What is Runic, at the base of it?
In as short a descriptor as possible:
Runic is the story of a princess who doesn't want to leave her tower, a knight who doesn't care to save herself let alone the princess, and how things can get better despite everything that's happened.
So, Runic comes from a few places.
- A Practical Guide to Evil by erraticerrata
- The Name system, the general grittiness of the world.
- Ra by qntm (Sam Hughes)
- The magic-as-engineering concept that he wrote exceptionally well.
...among others.
What is the Essence system, at the base of it?
The magic system for Runic - Essence and Glyphs - came from the idea of a world where magic is unlimited. Usually, in stories with fantasy elements, mages will be all
Oh no! My mana is out, and I can't cast Ultra Mega Fireball! I guess I'll die...
Some fantasy stories do this well, like Mother of Learning by nobody103. In Mother of Learning, there are "mana vents" which allow for mages in that area to regenerate magic much faster than they would otherwise. Additionally, the protagonist actually has lower than average mana capacity, meaning that being efficient is a big part of the story.
However, I envisioned a world where magic is infinite. You can draw on it as much as you like, and it'll never run out.
Obviously, this is not a great recipe for a balanced world for a story to take place in! Magic is already hard enough to write into a plot, and making it infinite makes all challenges a joke.
Or does it?
Introducing, Essence. Essence is a corrosive, toxic and dangerous material. It will poison any organic material and convert anything inorganic into something that can conduct itself much more effectively.
Essence builds up in a plane orthogonal to the physical, and can only be broken through using specialized tools or extreme force on the side of the plane of essence. For more info, see this.
I dislike the idea of soft magic systems, so this was built explicitly to not be a soft magic system.
Why write it?
I like writing.