Goodman Games

As I was reading the Sailors of the Starless Sea and looking at the pix in the rulebook, you can see certain runes. One is what I presumed a Chaos rune. I was interested in knowing some other runes for chaos, law, and nature for using in my game so I decided to search. It turns out the chaos rune from the RPG is a 'real' rune of chaos. I was surprised and wondered if some folks would be opposed to using real life runes.

Has anyone worked up actual lists of Law, Nature, and Chaos runes?

I have a small book on runes which is kinda interesting but I am looking for a bigger book on the subject. It is a good introduction to Elder & Younger Futhark, Norwegian/Icelandic, German and Northumbrian runes. Interestingly enough it is written by a direct descendant of Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan alchemist and astrologer.
I could suggest the Anglo-Saxon runes of:

Law: Tiw - unbreakable oaths, the North Star, infallible guidance
or Epel - royalty, duty, loyalty

Nature: Beorc: birth, fertility, living things

Chaos: Peoro: chance and destiny

Damn, why doesn't my keyboard come with rune symbols as well!
Can anyone recommend any good, meaty books on runes?

I used to hang out at a local Ren Faire and they had a booth which sold little rune tiles around the size of a domino. At one point they had a whole sheet of information that detailed what each rune represented. I haven't seen this sheet for years, but I'll look around to see if I have stashed it somewhere. It was pretty cool and I thought it would have a neat gaming connection.

If you're referring to the famous 8-pointed star of Chaos (actually eight outwards-radiating arrows), it's not real, it's an invention of Michael Moorcock:
Symbol of Chaos. It was, of course, appropriated by Games Workshop for their Warhammer games, and has long since spun out into other pop culture.

For the opposing force of Law, Moorcock chose to use a single upwards-pointing arrow rune, identical to that of the historical rune, Teiwaz.

Always thought this was kind of a dumb opposition symbol. To me, "law" ought to be a SQUARE. Sort of the opposite of the 8-pointed arrow thing.

As far as runes, more interesting designs probably to be found among the Zodiac symbols and various astrological things. Norse/germanic runes are fine but were designed to be cut into stone/wood, so you don't get very interesting shapes really, just a few lines/angles. (Lot of speculation that the Norse runes were borrowed/stolen from Latin or Phoenician writing, probably some truth to that.) You could also look at funkier Asian writing like Mongolian (it's crazy) or some of the Native American alphabets like that of Cherokee, the Cree, etc.

Oh and to answer the original question, I sort of did that once. For "Chaotic" cultures (orcs and whatnot) I was planning on using Mongolian script, Korean Hangul letters for the dwarves, and Cree script for elves.

I kinda like the straight arrow of Law. For me it shows the singular straight and rigid path that Law takes.

Beermotor's suggestion of Mongolian, Cherokee and Cree alphabets sound very interesting and different, I'll check them out.

That is surprising, as google results made me think it was a real rune. It must have been appropriated after Moorcock invented it!

The game Runequest has runes as well, I might have to appropriate these in addition to Moorcock's runes. I'd like to have a handful for each Chaos, Neutrality, and Law.

So I'm now thinking that I am going to have to invent my own runes for the game. For the right immersion I need chaos, law, neutrality, elemental, and maybe some racial runes.

All I know is the one chaos rune that you see all over DCC RPG. How would you recommend someone approach this?

Should I break the alignments into broad concepts an then look for some simple design that would visualize it?

Say for Law:

Order
Civilization
Architecture
Honor
Loyalty

etc...

I always found this to be too orderly looking for my taste, but that's just me. I haven't read enough Moorecock (a problem I plan to rectify) but I always imagined the Law symbol to be like an equals with three horizontal bars.

For Chaos, I sort of modified the 8 arrows star into 5, 6, 7 or 8 arrows radiating outward from a point, but the lines aren't straight and the lengths differ... sort of a mash-up of the symbol + the yellow sign. But that's just me
(like anyone asked, LOL)


But I also didn't realize it was 8 arrows, so arrows in all directions vs. 1 arrow... that symbolism makes sense. I always thought it was the star you describe, not 8 arrows.

Yep, it's the "all-ways" of Chaos vs. the "one-way" of Law.

Colin