by
Mike Mearls, illustrated by James Ryman
Last
week, I talked about ceremonies and the mechanics
behind them. This week's installment looks at runes, the
magical symbols that form the basis of much of the lore
and power in Monte Cook's
Arcana Unearthed. Runechildren are powerful champions
for good, while runethanes wield the power to turn a mundane
object into a powerful magical item. I first started working
with runes in Legacy of
the Dragons, and the basic concepts I created
there spilled over into my work on Mystic Secrets.
Runes
in Arcana Unearthed
I was intrigued by the idea of making runes a central
part of Arcana Unearthed early on. Almost every
fantasy roleplaying game tackles them in one way or another,
but I wanted to do something a little different. The runechildren
sparked many of my thoughts on the subject. I liked the
idea of runes as an active, rather than passive, force
in the world. The runechildren earned their status through
their actions, as if some greater force stood in judgment
of them and found them worthy. I really liked that feel,
since most other games depict runes as static tools or
an arcane alphabet that you can use to forge spells. I
liked the idea of giving runes a more active role -- making
them conscious players in the world.
If
you have Legacy of the Dragons, you've seen where
this line of thinking led me. It occurred to me that,
if the basic elements of the ancients (air, earth, fire,
water) could be represented by living creatures that embodied
their traits (elementals), why not do the same for runes?
In most fantasy games, the elements are so vital to the
multiverse that they have their own planes of existence,
a hierarchy of nobles and gods, and entire civilizations.
What if runes played a similar role in Arcana Unearthed?
If you push aside elementals as the basic building blocks
of the world and replace them with runes, what does that
do to the shape of the setting?
This
question drove much of my thinking and design work on
runes. Why not cast runes as the fundamental building
blocks of the cosmos? What if the world were founded on
a series of primal runes that embodied concepts such as
love, hate, war, and peace? These universal concepts formed
the entire fabric of the world. Individually, they have
little meaning, but when woven together they create the
world of the Diamond Throne as we know it. In some ways,
you could look at an inanimate object, a living creature,
and even an intellectual concept as expressions of a single
rune or unique blend of them.
I
really liked this idea for two reasons. First, it helped
emphasize the primal importance of runes in the cosmos.
Second, it suggested a lot of possibilities both in terms
of rules and story. That second factor is something I
like to see in background design: material that serves
to expand the rules of the game while enforcing the unique
traits of a setting. It's easy simply to say that runes
are important and cool in the Diamond Throne, but I'd
much rather back that up with rules and story material
that shows you why they are important.
Rune
Manifests
The
rune manifests, first detailed in Legacy of the Dragons,
are an outgrowth of this thought process. A manifest is
an ephemeral creature that embodies a single, primal rune,
such as "strength" or "laughter."
With the right ceremony, you bind one of these creatures
to you and draw upon its power for a short time. When
a strength rune manifest exerts its power, it increases
your physical strength. A laughter rune manifest can help
bring amity and accord to a situation, while a death manifest
can help speed a dying creature to the afterlife. Mystic
Secrets expands on the concept of rune manifests by
introducing new ones, in addition to reprinting the manifests
from Legacy, and giving expanded rules for learning
and using them.
Like
the ceremonies I talked about last week, rune manifests,
are a set of game mechanics that helps distinguish Monte
Cook's Arcana Unearthed from generic fantasy. The
same basic design criteria went into manifests as for
new rituals. The ceremonies to call a rune manifest are
easy to learn, and the benefits they offer are balanced
by the gold piece cost of conducting the ceremony. You
learn to call rune manifests in much the same way as you
learn ceremonies. Whenever you might learn a ceremony,
you can opt instead to learn how to call a manifest. As
you gain ranks in Knowledge (runes), you learn how to
bind more manifests. As with the ceremonies, manifests
offer relatively minor but useful benefits. Generally,
manifests act like one-shot magic items. They remain with
you until you activate them and gain their benefits.
Anti-Runes:
The Heralds of Annihilation
The concept of runes as living building blocks also helped
form the idea of heralds of annihilation, nihilistic villains
who seek to destroy the world. If an unknown benevolent
force created runechildren, wouldn't it be possible for
a malevolent power to christen its own champions? The
heralds fight on behalf of the Dark, but their crusade
is far more sinister than the typical villain's scheme
for power. The heralds of annihilation seek a far greater
goal: the destruction of the primal runes that form the
cosmos. If runes are similar to living entities, and if
they are symbolic representations of the fabric of reality,
it stands to reason that destroying a rune helps unravel
all of creation. If you erase the rune of laughter, then
the world loses the concept of comedy and mirth. Slay
the rune of life, and all living things fade away. In
essence, the cosmos speaks a language encoded by runes.
If it lacks the rune for a concept, it simply cannot contain
it.
One
Little Change...
As you can see, a small change (runes as elementals) can
echo throughout a book. One of the interesting things
about roleplaying game design is that you never really
know where one of those critical shifts -- a design decision
that shapes a book -- will come from. I hadn't thought
of runes in these terms until I went back to Legacy
of the Dragons to draw on the rune manifests I had
designed for it. My original concept of runes for Mystic
Secrets made them out to be much more like the runethane's
abilities, toned down a bit for all characters to use.
As I worked on designing that system, I found it difficult
to make these abilities distinct from magic items and
other effects. Who cares if a +1 longsword is magical
because a magister crafted it or because it has a rune
stamped on it? The net effect is the same. If I wanted
runes to be different, I had to go in a new direction.
When I went back to Legacy, I realized that I had
already written the solution I was looking for.
Next
week, I'll cover magic items, spells, and the rest
of the material that's in Mystic Secrets, including
a holdover from my original design concept for runes,
the rune templates.
DESIGN
DIARY—MIKE
MEARLS ARCHIVED ENTRIES
*
Mystic Secrets Revealed: Part One -- September
9, 2004
"This
installment tackles rituals and ceremonies, the first
and perhaps most important chapter in the book..."
