Runes

In Borgalor, runes are symbols which can imbue objects with certain magical effects when activated through touch, spell or specialized machinery. While each type of rune only has a single and often rather simple effect, they can be arranged in a certain order and connected to create a chain reaction for more complex processes, which along with the use of Magic Crystals forms the basis of modern magitech.
These glyphs were created through unknown means by Borgalor's earliest sapient species, the Sea Salamanders, around eighty million years ago, and after their sudden demise were slowly rediscovered by the peoples that currently inhabit the world either through pure chance or -more recently- by studying the few, scattered remains of this ancient civilization.
Only a small number of these runes have been uncovered so far, and thus any new discovery can and often has revolutionized certain aspects of magitech, if not the whole field. The potential discovery of runes with certain properties and their effect on society is a recurring theme in borgalorean speculative fiction, and in some cases has proven surprisingly accurate.
People who work at creating sequences of runes for various purposes are called Runecrafters, and the art of making particularly intricate ones for devices like computers is known as advanced runecraft, effectively the borgalorean equivalent of programming. Countries known for their runecrafters includes Agg-Ahlún, Biþræ, Jolþ, Númra and T'üllma.

Related Discipline

Runecraft

Effect Duration

Depends on the rune, generally only a few seconds.

Applied Restriction

Runes need to be applied to solid objects to work, and cease to function if the glyph itself is ruined or the runic sequence broken. After the effect is over, a rune lies dormant until activated once again.