We Are Runecaster

Inscribed in stone, spoken by the gods. The words now spoken by mortals, and wielded by the Runecasters. Part of the We Are Adventurers Collective.

[outlandidol]

Mpiyake, one more member of my party’s African themed campaign.  Mpiyake studies ancient giant’s runes, picking up the research of his father before him. He tattoo’s the runes all over his body himself ; magic channels through them enhancing his physical performance. Mpiyake’s design is based off of Senegalese Wrestlers.

[firebringeraxels-junk]

The Rune Rager. The closest to a caster a Barbarian subclass will ever get when made by me. This subclass uses elements of the Rune Scribe Unearthed Arcana, you will need that PDF.

Homebrewed for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition by me. 

PDF

[wearerunecaster]

Runes: Fact But Mostly Fiction

This week on “Runes: Fact But Mostly Fiction” we have the Rune Scribe and Rune Knight of Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition.  While the Rune Scribe Prestige Class never made it’s way into proper publication, I feel it worth looking at because it accomplishes something other rune systems don’t. The Rune Knight on the other hand was published in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and so is canon material. Now, in 5e the runes come from Giants. They were the first to master the art, and those who learned of the runes learned them from either the Giants themselves or from others who did. The Runes of 5e are very different, depending on which class you look at.

The Rune Knight’s powers are fairly limited. Each Rune has one passive benefit and one active benefit. A Rune is applied to your equipment and each piece of equipment you have is limited in the number of runes it can have applied. A Rune Knight is also limited in the number of Runes they can know, but they can use their Runes to accomplish different things like shielding their allies and increasing their own size. The Rune Scribe on the other hand treats runes as separate entities from the characters usual equipment. A Rune Scribe must attune to a Master Rune, which allows them to understand the Rune on a deeper level. Without Attunement the Rune cannot be used, but what makes them interesting is that any character can attune to a rune. The Rune has simple properties and complex properties. While any character attuned to a rune can use it’s simple properties, only a properly trained Rune Scribe can utilize it’s complex properties. The Rune Scribe’s powers mostly surround utilizing those complex properties, though they also learn how to utilize the Rune’s connection with the living world to complement their own usual abilities. The things that make the Rune Scribe’s Runes interesting are that: A) They are not considered arcane or divine magic, and can in fact work well with both. Often, runes are assigned to either path depending on the game they work in. The Rune Knight actually gets this right as well. B) Anyone can learn a basic understanding of the Runes. While most wouldn’t necessarily need the Runes, they can still utilize them if they choose to. This also extends to the Rune Scribe’s usage of them, because the Rune Scribe can put Runes onto other character’s equipment. C) They can be drawn into the air or on enemies to cause different effects. The Rune Scribe can draw the fire Rune onto an enemy to cause fire damage, for example.

Personally, I really like the Rune Scribe. I’m not as much of a fan of the Rune Knight. The Giant’s Might and associated features of the Rune Knight ruin the subclass for me. I understand the idea that the Giants first mastered the Runes and so using them makes you more like a Giant. But at the same time, the Runes aren’t inherently linked to the Giants themselves. After all, if the Giants first mastered them, surely they came from somewhere else? What I really like about the Rune Scribe is that they work with spell slots. While a character does need an understanding of Arcana to become a Rune Scribe, the Runes are never expressly stated to be arcane in nature. This means that a Cleric could be a Rune Scribe, or a Wizard could, or even a Fighter can. This makes them very versatile, and perfectly fits the real world origins of the Runes. The Rune Scribe isn’t perfect. It’s Runes can’t be used together, they have the same idea of complexity that I criticized in the Warcraft RPG, and while a Rune Scribe can understand all the Runes they have to attune to them to utilize them, which limits how many they can use at a time. But I still really like the Rune Scribe as a class. In fact, my favorite thing about it is that their Runes were never actually limited. There were suggested Runes that were added to the class, but they were also templates for people to create more. After all, an alphabet needs quite a few letters to cover the different sounds a language uses.

The last thing I want to say is that I completely understand why the Rune Scribe was never implemented into the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. A Prestige Class flew in the face of the overall idea behind the edition. That being said, I would rather have seen a finalized version of the Rune Scribe than the Rune Knight. I just found the Rune Knight to be underwhelming after I read it. And that’s just my personal opinion.

[borboranoir]

Fire Sigil

Fire is capable of making molecules that are bound closely together to loosen up and turn into gas. It requires of only three things: fuel, oxygen and heat. Embrace this element in your craft by always keeping in mind the three bases to create such a powerful reaction. 

This sigil is inspired by the chemical symbol for heat and Oxygen. 

Find Air, Water, and Earth.

[wearerunecaster]

Hᚨᛁᛚ ᛞᚹᚨᚱᚠ

ᚺᚨᛁᛚ᛫ᚺᚢᛗᚨᚾ᛫ᚠᚱᛁᛖᚾᛞ

[systlin]

The runes be like: we are the surface of the glacier that is magic, granted to you foolish and diminutive mannish by the Allfather. The greatest secrets of the universe are what we represent and you picked playing cards bought from Barnes and Noble to predict the future.

This is TOO fuckin real fuck

[wearewarpriest]

@wearerunecaster

[wearerunecaster]

This is hilarious.

[reality-breaker]

David LaRocca

[wearerunecaster]

As Hjal finishes his mailing, he sees a note on the ground:

"The good thing about having a wand of explosive runes is that you don't have to prepare it!"

Later the same day, Hjal is seen with a broad smile on his face. His clothing is singed and he has no eyebrows, but he is otherwise unharmed. After all, sewing defensive wards into your robes is standard practice when you work with explosive texts.

[unwell-friends]

Also while i'm here; go play something besides 5e. Broaden your horizons. Try something new. Hell, even older editions of D&D would be good. Try Basic/Expert, try AD&D- learn about THAC0 and exploration turns. Just do something besides 5e and see what other games have to offer, you might find a new favorite system.

[greatlyunknowablenumbers]

Try Genesys! Try blades in the dark! Try a powered by the apocalypse game! Try dungeon world or mauseritter or literally anything! Dm me with a list of qualities you like in your RPGs and I will find a better system for you I swear.

[wearesorcerer]

This.

Please play things besides 5e. Sorcerer will thank you.

[razorsoulzach]

“I love 5e, but I don’t know where to start” you may ask. Well here are a few suggestions:

Pathfinder 2E: do you wish 5e had more options? Do you wish there were more mechanics for breaking weapons or multiclassing shenanigans? Then this is it. The newest edition is widely loved by the community and has a lot of its 1E stuff online for free.

Call of Cthulhu: do you wish you could do more intrigue and horror, but 5e makes the game too easy? Try this out. 7th Edition is perfect for cosmic horror, intrigue, mystery, and all kinds of cool stuff. It has modes for 1920’s and modern day style campaigns, and is low magic makes for creative and fun roleplay and problem solving.

Ryutama: ever wish you could play in a Studio Ghibli style rpg? Wish exploration, crafting, and animal husbandry were better fleshed out in 5e? Wanna be able to fight goblins with cat ears? This system is easy to pick up and run, and the DM can even get in on the action with their own PC: The Ryujin, who acts as the party’s guide. Lots of fun.

Fate: do you wish d&d had more roleplay and less everything else? Are sick dramatic reveals and plot twists your jam? Then this is the system for you.

The Strange: do you like roleplay but want there to be some narrative weight to your actions? Are you into parallel universes? This is the system for you.

Mutants and Masterminds: do you like superheroes? This is it. Right here.

[wearesorcerer]

In my experience, there are two types of people regarding PF 2E: people like the above who champion it (and are a minority) and the people who played 1E but revile 2E (the vast majority). I put it that way because I work at a game shop that was a flagship PF store and we have struggled with 2E -- people don't buy it (we struggle to sell Core Rulebooks!), Society broke up over it, etc. All those troubles started at debut: it failed to launch well before the pandemic hit. (5e sales have grown, by contrast.) That's not to say that it is a bad system, just that "widely loved by the community" is not an accurate review unless by "the community" you mean "the people who stayed with 2e."

Other games to try:

Paranoia: The computer is your friend. You must protect it from commie mutant traitors. Wait a minute: you are a commie mutant traitor! Your replacement clone will arrive in five minutes. The current edition (I believe it was a Kickstarter project) comes in a white box with booklets and dice (like OD&D) and WET (or maybe dry) ERASE CHARACTER SHEETS.

Legend of the Five Rings: Samurai, shugenja, and the Shadowlands. Great Clans. Bushido. Need I say more? Okay: it got ported from a card game, D&D 3.0's main setting was it (instead of Kara-Tur, which no one liked anyway), and it then got a full campaign setting book and several sourcebooks made for it. I forget which edition is current.

GURPS: For perspective (and licensed Discworld RPG goodness, if you can run that). GURPS is very mathy; it is not the mathiest game out there, but it's up there. I wouldn't recommend it for most groups, but try making a character in it just to say you have had the experience.

To elaborate: it's a completely point-based system designed to let you make ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING (no exaggeration), but tailoring a character's advantages and disadvantages involves percentages. And that's before you get into how the main rules (like combat) work.

Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition (we're currently on 3rd) was basically GURPS d20. It somehow worked.

Genesys, Savage Worlds, etc.: Generic RPGs with their own systems. They're kinda the tier down from 5e in popularity, meaning they need some love.

Rifts: There are two things I can say about this game. First, it is a fantasy/sci-fi kitchen sink and so is over the top; you can play nearly anything in this setting and make it work. Second, the rules are bizarre because it's mainly the work of one guy (who doesn't play well with others, or so his reputation goes) and his weird no-longer-house-rules-because-they're-published. The joke there is that no one plays Rifts as it is printed.

But there are a millionty RPGs out there: Blue Rose, Exalted, Shadowrun -- really, you name it, there's probably an RPG out there for it that doesn't run on 5e (though you have a strong chance of hitting d20/3e-modeled systems, like Etherscope).

[we-are-swashbuckler]

Being who I am, I have to mention 7th Sea - "swashbuckling and sorcery" is quite a stylish approach. And the magic can be quite visceral (literally in the case of Porte) if you are into that sort of thing.

Recently, I have been playing Mistborn and that's been a nice change of pace.

[wearesoulbinder]

I would love to take a second here and champion trying out chronicles of darkness as well!

It fits well if you wanna play certain fantasies but it can also work fantastically for horror games (the storyteller system is my favorite game system to date)

[gallingsiren]

I would like to 2nd that unfortunately despite being a pretty decent system PF2E is kind of in a slump but I wouldn’t discourage people from giving it a try and perhaps giving it the attention it rightfully deserves.

If I could throw some of my own RPG suggestions at the wall for people to broaden their horizons with some of my personal favorites are -

Stars Without Number - a pretty rules light (lighter than 5e anyways) space Sci-Fi system basically tailor made to play a game that feels like an episode out of your favorite sci-fi series (Firefly, Star Trek etc) with a very neat default setting

Mouseguard - Burning Wheel is a good bad game, one day I will stockholm syndrome a group of people into reading the burning wheel manual with me, but in the mean time Mouseguard is a system authored by the same creator but with 200 percent less non-sense and guff. Mouseguard is a pretty roleplay heavy system that has a very interesting conflict resolution mechanic, a cake baking contest, life threatening combat, and an impassioned heated debate are all resolved using the same mechanics and it’s very neat. The setting is the Mouseguard setting used in the mouseguard comics and it’s got art by the author, it is an incredibly cute game.

Delta Green - Have you ever wanted to play a game that feels like being a member of the SCP foundation / being part of a huge conspiracy that the world is 10 times stranger than people believe it is and you’re part of the reason the rest of the population thinks it’s normal? DG is what it’s like to play a D-class with a gun most days, but sometimes you don’t go insane, you don’t blow your head off, and you even get to keep the gun. This entire game is about putting a cap on, covering up, or disposing of super natural or secret undesirables- from tossing the necronomicon into oblivion or fighting off extra dimensional extra terrestrials, or fighting off a wizard in space. If it belongs in an isocube, well we haven’t got those but here’s a gun and some bullets champ.The system is not any heavier than 5e in my own opinion.

Warhammer 40k RPGs - Fantasy flight games put out a whole host of RPGs in the Warhammer 40k setting which are well loved by 40k loving grognards. I love 40k, it’s a setting I wish got more love by people I could tolerate. I heavily encourage someone who likes gothic space fantasy to at least thumb through these for some of the most hilarious critical hit charts ever (if extreme violence is funny). Recently another company published a system called Wrath and Glory which looks to a simplified 40k rpg with new mechanics and makes a solid attempt at being a damn sight more inclusive than a lot of standard 40k faire. I would sell a kidney to play this game with 2 people who don’t break out some "gamer” words.

I also second that everyone on this hell site should play and would love Paranoia.

[wearerunecaster]

I just wanna second Powered by the Apocolypse. There's a version of that system for literally any game. It's great.

[wearerunecaster]

The Iconic Runecaster

Name - Hjalthrun Thunderhammer AKA Hjal

Race - Dwarf

Age - 67

Class - Fighter 4/Rune Scribe 5/Wizard 4

Subclasses - Eldritch Knight/Divination

Alignment - Chaotic Good, Hjalthrun believes in no codes, no laws. When it comes to ethics, he wants to do whatever will create more happiness in the world, and woe to those who stand in his way.

History - By all accounts, Hjalthrun was an ordinary dwarf. Growing up he had a love of craft and a love of reading. He was the son of a stone-worker and he became a stone-worker. After a normal apprenticeship he became a journeyman and chose to go out into the world to find a home for himself. As he traveled, he read many books and he learned many things. Eventually he heard of a magical power his people had once possessed. The magic of the runes. Falling in a deep love with the concept, he decided to search the world and find the keys to understanding this magical force. He closed up the shop he had opened and began wandering. With few leads, he started his search in the greatest libraries he could find. After a time, he met a woman and the two fell in love with each other. They traveled together for a long time, and Hjalthrun learned the ways of a warrior and began delving into the widely known magics of wizards.

Then one day, while exploring an ancient dwarven ruin, Hjal found a book containing writings on the very mystery Hjal had been searching for the answer of. He spent the next day committing the book to memory, and now he had leads. He tracked down each lead, learning more and more, until he realized he had learned all there was to know of the runes. Finally, he had delved the depths and become the first Runecaster in an age. Now, with knowledge he sacrificed much to attain, Hjalthrun Thunderhammer has devoted himself to the practice of his art. He believes that there are few things in life more important than helping where he can. Even with all the time he spent learning, Hjal is still a young dwarf, and he has decided he can make the world a better place. One step at a time.

Signature Rune - Vind

Signature Weapon - Maul

[halldoraart-deactivated20221218]

Odin 

[wearesorcerer]

Meow receives a letter. As they open it, it reads "I prepare Explosive Runes EVERY day."

Fortunately for Meow, being a cat involves being extremely lucky; being an immortal cat means being both lucky and properly paranoid, like reading one's mail in the middle of several wards while wearing protective gear.

Unfortunately for Meow, the explosion was strong enough to fling the fastidious feline into the next room.

While airborne, the cat raises a sign:

[wearerunecaster]

To make this war fair, the Iconic Runecaster debuts today!

[we-are-avenger]

Tyr by Jordan Zaz

[ualthum]

'XOTH - DEATH

The Sul'voth rune Xo, meaning change, fear, decay, and mortality.

The runes continue to become more "alive" with each passing year. Personified, they become Deific in nature, shown here as an abstract rune-headed god of death.

[owlyjules]

So there was this little thing floating around twitter where people would tell you what kind of vibe/types you would be!

So I made some based on what people tought my vibe was.XD

[we-are-knight]

@weareadventurers

[wearesorcerer]

(I should have read the description!) ASK MEME!

[wearerunecaster]

Sorry for the double ask, but flavoring your spells as runes stones would make the spells per day feel more natural too. Might do it myself now actually. Lol

I actually really like this suggestion. I do want to say, I'm thinking about it and I like your other suggestion too. After all, most of the stories I know of men who used the runes were great heroes. Usually adept as both warriors and mages.

[wearerunecaster]

My thoughts would be to not go wizard unless you are wanting to focus on magic. In most stories runes are powerful but tend to be more limited in the number of different types. Users get their versatility in knowing the runes and using them creatively. To me having a smaller number of spells (flavored as runes) and using those to make yourself more than you started fits the flavor.

I'm curious what stories you're referring to. I'm most familiar with the Norse Runes, which when combined in different ways could accomplish almost anything.