ECOLOGY

Environment any
Organization solitary, pair, or string (3–4)
Treasure incidental

Whether first scribed by some forgotten deity or birthed by magic glyphs long soured, living runes are among the most stubborn and arrogant of dungeon denizens. Though two-dimensional and lacking any sort of real body, the creatures are sentient, but with a venomous hostility toward the so-called “lesser races” they feel are corrupted forms of the universe’s first words of creation. Appearing as magical glyphs, animated pulsating runes, etched hieroglyphics, or even ancient cave art, these creatures live to prey on lesser beings for no other reason than to prove their superiority over flesh-and-blood creatures.

Ecology

Living runes are ambush hunters, lying in wait amid ancient graffiti and faded pictographs, or even on the pages of ancient texts and tomes. They use their mutable forms to camouflage themselves—often changing texts with illusory script to lead adventurers into nearby traps or hazards, or lacing important sources of information with explosive runes and then striking at trespassers when they have triggered the dangerous glyphs. Immortal unless destroyed, the creatures do not need sustenance in a traditional sense, though, like their will-o’-wisp cousins, they seem to feed on the terror and pain they induce in their victims. In addition to fear and pain, living runes feed on the written word (which they can erase through this consumption or leave unharmed). Living runes reproduce by a strange sort of mitosis, where two creatures merge to create complex sentence structures and concepts before splitting a portion off each of their malleable bodies to create a new unique rune that contains the knowledge of both parent runes.

Habitat & Society

Most commonly found in deserted ruins—in particular old alchemical labs, forgotten temples, and musty libraries— living runes prefer to live isolated existences, feeding on lost knowledge, consuming it slowly over the years before erasing or altering it, then hoarding the truth within themselves to tease races seeking to recover it. For this reason, they prefer to haunt the fringes of civilization, where they may terrorize lesser creatures in this manner— particularly arcane spellcasters. They derive a sick pleasure from the mental and physical torture of humanoids; in particular, they enjoy cornering humanoids in debates and wrapping them in riddles with the promise of shared knowledge or information, before ultimately growing bored and attacking the intruders with their myriad abilities. Such communications always begin—in the living rune’s unique form of communication—with scribbled inquiries trespassing creatures will understand, and this somewhat playful and innocuous introduction often draws explorers to their deaths when they assume they are conversing with some benign artificial intelligence. In instances becoming horrifically frequent, archivists have discovered previously unheard of colonies of living runes deep in the bowels of urban libraries and archives, hiding out for years in an attempt to learn more of modern civilization, with unknown motivations that may hold terrible consequences for civilized races.

Origins

In the annals of recorded history, ancient texts mentioning living runes always seem to do so in relation to a forgotten goddess, leading scholars to believe that either the creatures served worshipers of the deity in some way, or were rewarded as gifts to particularly devout supplicants. Some even speculate that the goddess herself is responsible for the creation of living runes. Others conjecture that living runes have always been, and are among the universe’s eldest creatures, having escaped from the lips of some primordial god when the first words of creation were uttered. Evidence seems to dispute both these claims—the creatures are known to spring up from the scribbled text and graffiti of magic-soured ruins or untriggered symbol spells long left to rot. Whatever the truth, these haughty creatures do not discuss their origins.