Rune Magic
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Rune Magic is a fictional, ultra-powerful form of High Magic within the game settings of the Palladium Books Megaverse, and is present in almost all of Palladium's Game Modules. This magic, like almost all other forms of magic, was first created by the Old Ones in the Palladium Dimension in the distant past.
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[edit] Overview
Currently, the vast majority of Rune Magic and Rune Artifact knowledge and production is in the hands of the Alien Intelligences collectively known as the Splugorth, who scour the Megaverse for other beings who manage to develop Rune Magic -these creatures are slain, with no exceptions. (In Game Canon, Player Characters are strictly forbidden to know or even be taught the secrets of Rune Magic, no matter what price they are willing to pay.) It must be here noted, however, that in many distant and hidden pockets of the Megaverse, different races have managed to develop this magic and somehow escape the wrath of the Splugorth as well; in fact, a small group of humans in an isolated loation on Earth -Post Apocalyptic Japan -have managed to discover the art of creating Rune Weaponry completely indepentently, a fact currently unknown to the Splugorth rulers of Atlantis. The Dwarven race in the Palladium Dimension were once masters of Rune Weaponry in their own right, but they willingly divested themselves of that knowlegde some 20,000 years ago.
Rune Magic is the means by which such Artifacts as Rune Weapons, Rune Armor, and even other inanimate objects such as Rune Statues are created; this magic is notable -and dangerous -in that it specifically requires the melding of a sentient life force to an inanimate object in order to forge the desired Rune Artifact.
Rune Magic is also notable in that artifacts created by means of Rune Magic are totally indestructible in almost every way except by a very few special means that are not widely available in the Megaverse.
[edit] Creation
Through unknown means, and in a ritual which takes several weeks to months to enact (both in the forging/shaping of the Weapon or Artifact and the merging process which has to happen at about the same time), the Life Force of the sentient being is merged with the artifact in question. In a strange, mystic cycle, the Life Force renders the artifact indestructible because the life force within needs to be removed first, and of course the life force cannot be removed from the artifact in question because the artifact is now indestructible.
The life force imprisoned determines the alignment of the weapon or artifact, and persons with differing alignments cannot use or command them. Fortunately for the essence within the sword, they do not require food or nourishment, and do not hunger for such. Furthermore, time is greatly distorted, and millennia seems like only days to those whose life forces empower these objects.
These trapped beings, particularly those of a good alignment, wish to help out those with which they are aligned; it helps to pass the time. Evil-aligned beings wish to fight alongside the forces of darkness, but they are often just as likely to play games with their current owners, misleading them to their doom, secure in the knowledge that even if their current owner is killed by their games and the weapon or artifact is lost, that someone else will find them sooner or later.
[edit] Powers and Capabilities of Rune Magic Artifacts
Rune Weapons have, for the most part, a standard template of powers based on the "level" of Rune Weapon; these categories are Lesser, Greater, and Greatest.
There is no such set of categories for non-weapon Rune Artifacts.
- Lesser Rune Weapons: These Weapons are 'lesser' not only in terms of the powers that they have, but also the life forces needed to forge them. The creation of these low-level Rune Weapons requires the life force of a powerful mortal sorcerer or creature of magic such as a dragon.
Lesser Rune Weapons can communicate with their latest owners telepathically, cause a minimum amount of damage no matter how softly the weapon strikes a target, forms a telepathic bond with its latest master after a few months, allowing the owner to sense its presence and general direction in a several-miles wide area if the owner and the Weapon are parted for any reason. These weapons can only be used by a person of the same alignment as the weapon; touching or grasping the Weapon will cause several points of damage, whether the lifeforce inside the weapon wants to help the character of differing alignment or not. In Game terms, Lesser Rune Weapons add a bonus to any and all saving throws of the Player Character that owns it.
- Greater Rune Weapons: These weapons require more powerful, supernatural sentient beings to empower them, but in turn also grant several bonuses above and beyond those of Lesser Rune Weapons. Some of the more powerful Rune Weapons in this category can actually drink souls, destroying those souls forever if a successful soul drinking strike is made.
Greater Rune Weapons are capable of performing the entire range of capabilities of Lesser Rune Weapons, and they can furthermore cast elemental spells, provide partial healing to their current owners, turn and raise the dead, and these weapons also posess an impressive array of psionic abilities.
Some of these Greater Rune Weapons are the dreaded soul drinkers, while other weapons of this type are the legendary Holy Weapons, which do special, additional damage to forces of evil; these Weapons also change color in the presence of evil, no matter the form that it takes.
- Greatest Rune Weapons: As implied by the moniker, these weapons are made with the souls of the most powerful sentients; usually, such beings as greater gods, ancient dragons, and demon lords are the life forces used to power these weapons.
Greatest Rune Weapons possess the standard eight capabilities common to all Rune Weapons, and in addition, can possess the capabilities of Greater Rune Weapons, including soul drinking. These weapons also are capable of casting several high level magics several times a day, inflicting magic curses, teleporting itself and its current owner betweeen and across dimensions, fire unlimited blasts of energy depending on the weapon, and can even levitate undier its own power and fight alongside its owner with significant bonuses to hit.
- Holy Rune Weapons: Some of the Greater and Greatest Rune Weapons are powerful weapons of good; these Rune Weapons can be either of the Greater or Greatest level, and do extra damage to the forces of darkness. These weapons are typically centered around such powers as repulsing the dead, removing curses, sensing evil, expelling or banishing demons and devils, and finally, providing a circle of protection around its owner.
Fortunately, many of these Holy Weapons don't have a personality, suggesting that the process by which Holy Weapons are made often subsumes or destroys the intellect of the sentient used in its creation; that is to say, while these Holy Weapons have have a life force contained within them (as do all Rune Artifacts), there is no mind there to be tortured by eternal imprisonment.
(According to Palladium Game Canon, many if not most of these Holy Weapons were made by the forces of Darkness in order to punish captured powerful servants of the forces of Light. Despite the fact that such weapons evenually fell into the hands of heroes sooner or later, these dark forces took great delight in the fact that they were imprisoning spirits of good within an indestructible artifact for all eternity.)
- Rune Artifacts: Thes items, such as Rune Armours, Statues, and other inanimate objects don't usually possess offensive capabilities, obviously, but usually serve other functions as sentries. On the Splugorth-dominated continent of Atlantis, for example, Rune Statues exist as part of the architecture, effectively invisible -and as utterly immobile as the statues they are designed to resemble -until such time as they are commanded to strike. They possess a range of defensive and offensive magic, and some of these creations can mimic the objects and living creatures that the statue is designed after; that is to say, Gargoyle Rune statues can fly, sculpted Dragon Heads can bite atackers and breathe fire, Rune Lion statues can claw, bite, run on all fours, and so on.
In similar manner to most Rune Weapons, these artifacts usually possess a telepathic bond with their owners, and can only be commanded by characters with the same alignment as the life force within the statue.
[edit] Conditional Indestructability
There are, to date, very few means by which a Rune Artifact can be unmade. For purposes of game play, these methods are for the most part virtually impossible for characters to encounter in the course of conducting a normal Game Campaign.
- Gungnir: The Palladium Books version of Odin has a spear, Gungnir, which is a Greatest Rune Weapon in its own right. It can hit with sufficient mystic force to shatter Lesser Rune Weapons, apparently sundering the connection between the Life Force and the Weapon through unknown means.
- The Scathach Druid: A sect of Woodland Druids in the Rifts Game Setting of England are possessed of the ability to destruct Rune Weapons within their so-called Magic Cauldrons of Destruction; on the days of the winter or summer solstices, or during a lunar eclipse, Rune Artifacts or Weapons of any level can be unmade and melted down to slag, provided they can fit within the Cauldron's confines.
There is an entire Occupational Character Class [1]for this Druid which is potentially available to a Rifts player, but the ability to destroy Rune Weapons is not made available to players until much higher levels are reached.
- Dagda: The Palladium Books version of this Celtic God possesses a much larger version of the Scathach Druid's Cauldron, but despite its great size even he is forced to abide by the same 'rules' for destroying a Rune Artifact as must the Druid.
Most Rune Artifacts are disposed of by simply confiscating them and placing them into environments where they cannot be retrieved (such as dumped into the lava of volcanoes, where the artifacts can sink, sent through dimensional portals to unknown, empty elsewheres, and so forth).
[edit] References
Palladium Books Presents: World Book Two: Atlantis
Palladium Books Presents: World Book Three: England
Palladium Books Presents: Rifts: Pantheons of the Megaverse
Palladium Books Presents; Rifts: Book of Magic
