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Runestones
Dwarven script with staying power
by Ed Greenwood
One night Elminster and I were sharing
what fantasy writer Lin Carter calls a
"round ofconverse" (the sage has acquired
a weakness for pina coladas, a beverage
unknown in the Realms from whence he
comes), and our talk turned to the dwarves.
Elminster thought the picture of the Hill
Dwarf in the AD&D@ Monster Cards very
striking. While he was admiring it, your
wily editor asked if he knew of any written
dwarvish records: tomes of lore, for
instance, and, ahem, magrc. Elminster
chuckled and reached into one ofthe many
pockets in his voluminous robes (yes, I
know he looks odd, but the neighbors think
I'm strange anyway), coming out with his
pipe and pouch and a stone, which he
handed to me.
- subsequently were in this script. The runes
"Dwarves seldom write on that which can
perish," Elminster said, lighting up.
"Rarel they stamp or enscribe runes on
metal sheets and bind these together to
make books, but stone is the usual medium:
stone walls in caverns, stone buildings,
pillars or standing stones
- even cairns.
Most often, they write on tablets
- 'rune-
stones; as we call them in the Common
Tongue."
The stone I held was flat and diamond-
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THe 'DEIHEK' RUNES oN THE sroNE sHowN AT R.GHT ARE SpELLED our rN
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From issue #69, January 1983
shaped, about an inch thick, and of some
very hard rock I did not recognize. It was
deep green in color, polished smooth, but it
was not, Elminster assured me, any sort of
jade. The face of the stone was inscribed
with runes in a ring or spiral around the
edge (see illustration), and at the center, it
bore a picture. Some runestones have pic-
tures in relief, and are used as seals or can
be pressed into wet mud to serve as tempo-
rary trail markers underground.
To a dwarf, all runestones bear some sort
of message. Most are covered with runic
script; Elminster knows of three such
scripts. One of them, known as "Dethek,"
translates directly into Common, and all of
the stones he showed me that night and
of this script are simple and made up of
straight lines, for ease in cutting them into
stone. No punctuation can be shown in
Dethek, but sentences are usually separated
by cross-lines in the frames which hold the
lines of script; words are separated by
spaces; and capital letters have a line drawn
above them. Numbers which are enclosed
in boxes (within the frames) are dates, day
preceding year by convention. There are
collective symbols or characters for identify-
LTNEAR FoRM
FoRTy-Two oF THE BEsr
THE HALLs. wE sLEw srx
oF THE HoU s:.) 377.'
ing peoples (clans or tribes) or races. Ifany
runes are painted, names ofbeings and
places are commonly picked out in red,
while the rest of the text is colored black or
Ieft as unadorned grooves.
Runestones are commonly read from the
outer edge toward the center; the writing
forms a spiral which encloses a central
picture. In the case ofthe stone illustrated
here (Elrninster said this stone came from a
place now destroyed), the crude central
picture identifies the writer as a warrior (the
hammer) of the House of Helmung, now
thought to be extinct. (His name, "Nain,"
is written above the shield of Helmung, as
is the custom. A dwarf of some importance
would place his personal rune here.)
Runestones telling a legend or tale of
heroism usually have a picture ofthe cli-
mactic scene described in the text; grave
markers or histories usually reproduce the
face or mark of the dwarves described. The
central symbol may also be a commonly
understood symbol (..g., . symbol of a foot
for a trail marker, or an inverted helm to
denote safe drinking water), r sometimes
nothing more than simple decoration.
Runestones serve as genealogies and
family burial markers, Elminster told me,
77
 and to rcord tales ofgreat events and deeds
of valor. They may be inventories of the
wealth of a band, or private messages which
would be meaningless to all but a few
knowledgeable individuals.
One stone was found in a labyrinth of
dwarven caverns cut into a mountain range,
serving as a very plain warning
who knew the script - to those
of a pit trap just
-
beyond. Another, somewhere in the same
abandoned dwarf-halls, is reputed to hold a
clue to the whereabouts of the hatnmer of
thunderbohs once borne in the Battle ofthe
Drowning of Lornak.
"But you," Elminster said, looking inno-
cntly up at the smoke rings slowly rising in
-
the evening sky above his rocking chair,
"will as usual be most interested in trea-
sure." I made him another drink, and in
silence we watched the fireflies play around
the garden fountains. I waited, and finally
he spoke. "Apart from those stones that are
treasure maps usually directions hidden
in those cryptic- verses people write when
they think they're being clever a few
stones are themselves magical, or - adorned
with gems."
Later meetings with Elminster yielded
three examples of "treasure-map" stones
(the text from which is reproduced here),
and two examples of magical stones: a
record in the Book ofPassing Years that
mentions a runestone that functions as an
atow of direcrion, and almost forty refer-
ences in the folk tales and ballads ofthe
northern Realms to runestones that spoke
(via a magic mout spell) when certain
persons were near, or when certain words

- sometimes nothing more than nonsense

words inscribed upon the stone itself, to be
read aloud
- were said over it.
Some non-magical runestones contain
warnings or poetry but most often their
songs are treasure-verses. A few such verses
are recorded here; Elminster assures me
that as far as he knows, no one has yet
found the treasures hinted at in these exam-
ples. All of them await any adventuring
band that is strong and brave, ofkeen wits
and good luck. "That's why," he added
dryly, "they haven't been found yet."

THE .DETHEK' RUNIC ALPHABET

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