Runeshaping Mechanics

Intro

In discussing runecarving there are multiple fields that must be understood. Deciphering runes, Cataloging runes, Arranging runes, Carving runes, and Empowering runes. At the end will also be examples of practical rune applications. I will add to this list as players create new combinations and as I create them in my head. If you have an idea, float it by me for consideration even if you don't use it. If you have an effect you'd like to see created, submit it to me and I'll decide a rune structure for it.
As this is a Homebrew system and I am the creator, it is overcomplicated and untested. As such it may need revision going forward, we will see. Please bear with me as I continue to refine it. My goal is a measured approach going forward so as not to have to drastically retcon what I have already laid out, but I may at times have to do so and will make amends with players if it causes strife.

Deciphering Runes

Runes themselves are complex, they are writing, language and concept all merged into one. Each rune has a spoken syntax and to speak it is to conjure the concept into the world. Speaking them is highly dangerous, as there is no way of knowing how the world will interpret the idea. It is safer to speak combinations of runes, the effects of their speaking only happening once finished, but even then the results are unreliable and dangerous. Certain runes are taught ahead of others during an apprenticeship to prevent such folly. Speaking Air could cause great gusts or even the power of a hurricane, but only briefly. While still dangerous it is nothing compared to the danger of uttering fire and sending a conflagration out a mile in each direction.
When a new rune is found one must take time to decipher it. This comes in the form of using paper and ink to figure out the correct form of the rune as well as how to affix it in your mind as you write it. It can take hours or days to get a rune right, but once done it is like muscle memory. as such learning new runes is a matter of both cataloging and deciphering.
Mechanics-wise, you will make a Runecarving check to determine how fast you learn a rune. This check has effects (good and bad) based on stages of DCs.

• DC 0: You waste 3d4 days attempting to learn the rune.
• DC 10: You waste 2d4 days attempting to learn the rune
• DC 15: You Succeed after 2d4 days attempting to learn the rune
• DC 20: You Succeed after 1d4 days attempting to learn the rune
• DC 25: You Succeed after 1 day attempting to learn the rune
• DC 30: You Succeed after 1d4 hours attempting to learn the rune

Days in the above table represent 8 hours in a day spent attempting to comprehend the rune. This is a fixed amount as it is assumed that you need time to eat, sleep, and rest your mind. It is taxing to try to hold a rune in your mind and as such 8 hours is the max you can spend each day. It also takes full concentration to attempt to decipher runes and is therefore near impossible to do while traveling, It is instead a downtime activity.
The process of deciphering is to write the rune as you believe it should be, trying repeatedly to make whatever corrections are necessary of paper. When writing the rune you are applying it at the most basic surface level, giving it little power and requiring very little magic to activate it. Once you have affixed it correctly in your mind, envisioning it as it should be and write it correctly on the page, the rune will empower correctly and its effects will happen. For many apprentices the first rune they learn is stone. When they have correctly grasped the concept and applied it, their page of paper turns to brittle thin stone and crumbles before them. The process is different for every rune, fire tends to burn the edges until the paper is consumed, steel creates an impossibly thin piece of metal that is mostly useless, etc.

Cataloging runes

Once you have deciphered a rune it is imperative that you write it and its effects down. however, the rune cannot be written 100% correctly or it could activate and destroy itself. As such Runecarvers purposefully write their runes incorrectly. This is why deciphering is important, as you need a rune to be perfect for it to work. Once you have deciphered the rune you copy it into a book of your own by re-ciphering it so you understand how to copy it again. This can include errant marks, changes to the shape, etc. All of this is important as runes are difficult to hold in one's mind. They slip from the mind like water through a sieve. they can be held for a short time, but normally not for more than a day. However, once you understand a rune, truly understand it, its like muscle memory to produce it again, as long as you have a reference for it of your own making.
There is no cost to catalog a rune, it is much like a wizards spellbook in that you keep a copy of it in a book or material of your choosing. Optimally with a description of what the rune represents so you can more easily remember it. Some people are very secretive and choose to leave complicated ciphers or confusing descriptions on purpose, how you choose to write yours down is a matter of flavor for you.

Arranging Runes

As previously mentioned, writing runes on paper is a very superficial way of using them, using so little magic that they can activate from latent energy in the world. Anything more complex, however, requires materials, even on paper. The amount needed though is small compared to the magic and material needed to carve them into an object and as such is a good way to practice creating new rune structures. This process of testing designs on paper and empowering them to see the result is known as arranging runes. The process works as follows. A rough draft is created of imperfect runes so that the carver can adjust and think over their idea. Once they are happy with the arrangement they will begin on a fresh page of paper and write the perfected sequence of runes. This is done piecemeal for each rune, not completing anyone until another is partially written so as not to activate anything accidentally. once complete, a small amount of gem dust is used as a catalyst to activate the sequence. The results are essentially immediate, often warping or destroying the page but giving a short demonstration of if the effects are plausible.
In game terms, this takes a small amount of time and a bit of gold. For each rune (Major, Minor or modifying) costs 3 GP worth of gem dust to activate. The paper is ruined once completed but you will be given a description of what the sequence will do upon the final piece. Typically this is done across 2d4 hours of work. It is possible that the sequence does not do what you want, in which case you would need to try again.

Carving Runes

The process of carving runes requires time, planning and precision on the part of the carver. While it is different for each carver, it takes around 1d4+2 days to carve a rune sequence. The process may be expedited but at the cost of greater risk or ruining the piece being worked on. The process typically involves copying over imperfect runes onto the piece to be carved. This may need to be done multiple times in order to make the sequence fit or to correct placement. Once that is done the Carver will begin roughing the design into the workpiece. This involves tools appropriate to the material being worked and is done by carving the shapes of the runes into the piece. once a rough carving is done, the runes will be smoothed, shaped and refined until they are their perfect forms. Until the runes are activated they are malleable and capable of being erased or destroyed by recklessness.
The following is a table of DCs for how fast a piece may be carved. Failing at any DC means the piece is ruined for the purposes of carving. The partial runes prevent any new sequence from being added or activated. A sword is still a sword, but a new sword will need to be acquired to start over. For the table, you declare if you're trying to rush the job and the DC is set by how fast you choose to try and complete it. if you succeed, the role is made to determine how long it takes.

• 1d4+2 Days :DC 10
• 1d4 Days :DC 15
• 1d4-1 Days (Min 1) :DC 20
• 1d4-1 Hours (Min 1) :DC 30

Empowering Runes

Empowering Carved runes requires materials of magical nature to be given as catalyst for the process. These are typically obtained from monsters or in the form of treasure. Specific materials are not required, instead, materials are graded on a system of 1 to 5. Tier 1 materials are capable of being used on simple rune sequences, while Tier 5 are used for some of the most complex arrangments you can hold in your mind. To avoid cumbersome gamekeeping issues, when you kill a monster that gives a material you will be told you obtain a Tier # material from it. This could be the core of an elemental or the wristbone of a strong orc. Some things are more likely to give materials than others. Conversely, you can also use large quantities or gem dust. Gem dust has long been a material trade for Carvers as while it expensive in the volumes needed, it is often easier to obtain. The Tiers for Gem dust are:

1. 200 GP
2. 1,200 GP
3. 6,000 GP
4. 10,000 GP
5. 18,000 GP

Tiers of Runes are defined further down based on the size and scope of the arrangement. Once The runes are carved and catalyst selected the runecarver must try to empower the runes. This is a process of affixing the sequence in the mind and knowing what it does to the core of the carver. they push magic through the catalyst and into the structure, breathing life into it and making its effects real. The larger the structure the more difficult it is to empower. The DCs for each Tier are below. Note, it is a difficult process to become a Runecarver in the first place and represent the difficulty for a trained carver, someone with no training or skill would find this impossible.

• Tier 1: DC 10
• Tier 2: DC 15
• Tier 3: DC 20
• Tier 4: DC 25
• Tier 5: DC 30

If the check is successful then the process is completed as expected, the materials for a catalyst are consumed and the item finished. If it is failed however, the materials are consumed but the effect does not happen. The channeled magic being forced into the structure rebounds at the carver causing 1 level exhaustion for each tier attempted. The structure is still intact and can be tried again with more catalyst when ready, however, precautions must be taken not to use the item and to protect it as until the runes are empowered even the slightest damage could ruin the sequence.

Creating Rune Sequences

Understanding the Pattern

Rune sequences are ordered either Left to Right and written in a circular fashion for each completed rune.

Each part is given a designation, There is the Central Major Rune, the most important of the runes. The smaller outer Minor Runes that apply to the Major rune, and then the modifier runes that circle the minor ones. The position of each determines how the runes are interpreted and read. Modifiers are typically actions or descriptors that apply to Minor runes. Minor runes as a whole are applied to the Major ones in a certain order. That order is detailed Below.

With M with a line under it being a Major Rune, M with a Line over it being a Minor rune, and m is a modifier. The order they are written is the order they are read in game terms. The order is very important for creating effects. if the effect makes no sense then the rune sequence is useless.
While all of this is great for flavor, how the hell do you write it in text for communication? We will be using a series of Bold, Italics and Underline for our script. So, modifier runes are in italics. Minor Runes are Underlined and Major Runes are Bold. So a simple sequence would read Fire Bind Steel.

Determining Complexity

As mentioned, complexity is broken into 5 tiers. These limit how many Major, Minor and Modifier runes you can have in a sequence. Essentially a Tier is 5 times the Tier runes in a sequence. If you have 1 Major, 2 Minor and 2 Modifier runes in a sequence it's at the limit for Tier 1. The same is true if you write it as 5 Runes or 1 Major rune with 4 Modifiers. Count the total number of runes and divide by five, rounding up.
While theoretically possible to empower a rune structure of over 25 runes, the difficulty and power needed become astronomically high. The force needed for any given structure is exponential, not linear, so a 10 rune structure is not 2 times harder than a 5 rune structure, it is more like 4 times more difficult and eventually, one simply cannot push any harder.

Form is Function

A rune sequence has predictable outcomes, that is why they are useful. But the object they are applied to is of equal importance. For instance, Fire Bind Steel Is an excellent sequence for a sword that contains the power of flame, but applying it to a suit of armor creates an object that burns anyone wearing it alive, if they can even be forced into the flaming death trap. And while Fire Destroy Steel on a suit of armor could make a suit impervious to any flame that touches it, on a sword, it would be difficult to use. It is important to consider how the effects apply to the object lest you purposefully invest resources into an item that is doomed to the pages of the cursed magic item book.

Understanding the Sequence you write

All runes are transitory, meaning they are the current, past, future, superlative forms of the verbs and nouns they represent. Destroy, is also, Destroyed, Destroying, Destruction, and Destroyer. It represents all of these things and is only interpreted by where you place it in the structure. So for our previous example, you could read it as Flame Destroying Steel which may make more sense when you think of it in this way. It is also common for the first Major rune in a sequence to be the material of the object you are placing the rune upon. This grounds the structure to the object and helps to define its limitations. Further major runes are commonly aspects of the object, but may also be aspects applied by previous runes. So for Fire Bind (Binding) Steel we could add a second set of runes for Life Destroy (Destroying) Enlarge (Enlarged) Fire To cause the fire on the blade to consume the life of those it touches and burn in a wide area. Possibly dangerous to the person that wields it in this combo, but you get the example.

Examples

Seeing as this is very complex, I'm going to give some rune structures paired with their effects on a given item so that you can understand how they work.

• Air Summon Water Repel Steel on a Steel Helm would create a helmet that allows breathing underwater.
• Sorrow Curse Stone On a small rock would create a stone that brings sadness and misfortune to whoever holds it.
• Sharp Pain Herbal Summoning Wood On a wood staff would create a staff that can summon dangerous thorned vines into an area.