Rune Font

[Bohemond]

Does anyone know of a font for inserting Gloranthan runes into Word text? Given that they appear in Chaosium books, I’m guessing there is a plug-in or something similar for runes. 

[Brian Duguid]

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/gloranthan-runes-fonts/glorantha-core-rune-font/

[Bohemond]

Thanks! I'll see how it works!

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Thanks! I'll see how it works!

If functions like any other font. 

[Jex]

Speaking of the Glorantha Rune font, there's one thing that I've been curious about, though (and I apologize if this has already been brought up elsewhere and I missed it).  It seems pretty comprehensive, even including the Partial Runes described in Cults of RuneQuest: Mythology, except one: the Shadow Rune, representing Darkness without Cold.  (Curiously, the page linked above on the Well of Daliath says that "Shadow and Cold are not currently included', but this isn't the case—Cold is included (it's the capital Q), but Shadow is still missing.  Maybe Cold was added after that page was written?)

Even in the published RuneQuest materials, the Shadow Rune seems to be inserted as an image rather than a character.  You can highlight any of the other runes in CoRM, copy them, and paste them into a text document, and they show up as the corresponding character.  Same in the Prosopedia; highlight and copy and paste Yinkin's runes, for instance (Beast, Air, and Shadow), and you get "Bg"—B for the Beast rune, and g for Air, and nothing for Shadow because it's not part of the text.

Does anyone know why the Shadow rune is omitted, and, more importantly, if there's a simple way to insert it into a document for the Jonestown Compendium?  (Not that I have any immediate need to do so myself, but it would be nice to know just in case it comes up.)  Okay, wait, huh... I did just now manage to isolate and export the Shadow Rune from the PDF as a vector image using Acrobat Pro and Adobe Illustrator, so I guess I do now have it myself in a format I can use if I need it, but it would be nice to know if there's an easier way for someone who might not have access to those tools.

(I guess I can post the Shadow Rune I just extracted in .svg format for others to use, but... I'll wait until I hear whether that's okay, in case that's something Chaosium would rather not have done for some reason.)

EDIT: Oh!  Just saw this in a different thread (not sure if maybe it was meant to be posted in this one?):

On 1/13/2025 at 8:29 AM, David Scott said:

I'm considering an update to the font as it's missing shadow and cold (replacing Hell and Barntar).

Edited January 15 by Jex

[jajagappa]

14 minutes ago, Jex said:

Does anyone know why the Shadow rune is omitted, and, more importantly, if there's a simple way to insert it into a document for the Jonestown Compendium?

It did not exist in the prior HeroQuest Rune font set either. Just an omission.

You can insert a picture into a Word document and have it move with the text. If you keep its size down, it should "flow" reasonably well with everything around it as seen below.

[Jex]

13 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

You can insert a picture into a Word document and have it move with the text.

Yes, but the sticky part is having the image to insert.  It's pretty simple to copy and paste the small Shadow Rune from the Well of Daliath page... but that's not the same as the bigger square-outlined version from Cults of RuneQuest (which matches the runes from the font), and copying and pasting that version of the rune from the PDF is trickier.  As I said, I did manage to extract that version of the rune using Acrobat Pro and Adobe Illustrator and I have it now as a vector image that can be inserted into a Word document, but I'm holding off on posting it until I hear from someone at Chaosium to make sure it's okay.

EDIT: Wait no I am dumb.  The versions of the runes in the rune font are the small black versions like the one on the Well of Daliath page; the big square-outlined versions in Cults of RuneQuest apparently use a different font.  Never mind.

Edited January 15 by Jex

[SDLeary]

Just a slight aside. I would love it if they could release the whole family of rune fonts. OTF or TTF versions of all the HW/HQ stuff would be awesome. 

I know that someone might come in and say that they are not needed, because they are not "cannon" anymore, but it gives GMs a way to differentiate things by culture, at least for a few cultures.

SDLeary

Edited January 15 by SDLeary

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, Jex said:

Yes, but the sticky part is having the image to insert.

If anyone has the old Hero Wars font, it is pretty easy to hack the “London Transport” Chaos rune to get (something close enough to) Shadow :

For example, using FontForge copy the Chaos glyph to a free space — I used ¶ — and remove the interior points to get a “Darkness with arms” glyph, then export the font.

I haven’t uploaded such a file because I don’t want to tread on any IP holder’s toes.

Edited January 15 by mfbrandi
repetition of Jex

[David Scott]

14 hours ago, Jex said:

It seems pretty comprehensive, even including the Partial Runes described in Cults of RuneQuest: Mythology, except one: the Shadow Rune, representing Darkness without Cold.  (Curiously, the page linked above on the Well of Daliath says that "Shadow and Cold are not currently included', but this isn't the case—Cold is included (it's the capital Q), but Shadow is still missing.  Maybe Cold was added after that page was written?)

Thanks for spotting this. I've found the correct uppercase keyboard layout and replaced the wrong one (it was an early edit). Cold is now there (and has been all along). Only 13 years late...

[soltakss]

16 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Just a slight aside. I would love it if they could release the whole family of rune fonts. OTF or TTF versions of all the HW/HQ stuff would be awesome. 

I thought they had done. I have a rune font that has a lot of the HW/HQ Runes.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

I have a rune font that has a lot of the HW/HQ Runes.

I think that is the HeroQuest Rune font which still had some of those Runes (but not all the little godling ones).

[SDLeary]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

I thought they had done. I have a rune font that has a lot of the HW/HQ Runes.

There is Core Runes, and Kordavan. There was also a Vithela font. And before these, the HeroWars font, which I remember as being much more extensive than CoreRunes.

SDLeary

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, SDLeary said:

And before these, the HeroWars font, which I remember as being much more extensive than CoreRunes.

For when you absolutely need that Army of Tomorrow glyph. I have no use for the Living Dragon glyph, but I do rather like it. The level of inspiration was … variable?

Edited January 16 by mfbrandi
tidier image