Setting:Mosaic

Mosaic; A Game of Runic Magic

A recent creation of /tg/'s involving, well, Runic Magic. For now it's going to be an info dump of everything I can find; it'll probably get cleaned up the next time a thread rolls around and it gets some attention.

Setting

Very low civilization world. Countries are little more than groups of villages who decided to work together, and full scale wars are rare. Craftsmanship and technology is more advanced than you might think, with plate armor being possible (though still difficult) for normal warriors to acquire, due to the common use of Runes in the manufacturing process. Virtually everyone knows a rune or two, to help them with the daily tasks of living, and a genius craftsman is just as adept with runes as a great mage, but applies them to a different task.

The world is scattered by ruins from various sources. Some are the constructs of Runelords long dead, or the leavings of long lost civilisations. Some are harmless, others perilous, and its irritatingly hard to know which is which. Most of the land is covered by great forests and mighty plains, or soaring mountains and cold ice. All these places hold darker things, which live to trouble the minds of honest men. Only humans have formed open civilisation, and if others do exist, its within secret places where the boots of men have not yet trodden, or have trod once, and then stopped dead.

Religion is odd, with the True Rune being almost universally acknowledged as existing and being the closest thing to a truly Divine being conceivable, being an ultimate description and method of control of all that is. If a thinking being could master it, they could become a true, omnipotent god.

Lesser gods exist, and are generally thought to be humans who have mastered, then amplified, a greater rune, taking it into themselves and merging with its essence. They don't act often, but when they do it is impressive. There's no knowledge of what restricts them in their actions, or even if they are actually restricted by any other than themselves.

The true evil in the game, and all the demons and dark god, come from Un-runes. An Un-rune is, essentially, a dark inversion of a rune, creating a sigil which unmakes reality, erasing it as if it had never been. Students of Un-runes seek to obliterate true runes, eventually actualising the Untrue rune, and thereby ending existence. What motives these madman hold is unknown, as seemingly no-one would benefit from their victory.

The known world is one large, ovoid continent, with cold "poles" at top and bottom, a belt of tropics and deserts in the middle, and temperate zones in between the two. The north is more mountainous, while the south is wetter, with more rainfall and rivers.

There's a good mix of cultures and ethnicities, and although people are suspicious of strangers, the trading of stories with travellers is a universal tradition, used to maintain trust and enhance the oral tradition. Nomads, caravans and groups of various sorts are common sights all through the lands, bringing knowledge, merchandise or services to wherever needs them.

Runes are the main source of personal power. Any amount of skill with a sword can be bypassed or augmented by a basic understanding of runes. As such, runes are some of the most important things in life. Most lesser runes are freely given and learned, although due to limits on mental capacity, people don't usually hold more than one or two at a time. However, Major runes and Great runes are much harder to find or learned, generally treated as treasured secrets. Learning a rune requires one who has mastered it to impart to you their mastery, giving you the ability to understand what the rune represents, and thereby utilising its powers.

Runic tattoos are a simple and growing market, not in the grand manner of the Tattooed caster, but in simple things like tattoo's for strength for manual labourers or protection from fire on the hands of a blacksmith. Tattooed cast

Sources

These threads contain all the current information on the system, much of which has changed since its conception and may yet change further. Anyone who has enough time and related knowledge is encouraged to copy currently relevant information from the following threads to this page.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2550678/ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2616123/ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2655109/ http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2801636/ (Short thread, mixed with Eurid) http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2815797/