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(7) One last factor divided Modern Runic Magic from the magic of the preceding age. Until the 5th age, the search for the magical laws regulating the exchange and direction of spiritual power remained speculative and largely untestable. Hypothesized laws simply could not be verified with any great confidence. This changed once Gielinor's humans found themselves with an unlimited supply of runestones. Previously runestones had been very valuable and conserved for the purpose of self-defense. With the revolutionary increase in the capacity for the production of runes, the new runestones could be employed for magical experimentation on a massive scale. Magical laws were verified and new ones discovered. New hypotheses and entirely new magical disciplines followed. This final factor inaugurated Modern Runic Magic.

(8) The rest of this section is a matter of history. The new runestones and emerging disciplines were quickly brought into the service of the arts of war. The Bandosian races were pushed out and to the edges of the continent; Hazeel and Khazard were overthrown in Kandarin; the human kingdoms expanded and fortified their borders. The Academic School was one of the first to adopt the new runic magic, transforming its headquarters into Yanille into the modern Mage Guild. The Wizards' Tower was established in southern Misthalin, where the study of magic flourished, alongside the related disciplines of runecrafting theory, planar theory, portal dynamics, teleportation theory, demonology, and summoning. Vitruvius advanced metallurgy in the region of the present day Seers Village. The Imcando experimented with alchemy in the halls of Camdozaal. And the Kharidians erected the Mage Training Arena in the northern desert.

(9) With its unmatched theoretical and practical achievements, modern runic magic has largely eclipsed every other tradition of magic. Some druids remains. Thormac has preserved some practices of sorcery and mysticism, such as the construction of mystic staves. Necromancy has endured among some wizards, Zamorakians, chaos druids, and likely among the Menaphites as well. Other traditional magics have probably survived among the Fremennik Seers and Moon Clan, Menaphites, Karamjans, various clergies, and here and there throughout the central kingdoms.

(10) In reaction to the revolutionary changes of the 5th age, some Fremennik came to reject the use of runestones entirely. The resulting conflict led to the expulsion of the Moon Clan, the collapse of the Fremennik School, and the beginning of the runecrafting crusades. Not many years later, the Mage Training Arena was destroyed and the Wizards' Tower burned to the ground. Zamorakians were held responsible for the loss of the Wizards' Tower, and a backlash against them and their school followed; the school was destroyed and replaced by the ZMI, which was founded in secret. With the destruction of two of the four remaining schools and the abandonment of all but historical interest in the mystical tradition by the Mage Guild, the ancient tradition of mysticism has nearly disappeared.

III.6.2 Discoveries in Planar Theory

(1) In addition to significant conceptual, cultural, and political changes, the 5th age also saw several discoveries in planar theory. First, the ZMI observed the weakening of Gielinor's dimensional barriers, due to the excessive use of teleportation. This resulted in increased cases of naturally occuring portals to other planes. It is likely that more extreme weakening of dimensional barriers may lead to easier access to other planes, shadow realms, and the abyss, to the fracturing of the plane and the formation of pocket dimensions, and even to the destruction of the plane.

(2) Unfortunately, the ZMI, deprived of much of the magical scholarship lost with the Zamorakian School of Mysticism, was unable to provide an explanation for the phenomenon of weakened barriers. Drawing from the mystical tradition treated above, I propose the following account. As explained above , spirits function as dimensional barriers. If living things do not participate in spirits, those spirits cease to work in the world. On a journey by foot in Gielinor, a human traveler is likely to participate in many spirits, in minimal ways, in each place through which he passes - he thereby contributes to sustaining the presence of many spirits in the world.

(3) Teleportation allows a human traveler to attune herself to the spirit of her destination and to arrive there immediately - thus she contributes to sustaining the presence of far fewer spirits in the world. As spirits cease to work in the world, they likewise cease to function as dimensional barriers, and thereby lower the 'cost of entry' into Gielinor. The ZMI sought to exploit the effects of frequent teleportation in order to grant Zamorak access to Gielinor during the 5th age. It is likely that the destinations of our teleport spells have thick dimensional barriers, while those places in the world less frequently visited since the expansion of teleportation have seen their dimensional barriers thin.

(4) We encounter a second, remarkable phenomenon in the memories of Moia. Though we know little of the rift causing the various planar phenomena in Daemonheim, Moia discovered a technique for reversing some of its effects - a technique for closing naturally occuring portals. To speak in the language of modern magic, passage through a portal requires energy. If the energy manifest in the portal is directed elsewhere, the portal will close. Moia closed many portals in order to gain the magical energy sustaining them, but this technique may equally be used in order to close natural rifts into undesirable locations that occur due to excessive teleportation - of course, this method treats the symptoms of weakening dimensional barriers rather than the cause.

(5) The third and last planar phenomenon to be treated in this section is probably the most important and the most mysterious of the 5th age - the recession of the runecrafting altars. All we know is that when Gunnar and his Fremennik destroyed the body altar the other altars collapsed into ruin also, and that now most of the altars are found only within their pocket dimensions. No scholars have proposed compelling explanations.

(6) I have an explanation to propose. I propose that there has been a principle spirit at work in human magics throughout the Age of Magic that is responsible for the recession of the runecrafting altars. I have called this principle spirit the 'principle of technology.' It is likely that readers will have heard the sayings "The ends justify the means" or "The ends do not justify the means." This principle spirit may be described with a variation of these words, as follows: "The means justify the ends," or more precisely, "The means precede the ends."

(7) Consider the following example. In the course of your adventures, you visit a place long empty of inhabitants. You find there a pile of chopped wood. Whatever reason for which the wood was chopped and stacked has been forgotten; no one pays any heed to this pile of wood. Unless you had already been seeking wood with some definite purpose in mind, you might say to yourself, "Wood is useful for many things; it would be a shame to leave it to rot unused; I wonder what I might do with it." This is the principle of technology at work - it prompts you to ask the questions "What is this useful for? What can I do with this?"

(8) The spirit of technology begins to work when we encounter an excess, i.e. resources unclaimed by any other spirit. It prompts us to seek out new spirits to animate our activity. We can identify three periods in which the this principle was at work in an especially prominent manner during the Age of Magic. First, after the discovery of summoning, the druids found themselves with spirit shards - eminently useful resources; perhaps they often shaved the shards from the obelisks with specific purposes in mind, but even if they did not have specific purposes in mind, they had a compelling reason to shave the shards from the obelisks anyway - for they could not risk allowing the summoning obelisks to grow so large as to attract their enemies. Thus the spirit of technology likely inspired the druids to seek out new purposes for their spirit shards.

(9) Second, the loss of the traditional concepts of spirit and anima following the destruction of Strite, the reconception of magic as exchange, and related developments in necromancy led to an understanding of anima as magical power undirected, like a currency to be spent. Anima thus conceived appeared as a resource waiting for use. Because the concept of anima was detached from specific purposes, the principle of technology thus gained a foothold in all later thinking concerning magic and anima.

(10) Third, after the discovery of the main rune essence mine, Gielinor's humans found themselves with an unlimited supply of runestones, far more than was necessary for their self-defense against every known enemy. The principle of technology then led them to seek new uses for their runestones, such as for magical experimentation on an unprecedented scale.

(11) Having described this spirit and examples of its work, let's turn to an effect it has had on our inherited understanding of the runecrafting altars. It has been said recently among the Moon Clan that those who constructed the runecrafting altars brought large blocks of rune essence to locations especially strong in specific magical elements and there focused their thoughts on the specific elements until the blocks of rune essence adopted the same orientation, becoming the runecrafting altars as they were until their recession in the 5th age.

(12) This account strikes me as anachronistic in several ways - it does not speak of spirits; it does not indicate why the structures were built, nor why these were in the form of altars; it assigns significant agency and the source of power to those who constructed the altars; it presupposes knowledge of the magical elements; it provides no insight into runes or runecrafting. In short, it is a modern reconstruction of ancient events, and in it the principle of technology is at work - for the means always precede the ends: the ancient mages possess blocks of rune essence, spiritual power, and knowledge; and they seek further means for magical practice through the altars, i.e. runestones, while no purpose for them is specified.

(13) In contrast, consider the following alternative account of the construction of the runecrafting altars: The sorcerers who followed V journeyed the world seeking and attending to the spirits at work in their own hearts. They had begun to experiment with runestones and rune essence but possessed no clear account of the full range of magical elements to be found in Gielinor. Occasionally a sorcerer would come upon a place in which she enjoyed exceptionally clear insights into the spirit guiding her and was prompted to build an altar. The block of rune essence and its capacity for transformation symbolized for her her own capacity for receptivity to and transformation by the spirit there. The altar thereafter invited all passersby to reflect upon the spirit of the place and its work in them - it also thereby sustained the presence of those spirits and their altars in the world.

(14) The altars became places of pilgrimage, where the people of Gielinor went to gain deeper insight into the spirits of the world. The pilgrims brought with them small chunks of rune essence to place upon the altars - the pilgrims sought an inner transformation through their attentiveness to the spirit, as well as a visible transformation of their rune rocks so that they might be reminded of their experience there. These runestones later served to direct their attention to the memories of those insights and experiences and thereby aided the pilgrims in the practice of sorcery.

(15) This account sounds to me far more compelling and appropriate to the early ages of Gielinor, and it is consistent with the modern reconstruction once we take into account the various conceptual developments that have occured throughout the last several millennia. In light of this alternative account, I can explain why the principle of technology is responsible for the recession of the runecrafting altars.

(16) Once Gielinor's humans possessed an unlimited supply of runestones, they saw runestones as means in need of ends. The runecrafting altars therefore came to be seen as means for the production of further means. The ends for which the altars were constructed, the purposes of the spirits animating them, and the meaning of the rituals of runecrafting became obscure. Runecrafters no longer sought out the altars and their spirits for the sake of insight and for the sake of accomplishing definite purposes. Instead they approached the skill of runecrafting as a useful technique and as lawfully governed exchange and failed to participate in the spirits animating the altars and their purposes as earlier runecrafters had. Thus the principle of technology was incompatible with the continued presence of the runecrafting altars in Gielinor, for runecrafters inspired by it failed to contribute to the continued presence of the altars.

(17) Despite such failure, the runecrafting altars endured for a time, and the spirits continued to transform the rune essence laid upon their altars. This is because some of Gielinor's mages still participated in the spirits of the altars properly and thereby maintained their presence and the work of their spirits in the world. These same mages opposed the work of the principle of technology and sought to reorient the people of Gielinor toward the original spirits of the altars. Their effort failed, and the subsequent frustration led to the runecrafting crusades.

(18) The runecrafting crusades themselves involved a subtle surrender to the principle spirit the crusaders claimed to oppose, and therefore brought about its victory. Like the mages before them, the crusaders had set out to reorient the people of Gielinor toward the spirits of the altars. But when the majority of Gielinor's humans were unconvinced, the crusaders chose to eradicate the practice of modern runic magic - they attacked the means with which it was practiced. By destroying the body altar, the last purported defenders of the spirits of the runecrafting altars participated in the spirit of technology by orienting themselves toward altars as means for the production of runestones rather than as the work of the spirits they claimed to defend.

(19) Thus deprived of anyone who would participate in their work, the spirits of nearly every altar slipped into shadow. The altars, no longer sustained, fell into ruin. Today the Moon Clan struggle to maintain the presence of their altar within the world through countercultural magical rituals they describe as 'flattening magic.' This description, as well as their account of the construction of the runecrafting altars, and maybe also the fact that they are ruled by an oneiromancer rather than a mystic, suggest that the continued presence of the astral altar is indeed precarious - that they depend upon the astral altar for their traditional way of life aids them in maintaining its presence.