MID-MONTH SPECIAL- Let's Speak Runic!

Heya Pal... hiya~....

I hope this letter doesn't give you a big scare teehee. To be honest, I got bored, so I've instated that this monthly newsletter now has a sub-newsletter that is also monthly, but it's in the middle of every month :]
Feel free to unsubscribe if this daring break of trust of this newsletter giving twice as many letters with more awesome stories and stuff infuriates you.

Now, originally the topic of this letter was going to be various moments that players enjoyed. They were going to write about it and then I'd put them down here, but spoilers for next mid-month special - they couldn't finish on time so I'm using this one to stall for time for them :]

Let's do something else fun! Lets write in Runic! :happy: :happy: :happy:

Below, I will attach a table with the meaning of each rune. (This might be helpful for understanding future newsletters, too!)

(Rune)	(Meaning/Basic Definition)	(Notes)
1	'Destroy'	Less literal than you might think. It just means to remove.
2	'Line', or 'Range'	For talking about distances.
3	'Square', or 'Area'	For talking about points and areas. Can also mean shapes.
4	'Energy', or 'Literal'	Weird one, its like trying to boil something down to its 'essence'.
5	'Red', 'Fire', 'Angry', 'Attack', etc...	First in a few 'vibe' runes. Basically, there is no definition in English that fits. (contd.)
6	'Yellow', 'Lightning', 'Happy', 'Speed', etc...	These runes are all context-based. For example, '4 6' (energy... this one) would mean 'lightning', due to the context with Rune 4. (contd.)
7	'Blue', 'Ice', 'Sad', 'Defense', etc...	In Runic it's just one 'word', but it umbrellas all of these words for us in English.
8	'Help', or 'Heal'	For when you want to 'maintain' something. 8 7 for example means 'Help Defense'.
9	'Feelings', or 'Emotion'	Seems self-explanatory. The adage goes: Villains cast 3 1, Monsters cast 12 9 7.
10	'Mind'	Also seems self-explanatory. When used in spells it can sometimes mean psychic powers! Fun.
11	'Opposite'	This rune can get a little confusing sometimes in spells... but it works about how you'd expect in language.
12	'Continuous', 'Survive', 'Is'	I believe this is one of if not the most complicated rune of the original 16 runes. It can mean a lot of things. It can mean a continuation or perpetuation of something, it can mean existence, it can mean life. It's probably one of the most common runes in the Runic language.
13	'Even', or 'Smooth'	This rune's pretty boring all things considered. For when you want to talk about smoothing something out.
14	'Atmosphere', or 'Global'	This is another one meant to be taken less literally. It doesn't mean like the Earth's atmosphere, but rather like the atmosphere of a room. It can also mean things like Continents or even the entire World. It's basically just like using rune 3, but 'bigger'.
15	'Light', or 'Confusion'	For talking about light. Interestingly, it is also paired with 'Confusion'. After all, too much or too little light and either way you'll be blinded.
16	'Evil'	Another pretty self explanatory one.
17	'Size', 'Ratio', 'Quantity'	The most obvious use is to use it to refer to big things, but it can also refer to a quantity of things. You might want to say that "There is a lot of wasps!" In that case, consider saying something along the lines of "2 17 16 12!" :]
18	'Time'	Can be combined in special ways with other runes like 5 6 and 7 to refer to specific times or an amount of time later. More on this later.
19	'Space', 'Cosmic', 'Lunar'	Just space stuff, like planets and stars and stuff.
20	'Freedom'	Y'know, freedom. Whether you can or cannot do something.
21	'Sound'	Self explanatory.
22	'Liquid'	Self explanatory; note, does not necessarily mean water. Just 'melted things'.
23	'Brown', 'Earth', 'Stoic', 'Magical Defense', etc...	More runes with no direct English translation. These later ones have more subdued emotions, more physical elements, and ironically less physical 'attributes'.
24	'Pastel', 'Water', 'Calm', 'Magical Attack', etc...	See above.
25	'Faded', 'Wind', 'Focused', 'Magical Speed', etc...	See above.
26	'Pain', 'Nerve'	Maybe self explanatory? Y'know, pain.
27	'Love'	Self explanatory.
28	'Craft', or 'Make'	Sometimes, it's hard to differentiate this one with rune 8 and rune 30. It's very important, anyways.
29	'Order', or 'Similar'	For talking about people similar to you, or family, and whatnot. Can also refer to groups.
30	'Physical', or 'Item'	For talking about objects.
31	'Power'	This is the most complicated of the runes from 17-32 I think. There's a lot of runes which basically mean 'amplified' or 'bigger' or 'greater'... but they all have their own flavors. This is kind of like that, but it means like... 'legendarily' greater. It also has some interactions later that I'll touch on.
32	'Nothing', 'Nil', 'Zero'	Self explanatory although the concept of 'zero' in of itself implies some kind of sciencey or weird conversation is going on.

Okay that was dense. Sorry Pal. You'll notice that a lot of them are very 'gamey', which makes sense because they were made with spellcasting in-mind and not speaking. :wizard:
Anyways, with this we can make basic sentences! Try it out.

Yeah it's hard without any context, right? Here's some pointers: left runes 'affect' right runes. If you want to talk about an 'evil area', you would say '16 3', not '3 16'. If you'd like to talk about it snowing outside, you could try something like '4 7 14' (Ice Atmosphere, 'there is Icey Weather').

Now, speaking in runes is actually really hard with just these base 32 runes. For example, talking about more complex ideas like computers is hard. :tnt: :pc:
In cases like that, you can 'combine' two runes by 'half-widthing' them. Realistically this means squishing them and then putting them together, but you can't really do that with the numbers... the solution I found was by adding a new kind of punctuation, represented as a colon. For example: 6:10. That's rune 6 and rune 10 halfwidthed together to mean something new. This is what I was talking about earlier with rune 31 having some strange interactions, by the by. :dive: :pc:

Unfortunately... since last issue, many players of Runefree found out about this newsletter meaning I can't actually give the table for what halfwidths mean, since that's the current mystery in the campaign and giving any would be total spoilers.

However, here's a compromise: if you can prove to me that you are not one of the Runefree players by E-Mailing me at charbomber12@gmail.com, I'll send a link to the current table of halfwidths and what they mean so you too can try speaking more advanced Runic. Do note, it's not actually entirely finished yet, but all halfwidths for the first 16 runes with the first 16 runes are done.
Also, if you need help with anything, I can explain further with any future contact although that might be harder over e-mail rather than chat. PM me on Melonland Forums about it if you'd like.

Finally, there is also new punctuation for names. If you want a name for something, use vertical bars |like so|. Saying '4 6 12' means something along the lines of "Electric Thing" (as in an animal or person), but if you wanted to talk about Pikachu you might want to refer to them as "|4 6 12|". I mean, that sounds like what Pikachu's name would be in runic, right? It's the difference between talking about 'That electric thing' and 'Pikachu'!
Make up your own rune-name if you want to be a geek :tongue:

Realistically speaking, one's rune-name doesn't have to accurately represent them. If anything, the more fitting the name is, the more it'd be like a pun name. After all, not everyone named 'Smith' is a blacksmith :]

Anyways, thank you for reading this month's mid-month special! I hope you liked it. It would be fun to see people messaging around in Runic but I doubt that'l happen in any extent other than a little fun. Again, it's a lot easier once you know how certain runes half-width into each other but for game security reasons I have to be secret about it, sorry. Again, thank you for reading!!

Happy Post-Valentines Day, and always remember: 28 12! :wizard:

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