Guide for Runes

[unixmad]

Runes are another special form of wizardry; essentially runes are magical inscriptions on the dungeon floor which cast a spell (or "detonate") when something steps on them.

Beware! Runes are invisible most of the time!

There are several runes which are specialized; these can be set as your range spell. Some of these are:

Rune of Fire Fire damage when it detonates
Rune of Frost Cold damage when it detonates
Rune of Blasting Physical damage when it detonates
Rune of Shocking Electrical damage when it detonates
Rune of Death Atacks with attacktype "death" at caster level

The spell 'disarm' may be used to try and destroy a rune you've discovered. In addition, there are some special runes which may only be called with the 'invoke' command:

Magic Rune You may store any incantation in this rune that you know and have the mana to cast Marking Rune.
This is basically a sign. You may store any words you like in this rune, and people may apply it to read it. Maybe useful for mazes! This rune will not detonate, nor is it ordinarily invisible.

Partial Visibility of Runes
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Your runes will be partially invisible. That is, they'll be visible only part of the time. They have a 1/(your level/2) chance of being visible in any given round, so the higher your level, the better hidden the runes you make are.

Examples of usage
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Here are several examples of how you can use the runes.

'invoke magic rune heal
will place a magic rune of healing one square ahead of you, whichever way you're facing.

'invoke magic rune transfer
as above, except the rune will contain the spell of transference

'invoke magic rune large fireball
as above, except the spell large fireball will be cast when someone steps on the rune. the fireball will fly in the direction the caster was facing when he created the rune.

'cast rune of fire
prepares the rune of fire as the range spell. Use the direction keys to use up your mana and place a rune.

'invoke marking rune fubar
places a rune of marking, which says "fubar" when someone applies it.

'invoke marking rune touch my stuff and I will hunt you down!
places the marking rune warning would-be thieves of their danger.

Restrictions on runes:
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You may not place runes underneath monsters or other players. You may not place a new rune on a square which already has a rune. Any attempt to do the latter strengthens the pre-existing rune.