[Midgard]The merits of anthropological accuracy and... not.

[Prak]

So, one issue I'm facing with Midgard is that I want the runes to matter, because vikings. The problem is that a lot of the runes are shit like "Fehu- Cattle." so it's hard to make them actually compelling in a game, and don't quite fit the need for things like "this rune symbolizes dragons, you use it to breath fire."

Any thoughts to give me things to think over and help me figure out how I want to handle this?

[deaddmwalking]

Do you have a link to the runes you're using? The runes I'm seeing in Google image search are associated with a variety of terms.

[angelfromanotherpin]

As far as I know, Fehu only implies cattle, it actually means wealth, which is obviously a great deal more exciting.

The obvious route is to have runes be the visual fluff of magic - magic items must have inscribed runes that somewhat describe their function, somatic components are drawing runes in the air, buff spells cause an appropriate rune to appear on the target for the duration, etc., and interpreting the runes is how you use whatever skill to identify spell effects.

[codeGlaze]

You can take "lame" runes and give powers by implication.

Take a donkey. Donkeys are stubborn. Tie that to some sort of will save, or stand-your-ground type power. (Immovable blob?)

Bread? Sustenance. Healing.

[Grek]

Don't use individual runes, fuckwit. Fehu does not have magical powers. It is literally just the letter F written in a different font.



See? F.

Magic comes from writing out a rune poem that describes the magic you want. Individual runes do nothing.

[codeGlaze]

Magic comes from writing out a rune poem that describes the magic you want. Individual runes do nothing.

That's not how it's portrayed in a lot of fantasy, though.

I'd wager most people think of rune magic being singular runes. More complex ones equating to more powerful/esoteric spells.

[Prak]

Do you have a link to the runes you're using? The runes I'm seeing in Google image search are associated with a variety of terms.

Here's the image I did up for my Midgard thread-

As far as I know, Fehu only implies cattle, it actually means wealth, which is obviously a great deal more exciting.

The obvious route is to have runes be the visual fluff of magic - magic items must have inscribed runes that somewhat describe their function, somatic components are drawing runes in the air, buff spells cause an appropriate rune to appear on the target for the duration, etc., and interpreting the runes is how you use whatever skill to identify spell effects.

Yeah, that's sort of what I've been planning, but as I understand norse myth and magical belief, the runes themselves are supposed to hold power, there's just a difference between writing down "milk, eggs, butter" in runes and actually using them for magic (likely sympathetic magic since they're all symbols for other things).

Don't use individual runes, fuckwit. Fehu does not have magical powers. It is literally just the letter F written in a different font.

And yet meditating on them is supposed to give you phenomenal cosmic power-

The letters called “runes” allow one to access, interact with, and influence the world-shaping forces they symbolize. Thus, when Odin sought the runes, he wasn’t merely attempting to acquire a set of arbitrary representations of human vocal sounds. Rather, he was uncovering an extraordinarily potent system of magic.
...
They had accepted his sacrifice and shown themselves to him, revealing to him not only their forms, but also the secrets that lie within them.

[Emerald]

The problem is that a lot of the runes are shit like "Fehu- Cattle." so it's hard to make them actually compelling in a game, and don't quite fit the need for things like "this rune symbolizes dragons, you use it to breath fire."

Going by the image you posted, a bunch of them are actually pretty straightforward: runes of Protection, Strength, Sun, Defense, Warrior, Travel, Light, Storms, Binding, Ice, Fire, and Earth all have obvious applications, and they even mostly match 3e domains to make borrowing spell effects from them easy.

For the ones that are a bit more abstract:

• Fehu: "Portable wealth" implies gaining and maintaining equipment and currency, so effects involving enhancing items or constructing/multiplying materials would fit here, like magic weapon, fabricate, etc.
• Ansuz: Yggdrasil is the tree connecting the Nine Worlds and the Æsir have Bifröst to travel between the worlds, so if this setting supports planar travel and/or flight that would fit here; not sure otherwise.
• Berkanan: "Birth" could imply the creation of creatures which implies summoning, if this setting supports that; not sure otherwise.
• Ehwaz: "Horse" can be generalized to any effects relating to animals (particularly picking up animal companions and enhancing animals, to go along with the theme of the domesticated, hardworking horse).
• Mannaz: "Man" stereotypically implies courage, honor, mighty thews, etc. and "Mankind" implies an innate human-ness, so effects that would protect against changing or subverting a creature (by polymorphing, mind control, or the like) would fit here.
• Gebo: Can't think of anything good for this one.
• Laguz: "Lagoon" and "Tides" imply stuff relating to the sea, or water effects in general.
• Wunju: "Joy" and "Love" (real or feigned) imply emotional effects, charm person, and the like.
• Ingwaz: Fertility, potency, and prosperity, hmm...perhaps health-increasing effects like plant growth and cure disease, as well as protections against effects like curses and death spells that would sap vitality or good fortune.
• Dagaz: "Guiding Beacon" fits well with future-telling divinations and stuff like find the path, particularly if they're flavored as casting a bunch of rune stones and interpreting the results.
• Othala: Can't think of anything good for this one.
• Jera: "Harvest" can be generalized to any plant-related effects, and perhaps death effects, given the whole autumn-as-decay-and-death Grim Reaper image.
• Calc: "Fullness" implies wholeness, so repairing items and healing people would fit here.
• Eihwaz: Reliability and trust...maybe effects related to friendship bonds and words of honor? Shield other, discern lies, mark of justice, geas, that sort of thing?
• Pertho: "Mystery" would cover illusions of all sorts.
• Skald's Net: As a rune about other runes, effects directly related to magic like dispelling, enhancing your caster level equivalent, and the like would fit here.

[Grek]

If you're dead set on having each rune do one particular magical effect (which I continue to maintain is stupid and contrary to how they were actually used at the time) then Gebo gets to be translated as spear and the "gift" you're giving people is stabbings. Meanwhile Othala allows you to create magical boundaries and barriers through the magic of proper estate management.

[Hicks]

An idea that I kicked around for an Ars Magica derivative was that rune magic was based on the perfection of ideas, and by inscribing runes on things you make those things like the runes you wrote. Sewing the rune "warm" protects the wearer from the frigid cold, stamping the rune "sharp" on your sword makes it slice through metal. Runes make items magic.

[Prak]

If you're dead set on having each rune do one particular magical effect (which I continue to maintain is stupid and contrary to how they were actually used at the time) then Gebo gets to be translated as spear and the "gift" you're giving people is stabbings. Meanwhile Othala allows you to create magical boundaries and barriers through the magic of proper estate management.

What I was specifically planning on doing was having each rune cover something more like a sphere that you can use by having ranks in that rune, and then a bunch of spells that are associate with that rune by effect which you can also gain access to some how, not just a single effect.

[icyshadowlord]

Wouldn't the effectiveness of the Rune also depend on the skills of the one invoking it?

[Prak]

Yes. I've got skill "ranks" tied to level directly, where your points buy the correlation (1 pt=1/4 lv, 2 pt=1/2 lv, 3 pt=lv, 4 pt=lv+3). In the case of magic skills, your skill points spent in the skill determines the highest level of spell you can cast, and your rank determines how effective they are, but to actually get spells, you buy domains for a skill point each. ...I lied about Runes being specialized, it works perfectly fine to have people buy Rune effects like they would spell domains for other types of magic and didn't think about it.

So a character who puts a point into Runes ("Trained") can cast 2nd level spells or lower that are Rune spells, and if they buy Fehu with a point, then they get a domain of spells about material and portable wealth, and if they buy Isaz they get a domain of spells about ice and cold.

I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to do about a casting resource (other than knowing that Binding requires running around making contracts and Necromancy requires running around and putting souls in jars)

edit: Come to think of it... I could just make them work like spheres, with you having spells available 1/day at first, upgrading to 3/day at 6th, and becoming at will at 10th when the game becomes "Odin and Friends." Or something along that idea possibly with different numbers. Maybe you can use them (1 or 3) times per day, plus 1 per two character levels you are higher than the spell (I'm looking at only having 0-5, since I'm working with a 10 level scale)

[tussock]

There's some etymology stuff you can get into around old words like that, because they often have dozens of modern derivations that include a much broader array of concepts.

Cattle and Chattels used to be the same word, thus portable wealth, your "cattels" was a term in early law codes referring to the wealth you had that you could move, unlike a house. So cows are still called cattle. But it's also about contract law and associated dickery, like if you buy a house without chattels it's pretty amazing what's "portable".

Yews (tree) are also truth, and betroth, and true (as strait or lined up), so honesty and loyalty and accuracy. Truce for being trusted. Druid is a related word, trusted lawgivers.

Birth gets into berths as a place assigned for you, breach as an non-standard passage and the back-end of something, and thus your breeches to cover your ass. Personal growth is sort of the about-face play on that, not what was expected of you.

Gift can include bad gifts, like poisoning, or innate gifts like high stats, or blessings of the gods, and habit comes from the same base word, as the acts of your inner self. Also dowry and other required payments, so you can make people gift.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php

Go nuts. You can totally have letter-meaning and word-meaning that overlaps, gives you languages full of double entendres and meanings that only the properly illuminated can see.