Queshire
Auror
Buwahahaha! Rise! Rise from your grave and feast on the flesh of the living! >=D Also, dang, I've been here long enough to post in the first go around of this thread? I feel old. Q_Q
Anyways, even if the thread is old rune magic is cool and we can talk about it.
So in the distant history of my setting it was a precursor level sci fi civilization until an apocalyptic galactic war broke reality enough that magic flooded into the setting. The invisible galactic hypernet all around was twisted into the spirit world over the eons and modern day spirits are descended from the numerous AI inhabiting it. Runes utilized in spirit magic are similarly descended from programming languages and commands the AI's are meant to respond to. Even the most beastial or simple spirits understand it, and while spirits have free will it's harder for them to ignore something in that ancient language.
Runes in arcane magic are more practical. They act as circuitry or perhaps plumbing to shape mana for a certain effect. A fire rune's magic doesn't come from meaning fire. Instead that arrangement produces fire and it became known as a fire rune as a result.
Such runes are rare in nature because something like a dragon can naturally shape its mana into the right configuration when it needs fire instead of pouring mana into a rune and letting the rune shape it.
Finally some are just cosmetic. You're giving a big advantage to your enemies if they can just see what spell your shaping based off of the glowing runes your mana produces as you cast, but it's pretty easy to "hide" it behind a personalized but largely meaningless spell circle.
Anyways, even if the thread is old rune magic is cool and we can talk about it.
So in the distant history of my setting it was a precursor level sci fi civilization until an apocalyptic galactic war broke reality enough that magic flooded into the setting. The invisible galactic hypernet all around was twisted into the spirit world over the eons and modern day spirits are descended from the numerous AI inhabiting it. Runes utilized in spirit magic are similarly descended from programming languages and commands the AI's are meant to respond to. Even the most beastial or simple spirits understand it, and while spirits have free will it's harder for them to ignore something in that ancient language.
Runes in arcane magic are more practical. They act as circuitry or perhaps plumbing to shape mana for a certain effect. A fire rune's magic doesn't come from meaning fire. Instead that arrangement produces fire and it became known as a fire rune as a result.
Such runes are rare in nature because something like a dragon can naturally shape its mana into the right configuration when it needs fire instead of pouring mana into a rune and letting the rune shape it.
Finally some are just cosmetic. You're giving a big advantage to your enemies if they can just see what spell your shaping based off of the glowing runes your mana produces as you cast, but it's pretty easy to "hide" it behind a personalized but largely meaningless spell circle.