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Rune magic

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.
 

Mad Swede

Auror
The problem with rune magic is that it is a modern concept, a little over 130 years old.

Nordic runes are a form of alphabet, suitable for carving onto stones or more especially pieces of wood - this is why there are no horizontal strokes, as such strokes would tend to split the wood along the grain when you carve the rune. The earliest examples date from the period 100-200AD, and runes were in use into the mid-1800s in parts of Sweden. As to what they used runes for, mostly it was messages and sometimes memorial inscriptions (as on runestones.)

There's several myths about how runes came to the knowledge of man, and most have Odin as the originator. There's no real evidence to support the idea that runes in themselves had any magical properties or that they were used for divination. Divination (or lot casting as its often called in Swedish) is about throwing sacrifical chips (which have various marks or symbols on them) to determine the future. Another variation was to use so-called lot twigs to draw lots to tell the future.

Runes may have been used to decorate or inscribe supposedly magical objects, but it wasn't the runes which gave the object its magical power. In that sense, any alphabet or any symbols would do for the purpose.

(And I'm writing this at my desk, 600m from a large runestone...)
 

Samantha Raspe

New Member
Hello! I think that while runes are used in fantasy literature often, your take is different and original. I think it sounds very intriguing and since it’s so specialized and geared to select wielders it doesn’t come off as overdone.
Hi everyone, so part of the magic system I've created for my WIP includes runes. There are only a handful of them that can be used to power certain objects for magical use. They are tiny animal symbols and the source of their power are the auroras. The light is harvested into these runes when the lights are out in full force, and certain colors have specific powers, etc. These runes must be carved on the objects by Shamans as it is a specialized skill in my world.

But my concern is that this type of magic has been done to death in fantasy. I'm not sure if its original or creative enough. I would love some ideas thrown out that I could play with to add more of a twist in. Thank you!
 
The problem I always have with runic magic systems that nobody even bothers to explain their origins. What makes these arbitrary lines and shapes so special? Are they a fundamental part of the universe? If so, we should probably see them appear in nature. Are they an ancient dead language? If so, what makes this particular language magical? How did the language become so thoroughly bound up with the universe that simply writing in it can have an effect.
Any magic hinges on intent. What makes a magical tool magical is the intent it's used with.

All alphabets have some basis in shapes found in nature. Chinese characters, Ogham, and I believe runes as well, were originally based on twig and plant shapes. How the characters came to have the meanings they do is complex, but it ultimately goes back to natural forms.

Even phonetic alphabets, like ours, have a history of being based on natural shapes: for example, M is derived from a character based on a word for water (Phoenician, I believe, though I could be wrong about that) that started with an m sound. But with phonetic writing, the origins of the letter shapes are so obscure that we don't see them. Although we have come full circle with some letters - for example, using "u" as shorthand for "you" in texting.

But that doesn't cover magic. Runes have two uses: simple writing, no more magical than what we're all doing right now, and magic spells. (Even if that's a modern invention, that's still what it is.) The difference is the intent and energy put into it. For a spell, there's more focus, perhaps some magical paraphernalia involved; there's an intent to bring about a certain result.
 
The problem with rune magic is that it is a modern concept, a little over 130 years old.
To be fair, most fantasy magic tropes aren't any older.

But I think you have a whole blog article here: fact and fiction about runic magic!

Perhaps especially pertinent since, unlike magic fireballs and many other common fantasy tropes, runic magic is real. Maybe not as ancient as it's made out to be, and not as showy as fantasy magic tends to be, but real nonetheless.
 

TheKillerBs

Maester
Chinese characters are not based on twig patterns at all. Chinese characters are, essentially, following their evolution, highly stylised pictograms
 
Chinese characters are not based on twig patterns at all. Chinese characters are, essentially, following their evolution, highly stylised pictograms
Way, way, way back, twigs were the inspiration. That doesn't mean they aren't also highly stylized pictograms.
 
What does oracle bone script have to do with twigs?
It's a spin off that's now getting off topic.

Someone said something about runes originating as shapes of natural objects. I followed with, all alphabets originated that way. Twigs were one example.

But in and of itself, that statement doesn't really have anything to do with rune magic.
 
Maybe you can make it so that the runes can only be used by a certain person and everyone has a special rune. It can be passed to their children so this makes it so that maybe a certain noble family has a really powerful rune. The rune can also be leveled up by using mana stones and merged with others.
 
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