Strongly disagree, op, because Snorri has already taken runes that only act on specific physical objects and used them to make runewords that do not share that same limitation. For present purposes, the best example is probably hailmantle, which consists of parrying/cold/sanctuary and has the following effect:
"A shield of frost and bitter winds buffets away physical projectiles and slows down enemies attacking the bearer. A weaker version of the effect can be extended over a formation."
There are no ingredient substitutions in play here, no ancestor runes that could possibly have muddied the waters. All we have is a parrying rune, which by itself just makes a weapon move on its own to catch incoming blows, combined with a magic resistance rune and a rune of cold. Taken together, those runes produce an air barrier that deflects arrows. That certainly
corresponds to putting your axe in the way of an incoming sword swing, in one sense, but it has nothing whatever to do with the literal physical effect produced by the parrying rune on its own. Instead the runeword draws on a broader concept of deflection that is invisible when the rune of parrying is viewed in isolation but can be coaxed out when the rune is put in a specific context. Under the right circumstances, it's clearly possible to use a rune representationally and have it contribute to a combination in a way that is distinct from the effects of the rune itself; runewords are not indifferent to analogy.
Besides, if the rune of cleaving really was as limited as you say it is, then you'd face much the same difficulty as I would, because soul cake has said in terms that the weapon version of the rune of force just makes weapons swing harder (
RHUNRIKKI STROLLAR (Warhammer Fantasy Golden Age Dwarf Runelord Quest) Fantasy). It's described as a prototypical variant of "more famed" weapon runes, by which soul cake presumably means runes of striking and the like. If your proposal is to work, it seems to me that it must necessarily make use of a less narrow definition of force that sits outside the physical effect of the individual rune.
I think I agree about the idea of 'runes drawing on a more general definition' like what you're getting at here with Parrying and the concept of deflection. I think in Parrying's specific case on Hailmantle, what happened is that the manifestation as a deflecting wind comes from it being a Banner application: sure the banner rune could make the arms of every dwarf move to intercept an attack, but that is less energy efficient than summoning up a wind and moving dwarf arms and weapons into an attack's path is also not going to be able to protect against some forms of attack. You could even suppose that parrying doing what it does on Banners is rather similar to what the Master Rune of Grungni does.
I have, and I think that post illustrates one reason why dragonbreath in particular is difficult to achieve: we'd be restricting ourselves to shooting for a very specific desired result. In the past, when we've attempted to combine runes, we've generally not been too bothered about exactly how the combination would express itself. Nobody was really pushing for Snorri's armour runeword to specifically make him fearless, we just theorised that unyielding and fortitude together might imply an effect something like that, and if the runes had expressed themselves differently that would've been fine too. There was a range of possible outcomes, and all of them that resulted in an entry on the combo list were good. Similarly, when you wrote up your proposal for Snorri's cloak, you started with a general thematic idea for what might fit with the armour and the hammer and used that starting point to inform your choice of runes. Imagine how much harder you would've made things for yourself if, instead, you had started from a position of "I want to make a magic item that conjures a magic doppelganger for Snorri to order around" and tried to work backwards to decide which combination of runes produce that exact effect. Starting from a position of "I want to make my big robot breathe fire like a dragon" is similarly difficult because, as soul cake writes, there are many combinations of runes that could conceivably produce that result but only one he will accept as the correct answer.
When I wrote my own proposal for dragonbot weapon runes, I went for something different than dragonbreath because I think it's a difficult effect to achieve with specificity. My position might be different if there was an obvious and straightforward "aoe rune" you could just duct tape to conduction (or everfrost, or thunderbolts) but, if there is such a rune, I haven't thought of it. I really don't think the rune of force can fill that role in an obvious and straightforward manner either, it would have to work by contributing a different kind of force that is analoguous to, but distinct from, the effect of the rune itself. If I have my way, we won't be trying for dragonbreath at all; instead we'll work from the other direction, picking a set of weapon runes that are thematically appropriate and providing an interpretation for why those runes might work harmoniously together. But I think I probably can't convince you to abandon your ambitions for a dragonbreath runeword, so I posted thunderbolts/chain lightning/cleaving on the basis that if I had to make an attempt at dragonbreath, that's what I'd probably try.
So is t/cl/c obvious and physically straightforward in the manner soul cake says makes for the easiest combo prospects? Obviously not, but it seems to me that to make dragonbreath, or something like it, out of the runes Snorri knows we must by necessity get a little bit esoteric. T/cl/c has the benefit of including two separate runes that independently push on the idea of striking a whole volume, clearly the most difficult component of dragonbreath to achieve, and those two also form a chain of associations with the master rune. The chain lightning rune embodies both thunder and striking multiplicities, so it forms a point of commonality with both thunderbolts and cleaving and helps bridge the gap between them. There remains an appreciable risk of failure, but if we insist on trying for dragonbreath I think that kind of comes with the territory, honestly.
When you talk about Skarren and the idea around me making my efforts more difficult by starting from a position of "make my big robot breathe fire like a dragon" to get dragonbreath, I simply disagree because that is not what I experience when trying to come up with Rune Combos using my own methods. What I experience is that I usually start from a very brief intended result and then expand out on runes and themes from there, with the runes coming from specific effort and searching while the themes emerge from practiced writer's intuition.
Skarrenbakraz had a theme when I presented it, and I started with that presentation of a theme to grab attention - at this point enough time has passed that I can't recall if I started from a theme or an image when I initially started workshopping it. I think I wanted some kind of Storm idea, and then I immediately started looking for stormy runes.
Also I wasn't the only one putting input there, so its rather complex in creative origin.
The effect of the rune of force if we take what soulcake says about "pushing force" in your original link, plus boosting the force of weapon blows, plus the waves of pushing force generated by the talismanic version, and a possible relation to the Rune of Impact on armor boosting the force of charges, seems to indicate that Force is about kinetic force as a general concept. Like Parrying is about a general concept of deflection. And as I mentioned before, Conduction on Trollslayer seems to cause kinetic forces in its blows, which is part of why Otrek gibbed a lot of critters with Trollslayer (there was a particular moment shortly after he got it where he mentioned he fought a Griffon, which exploded). My point being that the rune of fire isn't going to do that by itself. That's my attempt to convince you that the Rune of Force may create directed bursts of kinetic energy when applied as a weapon rune. Wyrnorazi thus draws on that concept, and thematically directed kinetic force looks a lot like wind; which leads into the thematic idea of a howling blizzard wind scouring the barren earth that I was going for.
Looping back to your suggestion and at this point I've narrowed down to specifics in my disagreement: I disagree that Cleaving has anything to do with striking a whole volume, because to me that association comes from its
name, and I think that is the incorrect way to try and identify runic associations
. Among other things, Cleaving's name isn't very accurate to be honest. As I said prior there is no reference to the idea of striking a whole volume in the effect described on the spreadsheet, nor on Snorri's old axe with cleaving on it. The consistent feature is cutting through better/strengthening piercing effects. Cleaving not in the sense of a sweep, but cleaving in the sense of a pick head cleaving two pieces of stone apart.
It's possible that cleaving would play well with Chain Lightning and Thunderbolts, but as I mentioned in a different post above, I am doubtful because piercing as a concept is unusual to apply to elemental effects. Lightning is the best for it, but its strange to me to pick Cleaving, when better choices we
know would work with lightning energy exist.
Also, if we want Dragonbreath and we're doing it via the Master Rune of Thunderbolts, the Master Rune just inherently solves the projection and 'breath' problem I was wrestling with in Wyrnorazi since it has its "Point at target, shoot thunderbolt at it" feature.
Assembling and concluding that shoot thunderbolt idea from these four sources:
Rune of Lightning (Strikes release current of electricity when they land, two copies improves strength of current, three copies allows weapon to periodically launch a lightning bolt). The Master Rune of Thunderbolts seems to be derived from the Rune of Lightning, which has a "point and shoot" feature when three are stacked.
Master Rune of Thunderbolts: Necessary Ingredients: [T3] Storm Wyrm's Blood/Dragon Ogre Shaggoth's Blood: The weapon crackles with barely controlled lightning that erupts in a massive burst of electricity that travels through nearby foes or can be concentrated at a lesser foe in a single strike.
thats a copy paste error. thanks for pointing out. It should be the same as the Master Rune of Thunderbolts Master Rune of Metalblood is pretty on the nose. Steel Skin increased mass on account that your flesh and blood is now metal, and the ability to bleed molten steel. Think Barak Azamar's...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Where Soul mentions the Master Rune of Lightning Strikes' reagent is the same as Thunderbolts. From the sheet Lightning Strikes is about electrifying and empowering war machine ammunition (I assume they explode in lightning when they impact something).
And finally the Rune of Shocking which is described as giving war machines electrifying attacks, which seems to be the Engineering version of Lightning and one of the component runes of Lightning Strikes.
Also, even if I've misinterpreted something and Thunderbolts doesn't have a point and shoot feature, I have to imagine Chain Lightning would help it do so.
Thank you for talking this out with me so far, and for your suggestions around Thunderbolts, its been sparking ideas for Xepheria and myself.
But. If/when we do pull it off, what do people think the results might be?
