Re: Three Runes

From: L C <lightcastle_at_8NWMlvdh_HAmsdtUJy7j0_bC7L7D8sxWBrRwao7opDP8xhGpWKNi3ziNXxLdCsUl>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:15:31 -0500

Alexander Entelechy wrote:
>
>
> I was having a chat with some members of my group about this
> when explaining why I didn’t like runes as they are presented. It’s
> almost like
> the runes are hard coded into you to give you a personality type. In
> fact the
> Sartar book gives negative modifiers for going against the personality
> type of
> your runes.
>

Interesting. Again, it seems this whole discussion really should hold off until all participants have Sartar, since it seems to have a lot more chargen detail.
Of course, I have been assuming that things in that book are Sartarite-only, keeping with the tradition of writing things from a certain in-culture view. So that may be true for Sartarites but not elsewhere.
I don't know if the book goes into things being reflective of broader universality of such rules or not.
>
>
> For me a more dramatic way to look at it is as a
> relationship. Everyone starts with one rune and then as they journey
> through
> life begin gaining more runes as they develop more relationships. In this
> system you’d get your affinity for a certain rune AFTER being
> initiated. The
> rune itself is just a representation of an important human thing:
> death, child
> birth, war, hate, trade, and so on. Initiation gives you a culturally
> specific
> understanding of that specific phenomena. It places it into a
> mythological context.
>

This seems to be what Peter is saying. Everyone has runes, but initation is required to turn them into magical abilities. (And presumably different systems tap these in different ways, some don't tap them at all, and some just add them as you go.)

>
> Initiating into a new religion would then mean you either
> drop your old understandings (runes) and develop new ones or your try and
> create a synergy. If you try and create a synergy then you have to
> combine the
> truths of both cultures in a heroquest and if they conflict in any
> serious way
> (which they should do for dramatic reasons) then you’ve got your work
> cut out
> for you. You’d probably also need to persuade your community of those
> truths
> before a heroquest could be attempted in the first place. That alone
> is the
> meat for some good stories.
>

Indeed. And certainly there is something to be said for someone with an Orlanthi understanding of "Air" having some work to do if they are switching over later to a Solar understanding of "Air" (The Loyal Storm? I forget his name. He shows up in some adventures.)

LC