runesmithsmadscribblings

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

hoping that this blog is still active bc ive been gunning to really freak someone out by talking abt the Lexicons from Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

see someone somewhere long ago found the words and languages and Commands that God used to create the universe and started manipulating it every which way, very fun but bog-standard sorcerous hereticism BUT

more recently someone found the inscription for *meaning* and was able to change the *meaning* of different inscriptions so long as that meaning-change-inscription was within range of the changed inscription

leading to Big almost-computers comprised of discs that hold all the Changed Meanings to impact a cerain, say, 5-10mile radius and get Really Hot while theyre working and pop your ears and unsettle the stomach (and smaller ones can be Mobile which is, inevitably, very useful for war)

from the book directly:

"A lexicon was essentially a giant violation of reality – that was why it was so unpleasant to be close to one. The consequences of a lexicon going haywire were too horrific to contemplate. And this was the chief reason that the city of Tevanne, with all of its power, corruption, and fractious merchant houses, had yet to experience much deliberate turmoil: as the entire city was essentially maintained by a system of huge bombs, that tended to make people cautious."

(long winded way of inviting you to play in the space of what i see as a height of runic magic possibilities 😁 only recently stumbled upon the blog so hope you're doing well ♡)

Ah don't worry lass, I'm still here. Just... distracted. Projects of mine got out of control, responsibilities to take care of, the works.

Anyway, on the subject of lexicons: HOLY SHIT HOW MANY OF YOUR MAGES FUCKING DIED TRYING TO GET THAT WORKING?! YOU DON'T JUST FUCK AROUND WITH WHAT RUNES "MEAN" WILLY-NILLY! YOU CHANGE THE IDENTITY OF ONE THING WITHOUT BEING SURE AND SUDDENLY YOUR RUNE FOR "CHANNEL" IS NOW THE RUNE FOR "EXPEL" OR IN LAYMANS TERMS: YOUR WIRING IS NOW ALSO BOMBS!

That said: This is a perfect example of what we currently see as the apex of the Matrix school of rune-work. You take a fuckload of runes, strap em together not unlike the circuits of a computer found in other worlds, and pow! A machine that can change reality around it.

This design does come with some challenges, however:

You can't use any runes that you plan on changing in the machine itself, unless you absolutely need to as a "target" designation. And no, you can't build the machine around using the redefined rune for its new purpose or it simply will not work, as you can't turn it on unless you already have another identity-bending machine working to jump start it. Tevanne might be getting away with this as they centered their entire infrastructure around lexicons, but all it takes is one guy to accidentally shatter a disk...

The process of doing this, as I mentioned before, seems incredibly fucking dangerous. And according to the source here: "the entire city was maintained by a system of huge bombs," I'm far from wrong.

Given the ill effects suffered merely from proximity to these beasts, there's probably an upper limit to how many you can have in an area before everyone goes insane or dies or something. Tevanne is probably going to run into that in the future if they keep adding lexicons.

Better hope that god is dead or they might not take kindly to you fucking around with their development kit. Or they might encourage it. Depends on the god I guess.

Ok, enough being a downer over them, though that is kind of my job.

From the sounds of it, you've found the universal command line here. Congrats. The possibilities are, quite literally, endless. Here's a few I came up with, starting with

CIVILIAN APPLICATIONS

Do you just not like what a particular rune does? Is there also a conspicuous hole in your repertoire? Trade one rune for another, unknown one! (may cause complacency in your engineers, may also break some poor souls discovery before it goes public.)

Set a city-wide upper limit on how much power a particular rune can channel! Is your neighbors runic lighting just... unreasonably bright? Not anymore!

To be honest there's not much else I can think of that couldn't be accomplished with standard rune-work. Except, that is, in the

MILITARY APPLICATIONS

Does your enemy depend on runic war machines? are they launching missiles at you? Redefine them into an unusable state! they're still probably a hefty kinetic payload but they won't detonate anymore! Also, you can't use the same or similar designs yourself.

Do you need something to only be usable in a narrow area? You can already see where this is going.

Does your enemy depend on runic defenses? Transform their unbeatable bulwark into an energy expelling mess that dispels itself in moments!

As I said, the possibilities are literally endless but I've got other shit to do.

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

OOC: oh, my apologies. Setting conflicts I hadn't anticipated. Looks good though!

Ask Me Whether or Not it's a Dwarf, and I'll Tell Ya

First, the rules for dwarfs that exist.

1. The thing they are named after has to physically exist, and can't be the same as another thing, just used for another purpose, it has to be both visually and definably different. It has to be manmade.

2. It HAS to be a THING, no concepts (for example, Love, Death and Home would not be dwarves as those are vague nonphysical concepts. You can't hold a home, and nobody invented it either.) It also cannot be something that was harnessed like fire or heat.

3. At some point new inventions are just repurposed concepts that already exist, a shack and a shed are effectively the same thing the only difference is how it is used, as my brother worded it, "a hair brush and a shit brush both could theoretically be used for the same thing, you probably wouldn't want to though".

It's in the title, comment on this and I'll tell you whether or not it is a dwarf, I'll also add it to

THE LIST

Dwarfs that exist

Wedge

Axle

Pulley

Wheel

Screw

Plane

Blade (cranky bastard)

Sword

Katana

Longsword

Shortsword

Halberd

Spear

Axe

Hammer

House

Cottage

Mansion

Shack

Tavern (very popular among the dwarves)

Beer (also very popular)

Stout (lives in the desert)

Whiskey

Wine

Slave (the other dwarves don't like him, not because he owns slaves, but because he has other people do work he could do himself.)

Farm

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Nah, family name Press. Historic makers of juice according to the parents. Where did they get fruit to do that? I haven't the faintest.

Ask Me Whether or Not it's a Dwarf, and I'll Tell Ya

First, the rules for dwarfs that exist.

1. The thing they are named after has to physically exist, and can't be the same as another thing, just used for another purpose, it has to be both visually and definably different. It has to be manmade.

2. It HAS to be a THING, no concepts (for example, Love, Death and Home would not be dwarves as those are vague nonphysical concepts. You can't hold a home, and nobody invented it either.) It also cannot be something that was harnessed like fire or heat.

3. At some point new inventions are just repurposed concepts that already exist, a shack and a shed are effectively the same thing the only difference is how it is used, as my brother worded it, "a hair brush and a shit brush both could theoretically be used for the same thing, you probably wouldn't want to though".

It's in the title, comment on this and I'll tell you whether or not it is a dwarf, I'll also add it to

THE LIST

Dwarfs that exist

Wedge

Axle

Pulley

Wheel

Screw

Plane

Blade (cranky bastard)

Sword

Katana

Longsword

Shortsword

Halberd

Spear

Axe

Hammer

House

Cottage

Mansion

Shack

Tavern (very popular among the dwarves)

Beer (also very popular)

Stout (lives in the desert)

Whiskey

Wine

Slave (the other dwarves don't like him, not because he owns slaves, but because he has other people do work he could do himself.)

Farm

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

As our technology advances people have been naming their children stranger and stranger things, the other day I met a babe named Hydraulic Press

Ask Me Whether or Not it's a Dwarf, and I'll Tell Ya

First, the rules for dwarfs that exist.

1. The thing they are named after has to physically exist, and can't be the same as another thing, just used for another purpose, it has to be both visually and definably different. It has to be manmade.

2. It HAS to be a THING, no concepts (for example, Love, Death and Home would not be dwarves as those are vague nonphysical concepts. You can't hold a home, and nobody invented it either.) It also cannot be something that was harnessed like fire or heat.

3. At some point new inventions are just repurposed concepts that already exist, a shack and a shed are effectively the same thing the only difference is how it is used, as my brother worded it, "a hair brush and a shit brush both could theoretically be used for the same thing, you probably wouldn't want to though".

It's in the title, comment on this and I'll tell you whether or not it is a dwarf, I'll also add it to

THE LIST

Dwarfs that exist

Wedge

Axle

Pulley

Wheel

Screw

Plane

Blade (cranky bastard)

Sword

Katana

Longsword

Shortsword

Halberd

Spear

Axe

Hammer

House

Cottage

Mansion

Shack

Tavern (very popular among the dwarves)

Beer (also very popular)

Stout (lives in the desert)

Whiskey

Wine

Slave (the other dwarves don't like him, not because he owns slaves, but because he has other people do work he could do himself.)

Farm

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Oh come on. You invited a specialist artificer and expected them to have ZERO magitech augments? Believe it or not some of us have to fail at making the artifact before we succeed and occasionally that artifact is mustard gas!

Well *I* think it’s pretty rude of *you* to be immune to poison damage

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Trial one for any prospective apprentice of mine is to play Viscera Cleanup Detail. Trial two is to apply that knowledge to real life to let the point sink in. Trial three, I teach them one rune and see if I get material for another apprentice to tryout. It's a very efficient cycle.

By all-mer teach your apprentices better

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Magic Symbols and how not to fuck them up!

Magic Symbols (or runes as they shall be known from here on), are typically signs or writing inscribed or otherwise written on an object to invoke their power. They are also incredibly easy to damage or destroy if the inscriber doesn't take proper precautions! Allow me to summarize that there is a BLOODY REASON I TELL YOU NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING! UNPROTECTED RUNES CAN AND WILL DO TERRIBLE, AWFUL THINGS TO ANYONE WHO DARES BREATHE AT THEM WRONG! I've watched entire guildhalls go up in flames because someone got where they weren't supposed to be and ran their finger over the top of an active experiment!

With the safety demonstration lecture over, a few guidelines to recognizing and not killing yourself with these things:

If it's magic writing, I count it as rune work. No, the surface doesn't matter if it even has one. No, the material doesn't matter. The barest requirement is that it has to be a written format and channel magical energies, whatever that means for the setting.

Ritual circles and similar diagrams ARE rune work and are usually more unstable than any other format short of drawing them out in the air. They are also my personal favorite method of chaining multiples runes together, along with incorporating them into structures.

When runes go wrong (and they so often do around Protagonist-y types) the effects can... vary. If you're lucky, they'll simply shut down, releasing their power like so much methane from a troll's arse. Far more often, they'll detonate because most of the rune's design is containment to keep exactly that from happening. On rare occasion, they might fire off and do something magical BESIDES exploding! Usually it has little to do with their original function but I've seen it happen.

A good rule of thumb is that complexity, count, or luminosity indicate more powerful runes. Basically, if a rune has a lot of lines in it, there are a lot of runes, or those runes glow very bright and that's not their primary purpose, Run.

In some worlds though, the true form of a rune is obscured behind generations of traditions and embellishments, in which case simple, elegant, and otherwise straightforward runes are the most powerful of their class.

The exact rules and how they fit together vary from plane to plane, especially when you get gods of magic in the mix. But hopefully this will save at least a few of y'all from dying in a fiery blast because you just couldn't wait to get to town before fiddling with your new inscribed weaponry.

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

I never did understand what in the countless hells across the multiverse was going on over there. Those realms are at the very fringes of infinity, embracing the chaos and corruption of an unstable mechanism.

I mean, for goodness sakes, what sane dwarf would name a new hold "Boatmurdered?!"

Crafting competition at the Dwarf county fair

got dwarf fortress on the brain lately, I hope they introduce internal or inter-holds crafting competitions someday!

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

... Kind of? I understand other species have a hard time making the distinction...

Ah well, here's what my home culture and all its neighbors do:

All dwarves have facial hair and a similar body plan, making them... difficult to differentiate genders for outsiders.

Masculine Dwarves cultivate their sideburns more than their other hair.

Female Dwarves cultivate their mustaches more than their other hair.

Only nobles bother to grow and maintain long beards. Commondwarves are working with fire, hazardous environments, and tools like lathes, grinding wheels, and large machinery. As any of your own kind would tell you, beards are more hazardous than anything for such work.

So to answer your question, a femboy dwarf looks like this:

what would a femboy dwarf look like, just a guy?

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

I'm... frankly shocked at how accurate most of this is for a children's toy.

The runic circle looks right, barring the color and the stabilizing candles. Those should be equidistant around the circle to perform their function properly. And drawing the entire thing in pink is just ASK- nay, BEGGING for Fae intervention.

The robes of the coven are the right pattern, if with some bizarre color choices (do you have any idea how hard it is to get ash and ectoplasm out of fabric? just embrace it and use black.) Not sure what they're doing with the sticks though, it might be some sort of focus for newer spell casters?

All in all a surprisingly good summary of ritual-craft!

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

I'm going to have to write this down for my own apprentices to memorize character by character. as I have mentioned countless times, runes will explode in your face. it is inevitable. it has happened to me THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of times. Do not neglect your isolation circle, it will protect you and every piece of sensitive equipment in this lab.

 💫 Why Protection Magic Is Useful (even if you have no enemies)

A lot of witches will tell new witches (baby witches) that they should start by learning and using protection magic. However, I've started to see a lot of witches say that protection magic is not as important as other witches claim it to be. Saying that they don't have anyone coming after them or an enemy in real life to warrant a spell of protection.

I think this may also be due to how I've not personally come across anyone really explaining why a witch may want to use protection magic all the time.

Now, it is true that there's no need to be paranoid all the time and have protection up 24/7. But here's a list where you may use it, find it useful, or haven't thought protection magic could be included.

An actual person -- This one is obvious, you have an enemy in real life or on the internet and you need protection magic to protect you from their curses.

A malevolant spirit -- They can come from your windows, mirrors (including tv screens, computer screens, and other reflective surfaces maybe), they seep through floor cracks, hanging onto your coats from outside, etc. Just like how you'd use garden gloves to avoid dirt up your nails being trapped there. Protection magic is just like putting on those gloves.

An energy -- Say you have a neighbour who's arguing with someone. They're yelling and screaming and it can be heard through the apartment walls. That negative energy is seeping into your home and your energy. So it may be worth protecting your home and energy from that sour neighbour's energy. (ever been scolded by your mother and your mood is sour? it's kind of like the same here.)

Your own spell -- Now a self-love spell is probably not something you should protect yourself from. But let's say you're doing a curse. It would be a smart idea to make sure you're protected before beginning such a spell. Much like how you'd wear an apron to protect your clothes from stains when cooking food. You may not always spill your food when cooking, but damn it is it annoying when you do and the stain won't wash off. It's the same with a spell.

Unintentionally -- Sometimes things can happen that's out of our control and it's a good idea to be a little prepared. A black cat suddenly running across the street? Bad luck. Someone got jealous when you told them something good? Evil Eye. Think of it as going to the store with an extra bag for your groceries. You may not need it, but isn't it handy when you at one point do need it?

Protection magic doesn't have to be elaborate or grand or be convoluted. Protection magic is powerful but also extremely simple. All you need is a horseshoe above the door, a little talisman in your pocket, a sigil for your car, etc.

So don't dismiss the importance of protection magic. It may help to improve your spellwork and your energy.

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Do not apologize, son of Dawi. You have made no error. If they do not approve of your craft or your beard, well, that is what the book is for.

(try not to use that privilege too much though, poor ol' Thorgrim still hasn't fully recovered from the 'rakki wars.)

Ok

So

My DND group, which is also my close friend group is angry at me because i made another dwarf again

Besties, you are friends with the "i love dwarfs way too much" guy

Ofc I'm making a dwarf my guys

Anyway i will now make a human, but I'm giving him 4"9 in height as a way to protest, the fucking audacity

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Honestly, being a runesmith's apprentice isn't that different from training for a bomb disposal squad because they overlap. Here's the venn diagram:

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

I have been looking for a way to dispose of some of these... hmmmmm

Please reblog if YES so your followers will know!

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Yep, though not one I could recreate myself. The old masters left behind a dimensional matrix, essentially a device that allows for interdimensional transit. Using it has been... enlightening.

Runes Together Strong - Chaining rune effects

In some univereses, runes are standalone pieces of magic. You can only imbue one rune into an object or spell effect to get one specific effect from it, and adding more is either outright impossible, spells disaster, or both.

We will not be talking about these universes today.

Most universes that feature rune magic allow them to be combined in some fashion, ranging from ritual circles to music to runic circuits. This enables a lot of extra complexity and depth to be explored, and often these universes will feature so called "guile" or "scientist" heroes that prosper in such conditions.

The most common implementation are so called "modifier" runes. Modifier runes, as their name implies, serve no function besides changing the attributes of other runes and as such can only exist in universes that allow the combining of runes. Usually they exist as timers, inverters, attribute controllers, and other such utilities. A rune that projects a cone of energy might be modified with an elemental rune (say fire,) and a distance rune. The elemental rune changes the type of energy, and the distance rune affects either where the cone originates, or how far it travels/stretches.

There are a host of other such examples, but for now we'll move on to how these runes are actually chained together.

The simplest fashion of chaining runes is sequence casting, as the name implies, sequence casting involves creating runes in a specific order to achieve the desired effect. It typically also involves a large dollop of The Power Of Intent (POI) to ensure that the magic functions as the caster intended, given that a chain of runes may have many interpretations. This is what causes the same combination of runes in the same order to produce a blizzard for one caster and a high velocity icicle for another. The circle of eight based system found in The Magitech Chronicles and Shattered Gods (Chris Fox) is a fantastic example of this for individual spells.

One of the more complicated methods is what I call "Runic Circuits", otherwise known as Matrixes. These circuits are the result of placing multiples runes on a surface (usually an expressly made tablet or flat space on an object) and connecting them like... well... a circuit board. Take caution around these, as damaging them tends to have much more drastic consequences than most other forms of rune magic, due to their typically high containment requirements. This is a very common system for enchanting specifically, due to it's permanence, but it doesn't have to be. I am writing this late at night and can't come up with a good example right now, feel free to reblog if you have one.

The final example I would like to discuss today is the Ritual Circle, a natural evolution from sequence casting and runic circuits both. True to their name, their form is often a circle (grounded or otherwise) compose of runes meant to accomplish a goal. These circles vary in permanence, from a single shot of the effect to a consistently maintained magical machine that lasts for centuries. The uniting factor is that, again, damaging the higher ends of these things is a death wish and they take serious study, practice, and preparation time to use properly. CAL's interpretation found within his game of Eternium (Completionist Chronicles, Dakota Krout) is an unusually loose, but effective example of these.

So, yeah, to summarize:

Runes are very powerful on their own, but their true magic shines when combined in innovative ways.

So called "guile heroes" or "scientist heroes" THRIVE in universes with such systems.

Like all rune magic, damaging chained runes is a risky endeavor, even more so due to sheer quantity and scale.

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

Runes Together Strong - Chaining rune effects

In some univereses, runes are standalone pieces of magic. You can only imbue one rune into an object or spell effect to get one specific effect from it, and adding more is either outright impossible, spells disaster, or both.

We will not be talking about these universes today.

Most universes that feature rune magic allow them to be combined in some fashion, ranging from ritual circles to music to runic circuits. This enables a lot of extra complexity and depth to be explored, and often these universes will feature so called "guile" or "scientist" heroes that prosper in such conditions.

The most common implementation are so called "modifier" runes. Modifier runes, as their name implies, serve no function besides changing the attributes of other runes and as such can only exist in universes that allow the combining of runes. Usually they exist as timers, inverters, attribute controllers, and other such utilities. A rune that projects a cone of energy might be modified with an elemental rune (say fire,) and a distance rune. The elemental rune changes the type of energy, and the distance rune affects either where the cone originates, or how far it travels/stretches.

There are a host of other such examples, but for now we'll move on to how these runes are actually chained together.

The simplest fashion of chaining runes is sequence casting, as the name implies, sequence casting involves creating runes in a specific order to achieve the desired effect. It typically also involves a large dollop of The Power Of Intent (POI) to ensure that the magic functions as the caster intended, given that a chain of runes may have many interpretations. This is what causes the same combination of runes in the same order to produce a blizzard for one caster and a high velocity icicle for another. The circle of eight based system found in The Magitech Chronicles and Shattered Gods (Chris Fox) is a fantastic example of this for individual spells.

One of the more complicated methods is what I call "Runic Circuits", otherwise known as Matrixes. These circuits are the result of placing multiples runes on a surface (usually an expressly made tablet or flat space on an object) and connecting them like... well... a circuit board. Take caution around these, as damaging them tends to have much more drastic consequences than most other forms of rune magic, due to their typically high containment requirements. This is a very common system for enchanting specifically, due to it's permanence, but it doesn't have to be. I am writing this late at night and can't come up with a good example right now, feel free to reblog if you have one.

The final example I would like to discuss today is the Ritual Circle, a natural evolution from sequence casting and runic circuits both. True to their name, their form is often a circle (grounded or otherwise) compose of runes meant to accomplish a goal. These circles vary in permanence, from a single shot of the effect to a consistently maintained magical machine that lasts for centuries. The uniting factor is that, again, damaging the higher ends of these things is a death wish and they take serious study, practice, and preparation time to use properly. CAL's interpretation found within his game of Eternium (Completionist Chronicles, Dakota Krout) is an unusually loose, but effective example of these.

So, yeah, to summarize:

Runes are very powerful on their own, but their true magic shines when combined in innovative ways.

So called "guile heroes" or "scientist heroes" THRIVE in universes with such systems.

Like all rune magic, damaging chained runes is a risky endeavor, even more so due to sheer quantity and scale.

[runesmithsmadscribblings]

and it's crap like this that makes me glad I chose rune work. Like yeah, I could reanimate rat skeletons, or I could make fully inorganic constructs not unlike those robot things the umgi are touting nowadays for 10x the effort. A fair price in my opinion.

If you need somewhere to start practicing necromancy, rats are an excellent starting point. They’re small and don’t take much energy to raise or control.

Just- for the love of god, don’t let them mutate. For some reason, they become hypervolatile when undead, and they either mutate intensely dangerous poison or just become an otherworldly monstrosity that I can only describe as a clusterfuck of pestilence.