Runic magique is a hotly debated form of magique, due mostly to its creation.
But, to describe Runic Magique, I need to explain why it came to be. With five of the six Realms having Magique, it seems superfluous to add in a vastly different version.
So, a brief history lesson is in order (I will touch on this in future posts and in the series):
History Of Runic Magique
Originally, the Six Realms were one, a vast empire, controlled by a man known (later) as the Mad Emperor. The All Father appointed the Emperor. In conjunction with five other deities, the All Father created each of the races that inhabit the world. Two races (created by the All Father, personally) the Velryn and the Godlings, are key to this story.
The Velryn were told to bow and serve the Godlings who were less powerful. Some of the Velryn, less than happy about this, refused, leading one Velryn to corrupt the Emperor. This led to a war known as the Attrition. Horrified by what his creations did, the All Father stripped the Godlings of their innate magiques (see part 1). The Velryn also learned this little trick (though they later lost the ability).
Six Godlings, Cashieus, Printan, Mystelle, Azuma, Kalissa, and Rozola, became the All Father’s champions during this period. He returned their magiques and tasked them to find others, build an army, and he would help them eliminate the Velryn threat.
During this period, Printan, the future first monarch of Twili, had his power stripped by the Velryn. Worse yet, it remained gone. No matter what he tried, he could not regain magique. Nor could his descendants.
Lacking magique, he and his defendants struggled against the magique capable kingdoms, specifically Arctus, with whom enmity brewed. Pushed into a desert with little farming and crop safe places, they struggled against nature itself for the right to survive. Whereas the other kingdoms relied on their magiques for day-to-day life. The Twilians created complex designs and eventually, in the desert mines, a man found an old Tome, buried deep below. After deciphering the tome, Twilians found the way the Velryn and the All Father stole magique.
The twelfth Tzar of Twili started a campaign. Originally, he attempted to convince magique users to immigrate. No one came. So he built weapons of great power. Siege weapons his knights could use at a distance. With desert all around him, none of the other kingdoms paid mind to what he was doing. With no perceived worth, the other nations ignored them.
It wasn’t until the Twilian-Vastolian War in 118 AEW that the other nations realized the threat Twili was. As Twili and Vasto were neighbours with only a strip of water between them, the Twillans used their advanced engineering to build a bridge in one night. They started their assault on the coastal cities, using their catapults to level them from a safe distance.
With their enemy out of range of their innate magiques, the Vastolians became overrun and, less than four months after the first attack; the Vastolians surrendered. As spoils of war, the Twilians took five-thousand of their innate magiquers. These five thousand had their magique stolen and transferred into special stones that were mined out of the Centum Calea Mines. The ore, aptly, is called Calea. In its smelted and refined form, it looks like a black smooth stone.
Equipped with magique, the Twilians made a comeback, terrifying most nations. Eventually The Vastolian Empire won the right to be a client kingdom of The Imperium of Twili, but they were still required to make an offering of innate magique users. The Twilians claim it’s bolstering their military. In truth, it is to continue making new runes. Though others outside Twili have learned the secrets now.
The Process
Stealing magique is not an easy process, as an innate user's core fights it, trying to protect the vessel that is its user. The magiquer gets attached to a machine powered by a waterwheel (the process, originally, happened in the one river that winds through the Twilian desert). From there, the core’s essence gets extracted using tubes and sifted between usable magique and unusable. At this point in history, only about thirty percent of an innate user's magique could undergo extraction. That would change in 1066 AEW, when a man named Taracles Gare studied the tome and realized some mistakes they made. He changed the percentage from about thirty percent to ninety-eight percent. Certain death for the magique user, as once an innate user reaches eight-five percent, their core risks shattering. At ninety percent, there is no risk. The core shatters.
The Twilian’s did not care if they suffered and they withdrew the magique improperly, twisting it and making it more powerful and more destructive, but it became unstable and volatile. Calea stones were the only thing capable of containing the magique, but once it became cracked, crushed, or otherwise broken, the magique seeped out, detonating like a bomb.
Since this magique is born from innate users' cores, the runes it can make will match the magique of the core. Vastolian core will create a Vastolian based rune. This is partly why Twili started attacking other kingdoms and the ones that were too far away, they sent people to kidnap magiquers. Eventually they got enough magiques to create an entire legion of Runic magiquers. The problem in the early years was that they didn’t know what they were doing and often wounded their own along with the enemy.
Enter the Runic Academy.
The Runic Academy
A school built by runes for those who wish to learn to control and wield them. Founded in 1245 AEW by Damocles Vie and Gerstan Amec, it attracted many knights as pupils. The school only accepted male pupils (and save for one exception, still does). The proper name of the school is Amecview Runeia Acadamis. Everyone just calls it the Runic Academy for ease.
At first, it only taught how to control the runes and use them in combat. Over time, they expanded and started teaching the history or runes, how to create them, the runic alphabet, and basic physics, chemistry, math, and art. Art class helps pupils learn to paint the glyphs on the Calea stones. There are also courses that teach smelting and refining. The school graduates thousands of users every year. Pupil ages range between twelve and twenty-four. Most people will graduate within five years, but some people stay longer and others are fast-tracked.
The student body fluctuates between seventeen and nineteen thousand students. The alumni often join the Twilian military (though some undergo mandatory service). Others join the faculty or go off and start creating runes in other nations. Some go out and teach other nations people how to use them (an attempt by Twili to sabotage these nations).
How It’s Viewed Outside of Twili
Clearly, the Twilians love having magique. The other nations have mixed feelings about runes. Because of the sheer volume of runes in the world, they are easily accessible, and they are powerful. The nation that views them as mostly positive (if you ignore the unethical process of creating them) is Whit. Their magique is the weakest of the Six Realms and this gives them another offensive tool. Many of their magique users also use runes. For similar reasons, Luz also allows them within their borders with few laws to guide their usage. Greeland has implemented rules, including acceptable creation methods. They were the first to realize they don’t need to push innate users to the point of shattering, and many innate users sell their magique to rune makers.
That leaves Arctus and Vasto, who have the greatest restrictions. In Vasto, due to their (unwilling) involvement in rune creation, they are illegal within the borders of the nation. Anyone caught with runes gets exiled or killed (if it’s a Vastolian rune, they assume that to mean you harmed a Vastolian magiquer and try you for murder). In Arctus, it isn’t illegal, but it's monitored heavily. Due to the enmity between Twili and Arctus, runic makers are suspicious, even if they are Arcturian. The only ones allowed to use runes are knights who have passed certain tests and trained by actual runic users. These knights then go before the Curia Iulia (another blog post, but for now, just know they are the Arcturian Royal Council) vow loyalty to the kingdom along with swearing an unbreakable Oath that they will never use the runes against their own people.
The prevailing thought in Arctus is that runes are dangerous and a way for Twili to attempt sabotage against the kingdom and/or get spies inside the kingdom. Quinn despises them, but they fascinate his brother, Scion.
Despite Quinn’s hatred of them, he sees a usefulness and acknowledges the fact Greerland found a way to keep innate users safe while making runes. He learned, as a boy, from one of Queen Hestia’s relatives, how to create runes safely. He only used this skill once to create a special blade for his best friend, Valerius Vracca.
