Runic Magic

This type of magic is very old and powerful magic. The people of the Kkarrt Empire called it Tnu Sa Ne, which means 'Soul binding'. The common name is Runic magic, from the runes often carved or etched into the items.

Very little is known about Runic magic, as the last mage practicing it died over two millennia ago. What is known is that it results in the creation of incredibly powerful magic items. Even the least powerful runic item holds vast powers. Kingdoms have been won or lost because of such things.

The magic is extinct now, and has been for thousands of years. No mage alive holds the knowledge of how to wield runic magic. The reason is the magic itself: with the incredible power comes incredible risks. The creation of any runic weapon or item takes years and involves an extreme risk for the mage and those around them. All mages pondering its use had to weigh the risks against the possibility of gaining great power. The wise ones would walk away. The greedy ones would press on. They generally died, usually taking their apprentices and workshop (and all their notes) with them. To give you an idea of the power involved, at least one city is thought to have been destroyed in such an accident.

This led to a gradual decline in the number and skills of runic mages until the knowledge was completely lost. Some say it was deliberately destroyed as being just too dangerous. Rumors speak of lost libraries and secret workshops hidden in some inhospitable places, but those are just legends.

There are three ages used to describe runic magic and its use:

  • Golden - Items created at this time were the most powerful. Runic mages were plentiful.
  • Silver - The items created in this era are powerful, but not as strong as those made during the Golden Age. A lot of the more powerful knowledge had already been lost, and there were fewer people who knew how to use it.
  • Bronze - The last age of runic magic. Runic mages were very rare, and their work mere shadows of the powerful items created in the Silver and Golden Ages. But such weapons are still VERY powerful.

Very few real Runic weapons survive and those that do are highly treasured and much sought after.

Examples of known runic weapons:

  • Whisper: Tchau Uae, which is one of the Five Sisters.
  • Two blades held by Rickkter: one being the dagger Tchaas-hurti, another weapon of the Five Sisters.
  • There was some speculation that Runic techniques were used in forging Elemacil, in part due to its semi-sentience, the fact it has runes carved into it, and that it was forged in the same era as other known runic weapons. However, this is unlikely. While Elemacil does have a form of sentience, it does not have the full sentience or the violent intent seen in true runic weapons; even the good-aligned runic weapons have violent and harsh spirits within them.

There were no runic mages alive in the Metamor Keep universe in the past (706 CR), and the art has not been re-discovered.


Sources

MK Wiki Entry- Runic Magic, Five Sisters, Kkarrt Empire

Author Notes

Librarian supposition: Only the existence of Runic Magic is known to some scholars in the modern world of Metamor City, and primarily through the records of the Keep- the fact that Rickkter and another hero of Metamor, Misha Brightleaf, owned Runic weapons; and those weapons are probably in the vaults of Citadel, or maybe the Lightbringer vaults.

RavenB: I remember a conversation with Chris O'Kane, the Metamor Keep universe controller, in which we tried to figure out exactly what the spirits were that had been bound to the runic weapons. I had thought the Five Sisters might be a group of devas who had chosen to become bound to the blades in order to fight evil, but we decided to keep it ambiguous: the moral alignment of the Sisters is highly questionable, and the process of creating them was indisputably evil.

The magic itself seems to have no connection to the fallen Pantheon, and the spirits all have a nasty, vicious edge to them that puts me more in mind of something out of Faerie. They were products of a more barbaric age, and it's probably a good idea to let them stay there.

House Brightleaf has an ancestral claim to Whisper, but I really hope she's sitting in a locked and shielded vault. She's liable to get antsy going for so long without being used, and she's been known to enter the minds of those who have a claim to her — or on whom she has a claim. There's more than one reason Misha Brightleaf was considered a little mad…

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