Encryption runes, Submemory, and Arunia

I've spent plenty of time pondering how the encryption runes should work. I think it's time I'll try to describe that, and while at it describe some related worldbuilding.

Encryption Runes

An encryption rune has three inputs: information, key, and mask. Its functionality is simple: If the observer holds the key in their memory or submemory, they will observe the information. Otherwise, they observe the mask. Out of these three components, key is mandatory, and while both information and mask are optional, the rune must contain at least one of these in order to make sense. While usage of either of those is relatively cheap though, combination of both is a lot more expensive, making encryption runes with all three components exceedingly rare.

Both mask and information are based on illusions created by the runes, using sight, hearing, smell and taste, touch, temperature, and northcall. You can't encrypt something that's already written down, though you could cover it up with a new encryption. If the encryption lacks a mask, someone who doesn't hold the key will perceive the rune's drawing, as well as whatever it's covering up as a white noise, or its equivalent in the senses that the information is conveyed in. If the encryption lacks an information, whoever doesn't possess the key won't perceive rune's drawing nor the effect it's supposed to present.

Key is an input written in the same format as a detection rune would be. It can be about any range or combination of physical sensations perceivable through sight, hearing, smell and taste, touch, northcall, and temperature. Time on its own doesn't work here, but it can be used to determine the durations of these sensations when combined with them. Understandably, if one wishes to make these sensations complex enough to be perceived by more than one person, they would have to cover a lot of wiggle room. But people have come up with a different way to do this too.

See, if two people look at a white piece of paper, what they'll see is slightly different. One could maybe have the Sun or other light source bounce off of it, while the other could be looking at its darker side. There's all sorts of factors that can skew our senses, which in the past required plenty of wiggle-rooms, making encryption runes so impractical they weren't used. That was until someone came up with a genius idea of using illusions as passwords. After all, illusions are easy to reproduce and convert into/from detection runes, so they make for ideal passwords. This discovery has revolutionized the encryption services ever since.

Finding an artwork depicting an encryption rune in action was hard. This should suffice.
Made by yours truly.

Submemory

People and machines can both memorize things. There's a strange advantage that people hold over machines when it comes to decryption. This trait came to be called by the scientific community as the "submemory", shortened version of subconscious memory. In layman terms, submemory is an inaccessible record of all experiences that the humanoid has ever experienced, including those that they do not remember. Machines do not seem to possess submemory, which means that they can decrypt only things, for which they hold a key in their memory.

The exact details of how a submemory works are unfamiliar even to the best of mindlore scientists. How the mind could increase its capacity in such a way, and keep it up all throughout an individual's life is seemingly impossible to comprehend. The best guess for an explanation is that the mind finds the most efficient way to encode memories all over the brain, although it's difficult to know how exactly it's doing this, if at all. A far easier (although more convoluted) explanation that they have formulated is that the brain is only a channel for something beyond the physical world. This "soul" of sorts could hold any number of memories, and be the actual source of the submemory. This explanation however opens a whole new can of worms and brings up more questions than it answers, so it's not generally accepted within the scientific society. For all they know, this theory could be completely false, but at the moment it is the best guess they have.

Arunia

Much like mutations happen in our world, something akin to this can happen in Runehack too. One mutation that's so wide-spread that it has its own name is called "arunia", and it's an inability to be affected by the runes. While the detection runes can detect things about them, these people are oblivious to the illusion runes, and in case someone would attempt to move them using the telekinesis runes, they would fail.

Due to the fact that an encryption rune becomes much more expensive if it were to contain both the information and a mask, and due to the fact that an encryption rune can be created on top of an already existing image, one easy way is to have someone who's not affected by the illusion runes (and thus also outputs of the encryption runes) present in a group of people to see if they spot something different. Arunic people are sought after by various governments worldwide, and accepted into jobs as law enforcers, intelligence agencies, investigators, as well as for the other jobs. However, such a life has its downsides, for it's impossible for the arunic people to ever experience the wonders of Mistweb, virtual realities, and other wonderful benefits bestowed by the illusions.

If two people are conceiving a child and at least one is not arunic, the child has only a 0.1% chance to be born arunic. If both parents are arunic, this probability increases to 99.9%. Due to this, the condition is quite rare, although not unheard of worldwide. This won't ever come up in any of my future articles, for sure. (It will.)

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Runehack: Avurai University

If you've been reading this blog since its beginning, or if you happen to have read its earliest posts despite the fact they're super outdated, you might remember my list of settings I wanted to work on. It's funny looking back at that list and at my current priorities. Sivobog I see to this day as a mistake, while Grimwick is a world that has lingered in the back of my mind for years, but I never really felt like starting actual work on it. Then there's E2020, and Charodey. The former, full name Earth-2020, was an urban fantasy setting: basically our world, but with magic and fantastical creatures. While it was a fun thought experiment, I realized quickly that this can't be done easily because of magic, which is why it eventually evolved into the Ethernet of Keys. That setting toned down its magic to an absolute minimum by the 5e standards, permitting literally only cantrips. The more thought I gave it, the more I realized that the further back you go with the introduction of magic, the more differences our timeline should contain. Today, I know that the easiest solution to that would be to just.... introduce the magic right as the game starts, or as close to that point as possible. Back when I thought otherwise, I started to work from the ground up on a world with minimal magic. That's how Runehack was made.

Charodey was another setting that has lingered in my mind for a long time. School time is associated in my head with some nice memories, a collective that can but doesn't have to always work well together, and learning. While the original premise was much more fantasy, I remembered it when this article was half-finished. Sure this university is very, very different from Charodey, but somehow it found its way into the Runehack too it seems. Back then, I literally named the school "Charodey Academy", the word Charodey coming from the Slovak word for a wizard. The Avurai University is different though. It's a place full of elitism, betrayal, competition, but above all else education. Hopefully, it will be a homage to an idea I had a long time ago, despite the fact that this school has basically no magic in it.

I wish you at least as good of a time reading this, as I had writing it up.

Avurai University

Avurai University is a surprisingly influential city, considering it can't expand, has practically no goods for export, and that it has a capacity of 5000 people, 50 visitors, and 3000 fairies beyond that. While the island can support more people than this, it's much safer to keep the numbers below the actual limit. This university campus travels around the world and educates only the best of the rich, as well as the richest of the best worldwide. Earning your place in this university is truly a prestige, whether as a student or as the staff.

Geography

Avurai University is the biggest city entirely located on a floating island. The island usually travels around the world in an orbit, though the rulers of the city can direct its flight through a complex mechanism built into the island. Due to its original location being above a warm temperate climate, most of its natural fauna would resemble that of a typical deciduous forest. However, ever since it started to traverse the world, it only retained on its surface plants that would survive in any climate. The only expansion it ever went through was hollowing out the inside of the island to create buildings on its surface, and to establish an underground farm for the food.

The closest thing to the exported goods of the Avurai University would be its educated people. While the island can hold thousands of people, it has barely enough space to produce its own food and wood. Anything else, such as metals or amber, has to be imported up into the city. Due to this, anyone who wishes to study at the university must pay a lot to stay there.

History

The history of this city goes back to 2900 years before the era of monsters when the greatest cryptoexplosion of the recorded history happened. This produced the biggest flying island in the world that flies to this day, Freeland. Over the centuries, the island gathered dust on its surface, which turned out to be fertile enough for life to start there. It's theorized that birds or other historic flying animals have brought the first plants to the island, which without other competition thrived there since the island flies low enough to receive rain.

Once humanity has developed the first flying vehicles, a handful of hopeful settlers set the course to Freeland. However, the more of them gathered there, the more they realized the many disadvantages of this land: lack of goods they could produce combined with the very limited space for living was discouraging enough to make them leave.

Twenty years later, a handful of wealthy Lifestock employees had a vision of what the Freeland could be, bought it, and claimed it as their own. Once they started to build a university there, Lifestock has started to show interest in the project. When the offers started to come, first from their employers and later from their competitors, the owners of the island and the university decided to quit their jobs and establish independence. Building the university took a total of 3 years, and the university has operated for nearly 160 years ever since until the present day. While the university has remained completely independent ever since its founding, its independence relies only on the constant influx of wealthy students and keeping up its reputation.

Structure

The city has 5 major districts, some of which are divided based on the five faculties. While the Dormitories and the Scholars' Way are not connected, other districts are all interconnected at least in one way. Each of the districts houses some non-teacher staff, though outside of the Main and Farming districts it's only for the most needed matters.

Dormitories. This is the residential district where all of the students live. It also contains some places where the students can hang out to enjoy themselves.

Farming district. This district is off-limits to anyone but the farming staff and those who govern the Avurai University, and it takes up the entirety of Freeland's underground spaces. Vegetables, fruits, crops, and even some meats produced there are then transported to the other districts based on their needs. While the students above are told that the illusory sunlight is good enough for the plants, only the farmers know the truth of how these plants can be grown underground.

Main district. Most of the non-educational establishments of the Avurai University are found in this district. Shops, catering, repairs, and many other services are available in the largest outer district of the city.

Scholars' Way. The university teachers live in their own district on a single street that could be mistaken for a part of the Main district. This district also hides beneath it the control panel that determines which way the Freeland island travels.

Studies. Buildings intended for the education of students are all located in the Studies district. It is the most defining part of the whole university both due to its unique architecture in comparison to the rest of the city, but also because of its function.

The people are divided into these groups based on their relations to the university:

• Teachers, those who are employed by the university to educate its students.
• Personnel, those who are employed by the university to take care of the cleaning, cooking, services, and any other necessities.
• Students, who are equally subdivided into the following five Faculties based on the fields of science:
• Cravenlore. These students learn about the nature of non-humanoid beings such as plants, animals, and apex predators. Their representing color is green.
• Mindlore. These students focus on politics, economy, psychology, art, history, and other matters related to the study of humanoids. Their representing color is red.
• Runecraft. These students learn everything there is to know about the runes, runetech, and their applications in practice. Usually, the knowledge of runes would fall under the Worldken, but it has been separated into its own faculty due to the breadth of things that the runes are used for in practice. Their representing color is orange.
• Witlore. These students focus on the study of all matters nonphysical, that include mathematics, logic, and philosophy. Their representing color is pink.
• Worldken. These students learn about the chemistry of inorganic materials, the fundamental laws of the universe, and their utilization in practice. Their representing color is blue.

Culture

Standard uniforms of the Avurai University are beige in color, with dark brown details, and colored signifiers of which Faculty they belong to in the form of shoulder pads and the neck gemstone.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art curiosities: The fairy secretaries are a luxury permitted on the university for all personnel, as well as students of 3rd or 4th year of study.

If someone asked anyone from the Avurai University how they'd characterize life there in four words, they would say it has to be educational, snobbish, competitive, and back-stabbing. Since it's the university's policy, the choice of who gets to stay is governed by strict rules.

The students can study at this university for up to 4 years, or more if they can afford it. At the start of every school year, the school admits the 400 of the best students done across all of the cities of the world into each Faculty, as long as their test results were above 60% correct. This usually totals to the 2000 students in the first grade. Every year, only half of that number passes to the next year, with the same condition of at least getting 60% of the answers right. The final fourth year thus holds only 50 students in each faculty, to a total of 250 fourth graders across the whole university. Out of these, anyone who gets at least 60% of the answers on the final tests correct gets to pass, receiving a title and usually leaving the university. Since they have more free time due to requiring less sleep, the majority of students attending the Avurai University consists of elves, with higher concentrations in the latter years of study.

Since Freeland has a carrying capacity, each student is limited in how many things they can bring with them. While stationary is largely unaffected, they can't bring with them things such as their own vehicles (including hovering ones, which is a matter that puzzles students yearly), hovering rooms, or pets. University's population is also kept in check, with any of the personnel or students who perform the forbidden intercourse running a risk of getting expelled permanently.

In order to ensure the highest quality of the teachers and personnel, at the end of every semester, the worst 20% of them are replaced with the new hires from cities all over the world. This also includes the runebots who serve double duty as janitors and security of the city. These runebots are replaced only when it is necessary, for example, due to a malfunction.

Beyond the standard limit of 5000 people and 50 visitors, there's a limit of up to 3000 staff fairies on top of that. Any student who is a fairy doesn't count into this limit and gets counted as a regular student to the limit of 5000 people. Some common jobs for the fairies employed by the Avurai University include education, surveillance, repairs, accounting, library guides, and working as waitresses in the bars using special hovering food trays. But the most common job for the fairies here is a personal assistant. Any employee, as well as students of 3rd or 4th grade, can bring along a personal assistant fairy, as long as they employ and pay her properly. A fairy employed this way serves as a secretary to whoever they're employed by, keeping track of their schedule, duties, and anything else that the individual wishes to delegate upon her. Since a personal assistant bypasses the merit-based requirements for coming to the university in another way, it is the greatest hope for many of the fairies who would want to see the Avurai society in person.

Every school year is split up into three trimesters and a holiday, all of which line up with the seasons perfectly. The trimesters cover spring, fall, and autumn, and the holiday lasts during the winter. There are several official events organized by the teachers and university personnel, and a handful of unofficial events organized by the students for the students.

The Academic Show is organized at the beginning of the summer trimester every even year. Students who choose to attend this show must present some kind of scientific experiment and/or invention in order to impress and educate others. The most impressive presentation from each of the faculties wins a monetary prize, as well as a university-paid trip to one vista within the winners' choice of a city that the University will pass over before the school year ends. Any participants who present an experiment that was showcased there during the last Academic Show are automatically disqualified from winning the prize, although they are allowed to present. Since the monetary prize for each team is equal no matter the number of members, participants usually limit themselves to working with up to 2 others, or preferably alone.

The Scholars' Soiree is a formal dance organized on the evening before the final week of the autumn trimester of every school year. It's preceded by the month of tailoring, during which the attendees of the Soiree have a chance to design and sew their own outfits. The Scholars' Soiree begins with a ceremonial feast, often considered to be the first of many winter feasts. After the feast, people are free to do as they wish: socialize with others, drink or feast some more, dance, or attend other activities. The secret judges mingle with people, examining custom-made outfits close-up until 1 hour before midnight. At that moment, the judges are unveiled and hand out the titles of the Lord of the Night and Lady of the Night to those who they deem to have the greatest self-made outfits. Understandably, even a friendly meaningless contest like this can and is cheated by those who can afford to cheat it. Since all of the students of 3rd and 4th year get to have a fairy as a personal assistant, those who wish to gain this title will employ fairies with past experiences in fashion design and tailoring.

The Winter Feasts are organized during the winter holidays. It's a simple event in comparison to the other two, all about having wonderful weekly feasts for all three months of the winter. Students who haven't finished their 2nd year of study are not allowed to stay at the university during the winter months, which means they cannot enjoy these feasts. Teachers use these feasts as a way to entice the students to stay in the University even during their holidays and possibly help out in it as a cheap labor force for some small credits.

Over the years, students of this university have formulated several humorous phrases revolving around the nature of their university that has ever since become commonplace, sometimes even beneath this island:

• "Drop-off" and "drop out" both stand for a student, who is not studying anymore due to a reason that's not graduation. They can also stand for things that have fallen from the island down to the world below.
• "Flying grades" are grades that will allow a student to attend the flying university for another year. In other words, they're a nickname for passing grades.
• "Hang in there" began as a phrase of encouragement told to those who struggle with passing. However, it has evolved to contain a strong sarcastic undertone.
• "Climbing the Tower" stands for the effort that someone puts into graduating the Avurai University with the intention to stay there as a teacher. It's due to the fact that only the teachers are permitted at the Tower of Knowledge.
• To "feast on meat" means to enjoy the rewards one has earned. The origin of this phrase is uncertain since it could stand either for general consumption of meat, which is much rarer than fruits and vegetables, or because of the Winter Feasts.
• "Traincatcher" is a student who is expected to fail their current year of study.
• "Streetcleaner" is a nickname for the janitorial runebot staff, mainly due to their capabilities of keeping the streets tidy, and enforcing curfews as well as laws.

"Hang in there, traincatcher!"

Subculture Showcase: Scientific Communities

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

Examples of the scientist outfits. The white lab coats are the most important part of the outfit, with the innerwear being optional, up to the individual scientist's wishes.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art curiosities: The guy is wearing a VR headband. The scientists showcase two different types of clasps for the "semi-open" lab coat at the top—the male having two triangular flaps, while the woman has a gray band. They bear no cultural significance and are interchangeable. Pink is prominent within the scientific community due to its association with knowledge. The first versions of the illusory screens were made pink in order to stand out in most environments, and ever since then, the color gained a cultural meaning of intellect. Of course, it's not the only meaning there is for the color pink.

Once the monsters came to be, some people have tried their best to understand how they operate. Eventually, these people have created teams, which evolved into groups. Some of these groups have diverted their attention to other matters of study, such as inorganic matters of the world, physical laws, or abstract sciences. Once the mistweb was developed, the international scientific community was born.

The highest ideal they hold is the search for the objective truth. They wish to learn as much about the world as possible, which is why they try to measure everything and run many experiments. The only boundary that they tend to clash into is the vague line of morality. Since many of the scientists who enter this community are Avurai University graduates, it's rather competitive. If one can make themselves more famous and rich through their experiments, it is most likely that these graduates will be the first ones to step on, and sometimes even over, the line of morality out of the public eyes. After all, what is one to do if the secrets of the World lie beyond that hazy line? A way to improve the lives of thousands, if not millions, could be there.

• One of the places that scientists worldwide viewed as sacred is The Tower of Knowledge, atop of which is The Amber Telescope. Years ago it was said that every scientist worth their salt has looked through the Amber Telescope. Nowadays this belief is seen more as a superstition than a sign of prestige since many scientists have been successful despite dropping out of Avurai University (not literally), or in some cases even despite not studying up there at all.
• Once every four years, the Cognito Prize is given out to the most influential scientists in their respective fields of study.
• "A wrong train can still bring you to the right place" is a phrase that came to be due to an anecdote about Hernard Silverstem. When he traveled home from the Avurai University on a train during his third year of study, he fell asleep and dreamt of a wand that could control other people's minds. Only after waking up did he realize he was on the wrong train. Exiting it in the nearest city, the first thing he noticed was a great bronze statue which made him think of his most famous idea. Since then, the phrase came to mean that even an accident, a mistake, or a wrong way of thinking could get you interesting, and occasionally even correct results.

Relations

While most of the cities respect the Avurai University, considering it one of the few places with an objective outlook on the worldly situation overall, there is one city-state that tries to take it off the pedestal. Moorwell, the city that helped in the establishment of Avurai University, possesses sour feelings towards it ever since it has become independent. For years, it has been running a campaign to slowly erode people's trust in this institution, in hopes of discouraging new students from arriving. Without new students, the school would inevitably run out of money and have to find a patron who would gladly buy it in order to improve it. While within Moorwell this campaign is somewhat successful, other cities still hold enough people interested in studying there to keep the school afloat. One of the cities Avurai University cooperates with the most is the Everling, which thanks for its existence in part to the university, and thus regularly buys advertisements on the Freeland island.

Curiosities

Considering its size, the number of points of interest on the Freeland island is surprising. Here are just some of them:

• Brilliance Train Station is the train station located on the border between the Dormitories and the Main District. While the trains don't come by often, they do when the University is flying above another city to gather the travelers and bring any ordered goods to the island.
• The Grand Vestibule is the entrance to the main university building. It's great in size, with plenty of room to serve as a student lounge. It's directly connected to Jolye's Square.
• Jolye's Square is the only town square of the Avurai University, connecting all of the districts. It bears the shape of a pentagon and used to be mockingly named "Five-Sided Square" due to Jolye's famous claim that one could draw a five-sided square on the surface of a sphere. Once she has proven her claim, the square has been renamed to honor her.
• The Library of Wynbel is a library found at the border of Jolye's Square and the Main district. This building has three floors, and several elevators that can bring the students up, down, and to the other end of the building.
• The Platform, also nicknamed "The Long Way Down", is the main elevator that's used to travel down into the lands beneath the city. It's located on the edge of the Main District.
• The Rose Garden is a greenhouse for studying various kinds of plants found throughout the world. People of Cravenlore Faculty are assumed to hang out there the most, even though the actual difference is minuscule.
• The Tower of Knowledge is found in the Scholar's Way district and holds atop of it The Amber Telescope. Only the teachers are allowed to ascend this tower. All of the districts can be seen from the top of the Tower of Knowledge, and the tower can be seen from all districts. The only exception to both of these cases is the Farming district due to the fact that it's underground. While the telescope does have a name that draws attention, it's in fact not made out of amber.
• The VR Grotto is a laboratory found in the depths of the Runecrafts' Faculty studies. According to the University's records, it is the perfection of Kaily Runetooth's Academic Show project, which is a room that can emulate any sort of environment.

Important People

A few examples of the important people from the Avurai University:

• Jolye Hammerfist, dwarf, female; one of the founders of the Avurai University, and its very first Headmaster.
• Nedmund Palevine, elf, male; the current Headmaster of the Avurai University.
• Hernard Silverstem, elf, male; the inventor of runebots who has studied in the Runecraft Faculty.
• Kaily Runetooth, goblin, female; the scientist who studied in the Worldken Faculty, and invented a way of synthetically creating amber. It's a thing she keeps secret, but with the money she has earned from this, she studied Runecraft Faculty for extra 4 years, and afterward bought herself a city-state of her own, naming herself its queen.
• Pristina Ashenhart, human, female; the exemplar student of the Witlore Faculty, considered the most important philosopher of her time back when she was known to be alive. She's assumed to be dead in the present times.
• Maxton Amberblood, orc, male; the most famous student of the Cravenlore Faculty that has afterward remained on the university and revolutionized its farms.
• Catalia Volerich, fairy, female; a mistwebber who's a member of the Lucky Petals mistwebber group located in the Timberhaven.
• Winbel Moonshire, elf, female; an explorer who has written and sold many books about the wilderness, each with a questionable degree of fictionality. Her publishing is so popular, that she established a library on the Freeland.

Northcall

I've wanted to add a new sense to the folks of Runehack, for some time now. I've narrowed my options down to a single one and felt like writing about it.

"Ever felt that sensation of following the Still Star into the unknown? To see what's in there?"
"Haven't we all?"
A custom artwork drawn by Arell for this article.

Northcall

Due to traveling a lot in the older times, the humanoid species of Runehack have developed and retained a sense of magnetoreception. At all times, they can sense the direction of the true north. Think of it as an expansion of proprioception (the sense of where our body parts are relative to each other, to put it simply), except it's a position relative to the north, letting you know the direction to the north, and while close enough also a rough distance.

In the old times, people considered this sensation to be the call of the unmoving star in the north. Eventually, they came to call this sensation the northcall without realizing what exactly it is or how it works. Grammar-wise, think of it being used in the same way we use words like "sight" or "smell". While it was very useful for orientation and long-term travels, some have wondered what this sensation actually leads to. Early communities were, understandably, under-prepared for such journeys, which is why they always ended lethally. Thus, "reaching for the north" has become a phrase for hopeless journeys that would be deemed impossible, and/or perilous. One of the symbols associated with this sense is the Still Star, a star that's perfectly motionless in the night sky, right above the true north.

At a certain point in history, humanity has discovered a strange mineral that called for them too, though its call was much weaker. Many names have sprung for the lodestone depending on the cultures: from starstone or starmetal to northrock. The northcall of this rock was much shorter than the call of the true north, but they noticed a strange phenomenon through experimentation: The lodestone attracted itself, and its power grew stronger when more were brought together. This has been an origin to many legends of theirs, one being a legend of Mount Boreal. This mountain was supposedly entirely made out of lodestone, and in some versions of the myths even held a way to reach the Still Star itself. Even nowadays, lodestone is a cultural symbol for love and attraction and used in various gifts for the closest ones.

Another myth says that the Still Star is a heated loadstone, and that little stars are within all of us. Some people claim that their soulmate has a distinct northcall due to the attraction of starlets, but such claims were afterward disproven. While northcall can detect the presence of other people, its strength is so weak that it works only within a room and doesn't let you know where or how many people are in the room with you. You just feel a hunch that there probably are people with you there. According to some, the Still Star beckons all people to join it. When it comes to the afterlife, believers of these myths say that after the death, the little star within a person, too small to be seen by a naked eye, escapes, and flies to the North to finally join the greatest soulmate this world ever had. Understandably, a religion has sprung up around the Still Star, worshipping it as both a deity and an afterlife that one should strive to reach.

Debates have gone on for years whether the source of the true north is the Mount Boreal or the Still Star, so many expeditions have been made to see it in person. The Mount Boreal believers have presented themselves as rational, claiming that the mountain of lodestone is the most sensible explanation, while those who thought it's the Still Star used more spiritual reasoning, with less empirical evidence. After some time, society has grown competent enough to reach the true north of the world. Once they arrived close enough, the explorers made a bizarre discovery: there are two norths calling for them. One that points downwards, and one that points upwards, directly at the Still Star. As the news propagated all over the world, the religion that has grown around the Still Star has splintered. One major branch of this religion is a dualistic faith in two deities who represent different ideals of what the good is: one that claims that intentions are what makes a thing good and another that claims that the outcomes are what makes a thing good. It mirrors the duality of the origin of the earth, and the Still Star high above, and yet people feeling the call of both. Since this religion is one of the two biggest religions currently present in this world though, I think that it should get an article of its own, or at least a segment focused on it some other time.

Those who can't feel the northcall used to be called wayless, but over time this word came to be seen as offensive, so it has been replaced by the term "uncalled". Before the time of monsters, religious fanatics used to pursue the uncalled people, seeing them as people without a moral compass that would help them tell good from evil. It's not a thing that religious people in the present times are proud of, but it's undoubtedly a part of their history.

Lesser Norths

One of my rules for the Runehack's magic system is that the runes can detect and replicate (almost) anything the human senses can sense. This is why I wanted to make an extra sense, to begin with, so let's get to that.

Detection of northcall simply allows people to direct their machines much more easily in movement. It gives them an objective point that can serve as an anchoring point for them. After the runetech revolution, a scientific breakthrough has proven that the Moon does actually have a northcall of its own, although one that's so weak it can only be detected by machinery and not people. With a triplet of points (the north pole, the Still Star, and the Moon), it was only a matter of time before the Global Positioning System has been reinvented, working entirely on the base of runes.

When it comes to the northcall-based illusions, people have started to draw attention to their businesses by their use. These illusions came to be commonly called "lesser norths". But with the abundance of lesser norths and no way to tell them apart, the illusion became so overused it was obsolete. Soon enough, laws have been passed to ban the public use of northcall illusions, reserving them only for the places that can provide emergency assistance. When someone needs help due to a crime that has happened or a wound, they can simply follow one of the lesser norths they sense to get to safety and/or to get the help they need.

Understandably, as with any other illusion, northcall too can be made private, which is not covered by the law. The most common use for private northcalls is finding things when one needs them - stuff like one's phone, keys, car, the hidden box that nobody should ever find out about that's just buried someplace in the forest... you know, the usual.

---

That's it for today's article of mine. It feels refreshing to do this sort of worldbuilding again where I start off with an idea and try to grow it as much as I can. I've tried to finish the next article on a Runehack city, but while most of it is done, I'm stuck with the Elvish language at the moment. I'm still tinkering with it, trying to find a good sound for it, altering vocabulary here and there, and tired of rewriting the important words I need for that article. Soon I'll hopefully have the dictionary finished enough to actually finish the article, maybe edit some of the Elvish words in the New Prista article, and continue the series as I hoped I would.

Thank you for reading, hope you've enjoyed this article, and I wish you an awesome day!

Runehack: New Prista

After several weeks of chipping away inbetween my daily job, I think it's finally ready for publishing. I'm glad that it's now finally ready to be shown. In this series, I wish to show off the various cities of Runehack. I want to write about strange cities that are within this world, mainly because most of the cities all feel kind of same. However, it's hard to describe what's outside of the norm without describing the norm every now and then, which is why I'm starting with the first city I developed within this world: New Prista. While this city is exceptional in some ways, it's close enough to be a good start to ease you into this world before I get to my stranger city ideas. It's the setting of the story I wrote back in November (and haven't rewritten yet), so it could also help out by introducing the potential readers to the city generally, as well as help me out in solidifying it for the purposes of the story. I'll make the next city weirder.

This is likely not the final version of the article. I have yet to settle on naming schemes for my in-world characters, which is why there are so few named characters in the article. After my first attempt at rewriting the initial story, I'll likely find out what parts of this article need updates.

New Prista

After the discovery of a new continent, some of the Old World's people wished for a fresh start. A group of settlers has set sail from their old home in Prista Vista and started their new lives on the coast of the unknown world. To honor their old home beyond the horizon, they've named this place New Prista Vista, which eventually evolved into just New Prista.

Geography

New Prista is a large coastal city surrounded by deciduous forests and a sea, partially built on a hill littered with caverns. Some of it is built on a peninsula, with a gateway that used to protect the inner port from the outside invaders before the seaborne districts were built. Like any city, New Prista expands at all times. Unlike other cities, however, it expanded itself out into the sea as well as the land.

Beyond the standard production of vegetables and tending to chicken and sheeplets, New Prista is known for its fishing industry, retrieval, and production of seaweed and pearls, and production of fruit and wood, both through the expansion of the city, but also with multiple districts that farm trees. A large system of interconnected mines created underneath the city's hill provides materials used for some of the construction of its walls and buildings, some amber for the drawing of runes, and silver for lining the newly made walls.

History

Although the city has been founded 180 years before the era of monsters began, evidence of archeological research suggests that there was a small tribe of elves populating its general vicinity almost two thousand years before its discovery. By the time the settlers from Prista Vista arrived, the ruins have long been buried deep underground, only found well over a century later.

After the discovery of the vast amber, volerite, and silver sources underground, the trend of runemancy began, and people have become obsessed with experimentation using the runes. Multiple companies have started at this time, and branched into other cities too, including New Prista.

When the runic revolution came about, the city has developed a way of creating new walls through an elaborate system, which is even to this day used in expanding the city. Years after Nexuspace acquired New Prista and built the first two new districts, the first groups of Loyalists started to emerge, challenging the corporate rulers of the city due to their mistrust about the way they create the new laws. After an unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing them, many of the original Loyalists have left the city on stolen hovertrains, traveling away to an unknown independent kingdom.

The Acumen have emerged within the city once the Mistweb was developed and commonly used by people all over the world. Unknown to the public, they've found some of the ancient elven ruins buried underneath the city, and use them as a private space for organizing their operations.

Structure

New Prista is divided into 11 main districts, 3 of which are built completely on top of the sea. While districts are traditionally divided by the walls that were former borders of the city-state before expansion, these walls are actively removed in order to be reused for the new expansion.

Fort district is the oldest district, where the old fortress from the era before the monsters was built. This castle-like building surrounds the houses of the Nexuspace's president, ministers, and their families reside. It borders the Miner, North, Portside, Central, and Upper West districts.

Central district used to be the city built outside of the fortress, but within the old city walls along with the Upper West district. It's where the majority of the businesses are located in the present, along with some residential areas. Its neighbors are Fort, Portside, Groven, Red Street, and the Upper West district.

North district was another district that used to be part of the original city before it expanded, though its purpose was more aimed at farming rather than as a residential area. Nowadays, plenty of vertical farms, as well as some ranches, are found here. It borders the Miner, Fort, and Portside districts.

Upper West district is one of the two districts that have access to the mines, and thus also houses many craftsmen, factories, and businesses. Due to being built on the hill, most of its streets are sloped, earning the district half of its name. Its neighbor, Miner district, is relatively flat in comparison and holds the highest population of goblins out of the whole city, but it's very similar otherwise. Both of the districts border the Fort and Central districts, but while Miner district is located next to the North district, Upper West is connected to the Red Street district.

Portside district is the longest district of the city, connecting the waterborne districts to the landlocked parts of the city. The entirety of the inner port, as well as the outer shore of the city, are considered parts of this district, despite some of it historically belonging to the Fort district. The bordering districts are Groven, Central, Fort, North, Fisher, and Backsalt district.

Fisher district, Backsalt district, and Deep Blue district are interconnected districts that float entirely on top of the water, built on underwater pillars. Most of it is dedicated to residential areas and small businesses of people, who specialize in fishing and gathering resources from the sea below. Portside is the only district that borders these, with the exception of the Deep Blue district.

Red Street district is named after the fact, that it used to be a shantytown outside of the city walls when the era of monsters began. Since not everyone made it within the walled-off city when the era started, the many casualties of the terrible times are forever remembered by those who call it their home nowadays. A commonly shared stereotype within New Prista about these people is that they're either dwarves, orcs, or prone to violence. The rumor is based on the fact, that plenty of butchers, hunters, and soldiers of the New Prista are likely to have their roots in this region. Its neighboring districts are Upper West, Central, and Groven district.

Groven district is the newest district within the city that used to be a forest, but nowadays it's a district where many of the plant farms are, as well as a few of the residences. Curiously, it contains within it the closest place to a "fairytown" that the New Prista has, along with a fairly high population of elves. It neighbors the Red Street, Central, and Portside districts.

Culture

The majority of the population in New Prista is composed of humans and elves, and the least represented race within the city is goblins. New Prista's level of technology is on the same level as most of the known cities connected to the Mistweb. Most of the population within the city doesn't practice any religions, and out of the rest majority practices the Žofaism (ž pronounced as zh), with about 5% of people actively scorning the Pantheon of Misfortune.

When it comes to the common political beliefs within the New Prista, it's considered to be a globalist nation that supports the ideals of progress, security, and equality of opportunity. Besides the Nexuspace, the city is also populated with a small branch of Acumen and a significant amount of Loyalists. The Acumen is a secretive but known group attempting to expose the truth about Nexuspace and Lifestock. While their manners of operating range from morally dubious to outright illegal, their goal is a genuine desire for transparency. The Loyalists wish to return the New Prista, as well as all other city-states, back to the monarchies they once were by getting rid of the influence of corporations. Their biggest ideal is returning back from progress and security to traditions and freedom that the citizens of kingdoms once had, at least in comparison to the present day.

The city has sister locations for several of the companies owned by Nexuspace. Nexuspace itself actually began with the production of VR headrings, which have grown in popularity enough to give them enough capital for acquiring other companies that nowadays belong to them. Tomorrowkind is a prominent company that was actually based in New Prista. It was initially focused on the runebots and eventually pivoted to drones. OWR (Old World Reports) is a news station that's also owned by Nexuspace and has one of its branches in New Prista. Nexuspace hoped to create a branch of Volemotors within New Prista, a company specializing in the production of vehicles, but this plan was fruitless due to wrong timing in relation to the events that were occurring within the city back then. The city also has sister locations of TAI (Therefore A.I.) and Otherworld, both of which are at the current time owned by Lifestock, yet they helped companies owned by Nexuspace in growing. TAI is a company that at first focused on the development of machine learning, which eventually evolved into the creation of the many kinds of commercially used artificial intelligence. Otherworld is a company that is responsible for augmented reality, and the Mistweb of things—an elaborate system for controlling common runetech appliances through the Mistweb using apps installed on the runecards. Despite their location being within the territory of their competitors, Otherworld and TAI are both allowed to continue their activity within New Prista due to their past contributions to its success. Beyond these, smaller companies are located in New Prista too, though those are not worth mentioning.

The two most unique customs of New Prista are the Winter Solstice Hymn and The Pearlhunt. After midnight of the longest night of the year, regardless of whether it did or didn't snow this year, the people gather on the largest squares in New Prista to celebrate the past year and expect the first signs of a new one. They usually feast on mutton served in various easy-to-hold forms, and drink hot fruit tea, while catching up with people they meet after a long time on the square by chance. Roughly thirty minutes before the first sunrise after the winter solstice, the people begin to sign the hymns that supposedly encouraged the Sun to grace the city for a longer time with its light. While these days nobody believes in this myth, the overall experience is considered to be worth doing just for its own sake.

Celebration of The Pearlhunt starts precisely three weeks after the summer solstice, and it lasts for one week. For every day of this week, people are encouraged to come to the Fisher and Backsalt districts wearing their swimwear and possibly some extra clothes, in order to participate in the yearly pearlhunt. The goal is to swim deep underneath the waters within the walls and to find as many pearls as possible before running out of breath. Ever since the unfortunate incident 21 years ago, runebots are prohibited from participating in the competition due to the fact that they do not breathe. Every day ends by announcing the winner—a person that found the highest number of pearls while not passing out—and as a prize, the first four places get to keep one pearl of their choice. Any participant gets a symbolic monetary sum for every pearl they found, which is doubled if they managed to get back to the surface without passing out. The celebration started as a showcase of one's determination, but also awareness of their limits.

Subculture Showcase: Corporate Lifestyle

Note: This section is not meant to imply that the presented subculture is in any way unique to or most represented within this city. It is just a subculture I chose to present because it felt most thematically fitting and it wasn't introduced yet.

Examples of regular formalwear worn mainly by the staff of the corporations, but also anyone who wishes to appear official. Variations do exist.
Art kindly provided by Arell, a friend of mine.

Art Curiosities: Due to baldness, the depicted man decided to brandish an illusory hairstyle. The screen in front of the woman is how the interface of runecards and most other runetech appears. Those who wish to draw attention or just appear exotic wear illusory glasses that are actually just an image anyone but them can see.

Those who live a Corporate Lifestyle work for the megacorporations that rule most of the cities in the world. One of the stereotypical views on them is that they're mindless drones who serve as the cogs for world-spanning machines, but the truth is that their productivity is the reason for them earning and keeping their job. Perseverance, adaptability, and reliability are the characteristics held above all others by the corporate staff. Spending large amounts of time working, sometimes even working overtime, earns these employees enough money to live a much higher class life in their free time.

The corporate ladder within the Nexuspace and Lifestock is identical, with the only difference being some of the title names in the language commonly used in Runehack. However, their meaning is synonymous enough to not require a different name in English.

1. Chairman is the owner of the entire megacorporation. The Vice-Chairman is the substitute of the Chairman in case of need but otherwise doesn't hold executive powers, following their orders.
2. President is the ruler of the megacorporation on the scale of an individual city and follows the orders given by the Chairman. The Vice-President is the substitute of the President in case of need but otherwise doesn't hold executive powers, following their orders.
3. Minister manages a certain ministry within a city and follows the orders given by the President. The Vice-Minister is the substitute of the Minister in case of need but otherwise doesn't hold executive powers, following their orders.
4. District Manager oversees a specific city district and follows the orders given by the Minister as well as President.
5. Teams Manager oversees a group of Team Leaders and follows the orders given by the District manager.
6. Team Leader oversees a group of Team Members and follows the orders given by the Teams Manager.
7. Team Member follows the orders given by the Team Leader.

Some of the phrases and traditions practiced by those who live a Corporate Lifestyle include:

• "Work early, home early." A saying that means that those who begin their work earlier get to end the work and partake in activities of their choice earlier.
• "Persevere, and you'll make the step." This saying refers to the determination required in order to ascend the corporate ladder.
• Paper War Welcome is a spontaneous event, which is meant to greet a Teams Manager, Team Leader, or Team Member who has returned from taking some time off work by pelleting them with paper balls shot from paper-fed railguns upon their arrival to the office. If the colleagues are close, they can pretend that it's a form of punishment for "slacking off" in a friendly humorous way.
• If someone gets a promotion, it's expected of them to enjoy that night through a party, whether private or with those who matter to them, and to take the next day off. If they're still a Teams Manager or someone lower on the corporate ladder, this day off is followed by a Paper War Welcome.

Relations

As one could expect, New Prista has largely positive relationships with almost all other cities owned by the Nexuspace, generally neutral to negative relations with the cities owned by Lifestock, and neutral relations to the kingdoms.

Due to the lack of development of these other cities, I will skip the rest of this section for now. I would much rather update it later.

Curiosities

There are multiple points of interest within the walls of New Prista. Among the most interesting tourist attractions are:

• Pristine Fort, found in the eponymous Fort district, is one of the oldest structures within the city. The royal family used to live here for generations before Nexuspace bought the city. Within 10 years of Nexuspace buying the city, the royal family went through a mysterious string of deaths due to accidental circumstances. In the present day, no members of the royal family are known to be alive.
• Hymn Square is the largest square of New Prista located in the Central district. It's named after the celebration of Winter Solstice Hymn that supposedly began here. It's littered with advertisements and became iconic to New Prista.
• Twintall Tower is a building found on the border of the Backsalt and Deep Blue district, and it's infamous for being a "skyscraper that scrapes both ways". The building has 103 stories above sea level, as well as 103 stories below sea level. Many of the floors are owned by various smaller companies, owned for the most part by Nexuspace, but the most floors owned above sea level belong to Tomorrowkind. Underwater floors, on the other hand, are where the TAI has started to move in.
• Grandfoot Monument is a statue of the last dwarven king of New Prista. It was raised by the Nexuspace once it has acquired the ownership of this city, to commemorate the times of the old monarchy. It's found on the hill of Upper West district where it's visible from multiple places within the city.
• Auditorium of Agony is a religious building within the Red Street district used for the scorn of the Pantheon of the Misfortune. This round dome is by design submerged halfway underground, with a podium in the middle for the speeches. While people like to joke that the speakers there only scream for hours at a time, the truth is that their lectures are meant to improve people's lives and teach them how to treat the pain in their lives.

The Faceless

The greatest curiosity, and the focal point of my planned story, is the Blood Season. It's named that due to its severely increased number of murders with an unknown motive. Those who were familiar with the motivation that drove it would more likely call it an Assassin Game.

A great unknowable being from beyond this world has contacted hundreds of people through strange incomprehensible means, offering them with Absolution, a power to go beyond the laws of nature in some way. In this case, it was the Absolution from Form—a power to change one's appearance. At first, it comes with limitations, but every Absolution can be enhanced further by appeasing the being to grant these powers. Those who possess the Absolution from Form refer to themselves with several terms, most commonly as the "faceless", but sometimes also as "ashwalkers" due to the curious fact, that whenever they use this power, they leave behind a visible amount of ashes and soot.

As it goes for any supernatural power, however, it comes at a cost. The unknowable being has started the greatest Assassin Game, wishing only for the survival of the fittest. Each of the participating faceless receives an item that points at one target that they must eliminate. When the target dies, their hunter inherits their target. The being that grants these powers is willing to enhance each participant's powers the more of their opponents they eliminate. Due to the fact that all of the participants are shapechangers, the greatest cost to these powers is psychological trauma caused by the contest, in which someone who can look any way they want could at any moment pursue you in an attempt to kill you. Even if one were to avoid this contest and not murder anyone, sooner or later they would be targeted, and possibly eliminated, by a different faceless. There is also another cost to this power, but that's something I would consider a spoiler, so it should remain hidden for now.

Important People

A few examples of the important people from New Prista:

• Zaxon Skybank, elf, male; the current President of New Prista.
• Sallice Redleaf, fairy, female; internationally popular singer, actress.
• Quincenza Freecraft, human, female; inventor, Teams Manager for TAI.
• Keven Steelhammer, dwarf, male; the current leader of the Loyalists, international Mistwebber.
• Stepharia Crownsong, elf, female; architect, visual arts producer.

Runehack: World Primer

I'm afraid I'm burned out on tabletop RPGs in general at the moment. I've tried multiple things, but nothing really satisfies me at the moment. That's why I think I'll change the pace a little bit for the near future: I'll try to keep up the Villainous Cookbooks and maybe work on one other RPG idea I had, but at the same time, I've decided I'll write up further details on my setting of Runehack. If it sounds familiar, that's because more than a year ago, I've made the first concept of it public by writing an article about it. It's time for me to start combing through my ideas and making a more unified image of that world.

Font name: Black and White

Premise

I should begin with a starting premise of this setting for a clear vision of what I go for.

Runehack is a fantasy cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk world filled with technology, city-states, and massive monsters. What was originally a classical fantasy world has been one day invaded by the Apex Predators — massive monstrosities with an unknown origin. Due to the mortal threats outside, the civilizations were forced to create walled-off city-states, and to invent solutions for their problems using the power of runes. Centuries later, they came up with intricate rune-powered mechanisms that allow them to communicate, travel, and do many other things. The two richest corporations have bought small companies, big companies, and eventually even the whole city-states. Only a few independent kingdoms remain, and it's only the kingdoms that have a resource that lets them generate enough income to be able to refuse being bought. But a new problem is brewing out of the public eye: great evils are making their way into the world, bestowing people with magic that works mysteriously without runes.

 

Possible and Unknown

Due to the runes powering the world, it's worth listing things they're capable of. I'll add to this list the one made-up ore present in this world.

• Detection: detecting inputs perceivable by humanoid senses* (and detecting the state of other detection runes),
• Illusions: producing illusory sensations perceivable by humanoid senses*, either on an individual basis or everyone and everything equally,
• Telekinesis: moving matter,
• Encryption: concealing information from anyone who hasn't read, heard, or spoken the password,
• and volerite, an ore that's not powered or related in any way to runes, and it's known for its property of falling upwards.

* The humanoid senses are the following: sight, hearing, smell and taste, temperature, touch, and time. Smell and taste, due to how interconnected they are, are treated as one and the same within this system. Time is at the moment known only for the purposes of detection.

What's been made using the above principles:

• Runebooks and runecards, which are basically computers and smartphones respectively, except the interfaces are illusory and no extra hardware is necessary. Runecards have smaller memory and slightly worse components. One doesn't even need to interact with it by opening or holding it, since the illusion of an interface is not restricted in any way to the surface of the device, which is why it usually surrounds the person. They can be controlled to an extent with gestures and voice commands too.
• Volerite vehicles. Friction is a mess that slows things down, so the engineers have figured out a way to make vehicles that are not restricted to moving on the ground. In combination with the telekinesis runes, the vehicle can keep a constant altitude up to a certain carrying capacity, and within those boundaries, it can also move up and down, as well as be driven like a regular vehicle. However, riding too high up without a proper license is considered a crime in most cities.
• Mistweb and wireless communication. Pretty much the internet of the world thanks to the fact that an illusion from one rune could be detected by another, and there's virtually no maximum distance to them. The domain names are stored within the Tower present in each city.
• Runebots. A fully mechanical humanoid that's one of the races present in the world. Some of them barely register as sentient, others are fully self-aware. The exact process in which they have been created as they are is unknown to most.
• Nexus. Pretty much the default virtual reality within the world. 

What's not widely known but possible:

• Electric machinery. The people of this world are aware of the bolts of lightning, and roughly how they work, but they never saw the need to develop the technology based on them.
• Mind-reading. Runes that detect touch can detect electricity, and since the brain sends electrical signals around, someone who develops algorithms for learning how to understand humanoid thoughts could in fact read minds when calibrated.
• Time illusions. The biggest issue with the time illusions is that they share little similarity to the time detection runes and that they only change how you perceive time. Unless you employ the use of telekinetic runes, you would also move slower, think slower, etc. There is a way to speed up your body to apparently not change in relation to the illusion of slower time you're experiencing, but it will put a huge strain on your muscles and mind, likely causing harm.
• Eldritch magic. One example of the power provided by the great evils from beyond this world is shapeshifting. One would suspect it's an illusion, but it's actual reality. Even after the shapeshifter dies, the new form persists, and it holds up to any physical inspections in any regard other than the brain. Any other kinds of magic are for now not fully defined, so I'll keep them to myself.
• Runetech implants. Due to the electricity and mind-reading being largely unknown, any implants at the moment would have to be controlled with voice commands, gestures, or different means, being thus rather impractical. Once the mind-reading technology would get good enough though, the biotechnological revolution could begin.

The races of humanoids present in this world are dwarf, elf, fairy, goblin, human, orc, and previously mentioned inorganic runebot. I'll be honest, at the moment I don't know how many differences will there be between these races when it comes to their biology, with the exception of fairy (minuscule winged humanoid) and runebot for obvious reasons.

So, what do I need to do next? Before I start rewriting my novel, I should figure out some more details of the world itself. At the moment, I don't have a world map. I only have a couple of city-state names, the megacorporations, some smaller factions present in one way or another in the city-states, I've got some inventions and a bigger threat that comes from outside the world. I think it would be best to write out stuff I make up here on my blog as I keep on going, and once I think I've dealt with all of the shortcomings of Runehack, I can rewrite the draft, and possibly start my search for a publisher.

I hope you've enjoyed reading all of this, and that you find Runehack interesting. Thank you, and I wish you a very nice day!

Alter Time rune and Epoch Engine

The world of Runehack has got two runes that mirror each other in an interesting way - Detection and Illusion. For every visual illusion such as a chair, there is some rune to detect it. For every sound produced by a rune, there is also a rune to detect it. This goes for all senses. But... does this work for the time too? How would that look? After all, time depends heavily on how you sense it. Time seems to flow super slow while in a doctor's waiting room, and super fast when you're having a blast. Time itself doesn't change though, your perception does. And you can definitely set up a rune to activate when the detection rune detects that five minutes have passed since activation.

Alter Time

Illusions of time are about as complicated to fully comprehend as the majority of uses for Encryption rune. What would that even mean? Could you travel in time? Well yes, but actually not really. The truth is, all of us are time travelers, traveling through time at the rate of 1 sps, one second per second.

The rune scheme called "Alter Time" lets us change this rate. At its simplest form, you need to spend one hour in drawing this complex rune. Doing so will seemingly slow everything around you down to go two times slower for one minute. Your rate of traveling through time is 2 sps. The rune can also be drawn in an exactly opposite way, letting you experience 0.5 sps, seemingly making everything around you two times as fast.

As soon as the spell stops working, your body reacts to being forced to move at the speed unusual to you as your muscles stiffen. In D&D terms, think of this as a reduction to the Dexterity score.

Question is - can we cast this spell so that we get higher or lower rates? Of course we can! But that also comes at a cost. For every added second (or smaller fraction), the length of time needed to draw this rune is multiplied by 10. So for 3 sps (or 1/3 sps), you need 10 hours, 100 hours for 4 sps, 1000 hours for 5 sps. As you can imagine, slowing time beyond 8 sps is not humanly possible (though let's admit it, it would be really cool). Especially since these runes have to be drawn continuously - you can't take breaks from magic. But... humanity is crafty, it keeps coming up with ways to break the world at all times.

Epoch Engine

Cabal Neuron, one of the organizations that rule the world of Runehack, and the largest producer of autonomous devices such as driverless vehicles and runebots, also creates special runebots named Epoch Engine. When an Epoch Engine unit is built, the first task it gets is to move into a specific area within the building and start drawing a rune of time illusion. This rune is drawn for anywhere from 3 days to even as much as 114 years.

May or may not come preprogrammed with the 3 Laws of Asimov? Actually, they'd be detrimental to their job, so probably not.
Robot Head 112417, by Aaron de Leon

 

The Epoch Engine units are afterward rented out to important people when they are about to find themselves in extremely important or dangerous situations where they can't afford a failure. The price depends on the size of its inscribed time rune. When something goes awry, an Epoch Engine unit will activate its spell, and do everything it can within the next minute to protect the person it was hired to protect. Due to it perceiving time at 5-8 sps, it is much faster and much more capable of preventing threats, and thus it makes for an effective bodyguard. Sure the attackers who put this important person in danger could expect that, but the VIP can always just rent more of these robots. Once its job is done, it is moved back to the Cabal Neuron facility, where it rests, and draws the time rune once more to be ready for the future.

Runehack now has robots that can be hired to protect a person by slowing their perception of outside time. That's pretty cool. I wonder what'll come next. Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Runehack

Imagine for a moment a world where the runic magic is possible. It's a classic in fantasy, the kind of magic you have to write down and give a bit of magic to in order to make it work.  Let's limit ourselves to four kinds of runes: illusory runes that produce phenomena like sights and sounds (to the point where it can cause harm), divination runes that can find out stuff by themselves, movement runes that can move objects and creatures around (or even teleport them), and runes that can hide information by covering it with ciphers.

Now, imagine that you'd discover new kinds of runes, ones that can send out magic by themselves upon receiving some stimulus. Like for example, seeing the red color, or hearing the sound of a ringing bell, or when the person who this rune is drawn on goes through an intense emotion.

Now, imagine that you could also combine multiple stimuli, and have multiple effects attached to them too. Maybe this rune activates only when you're touching it and when you say a command word, and it shoots a ray of light accompanied by the celestial choir.

And now, try to picture someone piecing these runes together in an intricate way to make... a calculator. However, due to this being the first magical calculator, the runes fill pages of books, that fill shelves of a bookshelves, and these bookshelves fill out a room. Where to next?

Well, someone else who's smart realizes something at that point. They realize that you can minimize the runes, and have them still keep their magical efficiency. You could make them smaller and smaller, reducing room into a bookshelf, a bookshelf into a shelf, a shelf into a book, a book into a single page, and a page into a single playing card that can fit into your pocket.

Meanwhile, someone else who's smart and somewhere else in the world wanted to connect two of these calculators together. Once they did, they tried to connect a third one. And a fourth one. They thought long and hard, and realized that maybe... they should come up with a network that could be joined by any of these elaborate calculators.

And once that happens, you have a fantasy setting, where people carry around books as computers and laptops, cards in their pockets like smartphones, and connect to the internet. This is a vision I had for the setting that I call Runehack. More details on that sometime in the future.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!