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Friday, January 20, 2023

Lost Galmagia: Athames and Runes

Memory activation: rereading the B/X rules for my #Dungeon23 work and was reminded that B/X magic users can only fight with a dagger. This prompted a crystal clear memory of reading the AD&D PHB, learning that magic-users now got staves and darts, and being thrilled for my 3rd level MU… in those days when teenagers mixed and matched every rules set without a care. But since we’re doing B/X, we’re going with dagger only.

Athame

“An athame or athamé is a ceremonial blade, generally with a black handle. It is the main ritual implement or magical tool among several used in ceremonial magic traditions…. A black-handled knife called an arthame appears in certain versions of the Key of Solomon, a grimoire dating to the Renaissance.The proper use of the tool was started by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in the early 20th century, for the use of banishing rituals.
Wikipedia

Every Magic-User has a stage midway through their apprenticeship when they craft their athame: a bone white blade made by mixing fire with earth, with a removable curved crystal pommel attached to a hollowed ebony-wood handle the length of the blade, inside which is held spell components such as black lotus extract, powdered mushrooms, rowan bark, ground silver, runestones, and whatever else the magic-user might need to ingest, inject or distribute in casting of their spells.

The Athame’s blade never needs honing, always as sharp as the finest dwarf-forged blade. Much lighter than steel with no cross-guard it is not a weapon for parrying, but any magic-user is so comfortable with his athame that they strike with it as proficiently as any veteran. There are small marks at the athames tip to indicate dosages of mind-expanding formulae or amounts of rowan bark to be stirred into fluids (water, tea, blood, etc.) the distribution of which can be used to divine the past or present. The pommel crystal is used in a variety of divinations.

An Athame is very difficult to destroy; strikes will snap the all but indestructible blade from the replaceable hilt. The blade is magically linked to its creator, and they can feel its direction and distance if separated from it. If a spell requires spell components, the caster’s Athame is the primary one. In non-magical terms, the blade is fired ceramic (which is why you don’t sharpen it), and the pommel is a lens that can be used to magnifying. Every magic-user knows “Create Athame” as a spell, but since it takes a month to cast and causes 1d4 HP damage it’s not part of the useful spell list. .

Runes

Magic-User also know Rune Magic; the ability to make their spells  permanent by binding magical runes into objects. (Light is the earliest Rune Magic, and Continual Light is the permanent, standardized, quick to cast version; Hold Portal and Wizard Lock are similar and it’s runes are called Wards). Runes can have a variety of different effects but require the caster to be 2-3 levels higher than the level of the spell it’s based on and to have a very clear idea of what they want to do. Creating a new Rune takes a month of time and does 1d4 damage to the caster, just like creating an Athame; common runes like the two mentioned above, have been refined over the centuries to be much easier.

Runes can be damaged by time, magical effort or extreme force, but any caster who knows the spell it was based on can repair a damaged ward. (This is in part to make Hold Portal more useful to PCs, as it can rebuild many of the damaged wards throughout the dungeon.)

In Lost Galmagia Hold Portal/Wizard Lock spells were made runes in a variety of ways, most often as ward to prevent loose water from entering places, or giving paper screens the strength of mortared brick to act as interior walls. Wards are also permanent illusions, places of continual light, or magical traps. I just want to provide a consistent explanation for these things that, as Ben Milton at Questing Beast recommends, lets the players get their hands into the guts of the setting and tear it apart from the inside.

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