Runes

The eighteen rune families, how rune levels scale, and how socketing, combining, attunement and runewords work.

Runes are carved stones that fall from slain creatures. Pressed into a socket on a piece of equipment, a rune grants a lasting bonus for as long as that piece is worn or wielded. No class is barred from any rune, so a spread of runes is one of the few parts of a character that is entirely your own choice.

A rune's power depends on its level and nothing else. The five levels are worn in the rune's name, and every effect moves by exactly one even step per level from the level it wakes at, so there are no surprises and no sudden jumps.

The eighteen families#

Every rune belongs to one of eighteen families. The number in brackets after each effect is the rune level at which that effect wakes; from there it grows by one step per level. A stat effect steps by one point, a percentage effect by one percent, health and spell power by twenty, stamina by eight and armour class by two.

A Perfect Rune of Might therefore gives +5 strength, +4 percent damage and +3 percent critical damage. A Perfect Rune of Fortitude gives +5 constitution, +80 maximum health and +6 armour class. Read any rune with ooc <rune> to see exactly what it grants at its current level.

Two effects care where they live. A Rune of Presence socketed into a weapon draws enemies' attention to you; the same rune in armour or jewellery turns their eyes away. A Rune of Vitality's deepest gift discounts the stamina cost of fighting styles only, never of a plain swing, and it can never take a style below the cost of a normal swing. A Rune of Iron's travel discount likewise never takes a journey below the cost of an easy road.

Finding runes#

Runes drop from slain creatures at 2 percent up to creature level 50, and 3 percent from level 51 upward. That is the only knob; runes do not come out of the ordinary loot categories. As with everything else, a kill ten or more levels beneath you yields nothing.

When a rune does drop, its level is weighted heavily toward the bottom. Across the five levels the weighting runs 55, 27, 12, 5 and 1, renormalised over whatever levels the creature is capable of yielding. Weak creatures simply cannot produce high runes at all.

A Perfect rune is therefore roughly a one-in-a-hundred rune off the very hardest creatures, on top of the rune drop being rare to begin with.

Combining#

Three runes of the same family and the same level forge into one rune of the next level with combine <rune>. The command finds the other two matching runes in your inventory itself; you only have to name one. The three are consumed and the forging costs gold, rising steeply with the level produced.

Perfect runes cannot be combined further. The steady flood of low runes from everyday hunting is what feeds the forge.

Sockets#

A socket is permanent housing, not consumption. socket <rune> into <item> fills the first empty socket; unsocket <item> <number> frees the rune again, whole and unharmed, for a fee of fifty gold per point of the rune's form. Use runes <item> to see the socket numbers.

Sockets are rolled when a world drop is created, from its quality. How many an item can hold at most depends on its slot.

Socketed bonuses only count while the item is worn or wielded. runes on its own lists every socketed rune you have equipped, your attunement, and your running totals.

Ceilings#

Every effect has a ceiling, which is the most your entire outfit of runes can ever give you. Attunement and runeword bonuses count toward it.

You cannot waste a rune against these limits. If every effect a rune offers is already at its ceiling, socket refuses it and tells you so, and the rune stays in your hands for a better home. A rune that still adds anything at all is accepted.

Attunement#

A family answers devotion. Three or more socketed runes of one family, worn together, strengthen that family's contribution by a quarter; five or more strengthen it by half. The boost is applied before the ceilings, so it can carry you to a cap but not past one.

Spreading families wide buys variety and stacking one deep buys attunement. Where the trade stops paying is decided by the ceilings.

Runewords#

If the runes filling every socket of a single item spell a known sequence, in order, the item resonates into a runeword and grants a named bonus on top of what the runes themselves carry. The order matters, and so does the kind of item: words of war only wake in weapons, words of stone in armour, and quieter words in jewellery.

In game the sequences are not written down anywhere common. Merchants trained in runeread trade in rumours of them, and when you strike one you will know: the runes flare as one and the item bears the word thereafter.

Command summary#

Related#

• Gear
• World drops
• Gear sets
• Durability