xadianglyphs

[xadianglyphs]

Blood, Stars, and Dragons: A Rune Connection?

... is there any better way to sum up the intermingled systems of magic in this setting? Huh.

Anyway, I did a post a while back on primal runes vs. linguistic(?) runes for spellcasting, which prominently featured the Starscraper elevator:

I have personally hated every single thing about this stupid elevator from the first moment we saw it, most of all the design of the runes. The only good thing I have to say about them is that for something we're meant to believe are legible draconic words, they are shaped in a way that makes sense as being easily drawn by the large claws of a generally quadrupedal species. Otherwise, like most of the runes not attached to primal spells, they're just obviously designed for aesthetics—and usually with an intention of repetitive aesthetic filler—over any consideration for how written language actually looks or works.

This is actually not something that torments me, in the sense that I don't think about it so often that it floats into my consciousness unbidden at every opportunity. I think I had just looked at it enough while doing that post for it to gain a foothold... such that, while looking for something completely unrelated, I cracked the secret of the draconic elevator runes.

Behold: the Temple of the Blood Moon, and its rune-encrusted pillars!

Yes, really. Now if we do a little zoom and enhance:

Why... erigo, subrigo, surrigo! Fancy seeing you here!

The draconic runes from the Starscraper elevator are, in fact, drawn from the same repeating pool that fills the background pillars of the Blood Moon temple. It was a bit harder to find orior, ascendo, scando for some reason, but:

There it is... or there scando, orior, ascendo is, I guess, since the order is different. (For what it's worth, resisto appears to be unique, but I also didn't look very hard for it.)

Now, is this recurrence meant to indicate anything, beyond that the production of arc 2 was sometimes thin on resources? Well, it could be taken to reinforce draconic as a shared root language and writing system across Xadia, before distinct cultures developed among primal elves. Then there's the fact that spoken draconic is a language of power attached to the rune spells for all primal sources, so its written form could also hold some similar innate, universal power. In that case, given the ancient roots of both the Blood Moon cult and the Celestial elves, and their mutual ties to what may or may not be deep magic, for them to both feature in both actually makes a suspicious amount of sense. Even the Blood Moon temple being arbitrarily covered in words meaning rise, ascend, etc. isn't totally crazy—the Blood Moon rises, Kim'dael and her kind all seek to elevate their power, possibly even to ascend to a higher form of (immortal) being.

I still think the more likely explanation is "we had spiky runes designed for the temple and decided to use a few for the elevator," but... look, I can't completely rule out the alternative. I have to admit that there might actually be something to this.

[xadianglyphs]

Im sorry if someone has submitted this before but a closer look into the runes carved in The Puzzle House! Art by Adam Ratcliffe

[xadianglyphs]

Adam Ratcliffe

[xadianglyphs]

Chelsea Li

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]