Runes

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

Runes are carved stones that fall from slain creatures. Set into a socket on a piece of equipment by a guild merchant, a rune gives a lasting bonus while that piece is worn or wielded. No class is barred from any rune, though the equipment holding it keeps its own requirements.

A rune's name gives its level. Its effects grow with that level, each from the level where it first appears. The five levels are:

The eighteen families#

Every rune belongs to one of eighteen families. The number in brackets after each effect is the first rune level that gives it; from there it grows by one step a level. A stat steps by one point, a percentage by one percent, health and spell points by twenty, stamina by eight and armor class by ten.

A Perfect Rune of Might gives +5 strength, +4% damage and +3% critical damage. A Perfect Rune of Fortitude gives +5 constitution, +80 maximum health and +30 armor class. ooc <rune> shows exactly what a rune gives at its level and what it gains at higher ones.

Some effects depend on what holds the rune. Presence raises the threat you draw when set in a weapon, and lowers it when set in armor or jewelry. Vitality lowers the stamina a fighting style costs, never a plain swing's, and never takes a style below the cost of a plain swing. A Rune of Iron's travel discount never takes a journey below the cost of an easy road.

Finding runes#

Runes drop from slain creatures 2% of the time up to creature level 50, and 3% from level 51. Rune drops roll apart from the ordinary loot. A kill ten or more levels beneath you gives none.

When a rune drops, its level leans hard toward the bottom. Across the five levels the weights run 55, 27, 12, 5 and 1, shared out over whatever levels the creature can give. Weak creatures cannot give high runes at all.

A Perfect rune is about one rune in a hundred from the hardest creatures, and runes are a rare drop to begin with.

Combining#

Three runes of the same family and level forge into one rune of the next level with combine <rune>. Name one; the command finds the other two in your inventory. The three are used up, and the forging costs gold coins from your purse, rising steeply with the level made.

Perfect runes cannot be combined further.

Sockets#

Only a guild merchant sets a rune; players cannot set their own unless they are merchants. Bring the rune and the piece to a merchant at the mender's bench in the Mender's Workshop off Merchant Way, and agree the fee before the work starts. The list fee is 12 gold a rune, and a merchant may ask up to 2 platinum; tariff workshops shows today's prices. Merchants can set runes from level 5. A plain item name means the piece you are wearing before one in your pack.

A set rune never comes out again, so choose its home with care. The practice stone from a guild lesson is the one exception to the merchant rule: ask the trainer who gave it about the rune, and the trainer sets it.

Sockets are rolled when a world drop is made, from its quality; see world drops. How many an item can hold depends on its slot.

A merchant of level 90 can also have the guild's gem cutters open one more socket in a weapon or piece of armor, up to that slot's limit. Each piece can have a socket cut only once, the piece must not be worn, and the list price is 550 platinum. The new socket is empty; setting a rune in it is separate work.

Rune bonuses count only while the item is worn or wielded.

Ceilings#

Every effect has a ceiling, the most all your runes together can give. Attunement and runeword bonuses count toward it.

A rune is never wasted against these limits. If every effect a rune offers is already at its ceiling, the merchant cannot set it and the rune stays with you. A rune that still adds anything at all can be set.

Attunement#

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

Attunement rewards repeating a family; mixing families gives you more kinds of effect. Check your totals against the ceilings before choosing another rune.

Runewords#

If the runes filling every socket of one item spell a known sequence, in order, the item becomes a runeword and gives a named bonus on top of the runes' own. Both the socket order and the kind of item must match the table. The runeword takes effect when its last rune is set.

A finished runeword adds its name to the item. runes <item> shows it.

Command summary#

Related#

• Gear
• World drops
• Gear sets
• Durability