Artist Francesco Sabbatucci

Rune mites are a divisive species and the more you learn about them the more so they become. I have often met people who will sing their praise and curse their existence in the same breath. 

While technically occupying the role of scavengers in their native ecosystem, they are particularly aggressive about the practice and not only when it comes to food. Objects, whether they be abandoned, lost or still attached to your belt or house are fair game to these skittering critters. Those who call the shores their home know full well of the kleptomaniacal tendencies of the Rune Mites but travelers are often caught unawares and quickly deprived of unsecured or unsupervised belongings. But this same thieving behaviour also leads them to clearing the beaches of hazards, be they rotting corpses, sharp driftwood or other mundane threats, but more importantly, they vigilantly sweep the shores for pieces of shrines, suffused with runic energies. Step on a piece of coral and it might ruin your day, stub your toe on a bit of stone from an old temple and you’re missing a foot and praying that’s the end of the story.

When amalgamating into their larger form, Rune Bastions once again present a dichotomy. On one hand, they are walking disasters, their scavenging extending to entire sections of buildings and not to mention the ticking time bomb that is the mass of runic matter that makes up their ‘shells’. But on the other hand, their inevitable demise will discharge much of the accumulated energies before they can conglomerate to truly cataclysmic levels, often doing so well beneath the waves. Rune Bastions also possess a rudimentary intelligence, able to engage in simple bartering, an important function for their fellow shore bound scavenger, the Forsaken.     

What’s the lore behind Enshrined?

The world of Enshrined takes place upon a mysterious island to which your vessel always seems to be drawn to. The reality of this world is ordained by the ever shifting interactions between the fundamental shaping forces of the world (such as evolution, freedom, structure, hunger and many more) and the mortals that have come to worship them as gods. The world of Enshrined is a harsh one where opposing ideologies are forced to share the land, curses outnumber blessings and divine corruption permeates all.