and ask him how to get a cowbell and some bongos. He suggests that you steal the cow bell from a dairy cow in Lumbridge or Rellekka, and make the penguin bongos by using leather on a mahogany plank. You can only make the bongos while in human form. Alternatively, you can teleport to Zanaris and steal a cowbell from there.

Head back to Ping and Pong and provide them with the bongos and cowbells. You see a cutscene where the two penguins play a song, producing enough sound to distract the guard at the control room. While the guard is distracted, operate the control panel where the KGP agent used to be standing to open the door. Enter the war room to the north-east.

Conclusive evidence[edit | edit source]

You will see a cut scene of the penguins planning to take over RuneScape! Sadly, the penguins have set up a magical device which reveals any intruders inside the war room. The penguins in the room take your suit, and you are taken to a cage filled with icelords. They are level 42 and you need to kill a few before you are able to leave. The icelords use range as well as melee, so watch out.

If you teleport out and return to Larry on the Iceberg, you will be re-caught and will have to fight and kill the icelords again.

Exit the cage through the fence door made of ice, and then exit through a chasm east of the icelord cage. Talk to Larry for a final time to finish the quest.

Rewards[edit | edit source]

Cold War reward.png
  • 1 quest point
  • 2,000 Crafting experience
  • 5,000 Agility experience
  • 1,500 Construction experience
  • Ability to make the penguin suit. To enter the suit again, you must talk to Larry again at the zoo, pier, farm or Iceberg.
  • Ability to use the Penguin Agility Course.
  • Players can also steal more cowbells and make more bongos to play, while in a penguin suit.
  • Ability to contact Larry through the NPC Contact spell.
  • When playing Penguin Hide and Seek, you will receive 2 points for select penguins.
  • 2 Treasure Hunter keys and 2 Hearts of Ice
Music unlocked

Required for completing[edit | edit source]

Cold War is directly required for the following quests/miniquests:

Thus it is indirectly required for the following quests and miniquests:

Transcript[edit | edit source]

The concept[edit | edit source]

The concept of this quest is a parody of the real-life Cold War, a period of quiet hostility between the United States (with other Western Powers such as the United Kingdom) and the Soviet Union for over 40 years. Apart from the quest being named after it, the following details from the quest are references to this historical event:

  • The KGP is strikingly and amusingly similar to the KGB which was the Soviet secret police during the Soviet era.
  • The penguins refer to their home as "the motherland", which is a label very often used to describe the Soviet Union.
  • The term "Comrade" is a translation of tovarisch, a Russian term for a travel or business companion that broadened to mean "friend" or "ally". In the Soviet Union the word was commonly used in a manner similar to "Mister". It also means "acquaintance".
  • "Palingrad" sounds similar to the Russian cities Stalingrad (now Volgograd), possibly also a reference to the Dutch word "Paling", meaning eel.
  • Russian cosmonauts wore penguin (space) suits to counter muscle degeneration.
  • The posters in the penguin outpost are a reference to patriotic murals often found in communist countries.
  • The giant penguin seen at the end of the quest may possibly be a reference to ICBM missiles that were possessed by the Soviet Union during the real-life Cold War. It may also be a reference to the giant statue of the "Motherland" built by the USSR to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad.

Cultural references[edit | edit source]

  • When asking the penguin for the secret phrase, there is an option to say "Is it Rumpelstiltskin?". Rumpelstiltskin is a fantasy creature who takes children away from mothers. In the traditional story, a queen must guess his name in order to keep her child.
  • Ping says "We need more cowbell", a reference to the "More Cowbell" comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live, where Will Ferrell and special guest Christopher Walken perform a fictionalised recording of (Don't Fear) The Reaper, by Blue Öyster Cult.
  • Noodle asks you for the swamp tar and feathers in exchange for some fake documents, a reference to the torturing method called "tarring and feathering", where a person would be coated with tar and then covered in feathers.
  • Examining the trumpet near Ping and Pong gives the text "Miles Davis is looking for this...". Miles Davis was a renowned American trumpeter, band leader, and composer and was widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
  • The examine text for the piano says "I only know Chopsticks". This is a reference to the widely known circus tune, Chopsticks, played on the piano.
  • The instrument in the room named cello is actually a bass.
  • When you're about to investigate Fred the Farmer, Larry says "So you'll be a human, pretending to be a penguin, pretending to be a human." and you reply "Curiouser and curiouser!", an Alice in Wonderland reference.
  • After discovering the bird hide has been destroyed, you can select "I don't think it was the penguins", using the idea that you can't tell by the tracks. Larry will reply "Well of course you can't make out tracks. Penguins walk single file to hide their numbers." This is a reference to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, when Obi-Wan tells Luke that the Tusken Raiders could not have killed the Jawas.
  • If you talk to the KGP Interrogator, he will reply, "Move along, move along." This is another reference to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when Obi-Wan and Luke are being frisked by stormtroopers as they enter Mos Eisley.
  • When you first enter the penguin cage in Ardougne, the penguin you talk to says "blast them [the humans] and their thumbs." This is a reference to the movie Madagascar.
  • When your player informs Larry that the penguin in Lumbridge will not talk to them, the player uses the phrase "These penguins are crazy!". This is a play on the phrase used frequently by the character Obelix in the French comic series The Adventures of Asterix and Obelix - "These Romans are crazy!".
  • Michael Palin played Dr. Peaches Bartkowicz in a sketch about penguins on Monty Python's Flying Circus - A Book at Bedtime. Peaches is seen looking up at a 66-foot high penguin similar to the final cut scene in the quest.

Update history[edit | edit source]

  • patch 25 March 2009 (Update):
    • Your Magic interface will now be correctly restored after a certain point in Cold War.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

  • It is thought that the penguin is creator, Andrew Gower's, favourite animal.[1]
  • If playing a female character, the KGP agent in the first room in Palingrad will look at the KGP i.d. card and ask, "Pablo? But, aren't you...female?" to which the player will respond, "Hippie parents, sir, they have weird ideas about names."
  • If you have completed Between a Rock... and/or Enlightened Journey, you will mention being shot out of a cannon and/or flying in a hot air balloon when talking to the penguin in the zoo. These references continue on upon reaching the Penguin's Secret Lair and dropping off the mission reports.
  • When you complete the quest, Larry uses the old dance emote.
  • The 'Tuxedo Time' reference may be a joke referring to early Sierra game Leisure Suit Larry.
  • There's a bug when getting into the suit at lumbridge that will turn you invisible and won't be able to move. Use an emote to fix it.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ^ Andrew. "Answers from Andrew - Q&A!." 3 September 2009. News & Announcements Forums.