Rune Carving

Rune Carving

Rune carving is a skill thought to be long lost when the True Dragonborn left Driktsuung. Rune carving is the ability to augment mundane items with small amounts of magical power through the use of specific rune carving tools made of Dragon remains. A carver would use a Dragon chisel to etch runes into an item or object, fill the groove with crushed Dragon bone, then smoothed it out with a Dragon's scale. As they do this magic seeps from the scale into the bone which amplifies the power and binds the bone to the object hardening it into the rune. The makeup of the rune itself determines the amount of bone and time of contact from the scale, thus a rune must be carved with utmost care and precision, lest the binding fail and the magic not take hold.
Rune Carving requires the use of a Rune Carver's tool set. When Carving runes you must spend the appropriate amount of time carving the rune to determine the complexity of the rune, and then make a rune carving check to determine the quality.

When carving a rune the complexity you choose to carve determines the time required to spend on the rune, and the difficulty of the carving check.

• A minor rune requires 1/2 an hour of carving, and requires a single rune carving check with a +5 bonus.
• A major rune requires 2 hours of carving, and up to two rune carving checks with neither a bonus or penalty.
• A rare rune requires 8 hours of carving, and up to four rune carving checks with a -5 to each check.
• An epic rune requires 24 hours of carving, and up to ten rune carving checks with a -10 penalty to each check.
• Legendary runes require at least one week (168 hours) to carve, and up to one hundred rune carving checks with a -15 penalty to each check.

While carving your rune you may make a rune carving check for every hour worked on the rune up to a maximum determined by the rune complexity. When the rune is finished you average all the checks rolled during the process to determine the quality. You may also maintain an existing rune for half the carving time requirement this refreshes the duration of the rune, but the quality does not change.
Rune carving check results are as follows:

• Rolling below 11 is a bad quality carving
• Rolling 11 to 19 is an average quality carving
• Rolling 20 to 24 is a good quality carving
• Rolling 25 to 34 is a great quality carving
• Rolling above 34 is a pristine quality rune

Once you have made a rune carving check you may choose to try and fix the quality by spending the same amount of time and rerolling the check at advantage. The risk of re-carving over an already carved section of the rune is if you roll lower than the original check it will remove the progress and results of the current AND previous carving session.
A rune's maximum duration that it can hold power is determined by its complexity, while the amount it lasts is determined by its quality as is shown below.

• Complexities: affects the duration, and the strength of the magic
• Minor: short duration (an hour), with little magical power (1X)
• Major: moderate duration(a day), with measurable magical power (1X)
• Rare: a lasting duration (a week), with considerable magical power (2X)
• Epic: long duration (a month), with great magical power (3X)
• Legendary: Endless duration, with vast magic (5X)

• Qualities: affects the number of activations, and the number of uses of the passive effects.
• Bad: limited uses (10), 0 activations
• Average: some uses(10-20), 1 activation
• Good: moderate uses (20-30), 2 activations
• Great: many uses (40-50), 2 activations
• Pristine: limitless uses, 5 activations

Rune carving Tools

A Rune Carver's tools typically consists of a Dragon's tooth chisel, a set of dragon scales to imbue, and a pouch of crushed Dragon bone powder. These are typically very unique draconic components, and are very hard to replace or create. The Chisel is a tooth from a hatchling dragon. The scales are those that are closest to a dragon's heart. The bones however are just any kind of dragon bone, crushed into a fine powder. Rune carving is a particularly unique and difficult tool to learn. It takes 10X the amount of training to learn.
Physically carving the rune is only half the problem when it comes to Draconic runes. Once they are carved into an item they must be charged to have any effect. To charge a rune a creature must expend a hit die to put their life energy into the rune. Once they do that the rune is charged. A creature is limited in the number of runes they can charge with most races only ever being able to charge one at a time. Dragonborn however are able to charge a number of runes up to their Constitution modifier.
Wielding a runed item also takes its toll on the user. Creatures may only wield a number of runed items up to their Constitution modifier even if they are charged by a different creature. Wielding more runed items than you can handle begins to deal psychic damage to the wielder at a rate of 1 damage per round or every six seconds. No runed items can be activated, and the effects do not work while a wielder is overburdened by runes.


Each item may only have one rune carved into it at a time. A rune does not need to be charged as soon as it is carved. It can lay dormant for as long as the item remains intact. A charged rune may have its charge relinquished if the creature that charged it wants. The rune retains any of the duration it has left, but loses half of its remaining activations and uses. If a relinquished rune is charged once again the creature charging it must expend an additional hit die for each time it has been charged and must roll them. For every hit die rolled below half the remaining duration of the rune is reduced by half.

Dragon	Ammo passive	Weapon passive	Armor passive	Equipment passive	Active ability
Black	acid damage (1/2/3/5)	acid damage (1/2/3/5)	acid resistance	can eat or drink contents without side effects (including benefits)
Copper	acid damage (1/2/3/5)	(1/2/3/5) armor shred (-ac to target on hit)(DEX saving throw)	Damages weapon when hit (1/2/3/5)	doubles the value of the item
Green	poison damage (1/2/3/5)	poison damage (1/2/3/5)	poisoned condition when hit (CON saving throw)	advantage on CON checks and saves
Yellow	poison damage (1/2/3/5)	poisoned condition (CON saving throw)	blinded when hit (CON saving throw)	immunity to poisoned condition
Bronze	lightning damage (1/2/3/5)	loses reaction on hit (CON saving throw)	Dazed when hit (CON saving throw) (1/2/3/4)	advantage on INT checks and saves
Blue	lightning damage (1/2/3/5)	lightning damage (1/2/3/5)	lightning damage when hit (1/2/3/5)	advantage on DEX checks and saves
Gold	radiant damage (1/2/3/5)	illuminated (adv for attacks against disadvantage on hiding)	when focused on cause blinded (CON saving throw)	Item glows bright for 20 feet and dim for 20 more.
Brass	fire damage (1/2/3/5)	grievous on hit	resistance to fire damage	You may work a metal item with it as if using a forge.
Red	fire damage (1/2/3/5)	fire damage (1/2/3/5)	fire damage when hit (1/2/3/5)	advantage on STR checks and saves
Silver	cold damage (1/2/3/5)	movement reduced on hit (STR saving throw) (5/10/15/ reduced to 0)	cold damage when hit (1/2/3/5)	Water phobic properties (water-walking on footwear, water-breathing on full headwear
White	cold damage (1/2/3/5)	cold damage (1/2/3/5)	resistance to cold damage	grit points per turn (1/2/3/5)
Brown	bludgeoning damage (1/2/3/5)	bludgeoning damage (1/2/3/5)	AC increases when hit (stacks up to CON mod times) (1/2/3/5)	advantage against saves for forced movement and reduced forced movement distance
Grey	psychic damage (1/2/3/5)	psychic damage (1/2/3/5)	Blocks a number of mind altering effects (1/2/3/5)	advantage on CHA checks and saves
Orange	increased range (1x/1x/2x/2x)	force damage (1/2/3/5)	pushes everything back when hit (5/5/10/15)ft	increases push/pull/carry weight as if you were one size larger.
Purple	thunder damage (1/2/3/5)	deafened on hit (CON saving throw)	difficult terrain around you, ranged attacks get a penalty to hit you (5/5/10/15)ft	advantage on WIS checks and saves.