According to the Tristine Chronicles and other writings, runes were crafted by the dread Old Ones. Once the greatest of all magics, the secrets of Rune Magic forever lost to all but a few, and even those still known are but a small fragment of the puzzle that is Rune Magic.
According to most historians, the dwarves were the last Rune Masters, and even they held only the coveted knowledge of making the fabled rune items. Even at the end of the Elf-Dwarf War, some ten thousand years ago, many of the secrets of rune magic were already lost, although their legends persist.
Over the millennia, the few remaining secrets of rune magic have not been systematically destroyed are still believed to be lost forever, or so those who hold them proclaims. This is largely the result of the efforts of the dwarves, who spent decades purging the world of all "dark" magics. They believed rune magic to be detrimental to all life, so not only were its secrets destroyed and its practitioners eliminated, but tens of thousands of the ancient weapons were destroyed, hidden, buried and magically transported to desolate places on other worlds. It is believed that only the rune alphabet and a few rune symbols have survived into the present age of man.
Although it is true that most of the the magic secrets behind the runes are forever lost, Some discoveries have made as well as some of the remain secrets kept.
It is common knowledge to Diabolists and most practitioners of magic that even the simple act of writing runes invokes some sort of magic. Like power words, the rune letters and symbols appear to be things of magic in and of themselves. All runes, whether written or carved in any substance, possess a magic aura. Consequently, any runic writings will radiate with weak magic energy. Even words scratched in the dirt will radiate of magic until they are wiped away. One of the greatest discoveries has been that writing runes in pure silver on parchment paper will make the runes and the parchment they are written on completely indestructible! Not blade, fire or force can destroy parchment written in silver runes. Books written thus are impervious to the ravages of time. Yet, writing silver runes on any other substance, object or person does not make it invulnerable, only parchment.They believe the Runes are of a common Dwarven Runic Alphabet that has survives from ages past, that along with a few Rune Symbols form what most Diabolists and some of the magical practioners use as a secret language. This is not actually the case. The Elves have knowledge of 6 Runic set, one which is the commonly known runic alphabet. of these 6 Rune Sets 4 are considered Greater Runes and 2 Lesser Runes. The Lesser Runes, both the Dwarven Lesser and the Elven Lesser are used in the Elven art of Certar`Biesera, while as stated in the essay covering that art, Greater Runes can not be used for such. However all 6 runesets can be used in True Rune Magic.
The six Rune Sets follow:
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Rune magic uses the living, to empower lifeless, inorganic constructions like the legendary soul drinking rune swords. It melds the living, or at least the life essence of the living, with the non-living. Rune magic steals a creature's life essence and soul, sometimes the physical body as well, and imprisons it in a dimensional vortex within the enchanted object/weapon. The life force empowers the object like a living battery. Ironically, it is that very life force which makes the item indestructable and provides it with much of it's power. Within this dimensional prison the life force requires no means of nourishment or water. Thankfully, time is greatly distorted. A thousand years may seem like only a few days. The key ingredients required to transform an ordinary inanimate object into a powerful rune items are intelligence, elements of the supernatural, magic and life. Thus, supernatural beings of all kinds are typical beings used to breath life into rune items.
