What is Runic?
Magic sleeps in arranged matter. Lay the right blocks in the right shape and you have drawn a rune — a word in the old tongue that the world itself must obey.
from A Primer on the Runic Arts
Runic is block-pattern magic. Each rune is a shape made of ordinary Minecraft blocks. Build the shape, right-click the right block, and the magic happens. Players need no commands, menus, or mana bars: the world is the spellbook.
The parts of a rune
Every rune page shows its pattern as a grid of tiles. These are the pieces you will meet:
Tier blocks. Most of a pattern is drawn in one material of your choosing, called its Tier blocks. Every block in Minecraft has a Tier from 0 to 7: cobblestone and planks are Tier 1, iron blocks Tier 4, diamond blocks Tier 6, netherite blocks Tier 7. The Tier you draw in sets the rune's strength, such as its reach, how long it lasts, or how many charges it grants. See Tiers.
The heart. One block in each pattern is its activation block, the heart. Right-click it and the rune wakes. You can also right-click the block just beneath the heart, which helps when the heart is fire, a torch, or an empty space. See Activation.
Keys. Some cells call for a particular block: a lodestone, a redstone torch, a campfire, a block of gold. These are the rune's keys. A key cell may accept one block or a whole family, such as any wool or any log.
Signatures. Many runes have four signature arms, one for each compass direction. The blocks you place in them spell a name. Runes with the same signature find each other, which is how a Teleporter knows its Waypoint and how a sensor knows the blocks it should wake. See Signatures and keys.
Blank cells. Cells marked blank must hold air or a Tier 0 block such as stone, dirt, or sand. That means you can draw a rune on top of the ground or carve it into the ground, whichever suits the build.
Runes that burn and runes that stay
Some runes burn away when they wake: their blocks vanish and the magic is done, as with a single teleport or a blessing bound to your tool. Others stay in the world and keep working, like a Waypoint, a ward, a Hearth, or a floating island. Every rune page says which kind it is, and What a rune spends explains the details.
A lot of Runic's magic ends up bound to something: a tool that remembers a blessing, a chest that feeds nearby runes, a designator that marks blocks for automation. Bound magic belongs to the player who made it. See Ownership.
The eleven schools
Every rune belongs to a school. The schools sort the magic by what it does, and ten of them have a Tome you can inscribe at an Athenaeum.
| School | Its art | Runes |
|---|---|---|
| Abjuration | Wards, locks, and shields | 33 |
| Conjuration | Travel, summoning, and stores | 49 |
| Divination | Senses, signals, and sight | 24 |
| Enchantment | Tools and blessings borne | 32 |
| Evocation | Fire, light, and force | 26 |
| Illusion | Phasing, veils, and misdirection | 15 |
| Necromancy | Soul-fire and what remains | 15 |
| Transmutation | Matter reshaped and moved | 22 |
| Void | Hexes, curses, and their cures | 10 |
| Faith | Devotion made power | 14 |
| Admin | Staff tools | 7 |
The Admin school holds staff tools drawn in bedrock. Server operators use them for moderation and recovery.
What players need
- Permission. Each rune has its own permission,
runic.runes.<rune>. Server staff usually grant them all at once. See Permissions. - Initiation. On most servers, runes stay cold until you perform the rite of Initiation. See Initiation and the Primer.
- A recent enough server. Runic runs on Minecraft 1.13 and newer. Runes built around newer blocks or mobs need a newer server; each rune page lists its lowest version.
Ready to build? Start with Your first runes.