As the cold, chill wind howled through the narrow gorge, the war-wizard swore. It was a dead end, and slow though their pursuer may be, there was no escape now. Not with a greviously wounded man, as his normally-armored guardian was now. As the shaggy white beast bore down upon them, he threw aside his cloak and tunic in a single, practiced motion, revealing flesh that glittered with the presence of a hundred runes welded to it. And then, he cried out.
“Come, beast! Come and face the silver flame of Jurad!” Setting one hand upon a rune upon his chest, and the other over the rune upon that first hand, his hands burst forth into a searing, silvery light, arms with which to face his foe…
The rune slivers are a magic system meant for a low-to-medium magic world, depending on the DM chosen availabity of runes and those with the ability to fuse them to the body.
Casting the rune-magic is a fairly simple endeavour. One places a hand upon one’s name room, which is always enscribed upon the head, and the other upon the rune to be evoked, and wills the power forth. Be it granted by the gods, by the arcane forces, whatever, this is all that is involved in active spell casting. Preparing for it, however, is quite another thing.
To begin, the wizard must have bonded at least two runes to his body: The name-rune, and the rune with which he means to cast. The name-rune is carven for him by one of an elite set of wizards (world specific organization(s)), and then, like any other rune, the surface skin of the body is cut away in a flap so that the rune may be inserted into the skin, and then the skin is resealed by the master. No anesthetics may be used during the proceedure, for to be drugged when the body is adapting to its mystical presence is certain to make the link impossible to use properly while sober.
The name rune is exactly as it is named. It is the wizard’s mystical name, and very few of them are repeated. It forms the basis of the fusion between the wizard’s body and the ability to draw magic forth from the world, and though it does nothing by itself, it is utterly essential as an enabler of the magic. The name rune must be placed as close as possible to the center of the mind, the forehead, or over the center of emotion, as near to the heart as possible. No other places may serve as the seat of the name. Should the name rune somehow be broken, the pain will be beyond excrutiating - many wizards die or go mad from the agony. Should the wizard survive such an attack, he will not be able to cast spells until the name-rune is replaced.
Other runes may be placed upon the body as desired, though in all cases, the rune’s location upon the body may effect what is finally allowed. A rune of the wind, for example, placed into the forehead, may allow farsight or the sensing of the weather, while a the same rune placed into the hands may allow swifter attacks, and in the feet, a swifter runner. Generally, for ‘spectacular’ effects, such as the throwing of lightning or fireballs, the rune must adjoin the name-rune, and no more than half a dozen runes may adjoin the name-rune.
While a persistant effect may persist, a wizard may only close the circle between his body, mind, and the mystic over one rune at a time - That is, he cannot clutch at a cluster of runes and effect them all at once. He must be able to touch the rune grafted to his body with the bare skin of his hands.