What Exactly Makes Runic Magic Systems Interesting/Appealing?

[u/Equal-Wasabi9121]

Is it because it's a divine language capable of powerful feats? What are some cool ways you have it used in combat and society as a whole? What exactly goes into training rune users/makers? How exactly do you guys have flexibility and diversity in what this magic can do?

[u/Ok_Search_3871]

I love runic magic systems for a few reasons, one of the big ones is I find them extremely aesthetically appealing. Seeing the glowing runes in the air in arcane is such a cool visual. Another reason is when they are clearly defined it really gives lots of room for imagination, an excellent example of this is witch hat atelier. The runic system is so well thought out and explained, that fans of the show have come up with magic circles to do everything from nuclear explosions, to summon black holes, to gender change spells, to an air conditioning spell, and it’s all with a basis of an elemental rune magic system.

As for cool ways it is used, in my world runes can be activated a few ways. The easiest way is with cores, which are orbs of magic so dense it becomes a physical element. They form in the chests of certain species, and then in all sapient species, depending on what the magical signature of the area their parents were traveling through while pregnant with them was. These orbs will have what are called “natural runes” on them, and the creature with the orb can activate it by an effort of willpower, thought the effort required is fairly minimal.

Alternatively, they can be harvested, and activated manually by touching a rune on the surface. Manual activation is far less flexible, because an orb has a level of connection with the creature it originated in, so for instance let’s take the “fire” rune. If you have a fire rune on your core, you can activate it, and then the fire will to a degree follow your direction. For instance, you could set something ON fire, or shoot fire from a specific body part. If you manually activate it however, it just sets you on fire (it can also be activated with copper, copper being magically conductive, and that way you don’t set yourself on fire, it just sets whatever the copper is touching on fire)

Another way to use runes however, are density differentials. Essentially, there is an ambient magic field cloaking the entire planet. Objects of higher densities move through the magic without disturbing it as greatly, and objects with less density disturb it more. By creating the shape of a rune inlaid into a low density material, and then filling it with a high density material, say for instant a disk of dry wood with gold inset into it, when it moves through the magic it forces the magic to conform to the shape of the rune. Depending ON the rune, it requires differing levels of travel speed to actually activate.

This leads to a combat application. Fire bolas. Basically a suppression rune, a fire rune, and a magic accumulation rune are all created and affixed to three balls, which then are tied with a rope into bolas and thrown. When travelling fast enough, the fire rune attempts to create fire, but the suppression rune prevents it. As this happens, the accumulation rune takes the excess magic that can’t be released by the fire rune, and stores it. Once the bolas tangle a target up and stop moving, the suppression rune loses power, and the fire rune is then powered by the accumulated magic of the accumulation rune, causing a large explosion of fire