The powers of rune magic were once lost to the ages. While archivists act as the primary masters of this art, scholars, sages, and even the occasional adventurer will take it upon themselves to understand this arcane symbology.
An artist emulates the intricate patterns seen in ancient tombs and barrows, each line and etching within his works a small piece of a glyph of power. A knight of the church places ancient warding symbols onto the weak and frail, their sigils protecting them from harm. A tribal hunter covers himself with the ritualistic scars and tattoos passed down his family line for generations, their magical power infusing his very flesh. Many of these practitioners may not fully realize they are utilizing the lost art of rune magic, but all who witness can see the supernatural powers that they can create.
Presented on this page are new class options and archetypes for the archivist. It additionally provides archetypes for a handful of existing classes in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. These archetypes replace certain features of these classes with new options to incorporate the powers of rune magic. For full detail on how archetypes function, see Chapter 2 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Player’s Guide.
While these archetypes provide a more focused and detailed approach to using rune magic, the number of magically-inclined classes and options within the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that could use rune magic–if given the chance–is quite high. To that end, the later half of this chapter details ways to give rune magic to the vast majority of spellcasters in the game. Along side this are general guidelines to giving a spellcaster rune magic, providing players and GMs the tools to add rune magic to their favorite classes and options from any source. These rules are also necessary to use the archetypes found here, such as the scarred mystic bloodrager and the rune master cleric.
Using Rune Magic[]
This section details ways for GMs and players to give rune magic to all classes that can cast spells within the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, such as wizards, oracles, and psychics. It also provides “generic” rules for giving rune magic to options not included here, such as archetypes that would normally grant a class spellcasting or classes from other sources.
- General Rules - Rules on how to add rune magic to existing classes.
- Basic Archetype: Scribe - A generic archetype to replace spellcasting with rune magic on any class.
- Class-Specific Rules - Any minor rules required to adapt class features to rune magic, such as cleric domains or a wizard's arcane school.
- Alternate Script Lists - List of runic scripts for each class.
Specific Archetypes[]
This section lists archetypes tailor-made for the Rune Magic system.