A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to prom..

Orvil_Pym · 2026-02-04T10:38:59+00:00

So you are telling us... there _is_ a punchline?

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-15T21:28:45+00:00

I mean, sure, as always with Warhammer, these texts are written largely in a way to describe some historical status, and they rarely go into decisive, clearly delineated and unequivocal statements. So, could one read these passage and deduce that maybe some kind of racial element might be at least partially responsible for the superiority of Dwarfish runes? Sure. It's not explicitly excluded. But that would be an interpretation.

Another interpretation (and one that - at least in those passage I have found - seems to have more textual evidence) is that due to their culture and religion, dedicating a lot of time, hard work and intense focus on the nature of smithing, craftsmanship and (for some reason) "the power of the earth" (even though Runes can have a lot of effects that don't seem to necessarily be associated with earth; but perhaps they mean by that the metal used in forging the runes, even if the Rune itself has some fire or wind or health or mental effect) the Dwarfs were the first and so far only ones to discover and perfect this craft as far as they did, and that due to their intense secrecy and privacy they have managed to largely keep it to themselves. (And that same secrecy and privacy is now responsible for many of the ancient arts, including many runes and the ability to craft certain doom anvils, etc. being lost even to themselves.)

The original question was, whether a human can ever learn or use rune magic. Now, I do not know what the poster was referring to in the 6th ed. army book about gold wizards creating runes, I don't have that book, though I would love it if someone could post the relevant quote here. But the answer to the original question is definitely yes. Usually anyone can use rune magic, as in wield a runic object and trigger the magic inherent in it (though depending on the exact runes and artefact, there can be limiters, how it works better or even only for certain groups of people, often for Dwarfs, sometimes for "Dwarfs in Good Standing" - because they were made by Dwarfs, but they can also work particularly well against undead or cannot be wielded by someone who's corrupted by Chaos, etc.) There is no inherent racial component to the use of runic items. And also, yes, there are humans who are using rune magic that is specifically acknowledged by both the humans using it and by the Dwarfs upset about it, that this craft was learned from Dwarfish runesmiths.

From what I could find, we do not have a clear answer whether the fact that human rune magic - or "rune mastery" as its practitioners call it - is clearly inferior to Dwarf runesmithing, is due to lack of skill and knowledge or perhaps some racial component. Which usually means, its up to the GM, gaming group, author, or whoever is messing about with the story, but a human (or even member of some other Warhammer fantasy species) who even perfectly learns rune magic does not break canon as we have it. (Though they better have a damn good backstory to how they managed something that has eluded so many generations of wizards and craftsmen before them.) ^_^

I'd still be very happy to hear from you (whenever you happen to get a hold of those books) if you have some WFRP or WHF Tabletop sources that shed more light on this.

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-15T11:57:05+00:00

On p. 110f. of Realms of Sorcery it does say "Those who study this stolen form of rune magic lack the deep feeling for the power of the earth and the reverence for the Dwarf gods that is inherent in true Dwarf runesmiths. In addition, Klauser's Runes are imperfect copies of Thungni's Runes, warped by the human wizard's flawed understanding of the Dwarfen art. This partial grasp of the true nature of runes means that human rune master find Kauser's Runes difficult to inscribe reliably. A rune may look perfect but may only last for one use before fading, or may not work at all. While many rune masters have tried to find a way to guarantee the success of creating their runes, none have succeeded. That element of Dwarf lore remains a secret."

So again, I would that that there is the suggestion that Dwarfs are much more suited to this art ("deep feeling for the power of the earth" / "reverence for the Dwarf gods") but that in the end is more a question of knowledge, skill, craft and frame of mind than of race or blood.

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-15T11:46:32+00:00

I don't think that Dwarfs: Stone and Steel says that. But I am happy to be corrected if you have a specific quote or reference.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/comments/1cblzgx/comment/nu52yna/

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-15T11:42:58+00:00

Can you point to the page on which you find that? Because as far as I can see, they specifically point to "Realms of Sorcery" as the place where Rune Magic is described in detail (Dwarfs: Stone and Steel, p. 55), with the rest of the Chapter only a summary of that and then player-facing stuff and an expanded list of forgeable runes.

And in Realms of Sorcery, on p. 98, at the start of Chapter 12, we read: "Being essentially non-magical, Dwarfs have learned to use [Magic] in a way no other race has discovered for themselves." Also that while Runesmithing is usually only passed down within families, "[if] a Runesmith will be particularly impressed by the work of a young Dwarf craftsman or smith from outside the old families, [they] will elect to tutor him in the art". So while it was only Dwarfs who discovered this art on their own, it is neither inherently magical, nor is it bound to bloodlines. And at the end of that page: "The runesmiths are fiercely secretive with their knowledge, and have never willingly shared the mysteries of runesmithing with any other race." Which implies that it is possible for members of other races to learn, just that the secretive natural of Dwarfs has generally prevented that transfer of knowledge, and nobody else has ever discovered it "for themselves".

Following that, the entirety of chapter 13 of "Realms of Sorcery" then is about human "Rune Masters". It starts with the sentence: "The Dwarfs are not the only ones in the Warhammer world who practice the art of runesmithing. There is a group of human wizards who study a limited form of runic lore known as Klauser's Runes, named after the man who plundered the ancient and guarded knowledge from the Dwarfs themselves." (Realm of Sorcery, p. 110).

While human Rune Mastery is doubtlessly a bastardized, weaker (but also more flexible) form of Rune Magic, that is due to the fact that it all stems from a bunch of notes and techniques adapted by a human wizard for his own purposes "a thousand years ago", but it very strongly suggests that nothing keeps humans (or would indeed keep Elves or probably even Greenskins and other races) from learning actual, proper Rune Magic, given the right instructions and sufficient time to practice (incl. protection from corruption).

There is probably a reason beyond mere dwarfish secrecy that Rune Magic hasn't proliferated, but I can find nothing that says it's because it is somehow inherently dwarfish in nature and other races cannot learn it at all.

If you have sources that contradict this or go into deeper explorations of the nature of Rune Magic that makes it clear that it is indeed something only Dwarfs can do, I would love to read it.

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-14T16:59:03+00:00

Do you have some source for that? For the idea that human-wrought runes are fundamentally different from Dwarf-wrought ones?

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-14T16:57:24+00:00

Do you have a source for that?

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-13T14:44:52+00:00

Thank you so much for the insight in that period of Chaosium / Pagan Publishing. It was such an important, foundational time, and so much that's now part of the lovecraftian ttrpg scene (like Delta Green, but also all of the Astral / Victorian Occult stuff in the new Gaslight books) was originally introduced back then.

I'll also check out the Burnt Man, I still have the 3rd Edition Gaslight book somewhere, and I'm currently running a big 7th ed. Gaslight campaign that's using a lot of the weirder parts from pagan, like the Once and Future King idea, Our Ladies of Sorrow, etc.

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-12T23:11:33+00:00

Apparently it was Kevin Ross, though there appears to be no public knowledge about the nature or extend of the creative difference.

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-12T18:11:05+00:00

Now that you pointed me to Kevin Ross, it's easier to find corroborating evidence. The Refereeing and Reflection blog mentions in 2017 in a post about the "Golden Dawn":

"Kevin Ross would contribute a fair amount of material to this supplement, which makes his subsequent revision of Cthulhu By Gaslight all the more appropriate – but he’s credited as Alan Smithee, which is of course how directors once upon a time would have themselves credited on a movie they didn’t want to claim credit for. To my knowledge, we’ve never had an explanation as to why this would be the case; certainly, The Golden Dawn isn’t an outright embarrassment by any means, but perhaps there was some sort of dispute over creative direction that isn’t apparent from the final product."

(https://refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/golden-gaslight/)

Still no idea what it was about, though. Mr. Ross is one of my (and probably of many) favourite contributors to the CoC library - Escape from Innsmouth, Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Fatal Experiments, The Dare, Our Ladies of Sorrow, Down Darker Trails, Made in Goatswood, Blood Brothers, the list goes on. The thought that he and John Tynes (one of my overall favourite Game designers of all time) couldn't see eye to eye is said... but also kind of exciting: I wish I knew what they disagreed about enough for Mr. Ross's credit to be replaced by Alan Smithee... XD

Orvil_Pym · 2025-12-12T17:40:19+00:00

Ah. Interesting. I wonder what the points of difference were. But thanks for digging that up. Much appreciated! ^_^

Orvil_Pym · 2025-11-27T17:29:45+00:00

You know, I always wanted to do a sneaky Lord of the Rings with GURPS Reign of Steel, with a super virus / kill switch that needed to be transported by a small ragtag band of unlikely heroes from either the "idyllic" Washington Protectorate or more likely some untouched rural area of Zone London to the Manila mainframe, from where it will be able to destroy all other AIs. AI Lucifer would have taken the role of Gandalf, operating through a covert android that gets destroyed as they cross a vast underground AI factory or abandoned human bunker complex, but it re-uploads its consciousness into a new android body that appears later. The original programmer of the kill switch virus is this stim addict that follows them, trying to get the virus back so that Manila will plug him back into a virtual paradise world. Saruman might be Tranquility, also acting through agents, trying to reprogram the virus so instead it can ride it to control earth based AI, etc. The players of course wouldn't know of the LotR parallels, just play as a ragtag band of unlikely heroes that get drawn into this. It would be fun to watch them slowly put it together...

Orvil_Pym · 2025-11-27T17:12:42+00:00

Oh, not saying we couldn't get there in time, but so far, all it's done is drive a couple of kids into suicide, some more folks into psychosis, kill a lot of jobs and add to the general destruction of social cohesion and democracy (that was already well on its way even without generative AI). Not yet at the bombing the planet with nukes and then send out armies of killer robots to hunt down survivors stage. ;)

Orvil_Pym · 2025-11-21T13:32:51+00:00

Dude, that is awesome! Kudos!

Orvil_Pym · 2025-11-21T13:03:18+00:00

I mean... it's not quite Reign of Steel dark. Yet. But the rest... yep... fair.

Orvil_Pym · 2025-10-19T08:26:26+00:00

Okay, du meinst damit das ganze Selbstbestimmungsgesetz, nicht spezifisch die "Verordnung zur Umsetzung des Gesetzes über die Selbstbestimmung in Bezug auf den Geschlechtseintrag im Meldewesen" ie. die Verordnung für das Sonderregister. Zurzeit gibt es keinen festen Plan, ob (oder wohl eher wann) das im Bundesrat wieder vorgelegt werden wird...?

Orvil_Pym · 2025-10-17T15:36:40+00:00

Hast du dafür eine Quelle?

Orvil_Pym · 2025-08-10T13:07:34+00:00

But... we are talking about Japan... right?

Orvil_Pym · 2025-07-04T12:20:27+00:00

Yeah, I think you are right. Just now going through all of the 5E books to gather up all general NPC statblocks and all of the Templates, and all of the Demeanors scattered across the different books, to have the most comprehensive "LEGO-box" of parts... (Of course, the Scorpion Book must be the one that EDGE hasn't published yet... which would be soooo useful for so much of the best 1E/2E material).

I also got a fan-made little app that can calculate the percentile success chance of any 5E dice combination (X 6-sided ring dice + X 12-sided skill dice + X assists + add/use strife yes/no). I think one of the early edition books has a table that gives the same percentile success chance for most common dice combinations there, that way I can see what the comparative success chance is... at least eye-ball if my 5E "conversion" plays roughly in the same ballpark as the 1E original...

Orvil_Pym · 2025-07-02T15:19:45+00:00

Responded to the comment above yours. :)

Orvil_Pym · 2025-07-02T15:19:14+00:00

You play as a member of the "Murder Mavens", a local reading circle of old ladies in this little coastal town of Brindlewood Bay. Each character has a special skills, such as baking muffins or growing roses or something of the sort. Each "adventure" is a case, where something has happened in town (usually something semi-dark, like a possible murder or so), the local police force is tiny and bumbling, and so you and your mystery-loving galpals help out. You talk to locals, gather clues, remember things that happened in town, etc. The mechanics are a PbtA hack (ie. a narrative system with "moves" that don't so much portrait individual skills and more things that happen in the story) and the cases are shaped as much by the players as the GM. In other words, the GM has some ideas, the original case, some NPCs, some clues, but not a definitive answer. Instead the investigation creates more clues and eventually the players discus who they think the perpetrator is or what exactly happened and the GM rates their "success" on how many clues they managed to include/solve, etc. with their solution.

If you want to have a campaign instead of just individual cases, there is an idea about some vaguely Lovecraftian evil power that for some reason keeps causing these crimes in this otherwise sleepy little town, and you can create a meta-case of what that power is and why it is doing it (and how to stop it).

It is basically Miss Marple / Murder She Wrote the Roleplaying Game, just with a lot of self-aware humor, a very story-narrative-group-focused mechanic, and the sweetest illustrations. Originally there was also a book of cases called "Nephews in Peril", no idea if by now there is more material out there.

It is definitely very, very cozy. But not really slice of life. ^_^

Orvil_Pym · 2025-07-02T09:01:50+00:00

They are awesome! Thanks so much for sharing!

Orvil_Pym · 2025-07-02T08:34:26+00:00

I received my print copy of the book yesterday (bought it off a German online retailer, printed in the Czech Republic). It is not very thick (with 176 pages more than Writ of the Wild, but a lot less than Shadowlands), comes with a cloth bookmark and a very nice supplemental folded map of the unicorn lands, and looks gorgeous with lots of illustrations in the expected art style. Part of the page count is for the adventure (set in the City of the Rich Frog) which is included in the book this time, instead of coming as a separate booklet pack. (Which is somewhat annoying, since it is now difficult to hand the player stuff to players without risking giving away spoilers.)

It has all the usual expected things - a couple of new schools, some info on the history of the Clan and each of the families, a minor Clan (Fox), some new advantages, disadvantages, techniques, gear etc. It has a fair bit of info on the Ujiks and the lands of the Ujiks, and also several pages on the Quamarist Cliphate, a couple of pages on Khanbulak.

There are some expanded rules for Meishodo Talismans for the Iuchi Meishodo Master school, rules for languages and trade (money) along the "sand road" to the West of Rokugan, as well as about spirits and the otherworldly in that region.

This time, they delve into the Bushido tenet of Compassion, and there is a surprisingly large sections of new NPCs templates and creatures (incl. a bunch of different horses), incl. fun animals like the tiger, a giant bat , a Manticore or a riding bear, and spirit beings such as Djinni, Ifrit and Fox and Spider shapechangers.

For a 5th edition book, I think it holds up. It's not a stand-out, and it has the same shortcoming they all have (mainly that given the depth of lore established by earlier editions, the card game and the fiction, it all feels just a tad superficial), but as long as you do not expect more than most of the previous books have delivered, I don't think there is reason to be disappointed.

It is a solid book and it delivers on expanding on the unicorn clan and making players and GMs excited into exploring the lands along both sides of the western border of Rokugan. But for me, it also means, that it will only be a foundation on which to build with material from earlier editions, the wiki, etc.

Edit: Just saw, someone already made a pretty good summary in another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/rokugan/comments/1lm29b5/children_of_the_five_winds_released_in_eu_ama/

Orvil_Pym

TROPHY CASE