Nihil

A blood nihil.

Nihil, properly called Zarytes, are a race of powerful beings that were created by the god Zaros through weaving the living essence of other races. There are four varieties of nihil, each created from a specific race and attuned to one of the four elements of the Ancient Magicks. They are fought as bosses on Freneskae during Fate of the Gods. The most powerful Nihil to have lived is Nex, although she is considered to be a boss fight and not a regular monster.

After the quest, players can return to Freneskae and repeat the boss fight, or fight them for slayer and combat training. In order to harm the nihils outside of the boss fight, the player must have a Slayer level of 76. They may be assigned as a slayer task by paying 50 Slayer points, which can then be toggled on and off; however, the player must repay this fee if they wish to resume getting more nihil tasks without blocking them. The Shard of Zaros will keep the nihil tolerant; without it, nihil will be aggressive towards the player.

Nihil encountered during the boss fight and repeat are significantly stronger than the post-quest variants, possessing a charge attack and a "Nothing" weakness with high defence and low affinity. The post-quest variants are far weaker, lacking the charge attack (though they still retain their combat properties), have varied affinity values and also possess weaknesses making them far easier to fight.

Nihil have a generous drop table and are primarily killed for their components, which are used to create nihil familiars, powerful Summoning creatures that are able to increase the player's accuracy by 5%. This makes the familiars useful at bosses with high Defence and low affinity, such as Vorago and Telos. They can also drop the Zaryte bow, but at a massively reduced rate compared to Nex.

Known nihil

Monsters

Image	Nihil Type	Combat Style	Special Attack Effect
	Blood nihil	Melee	Absorbs damage
	Ice nihil	Magic	Drains 50 prayer point every attack Stuns and freezes player
	Shadow nihil	Ranged	Deals 500 damage three times
	Smoke nihil	Magic	Reduces combat stats

Familiars

Image	Nihil Type	Combat Style	Passive Effect	Pouch	GE price
	Blood nihil (familiar)	Melee	+5% melee accuracy	Blood nihil pouch	320,135
	Ice nihil (familiar)	Magic	+5% magic accuracy -5% accuracy and defence to non-player targets	Ice nihil pouch	338,315
	Shadow nihil (familiar)	Ranged	+5% ranged accuracy	Shadow nihil pouch	385,861
	Smoke nihil (familiar)	Magic	+5% magic accuracy	Smoke nihil pouch	292,028

Individuals

• Fallen Nihil
• Nex

Miscellaneous

• Tenebral Nihil

History

The nihil were created as part of Zaros' attempt to combat the infertility of the Ilujanka, also known as the Dragon Riders, by manipulating and weaving around their living essence. Zaros did not have enough power to manipulate their essence and restore their ability to procreate, so he returned to Freneskae to harvest energy from his creator, the elder god, Mah.

Once on Freneskae, Zaros reformed the essence of icyene, demons, aviansie and vampyres into the nihil, which he brought to life using Mah's energy; as an elder god's divinity was the only way to create life from nothingness. As he required Mah's energy to give life to the nihil, Zaros considered them and himself a failure, and he abandoned them on Freneskae. What happened to the nihil after this is largely unknown.

The Pit on Freneskae, where Zaros experimented with other races.

One of the nihil grew much quicker than the rest, which caught Zaros' attention. Zaros decided to give this nihil a fragment of his consciousness in order to prevent the remaining nihil from destroying her for being different. She learned quickly from Zaros and took the Infernal language name of Nex for herself. Nex proved to be one of Zaros' most powerful and loyal servants.

The Fallen Nihil appears to be one if not the only earliest known nihil subject, who claims that Zaros tortured him in the depths of Freneskae while searching for a cure for the Illujanka. The fallen nihil is significantly different from the other nihil, as the present nihil appear to be all female, while the fallen nihil is a male. The fallen nihil's past is mostly unknown, but he eventually came into the service of the Queen of Ashes and served as her envoy. Whether his increased size and intelligence came from Zaros or the Queen of Ashes remains unknown.

During the Sixth Age, when the World Gate was rediscovered, the World Guardian was sent to Freneskae to look for Zaros. They traversed the hostile and barren land, where they spotted several nihil, but were unable to make a clear identification on them. They would not be confronted until they reached The Pit, where Zaros had experimented with the nihil. Four nihil immediately arrived and ambushed the World Guardian, but they were able to dispatch them with ease. More nihil would be found later, after Mah left the surrounding area.

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included - see here for how to help out!

• patch 23 June 2014 (Update):
  • An issue that stopped nihil from spawning has been fixed.

Trivia

• Zaros was to originally refer to the race as Zarytes, but chose nihil - meaning 'nothing' in Infernal - due to them 'meaning nothing to him'.
  • Nihil is also Latin for nothing.
• According to Mod Rowley, nihil have adapted to survive on Freneskae after they were abandoned, likely by consuming muspah.
• For a while when fighting nihil in the Pit for combat/Slayer, four nihil initially spawned (all four types), and a glitch/bug in the game continually decreased the spawn rate of the nihil by one until no more nihil could be spawned. Jagex fixed this by adding more nihil to the Pit.
• As of 1 February 2018, the highest kill count for these monsters was 124,900 kills.
  • This had increased to 180,000 by 6 May 2018.