Rune Priest

--If looking for the Dungeons & Dragons class, see Runepriest.

We are totally not psykers! The lightning you see is our animal spirits helping us! Its all true! We swear on our wolfy wolfs!

Rune Priest are Librarians of the Space Wolves who use shamanic rituals to avoid being sucked into the Warp. Totems and runes allow the Rune Priests to exercise caution and precision with their powers. The Thousand Sons are reckless and self-indulgent with their powers, consorted with daemons even before Magnus singlehandedly shattered the Emperor's design to utilize the (much safer) Webway. The Wolves don't hate the Thousand Sons because they're psykers; they hate them because the Vlka Fenryka had been fighting monsters and uncontrolled psykers since Russ was found.

Like the Librarians of Codex Chapters, Rune Priests are combatant psykers, using their psychic abilities to aid their brothers on the battlefield; off the battlefield, they are the keepers of the chapter's librarium and store of knowledge. The major difference is that Rune Priests do not believe their psychic abilities are derived from the Warp, but rather from the animistic spirits of their homeworld, Fenris; which is channeled through totems and runes on their armour.

There does seem to be an element of in-universe discrepancy on this: In Thousand Sons Ohthere Wyrdmake and Leman Russ say repeatedly that the Rune Priests did not use the power of the warp, even while accusing the Thousand Sons of corruption at the Council of Nikaea. However, in Prospero Burns Helwintr and Russ don't even mention this. The Space Wolves are not savage that everyone believes and seem to have a perfect grasp of the situation and can clearly differentiate between psyker and sorcerer.

In Wolfsblade. The Rune Priest traditions were descended from the shamanistic rituals of Fenris's native tribes, and have remained unchanged for countless centuries. Rune Seers do not draw on the warp; they (and the Stormseers of the White Scars) use "older traditions" which shield themselves from corruption from the warp by limiting the power they can draw from it directly; they acknowledge both the power of Fenris and the Warp side-by-side, essentially making their culture a lens through which the Warp can be viewed comparatively safely.

Chapter Role

Rune Priests preserve their Chapter's entire history not in written form, but memorize it in great sagas. A Rune Priest who begins his training as a Skald is usually assigned to a single Great Company where he is taught its tales. With every new Great Year he joins another Company until he has learned the Chapter's full history and can be sent to whichever Rune Priest needs an apprentice.

The basic weapons of the Rune Priests are their psychically charged Runic Weapons. A common power among Rune Priests is the ability to summon storms across the battlefield which can cover the army's advance. Furthermore, they can cast runes which predict the ebb and flow of future events. These runes are usually carved from the bones or teeth of totem animals.

Many Rune Priests are psyber-linked to cyber-ravens, which are known as "Choosers of the Slain" to the Space Wolves. Their link enables them to see through the ravens, eyes and control them, thus allowing them to use them as scouts and messengers.