Runes in your campaign

[Greylock]

Do you incorporate runes in your campaign?

I've always been captivated by the idea that symbols can have real and potent power. The imagery alone can be very evocative. They strike me as more ancient and impressive than a mage or clerics mumbling mystic phrases. The stark lines of the ancient northern woodsmen, the curved beauty of the southern, the fantastical imagery of eastern lands. Do you use these?

Also looking for sources/rules/suggestions on how to use them in a campaign. Linkies are always kewl.

[Familiar with the Runethane. I'm looking for something more along world-building/NPC ideas.]

 

[Silveras]

WotC: Has been doing Runes as a Giants/Dwarven shared lore for a while in FR.
Races of Stone has Rune Circles as a craftable item found in Dwarf cities (primarily). Non-mobile locations created with runic power for those who meet the qualifications set at creation.
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting has the Runecaster class and some rules for using Rune-based items. I do not recall if they were changed much in Players Guide to Faerun.
Players' Handbook has Arcane Mark, Glyph of Warding, and the Symbol spells, all of which are basic for Rune workings.
Lords of Madness adds Aboleth Glyphs on the monster side of rune-like materials, and the Cerulean Sign on the PC side (seems to be borrowed from the Elder Sign of Cthulhu mythos).

Bad Axe Games: nice runic stuff in the Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves book.

Those are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head. I am sure there are others.

 

[Steel_Wind]

For a Celtic based implemenation of Runes and ideas on working these into your gaming sessions, there is nothing like an historical perspective to assist and inspire.

Richard Webster's Omens, Oghams & Oracles: Divination in the Druidic Tradition is a readable reference work that assists greatly in this. You can get it off of Amazon here

 

[Nellisir]

I've been toying with the idea of converting the eldritch weaver spell lists into rune lists, adding divine spells in, and granting spellcasters the ability to choose or learn different runes (these wouldn't be the traditional norse runes, of course). Runes would be lesser or greater (1st-4th level; 5th-9th level) in strength.

There are two problems with this I haven't solved. One is the fixed spell list -- sorcerers would end up with all their spells being fixed at first level, more or less (I'm partially compensating for this by upping their martial ability), the other is learning unrelated spells -- what happens when a character, for whatever in game or metagame reason, wants or needs to learn an unrelated spell?

I'm less concerned about the first problem, since I could actually increase the numbers of spells known, essentially giving the sorcerer a larger list of spells known, ala the warmage, and I don't think it'd break anything. But what do I do about the second?

Cheers
Nell.

 

[vortex]

Do you mean like in RuneQuest?

 

[haiiro]

WotC: Has been doing Runes as a Giants/Dwarven shared lore for a while in FR.

The old grey FR boxed set had the alphabets for the major languages, including Dethek (the runes mentioned above); the other two that I can remember being included were Thorass and Espruar.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Do you incorporate runes in your campaign?

The Lunarists (patterned after the Muslim world, which means principally Arabs but also mediterranean and asiatic influences) have a highly developed science of calligraphy. Like with real-world Muslims, this developed from the cultural aversion to depicting the human form in art. Instead, verses of holy text were used to adorn and decorate structures, becoming beautiful glyphs of unparalleled nobility. This highly advanced art form, of course, produced certain magical practicioners of the art, particularly involved in crafting items. The Sacred Engraving feat allows Lunarists to enscribe calligraphic art on magical items that then benefit from the sacred verse that is written down.

Rumors persist of ancient Solarists (patterned after the Christian world, which means principally Europe but also the Americas and Africa) who had a tradition of magical writing. However, such things have fallen out of favor now that the Solarists identify such works with the corrupting influence of Satan. Still, occultists place a great power in symbols from this pre-Solar world, and it is said that alchemists and thaumatic scientists have adopted some of the ideas for their own use. The Great Solar Church is apprehensive about this, and seeks to quash it.

The place that the Solarists get their occult knowledge from, the ancient world-spanning heathen Empire of Romaniyat, still exists, and it trains people with the Ancient Glyph feats, each of which teaches the user the knowledge of the use of one Ancient Glyph. It is said that a noble cabal of mages, Glyphcasters, exist, and they get bonus feats that may be used to learn Ancient Glyphs, in addition to powers regarding the glyphs. A variant form of Glyphcasters are said to exist in the desert kingdoms to the south of Romaniyat, where they worship fiends with the heads of beasts and the bodies of man, and these are said to have a specific necromantic cast, concerned with the setting and rising of the sun, and the resurrection of their deified ancestors, the Pharaohs.

 

[Silveras]

The old grey FR boxed set had the alphabets for the major languages, including Dethek (the runes mentioned above); the other two that I can remember being included were Thorass and Espruar.

Not quite what I was talking about. The "alphabets" for mundane writing were available right from the beginning (and there are still fonts for computer use floating around on the web, I am sure, but I am talking about the use of Runes as a magical item/power source.

 

[Greylock]

Races of Stone has Rune Circles as a craftable item found in Dwarf cities (primarily). Non-mobile locations created with runic power for those who meet the qualifications set at creation.

Guess I need to take another look at RoS. From browsing it it's the only one that grabbed me anyhoo.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting has the Runecaster class and some rules for using Rune-based items. I do not recall if they were changed much in Players Guide to Faerun.

Guess I need to read that one more closely. It's sitting on the shelf, one my accursed "useless" books. Grabbed it just now and found the Chapter 2 stuff intrtiguing. The Runecaster PrC seems less interesting than the Runethane, though, for the same reason Scribe Scroll doesn't rock my boat. I like a low $ economy, and the campaigns my friends run are similar. Effectively cripples the class.

[QUOTE="Silveras]Bad Axe Games: nice runic stuff in the Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves book. [/QUOTE]
This one I'm not familiar with. I'll look into it. Thanks for the advice, Silveras.

 

[Greylock]

Richard Webster's Omens, Oghams & Oracles: Divination in the Druidic Tradition is a readable reference work that assists greatly in this...

Eeep. The reviews kind of put me off. I've been lurking around bookstores and libraries looking for good books, but everything falls into one of two categories:

A. Out-of-date archaeology, meaning older than thirty years and including chapters on the Minnesotan Runestone and Viking colonisation of North America.

B. New Age material printed in the last twenty years. Some of the books linked by Amazon appeared on many an ex-girlfriend's nightstand. *shudders*

The book reminds me of the latter. I'll see if I can find it in a store in town to browse, though. Author noted. Thanks.

Anyone know of any hard university published research on runes that dates after the sixties?