Who writes the runes?

[zozotroll]

It does seem odd. I can accept that magic crystals are the bllod of the gods. And that Bronze is old god bones. These things are common in RW mythology( for a quick oh yuck moment, contemplate what the old Norse thought rain was).

So I have no trouble with the newfangled runestones being blood of the gods. It is just the silly writeing on them. It is almost like if you flip them over, on the back will be a block of small print " one user only, Pow restrictions apply, see manufacturer for details. "

I dont know why writeing is more hard to belive than spontanoious magic item creation, but it is.

 

[Utgardloki]

I dont know why writeing is more hard to belive than spontanoious magic item creation, but it is.

I think it depends upon where the idea of writing comes from.

For writing systems designed by human beings, such as the Mayan glyphs, the Egyptian heiroglyphs, or the Semetic alphabet, then it seems unbelievable that a drop of god's blood falling on a stone would take the form of an Aleph.

But according to Norse mythology, the runes were discovered by Odin, not invented, when Odin hung from a tree and contemplated the drops of his blood that fell upon the ground. Thus you get the logical idea that if Odin's blood once fell on the ground and formed the Wisdom Rune, then that sort of thing could happen all the time.

It even makes sense that if a goddess wanted there to be Motorcycle runes, she could arrange for her blood to fall on the ground in certain places for witches to discover them and learn how to use them. However, that doesn't fit the modus operandi of the Atomic Kingdoms campaign, where it is more reasonable that the goddess taught a few of her followers how to make the Motorcycle rune.

Note, these fancy modern runes do not exist in my Runequest Modern game because that setting only has the ancient runes from the dawn of history. The Atomic Kingdoms setting is based on Privateer Press's Iron Kingdoms setting, where there are enchanted cruise ships loaded with magical and technological luxuries, and evil necromancers make radioactive death-robots for an eventual war against the mainland.

And I am still trying to figure out who writes the runes that make the young girls cry.

 

[atgxtg]

Wouldn't modern and norse settings, not to mention any homebrew or real world setting, even have a different array of Runes? The core runequest runes are quite distinctly Gloranthan.

Well, yeah. But MRQ has mnade the Gloranthan runes generic, so I would expect most GMs would just use those rather than create their own or look up stuff like the futhark. In most cases one strange mark is as good as any other.

 

[zozotroll]

Probably Orlanth. He seems quite the love em and leave em type.

 

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

The way I have approached runes for my non-Glorantha campaign is:

"For the purposes of Silver Empire Rune Magic is one of several forms of symbolic magic. Minor effects of rune magic can be used by anyone appropriately instructed by a priest or initiate while more powerful uses are reserved to the clergy and to others who also possess a magical version of a rune. ... Acquisition and integration of a rune is not necessary (in Silver Empire) in order to cast rune magic. [Runes are]physical objects with a representation of a rune/symbol that have been enchanted in some way (divinely or via priestly ritual). One myth is that they are blood drops from the god who discovered runes. A rune touched individual needs to be able to see or touch it to use it for spellcasting but does not need to hold it. An integrated rune may be removed from the character, who will lose its benefit for as long as he is without it. However no other person can integrate that rune. If a character with an integrated rune dies there is a chance that each of his integrated runes will become dormant (ie unable to be integrated by anyone)."

Regards

 

[Host of Angels]

Well - it would appear our hubris prevents us from seeing it possible that runes are entirely divinely created writing and all. It also would appear that everyone has their own take on this.

On reflection, I think I am going to go against my own reservations and use the divinely created runes. But maybe make them a bit more subtle. So, have a holly leaf with a plant rune written upon it by the trail of a holly leaf miner. Or a metal rune on a lump of galena (lead ore), visible as raised crystaline areas. So, I guess I still am refusing to let runes be literally writ by the gods, but instead written by their influence over natural processes.

I also think I will do away with the need to hold the rune, so long as it is visibly displayed. Not sure why, I just don't want players hiding the runes in their underwear for safe keeping. But what justification...

 

[soltakss]

To be honest, I'd simply scrap the idea of Runes.

It's a lot simpler and causes fewer headaches.

 

[zozotroll]

I am on the edge of dumping them, but want to play a bit more before I do. I have gone from have to hold them, to have to have them on you.

And I may well get to when you attune them, the power comes into you, and you no longer posses the lump of rock anymore. Or rather that it doesnt have any special power.

Perhaps the GM book will resolve a lot of this.

 

[Daithi O'an tSionnaigh]

My take on the way the runes are use is a combination of both concepts. I go with runes manifest differently base on the type of God that may have come to blood shed.

Some Runes are created when the blood falls upon an object/creature and thus a Rune of this power type "brands" itself upon said item. I also make this happen that some blood has a chameleon effect so when it lands in an area of like objects is manifests and appears likes its surroundings.

The Gods may even bless or damn areas as seen fit. Overall I like the concept and I think it lends itself rather well to the setting(s). If you don't like the runes then don't use them. Simple as that. I personally think the whole boulder idea is hilarious and adds to the conflict and creates a great story/angle around keeping this large boulder safe or getting it to someone who is looking for it.

Speaking on the whole animal angle. I use that and think it is totally plausible and makes for great storytelling. Infact I have a story already set up for my players to have to deal with such an encounter. So I find it interesting that it is brought up here.

Borrowing from a great movie called The Storm Riders. A powerful Lord has had his Fire Monkey stolen by a band of briggans hoping to gain much wealth from this "prized and rare" species. Unfortunately for the briggans they are unaware that this very rare monkey is actually imbued with a Fire Rune and when angered has the ability to engulf itself in flame and even fling fiery monkey poo! Monkey Napalm...so nasty.

The players will have to find the Brigands and then deal with the getting the monkey back to its owner. All sorts of hilarity will ensue as I gear the players for a lighter side session. So yeah putting too much effort into making it too believeable can not only cause a headache and can take away from the fun possibilities that are right in front of you.

 

[Nickbergquist]

I think it is interesting that so many of us don't like the idea of rune stones being formed with the runic writing on them already.

And - on reflection - I think this is because in our atheistic, modern world we find the idea of any direct evidence of the divine intrinsically wrong. When people find images of Jesus in sliced aubergines or on a bit of toast - they get labelled as crackpot and end up featured in Fortean Times.

However, in Glorantha, divine evidence is all too real. So, maybe presenting runes as items created by Gods (writing and all) is a more powerful way of evoking the mystical and inherently different world system.

On a bit of a tangent, but still possibly interesting, a lateral connection to the real world occured to me. I was reading a Stephen Jay Gould essay on the "Lying Stones" (Lügensteine) found by Johann Beringer in 1726. Basically Beringer was a professor in Würzberg and found a whole load of fossils in the hills nearby. However, they were fakes and had been placed there by jealous colleagues. One of them was even a fossil showing the name of God in Hebrew script. Now, at the time he took them seriously because the idea that fossils were mineralised animal remains was not universally accepted. Instead people believed that fossils formed when some inherent quality of the rock caused it to change and mimic animals. In which case there was nothing too freaky about the name of god appearing in the stone - especially in the 18th century.

So, maybe a less reductionist view is more in keeping with the Gloranthan mythos.

I love your concepts and the reference to Beringer's false fossils makes for an interesting campaign idea, some of which could even could be athiest-friendly. For example:

1. Runestones are actually fossilized entities which contain the spiritual resonance of the being within the stone. This resonance can be released with the proper attunement to a gifted person (read: runecaster).

2. Runestones are Jungian manifestations, effectively springing to life from the subconscious power of the mind, manifesting in reality as very real icons of the runic powers they represent. The runestone could be nothing more than a physical object, but the archetypal symbolosim buried within the human psyche requires it in reality for the power of the rune to manifest in the real world. In this scenario, the rune is only as powerful as the one wielding it; without someone to hold and invoke it, there is no power to the stone. I reference Jung if only because the archetype of the mind would be one of shared-consciousness, thus explaining why the rune-element of a given stone manifests to all people in a like manner, rather than being different from one manifesting consciousness to another.

3. The runestones are part of the primordial language of creation. Essentially, there is a platonic ideal or divine language of some sort, of which the runestones are the physical manifestation. They appear spontaneously on natural elements (not necessarily just stones, at the GM's discretion), but the stones are most common because they are least likely to deteriorate over time,unlike organic matter, fire, water or air which are all transient and often unmanageable. Anyway, the nature of this symbolic language could be the words or "code" if you will used to define creation, or for a world without divine beings the code could come from a higher architecture of language manifesting as, well, "cheat codes" placed in the matrix by the super-computer managing the world program. Now that would be a hell of a surprise for the players!

Anyway, I actually like the idea of runestones being formed from the droplets of blood spilt by the gods in war. It fits my own campaigns well, both of which have had bloody conflicts in the ancient past between deities; I have used sorcery as the magic which is represented by learning, study, symbology and other more abstract sources of magic, and runestones remain a relic of the past, a gift from the fallen gods to man, essentially.

The other reason I really like it is simple: it's different and in an interesting way from the usual magic system, which is traditionally based off of D&D's Vance-esque magic system.

 

[zozotroll]

I dont see at all how RQ1-2 battlemagic could be compared to vancian magic. If fact they are pretty much opposites. Same with RQ 3 and spirit magic.

 

[Scut Farkas]

I think the bottom line, if you're a GM of any type of game, is to recognize that your version of events is THE version of events in your game world. It doesn't matter if you're running Forgotten Realms in AD&D (I refuse to recognize anything after AD&D 2nd) or Glorantha in RuneQuest - it's still YOUR Forgotten Realms or YOUR Glorantha. If you decide that some aspect of given Gloranthan history just simply didn't happen in your version of the story, then so be it - you're the GM and it's your game. Obviously you have to maintain player respect, but nothing's worse than players telling you how it should be when it's your campaign. So, coming to the point, rather than asking all those questions, answer them. Ask yourself where does it come from, decide what makes the most sense in your world, and that's where they come from and how they get inscribed. The system is just nuts and bolts, like a car, and you are always able to modify and improve. So - stick a new intake and exhaust system, maybe even add a racing chip to your RuneQuest basic rules, and let rip.