Runes of Slavonia

Over the past week, I've worked on a bit of side lore for the players in my homebrew world [Akura]. The endgame is to have a rough system to allow them and any future adventurers in my custom world to craft their own magical properties, though I imagine it'll have to just be up to the Game Master's discretion what the effects of various runes do. Balancing that will probably prove far too difficult. Still, feel welcome to use the image for your own campaigns. There is also an uncolored-ish version towards the middle of the post if you want to save on ink.

The infographic goes into the abridged information on runes. Lore wise, runes are rechargeable, magical, storage cells that enhance an item in a specific manner. What the rune does depends on both the type of rune (shield, strength, life, shadow) and the type of magic placed within (fire, holy, necrotic, radiant). One example is the rune of Resurrection, which is also in the game known as the Mark of Charon. If the rune is imbued with holy magic, it can assist in healing spells and even reviving recently killed people. If the rune is imbued with necrotic magic, it causes necrotic damage and can raise undead creatures.

There are a few ways to create magical runes:

1. Gather several magical components and simply draw the runes out. This process is the cheapest; however, the runes are weaker and more unstable. Should the rune be damaged (smeared, washed away, flaked off, et cetera) the remaining magic inside will dissipate, often it is violent.
2. Gain some form of magically imbued oil. This creates a more stable rune than the first, and it is easier to change magical properties of the runes at a later date. The magical oil etches the runes, and the crafter applies magical types to the various runes.
3. One can use certain metals like silver, gold, or even bronze to forge in the runes. During the forging process the magic must be applied to the runes before quenching. This method creates the most stable of runes, which allows more power to be applied. The downside is that forging in the runes costs an immense amount of resources, simply for the need to find a runecrafter skilled enough to do it.

Runes of different types can be combined in various orders to create a new effect. For example, using the Steal and Life runes together will create a means of taking life energy from anyone that touches the rune. Adding the Combat rune before the others will mean life energy is only stolen when striking a foe with the runed object. Adding Shelter at the end [Combat, Steal, Life, Shelter] will allow for the stolen life energy to transfer to the person using the runes.

That's all assuming the above rune combinations are using necrotic magic. What would happen if the same runes were filled with fire magic? Well, the target's heat would be transferred to the wielder. Removing the shelter runes [Combat, Steal, Life] will turn the runed object into a weapon that slowly freezes the opponent with every strike.

Not all rune combinations work, nor are the same ones exactly the same. Contradictory runes could simply fizzle out or cause a magical discharge. It is for that reason runes are so costly to make, the skill required is immense. The crafter needs knowledge on forging, or at least oil etching, and also have a well of magic ready to imbue the runes.

What happens when a rune runs out of magic? Often times the puts new magic into the runes, either by themselves, or by returning to a runecrafter. Forged runes simply gather latent power from the world around them over time. Drawn runes break down and loose all power. Oil-etched simply need to be recharged manually.

I also feel like discussing Charon there on the left. Initially his side of the screen included text based around some of his origin (after all this is meant for my players). Then I considered how known of them bother with those questions, so why give them an answer they don't care about. Still, me knowing his backstory helps with portraying the character. To do that Charon was made to look injured, battered, and his very touching of the sword hilt was rusting it. I hope I did a good job of causing that effect.

Uncolored Version

This portion of the post is about how I made that picture. First I started with an image of a preexisting sword. Initially I was going to keep everything about it and throw the runes on, then call it done. However, madness whelmed over me and I began to just construct the blade and hilt around it.

The hilt was initially meant to be scythes that pointed down toward the blade. The design changed as the hilt obscured white space for the text, and as I began applying color the hilt began to look more like metal horns. The skill in the center was partially traced from another image [Death Knight icon from World of Warcraft]. The coloring of it was completely me though.

The skull was the second most difficult thing to color in. A big reason of that was to get the shading right for the various curves and divots that come with skulls, also to account for light being made by the eyes. Some of the bone, and the metal ring around it, has a faint amount of blue placed on top.

Charon was the hardest thing to draw. I have little experience drawing humanoid forms, and the amount of detail made it difficult to color. The bandages may seem white from a distance but they are more of an off-white, with a degree of shading in various places to subtly indicate where some bandages wrap over others. Much like with the leather wrapping of the sword handle, I needed to keep the black lines to help make the edges distinct from a distance. Charon's metal armor piece were larger, so I was able to just make dark shading to create that same sense of depth without black lines.

The other issue with Charon was what color palette should he have. I didn't think his armor should be grey, as that would blend with the sword hilt he was on too much. I also couldn't get his hood and robe to be a shade of black; rather, I couldn't make it look appealing. I decided that I would use the tarnished bronze color of the adjacent skull ring for his armor, but darker. That way it would give off that Charon's armor was old and lost its sheen over time, same for making his hood a light gray, to make it appear his clothes lost color. The red was just placed to break up the grey and white colors on his form.

The final touches were the low opacity colors placed over Charon, the skull, and the runes below the hilt. First-off, I kept the rune of resurrection free of the glow effect simply due to how the light blue clashed so much with the amber surroundings. The light blue represented magic that came from Charon, as the same colors wisped out through his bandages to signify how barely kept together the death god is.


I used the color blue for him, simply because I had arbitrarily chosen that color earlier on in the campaign for whenever necromantic magic was used. It's my way of keeping some consistency amongst imagery. Other glowing runes represented their category. Green for the elements and general nature magic, purple for more arcane magic, yellow for holy/life magic, and red for more maleficent magic. I also tried to keep the particle effects of the runes different to help distinguish them.

Thanks for reading.