Top ten runes

[Utgardloki]

I have another idea for a Runequest setting, and thinking about it, I thought I'd like to assign a rune to each of the planet in the astrology. That would mean picking the ten most significant runes and assigning one per planet. The elements Earth, Air, Fire and Water should be represented. (The Fire Rune would probably be associated with the Sun, and perhaps the Earth rune with the planet the PCs are on. The Water Rune associated with the Moon.) Which other runes would make the cut.

Meanwhile, back at Atlantis, the idea occurs to me to assign a rune to each of the planets in the Earth astrological viewpoint. My ideas for rune assignments are:

Sun: Fire
Mercury: Motion
Venus: Man
Earth: Earth
Moon: Water
Mars: Death
Ceres: Dragonewt
Jupiter: Law
Saturn: Stasis
Uranus: Fate
Neptune: Magic
Pluto: Cold

 

[Osentalka]

I have a gloranthan approach. Have a look which gloranthan orlanthi gods are the equvalent of the roman/greek gods, the celestial bodies are named after, and go with their rune.

Sun = Sol = Helios: Elmal = Fire
Mercury = Hermes: Issaries = Trade
Venus = Aphrodite: Uleria = Fertility
Earth: ???
Moon: Shepelkirt = Moon
Mars = Ares: Humakt = Death
Ceres = Demeter: Ernalda = Earth
Jupiter = Zeus: Orlanth = Mastery
Saturn = Kronos: Umath = Storm
Uranus = Oranos: Aether/Yelm = Light
Neptune = Poseidon: Magasta = Water
Pluto = Hades: Daka Fal = Spirit

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Dear All,

Don't forget that not all Classical scholars thought there were simply four elements. There is for example the quinta essentia of Aristotle - ether, a purer form of fire, or air... the substance of which the heavenly bodies are made.

 

[Utgardloki]

Equating Greek/Roman gods with Gloranthan gods is one way to assign runes. Myself, I decided to go beyond the Eurocentrism and look at what the planets would mean to Atlantean astrologers. Rethinking it, I'd change Venus to equate to Harmony rather than Man.

 

[soltakss]

Meanwhile, back at Atlantis, the idea occurs to me to assign a rune to each of the planets in the Earth astrological viewpoint.

The ancients could only see 5 planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So, unless they have powerful telescopes or other ways of magically detecting planets, I wouldn't go for things like Ceres, Pluto or even Uranus and Neptune. If you add the Sun and Moon then you have 7 heavenly bodies, which is always a good number, then you can add the Earth and get 8.

I would use the Moon Rune for the Moon

You might want to look at the Astrological Houses and assign runes to them according to which kind of Sign they are.

 

[Slytovhand]

If you're going from more traditional Western Astrological associations..

Sun - Fire - though when it is in a sign, it represents where exactly one's focus in life is likely to be

Moon - Moon (funny that!) Water - bearing in mind that he moon represents the more obvious emotions, and also intuition, money, and also precipitates events in general (in horary astrology). If you bring in Tarot connections, you could even pick up Illusion.

Mercury - Air, Motion, Communication - maybe Trade, could even see Man in there (it rules thought and communications in all it's forms)

Venus - Fertility - almost no doubt about that at all! Though Harmony does come into it (hey - it rules Libra... harmony through indecision )

Earth... in Geocentric astrology, you wouldn't have it in the chart. In Heliocentric, you would - but then you wouldn't have the sun...!

Mars - Closest I can see might be Disorder (but might get away with Motion) - it rules the more fiery of our passions (including the baser ones of sexuality and brutality - thus possibly even Beast- but it's pushing it). You could even make a case for Motion - as Mars is the planet that is the impetus for moving...

Jupiter - Infinity (Jupiter rules expansion) and Luck. But also Truth.

Saturn - Law and Stasis. Saturn rules over the idea of responsibility, as well as heritage and tradition.

Uranus - Well... I can see Chaos fitting in here - where there is Uranus there is change. But Man rune also - as Uranus rules the realms of society (not the individual) - so when the wind of change blows through Uranus - all of mankind changes. Magic might fit a bit as well...

Neptune - Illusion (Neptune likes people to be self-deluded... but also gives us our dreams and hopes in life). Neptune is also a little Cold, and a little like the Shadows of our lives.

Pluto - Death and Spirit. Pluto rules over the hidden things, secret etc, as well as magic and its ilk. And there is no better planet for Death - the whole Underworld thing and all...

While it is true that 'the ancients' did see only the 5 outer planets (up to Saturn), there have been other cultures that managed to ascertain more beyond them. Also, depending on how you choose to interpret the idea of Atlantis, there's no real reason you couldn't have them knowing about all of them - after all, isn't that what magic is about??

And the 4 elements is purely a Greek thing - the Celts didn't bother with them (though they obviously used fire and water... but preferred things in either circles or triads), the Egyptians seemed not to have cared, nor the Assyrians. And the Romans didn't seem to get much into them either, for that matter -which is kinda odd given the connections between (proto)-Greece and Rome.

Just my thoughts (yep - I did a professional Astrology course many years ago...)

Slyt

 

[Darran]

Pluto isn't a planet.

 

[Darran]

This about the classical elements might be useful reading?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element

 

[Utgardloki]

Meanwhile, back at Atlantis, the idea occurs to me to assign a rune to each of the planets in the Earth astrological viewpoint.

The ancients could only see 5 planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So, unless they have powerful telescopes or other ways of magically detecting planets, I wouldn't go for things like Ceres, Pluto or even Uranus and Neptune. If you add the Sun and Moon then you have 7 heavenly bodies, which is always a good number, then you can add the Earth and get 8.

I would use the Moon Rune for the Moon

You might want to look at the Astrological Houses and assign runes to them according to which kind of Sign they are.

I am going with the theory that the Atlanteans knew more than their followers, and had magical means of knowing about the other planets. I've also been thinking of adding two other planets unknown to modern astrologers, but haven't assigned runes to them yet.

The Atlanteans were also aware that Pluto and Ceres were merely the foremost representatives of their classes of planets.

I assigned Dragonewt to Ceres by taking a page from Zecharia Stichin's book which claimed that there was a planet called Tiamat that was destroyed, creating the asteroid belt. In my Atlantean setting, they'd probably call it "Kobold", and associate it with kobolds, what are the setting's equivalent of the Dragonnewt.

As for Pluto, it represents all the bodies out in that zone, and the primary feature of these is that they are very cold, so I assigned the Cold Rune to Pluto.

I once had names for five planets outside of Pluto's orbit, still to be discovered: Xanadu, Ratri, Hecate, Nergel, and Untamno. "Xanadu" would equate to what is now known as Eris, which was named after the goddess of Discord, although "Xanadu" refers to something else entirely. Given what we now know, I might consolodate Hecate and consolidate Ratri and Nergel, leaving the extra-Plutonian planets as Eris, Ratri and Hecate.

 

[Slytovhand]

Where is Atlantis going to be on the planet?

While historians are thinking an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, most other hypotheses put it around the Azores in the Atlantic.

But there's also another idea that says that it is/was Antarctica, and it was once a nice temperate land mass (which Stargate seems to have picked up on a bit...).

Good link on the elements, Darran. Personally, I was sticking European at the time - didn't think of going that far east (given the previous posts..). But if you are going for the 'elements'... do you only go the 4, or the 5? And then - what about the other directions associated with those elements?

 

[Utgardloki]

I have other threads about my Atlantis idea. The concept is a large island in the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and America, that sank about 20 thousand years ago. My proposed "Fourth Age of Kings" idea is set circa 40,000 BC, and by this time Atlantis already has about 30 thousand years of history, but still only stone age technology. Magic is used to do everything cool, with the peasants struggling to survive with sticks and stones and rope.

I haven't seen Stargate, although it is on my list of things to do. Any similarity between my ideas and Stargate are purely coincidental.

 

[Grrrr]

Where is Atlantis going to be on the planet?

While historians are thinking an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, most other hypotheses put it around the Azores in the Atlantic.

But there's also another idea that says that it is/was Antarctica, and it was once a nice temperate land mass (which Stargate seems to have picked up on a bit...).

There is also a theory that 'Atlantis' was the British Isles. And that somethingtm led to its descent into Barbarism. Hence the disproportionate number of standing stones and the strong druidic tradition.



Grrrr

 

[Utgardloki]

I definitely have an Atlantis - British Isles connection planned. It's easy to connect Atlantis with eastern America, Iceland and the British Isles, and western Europe. One difficulty is explaining why Atlantis is so connected with the Middle East, given the geographical separation. Perhaps both Atlantis and the Middle East are sources of mystic power, which led to the two areas being connected destiny-wise, perhaps something similar to the current connections between America and the Middle East which pretty much ignores North Africa.

 

[Slytovhand]

One difficulty is explaining why Atlantis is so connected with the Middle East, given the geographical separation. Perhaps both Atlantis and the Middle East are sources of mystic power, which led to the two areas being connected destiny-wise, perhaps something similar to the current connections between America and the Middle East which pretty much ignores North Africa.

Oh - that's easy!! A group of Atlanteans went for a wander one day, and met up with group of Middle Easterns. Both had magic - and created teleport rings or trilithons - like a gate .. (or the other way around - proto-Babylonians went wandering and found Atlantis). (In C J Cherryh's Chronicles of Morgaine, they have a nice gate system - but through time as well as space - good read for those who don't know it!!!)

While there are standing stones throughout large chunks of Europe, they could be considered teleporting sites - at some time after the period you're talking, Babylon got annoyed with all things Atlantean, and ripped theirs down.