Signatures and keys
Many runes bear a signature: matching arms of blocks that name their maker or their twin. Others demand a key — a particular block seated in the pattern that only the knowing include.
from A Primer on the Runic Arts
Signatures
A signature is a name spelled in blocks. Runes that use one have four signature arms, one for each compass direction: north, east, south, and west. Whatever you place in the four arms, read in that order, is the rune's signature.
Runes with the same signature find each other across the world:
- A Teleporter travels to the Waypoint with its signature.
- A sensor wakes every rune a designator marked under its signature. See Automation.
- A Freight Teleporter ships to the Freightpoint with its signature, and a Faith Transfer Portal carries an island to the Faithpoint with its own.
What an arm can hold
- Any block of Tier 1 or more, except the rune's own Tier block.
- Nothing. An arm holding air or a Tier 0 block counts as empty, and empty is a valid part of the name. A signature of oak planks, empty, empty, glass is different from oak planks, glass, empty, empty.
The exact block counts, including how it was placed. An upright oak log and a sideways oak log spell different names, and so do stairs facing different ways. Full cube blocks such as planks, wool, terracotta, or concrete make signatures that are easy to match.
Player heads carry their owner: Alice's head and Bob's head are different signature blocks, whichever way they face. That makes heads a good way to spell a name nobody else can copy.
Reading the compass
Arms read by the world's compass, whichever way the rest of the rune faces. The arm on the north side of the heart is the north arm, even if the rune itself is rotated.
On a wall, Runic reads the arms like a map pinned up in front of you: the top arm is north and the bottom arm is south. Of the two side arms, the one toward the east or south is east, and the one toward the west or north is west. Orientation has the details.
One owner per signature
A travel signature names one destination on the whole server. Waypoints, Freightpoints, and Faithpoints all draw from the same pool of names.
- The first player to attune a signature owns it. Anyone else who tries gets Another mage has already claimed this signature. Choose different signature blocks.
- Attuning your own signature somewhere new moves your destination there: An existing destination with this signature was overridden.
Some runes have more than one block per arm. A Faithpoint, for instance, has four cells in each arm. Every filled cell in an arm must hold the same block, and empty cells in an arm are ignored. When an arm mixes two blocks, the near-miss hint says the arms disagree.
Keys
A key is a cell that wants a particular block. Rune diagrams show keys as lettered tiles, coloured like the block they want, and the legend lists each key with its rules.
A key may accept:
- One block, such as a lodestone, a beacon, or a campfire.
- A family of blocks, such as any wool, any log, or any copper block. The legend's Takes any of list shows every block that fits.
- Any block with a Tier, for Tier keys marked with a star. These read the Tier of the block in them. See Tiers.
The legend also flags the finer rules:
| Flag | Meaning |
|---|---|
| must be lit / must be unlit | A lamp, torch, campfire, or similar block has to be on, or off. |
| source blocks only | Water or lava must be a source block. |
| all N hold the same block, set the same way | Every copy of this key must be identical, down to how it faces or what it holds. Pick one block and copy it. |
| needs a particular block state | The block must be placed a certain way, such as the top half of a slab. |
| optional | Place the key or leave the cell empty. |
| may repeat the Tier block | The key may use the same material as the Tier blocks. |
| spent when the rune wakes / stays after use | Whether this block is used up. |
Keys on older servers
Runic runs on servers back to Minecraft 1.13, where many blocks do not exist yet. When a key's block arrived in a later version, older servers accept a stand-in, and the legend names it under On older servers.