Holly and Hawthorn (Easter 2011)

Spring has sprung – the birds are singing and the sun is starting to shine – but there's still an unseasonal chill in the air. This could well be related to the ceremonial handing over of the 'Year', in which the Queen of Snow officially passes on the season to the Queen of Sunrise. For this year's ceremony, the queens have agreed to 'do battle' with evil holly and hawthorn trees.

You will be able to choose your side in this traditional tussle – spring or winter – by chopping down the rival season's evil trees. All players will be able to chop down the wintry holly trees in order to help springtime emerge, while members will have the added option of felling hawthorn trees, to hold on to the bitter cold of winter. All of this tree chopping will be closely monitored by the Season Tree, the look of which will change between the seasons based on how many holly and hawthorn trees get chopped down.

Everyone who pitches in will earn this event's cosmetic holiday reward; however, members will get the added option of giving theirs a useful function, by charging it with the ability to locate and teleport to RuneScape's other evil trees. This works much like communing with a spirit tree, but can be done from anywhere. About a month after the Easter event is removed from the game, the items will lose their charge and become cosmetic.

During the Easter event, we'll be running a couple of competitions. From Friday 22 – Monday 25 April, the player who chops down the most holly and hawthorn trees will receive a RuneScape goody bag. The second competition is to guess at the total number of trees that will be felled over the course of the event.

Finally, although this tree chopping 'battle' is only meant to be symbolic, some of the two queens' entourage are taking this year's event a little bit too seriously. Let's just hope that nothing goes wrong... If anything were to happen, there will at least be plenty of adventurers around to set things right.