Runaskald/Runesmith Compendium Class
This was inspired mostly by the Runesmiths in Kevin Hearnes Iron Druid Chronicles (who are inspired by Norse myths) and Warhammer Runesmiths. Toss in a bit of the BW Runecaster and DSA Runemagic and you get this.
If a Runesmith knows what you will be up against he will be crazy effective in supporting his allies. A Dragonhunter decked out in a Rune of Fire Protection, with a Dragonbane Spear and a Rune of Caution will have good chances taking down a Dragon. This will of course take up all the Rune-control of the Skald and will cost 999 coins.
He is a bit like Batman, great when prepared.
The rune of Infiltration and of Hiding are based on the Invisibilty Cloak and shapechange girlde from the Nibelungenlied and make for great tools on a thief.
The runes don’t have to be dwarfen in your DW – it’s just what i took for inspiration.
I am still not sure about the entry requirement…
fun fact: The Berseker Ruen can also be tattooed on a persons belly or arms.
going out to gather enough materials for his first rune is a cool Level 1 quest for an aspiring Runesmith (mostly Fighters, Thiefs, Wizards and Clerics i think)
You don’t actually have to do something to “support” a rune, do you?
So isn’t the bit about having to support a burnt out rune pointless, unless you attach some kind of cost to either deactivating a rune or supporting a rune?
Not actively but I guess it powers down when you are dead
Tim Franzke sent my above post too early, edited.
Well it works like that.
You can inscribe 3 runes (4 with the move) at most. When you want to scribe a new rune you have to “delete” an old one. A burned out rune still counts against your maximum.
You can however re-activate a burned out rune with field repair.
Yup I get that. I just find the explicit mention of the burnt out rune and its deletion not very relevant, because I figured inscribing a new rune is a ritualistic process anyway (it obviously takes quite some resources and tine) so that you could easily include the deletion of a burnt out rune. In fact wouldn’t it be better to simply let a burnt out rune vanish completely, taking away the possibility to reactivate it? Hmm although the impact of burning out a rune might not be strong enough considering the cost of creating one then.
I think it’s only fair to give a chance of reactivating the rune, otherwise i fear that one would only burn out a rune at the “boss” of the dungeon and not before. People should not really be punished for burning out the rune at a cool moment.
The second part of Throw Them Bones is not very good. It is only choose-able if you have the choose two option. A better thing might be that the GM will tell you of an opportunity.
I wanted to get a BW Runecastign vibe there. In Runecasting you can see the Beliefs of another character and then pronounce a Destiny on them. You then have to change one of your Beliefs to reflect the change that will come to that character. Basically you are now bound by fate to make it happen. I wanted to get that vibe…
Maybe on a 10+ you get to see one grim portent and on a 7-9 you get a vague impression?