The Doors of Durin. The voice of Saruman.  The creation of Middle Earth by the music and song of the Ainur.  Words hold a power in Middle Earth when wielded by those who know them.  This is the calling and power of the Rune-keeper, described as “gifted linguists and masters of true names.”  When roused to anger, Rune-keepers are some of the most powerful foes of the Enemy; when bent towards healing, Rune-keepers can keep their fellows’ spirits high in the face of the gravest dangers.  This guide is intended to help Rune-keepers as they learn their craft, from their first Preludes of Hope to the final Epic Conclusions of their leveling journey.  Today’s post starts us off with the basics: what Rune-keepers do, how they play, and the first 1–10 levels of playing a Rune-keeper.

From the Lorebook: The Rune-keeper is powerful, but must choose between damage and healing. The Attunement a Rune-keeper is at determines if damaging Dagor (Battle) skills or restorative Nestad (Healing) skills can be used. At all times, the utility skills of Thalas (Steady) may be used, but will reduce your Attunement.

Rune-keepers make equally excellent damage dealers (DPS) or healers, but their ability to do either is dependent on their attunement.  We’ll get into more detail about attunement later, but suffice it to say for now that a Rune-keeper cannot DPS and heal at their full potential concurrently.  If you enjoy playing a powerful, lightly armored class that can fill either a healing or DPS a role in a group, the Rune-keeper may be your cup of tea.


Character Creation

So, you’ve decided to give the Rune-keeper class a try and you’re confronted with your very first choice: elf or dwarf?  Either is a fine choice.  If you’re concerned about racial bonuses or penalties to important class stats, fear not!  Elves and dwarves both receive a penalty to Fate (an important stat for us), but both have a racial trait that makes up for it.  Dwarves might have a slight edge because of their improved in-combat morale and power regeneration, but the statistical differences are small enough that you can choose whichever race you like best without worrying much about the numbers.


Attunement

Full Battle (top), Steady (centre), and Full Healing Attunement (bottom)

The Rune-keeper’s skills all impact the Attunement Meter. When not in combat, the Attunement Meter moves rapidly towards Steady and stays there; only the most basic Battle or Healing skills can be used.  When you are in combat, as you use more Battle skills, the Attunement Meter shifts to the left, making your Battle skills more powerful and enabling more powerful Battle skills to be accessed.  While Battle-attuned, you cannot use most of your Healing skills.  The reverse holds true for when you’re Healing attuned.

Finally, a few skills are Steady skills, and shift your Attunement Meter back towards the middle when you’re in combat.  Aside from being helpful skills in and of themselves, knowing your Steady skills is a key factor in shifting attunement in combat quickly if you find that you suddenly need to start healing (which is usually the direction you have to go when you’re reversing attunement mid-fight).


From the Prelude to the Verse: your skills at levels 1–10

Even a young Rune-keeper gets a good variety of skills to begin their mastery of rune-keeping and attunement.  By level 10, you will have enough skills to get a taste for the Rune-keeper’s future power.  The following are the skills you will learn up through level 10, with the level they are acquired in parentheses, the degree and type of attunement generated by using the skill, and the attunement required to use the skill listed immediately following.

Attunes / Requires

(1)  Prelude to Hope                 1 Healing / -
(1)  Scribe’s Spark                    1 Battle / -
(1)  Fiery Ridicule                     1 Battle / 0 Healing
(2)  Ceaseless Argument           1 Battle / 0 Healing
(4)  Chilling Rhetoric                 1 Battle / 0 Healing
(4)  Rune of Restoration            1 Healing / 0 Battle
(6)  Shocking Words                  1 Battle / 3 Battle
(8)  Shocking Touch                  2 Steady / -
(8)  Fall to Storm                       1 Steady / -
(10)  Mending Verse                 1 Healing / 0 Battle
(10)  Armour of Storm              3 Steady / -

When you find yourself at level 1, you have three skills: Prelude to Hope, Scribe’s Spark, and Fiery Ridicule.  It’s enough to toy around with the Attunement Meter a little, but you’ll probably just be using Fiery Ridicule and Scribe’s Spark as you work through your next few levels.

By the time you reach level 10, you will have the basic building blocks for manipulating your Attunement Meter.  If you’re on offense, Chilling Rhetoric and Fiery Ridicule open up your assault, Ceaseless Argument and Scribe’s Spark get you up to 3 Battle attunement, and Shocking Words is a powerful blast to finish off your attack.  On defense (healing), Rune of Restoration means you’ll never be alone in a fight as it summons a Sigil of Healing stone to continually heal you over time (unless it is destroyed by an enemy or its timer runs out), Prelude to Hope begins to lift your spirits, and Mending Verse is your basic healing spell once your Sigil of Healing and Prelude of Hope are up and running.

If you find yourself facing a mighty challenge, you can combine your battle, healing, and steady skills to triumph over your foes.  Because the Attunement Meter moves rapidly towards a Steady attunement when not in combat, you can use Rune of Restoration, Prelude to Hope, and Armour of Storm to gird yourself before attacking.  Fall to Storm predicts a foe’s demise (by adding a chance for lightning skills to deal a burst of extra damage), and your Battle skills seal the deal.  If you need to temporarily incapacitate a foe, reach out with a Shocking Touch to daze it for 5-10 seconds.  Remember that damage snaps foes out of dazes, so be careful not to hurt them while they’re busy recovering from the biggest static shock they’ve received in their lives.

Whew!

Take a deep breath; you have hopefully blasted through the battle and rid Middle-Earth of a few more servants of Sauron.

Did it seem like you had to do a lot before getting around to actually attacking your enemies?  We’ve stumbled upon the motto of the Rune-keeper class: “Preparation, preparation, preparation!”

The nature of Attunement lends itself to this style: you have to cast your weaker skills before unleashing your full repertoire.  In essence, you’re using the weaker skills to prepare to cast your powerful spells.  Similarly, you’ll be using your Healing and Steady skills to prepare for your most daunting battles.

Even though you’re only level 10, you should already have a feel for how the Rune-keeper class plays.  Hopefully, this guide helped introduce you to the Rune-keeper’s style and power, but the best way to learn is in game!  If you’ve been playing and leveling, you may have noticed a few things I haven’t covered yet: deeds and traits, elemental affinities of rune-stones, your rune-satchel, and another of our special class items: chisels.  We’ll talk about them next week, as well as covering the skills we gain at levels 11-30.

Until then, may the tales of your exploits be as memorable as the inscriptions of the ages!

—Omsi