History Main / RunicMagic

* Fanfic/RobbReturns: The Vale has retained the ancient First Man practice of inscribing magical runes that can deter Others. Unfortunately, in the modern day, only House Royce has limited knowledge of how to carve such runes, and even the current blacksmiths can only carve runes that work part of the time. In Chapter 159, [[spoiler:Gendry works out the secret: creating functional runes requires one to use bronze tools with weirwood handles and pray to the Old Gods during the carving]].

* ''Literature/HereticalEdge'': Heretical magic is thoroughly rune-based, although only a few people actuakky refer to them as runes. The amount of time it takes to draw a rune makes it impractical for direct combat unless you pre-prepare spells so you can activate them at a moment's notice, although the protagonist Flick ends up acquiring a rare power that lets her draw the runes instantly.

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* ''Literature/{{Foundryside}}'': Scribing functions by writing symbols in the LanguageOfMagic onto an object to "convince" it that it functions under a different set of rules than it really does -- for example, one can write "you will only open when unlocked with a key matching this specific definition" on a door to make it impossible to pick, as the door will then work as though only that specific key is capable of opening it.

* ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Stiyl Magnus uses runes for his magic to define zones that perform certain functions, like allowing his summon, Innocentius, to manifest, and People-Clearing Fields to ward off {{Muggles}}.

* The ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' cosmic hero Starfighter activates the powers of the Lorus by drawing glowing symbols on nearby objects or in midair. These powers include flight, sound suppression, costume changes, and interstellar travel.
* In ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'', both Odin and Thor have used the power of the runes, which grants a variety of abilities including summoning spirits. When using this power source, they are some of the strongest gods in existence.
* In ''ComicBook/PandorasLegacy'', one of the protagonists accidentally breaks her phone and is gifted one with a strange rune. That rune later turns out to be the reason her phone can trap monsters inside.
* In ''ComicBook/ThorVikings'', the entire miniseries comes about because of a misuse of rune magic, as Doctor Strange explains.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Paradoxus}}'', it is restricted to people with Asser blood and makes use of Norse runes. For example, Isa unleashes ice capable of peeling off the victim's skin. So, the runes are powerful but excessively mana-costing to the point of burning out an inexpert caster. They can also be used to divine the future of a person as long as it's made immediately after the person's birth at the sacred mount Ignis in Domino. The runes predict that Altalune wasn't going to follow her mother's steps and will forge her own path. Years later, Altalune rejects the Dragon's Flame and chooses ice as her elemental affinity.
* ''Fanfic/StoryShuffle1'': In "In the Details", the summoned demon's skin "glow[s] with abyssal runes".

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'': Various ''GURPS'' supplements have included rules for rune mage; ''GURPS Thaumatology'' takes the Nordic "Futhark" runes as a working example of an alphabet that can be used with the generalised rules for "symbol magic".

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': Runes are one-use powerups with various effects, from providing area healing or mana to spawning an invisible spy ward to resurrecting dead units or even a powerful monster under the player's control.

In Real Life, runes are the letters of the ancient Germanic alphabets -- most famously the ones used by the ancient Norse, but continental and later English tribes used related systems. Their origins are not entirely clear, but they generally seem to be a descendant of ancient Italic alphabets, probably either the Latin or Etruscan ones, and ancient symbols already in use, that was modified to be easily carved in wood and stone, giving runes their distinctive angular shapes. As wood decays much faster than stone erodes, old runes carved into stone are more likely to survive to the present day. They were eventually replaced with the modern Latin alphabet and ultimately were simply another writing system. In common use, the term "runes" is often conflated with "hieroglyphics", a term which itself has been conflated with other lexigraph-based forms of writing and then finally appropriated to include systems in cultures other than exclusively Ancient Egypt. some purists, however, may insist on reserving the term "rune" exclusively for the ancient Germanic systems.

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'': Due to taking place in a setting based on Norse mythology, much of the game runs on this. Sand bowls need to be traced by Atreus with the appropriate runic words to solve riddle-based obstacles, Nornir chests can only be unlocked by hitting a series of rune-etched bells in proper order, and traveling to other realms with the Bifrost is impossible without the proper rune to initiate the magic; since the rune for Jotunheim, Kratos and Atreus's final destination, is missing, it becomes as much of a MacGuffin for them as finding a working portal to the realm or a crystal to filter the light through. [[spoiler:Baldur, the story's main villain, is absolutely covered in woad-blue runic patterned tattoos across his bare flesh, which glow brightly when he uses magic, and a few larger ones in red, relating to the curse of invulnerability that drove him mad.]]