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How do you other GMs envision/explain runes in game? I find myself with many non-system questions, and would love to know what other folks have found or done.
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Relevant Official Descriptions include:
"Most magic weapons and armor gain their enhancements from potent eldritch runes etched into them." -CRB p580
"Runes must be physically engraved on items through a special process to convey their effects." -CRB p580
"When a rune is transferred from the runestone to another object, the runestone cracks and is destroyed." -CRB p571
"It takes 1 day (instead of the 4 days usually needed to Craft) to transfer a rune or swap a pair of runes..." -CRB p580
Example questions:
1) Is "Etching" or "Physically Engrav[ing]" a rune into an item actually removing material? (Does it also introduce material?)
2) If it's Physically a change to the item are runes visible after they're applied? (so magical equipment are generally always obvious then unless steps are taken to cover the runes?)
3) If it takes a day to transfer (or swap) a rune what does that look like? Is that chisel and hammer, or something (jokingly) like a magic laser?
I think I'm mostly struggling with the terms "transfer" and also "physical" together... if it's physical why wouldn't you just Copy or Duplicate and leave the original intact? So it must be a magical process (that even causes the stone to crack), so Magical Serial Numbers? But then 1 day of "Physically Engrav[ing]"? Does transferring the rune off the weapon put the removed material back on it or is it scarred by each rune borne and out lived?
I know it's fiddly and ultimately going to be "your the GM it's whatever you want!" but I like consistency, internally to my world, and with the publisher when I can. This just seems contradictory and I haven't settled on a screen ready version... something that "Looks right" and still follows all the rules descriptions.
When you want to go past "you pay your gold and come back the next day" to actually describe it, what did/will you say?
Just me? Thoughts? Anything official?
I would say it is a "magical" crafting processes that can visibly or invisiblely inscribe said runes onto the equipment.
It is basicly a ritual, you don't need to be a caster to preform a ritual just have the prerequsit skills such as crafting and craft magic feat.
It does not physicly remove or add material but eches magical energies into the object which can be removed and transfurred to another object.
Because the "magic" is in the rune itself you can't just copy it or well you can but that's just creating another rune with all the costs and time involved. Which is why when you transfur it it is removed from the old item to be added to the new one.
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You raise good questions, Tar. Etching is a permanent and damaging process to something:
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in the metal.
The opening scene of Conan the Barbarian (1982) shows his father's sword being etched, and it is most certainly removing material.
Paizo, unfortunately, put almost no fluff into the CRB. Descriptions of how things appear are left entirely to the GM. Because of that, I tend to ignore the few descriptions they do include, and this is an example. I ignore that they used the word "etch" and assume the runes themselves are a visible, magical design imprinted onto the armament. It makes more descriptive sense when you use a runestone to pull it off and place it on something else.
I'm like you, Tar. I would get caught up in the lack of verisimilitude of how material you removed from an item comes back after a rune is removed. It makes no sense, so I discard it. That's just me. I'm sure plenty of folks don't care or are fine with waving their hands and having the material restored. Either way, this is fluff, and there are no houserules to implement to describe things in a way that makes sense to you.
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Me and one of my tables run Runes as almost like Materia, where there are preexisting slots in the armor/weapon, and the Runes are physical gems/plates that you have to socket into them, and the 1 day of crafting is essentially "setting the gem" in the slot, making sure the magic flows out of the rock and into the metal blah blah. So with our fluff the Runestone doesn't crack afterwards, but that's not that big of a deal, they're just 1gp chunks of special treated stone, after 3rd level you can just get a bag of them en masse and it's no big deal. Rule #1 baby, Rule #1!
Yea, the mechanics overshadow the verisimilitude.
So half the time they're described like tattoos, and half the time like stickers. The impermanent/transferable portion implies they have to work like stickers, and when you transfer them, all that time is spent carefully pulling it off then reapplying the "glue" that holds the already crafted rune over.
As for visibility, it seems they'd have to be, but that wouldn't prevent similar non-magical runes being put on weapons so they look cool (or as a knockoff). Also, the runes might be subtle, perhaps too subtle to see without examination, or when covered in ichor.
Etching can't work as actual etching without damage which doesn't occur.
But it's magic, right? You're (pseudo)etching into the substance, a.k.a. applying the magical "glue" which grafts the rune onto the item. This penetration of magical essence has no actual physical effect, hence no damage when the rune's pulled out.
As for why it takes a better crafted item to hold more runes, I'm having a harder time with this. I guess I have to play the magic card again, tying this back some essence of the item imbued by the worth/dedication/blessings/sophistication of the creator. Legendary items aren't simply precision made (like w/ a modern laser & modern materials), they carry on the heart/essence of their exemplary creator too.
Yes, that's a bunch of woo in reality, yet that sort of flavor's fairly common in lore, including the reforging part to make a weapon better or purer. Never mind the actual methodology of forging! Heroes get attached to their weapons. Even in my first 3.0 game, a guy wanted to keep his original sword, so I made up a way to upgrade it to masterwork.
Note that I'm not referencing Paizo material, just ad libbing.
Cheers
Timeshadow: "It is basicly a ritual" is what I was leaning on too. Because Magical Crafting isn't required to apply/transfer a rune.
Plane: Love the Conan reference (and the inspiration your name provided)
Castilliano: Love the flavor of the "essence of their exemplary creator"
I appreciate all the answers, at the moment I'm leaning towards a magical abstraction...
Effectively a ritual that lets the crafter interact with the Ethereal projection/essence of the item.
Runework then becomes etching/changing the face of the Ethereal essence/spirit of the thing in the aesthetic of the way we get have a Material and an Ethereal plane that overlap. Then we get a change in the material of the thing (though calling it Physical is still a stretch), but it's also just the other side of how we expect materials to work because it's the Ethereal.
It lets it remain unseen on an item if desired though there is room for shoddy or intentional work to effect both planes.
It allows for "fun and interesting" ways to see/interact. True seeing might let you see the numerous magical scars, or ethereal beings might be slightly more weary (nothing mechanical, just flavor). You could even discover a mundane weapon had been magical at one time but has since been "robbed".
Still some time between now and Friday's game... Happy to hear/refine further.
Me and one of my tables run Runes as almost like Materia, where there are preexisting slots in the armor/weapon, and the Runes are physical gems/plates that you have to socket into them, and the 1 day of crafting is essentially "setting the gem" in the slot, making sure the magic flows out of the rock and into the metal blah blah. So with our fluff the Runestone doesn't crack afterwards, but that's not that big of a deal, they're just 1gp chunks of special treated stone, after 3rd level you can just get a bag of them en masse and it's no big deal. Rule #1 baby, Rule #1!
This is how I envision the weapon and armor runes working as well. Like slotting gems in Diablo or Materia in FF7. You can't copy a rune because it's a small magic item. Sure, the rune is important, but it's also an object imbued with magic that takes time and material to craft. And since it's technically separate from the weapon or armor, it can be removed and re-set with a little work.
Cool ideas for flavor, Tar. I'll probably use an idea system like this.
TarEcthelion,
I really like the idea of the "spirit" of the weapon.
There was another game system "Werewolf" from White Wolf games that had the idea of a spirit world that had reflections of much of the "meterial" world. Things that had allot of emotion or magic tied to them were more "real" there. Dragon age did this kinda as well with "the fade".
I like it an intend to use this as well. When an item is given a rune it's "spirit" form is etched so as you said if someone were not careful you could leave a perminant scar on an object when transfurring enchantments. This sounds like a fun oppertunity to have real story or history on a magic item.
Thanks for this thread - helpful flavorful ideas.
For similar kind of "generate flavor" reasons, I've been (trying) to name items a bit more in my current game; for example, a found weapon is "Honor Guard" rather than "a +1 striking halberd" - this seems to have gone down well with my players & resonates well for me with the idea of the "spirit of the weapon". It's much easier to come up with some story associated with the name if that's needed at any point as well.
I think in my game the evocative name will probably also transfer along with the rune in the "ritual", perhaps with some evolution based on the physical properties and history of the enchantments & weapons involved.
I actually like the idea that it is a physical process that removes material, but the inscribing of the rune isn't the main source of the magic. So when a rune's power is transferred from one item to another, the original still has the inscription (maybe altered in some way so it can no longer hold the power) and it really feels like the item has lost something.
Me and one of my tables run Runes as almost like Materia, where there are preexisting slots in the armor/weapon, and the Runes are physical gems/plates that you have to socket into them, and the 1 day of crafting is essentially "setting the gem" in the slot, making sure the magic flows out of the rock and into the metal blah blah. So with our fluff the Runestone doesn't crack afterwards, but that's not that big of a deal, they're just 1gp chunks of special treated stone, after 3rd level you can just get a bag of them en masse and it's no big deal. Rule #1 baby, Rule #1!
This is how my group has been envisioning them, Dragon Age style runes.
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My first impression was that Paizo said "etching" when they actually meant "soldering" or something similar. But I do like the idea of carefully sticking the runestone itself onto the item. The wizard harmonizes its aura with the flow of the Ethereal Plane, the cleric keeps a vigil over it in prayer, the bard spreads rumors of this awesome new magic shield that can block anything and that you can also use like a sled!
If the runes are obvious enough on an item, would it be possible to figure out what they do just by looking at them? Presuming there isn't a standardized iconography all over Golarion, or that magically empowering runes aren't universal, an Arcadian wizard would probably have a harder time telling what a Vudran cleric's armour does, especially if the rune isn't just Vudrani for "slick" written on the front.
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My first impression was that Paizo said "etching" when they actually meant "soldering" or something similar.
This is why you always keep a thesaurus site handy when writing and wonder, "Do I really know what that word means?"
If the runes are obvious enough on an item, would it be possible to figure out what they do just by looking at them? Presuming there isn't a standardized iconography all over Golarion, or that magically empowering runes aren't universal, an Arcadian wizard would probably have a harder time telling what a Vudran cleric's armour does, especially if the rune isn't just Vudrani for "slick" written on the front.
This is hilarious. Who wants to write common looking words on their shield, right? No one wants to hear, "Why do you have 'strong' on your shield, dude?" I imagine this is a lot like westerners getting kanji tattoos. Everyone wants a rune from somewhere else but inevitably gets badly translated ones, so instead you hear that Vudrani asking you, "Why do you have 'hot dog' written on your shield?" or something equally ludicrous.
"No, no, man! I told them I wanted it to say Power-Lord. That's what it says in Vudrani.""I'm Vudrani."
The shielded warrior swallows uncomfortably.
I've gone back and forth on what interpretation I prefer a couple of times, but I do kind of like the idea that the process of etching/engraving does physically marks the weapon. As others have discussed, copying the mark does nothing because the mark isn't itself innately magical, so crafting the rune involves instilling it with the magical properties you desire. You can transfer runes from one object to another because its possible to reverse engineer the process of creating the mark to channel the magic directly into another etching, whether that's on a runestone or another weapon.
This way, the rune would always be visible to examination, so if you see your opponent has a mighty large axe with three impressive looking runes etched into the blade or along the haft, you know to take them seriously--but there's no guarantee that a given mark on a weapon actually has any magic in it. People might reasonably etch runes into their weapon either out of a ritual or aesthetic sense, or weapons which have had the runes removed might still bear the physical mark despite having no magic remaining in them. This wouldn't come up super often because usually if you're removing a rune from a tool, it's because you want to take the useful magic and apply it to a better weapon, leaving the other weapon as unimportant mundane fodder which might be picked up by some desperate warrior or left to rust.
In regards to what the process of transferring a rune from one site to another, I don't have a clear impression, but certainly there would be some time needed to etch the weapon, assuming it doesn't have a leftover mark from another time it bore a rune. Perhaps even if it did have an old rune, the process requires going over the motion again albeit without further removing or carving material. Since the process doesn't require any specialized magical knowledge aside from Crafting (not to say I don't assume that Crafting doesn't include a certain amount of general magical knowledge as is practical and applicable to the trade, with or without the Magical Crafter feat) so I imagine the process largely involves hands-on methods of siphoning the magic from one place to another. Admittedly smithing is a rather involved activity which yet remains largely beyond my wheelhouse, but even imagining the intricacy of things like heating and tempering and grinding I think gives a good initial point, perhaps with techniques that would appear more mystical to our non-fantasy world sensibilities.