Altarology

**Altarology** is the study of the magic concerning the Runecrafting altars. The study takes place mainly in the Runecrafting Guild, which, being located in the Runespan, resides in a realm of "purer" runic energies. One of the major issues in contention between modern theorists is that of the orbs that leak out of the various Runecrafting altars. The two opposing sides are led by Wizards Acantha and Vief, who believe that the the green or yellow orbs respectively are solely native to the Runecrafting altars.

It is unbeknownst to the present writer, whether either of the two preeminent runecrafters in this dispute are aware of recent progress in the field made by up-and-coming members of the Guild. Using the magnified ocular capacity of an *Orb of Oculus*, you can peer inside the altars themselves. And what you'll find is *an equal proportion* of Yellow and Green orbs inside. This discovery puts both Achanta and Vief's theories under question, as they'd have to explain this proportionality came to be, if not for some native capacity of altars to generate them. Reintroducing the "wrong colour orb" to the altars may be less like polluting them, and more like making them whole again. This supports Wizard Elriss' theory that the important thing is to reintroduce the orbs into the altars, irrespective of their colour.

A further question is whether the altars are everlasting sources of runic energy. A recent paper in the Runecrafting Theory Journal by Wizard Finix has highlighted some reasons to think they might not be. This prompted the Guild to open up the Runespan to further study, in hopes that future research might unveil a method of crafting functional runes from the mishmash of free-floating energies there. Regardless, the Guild's stance is to encourage members to continue *gopping* to keep the leak under control.

## What the experts say

Wizard Achanta refusing to explain why she believes Green orbs are good, and Yellow orbs bad.Wizard Vief explaining why he thinks Yellow orbs are good, and Green orbs bad.Wizard Elriss revealing that she believes both orbs are good.
## The discovery of coreorbs

It is unknown who first brought attention to the existence of coreorbs to the Guild, but the observation has been central to the progress of runecrafting theory as a field. Even if Wizard Achanta and Wizard Vief are still stuck in their ways.

## Other categories of runic energy

While the green and yellow runic energies are mostly associated with the many altars around the world, other forms have been observed.

You can find cyan and purple orbs studied in the research lab in the basement of the Mage Training Arena in Al Kharid. These appear not to be native to any of the runic altars, and members of the Arena do not speak openly about their discoveries to members of the Guild, so it unknown to us how they came to be.

The Runespan is, however, filled to the brim with a variety of energies that are continually being studied under the supervision of the Guild. One particularly interesting find is the *runesphere*, which appears to have none of the typical signatures associated with any of the known energies. As such, the energy is often called "pure".

One becomes curious about what would happen if one introduced one of these foreign energies into any of the altars during gopping, but common sense precaution has prevailed and the experiment has not yet been carried out.