Viking Rune Magic, engraving, literacy, etc

[Smoopadoop]

Is this game vikings? Hell yeah its fuckin vikings. Wanna know what vikings thought was magic? Words. Yeah, that's right. Words. So why don't we have some magic words?
Firstly, I'll say that newspawns shouldn't be able to write. So, a new skill:
Literacy.
I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
(excerpt from "The Thought Fox", by Ted Hughes)
You have learned to convey messages through writing, and to understand them too.

Obviously it'll let you write, read, and make parchment and quills.

Now, BEFORE you have literacy, you should still be engrave messages, but without words. For every skill you have, you should unlock a few crude pictures relating to that. So hunting would give you a picture of a man chasing an aurochs with a spear, farming should give you pictures of various crops, etc. These can be engraved on runestones and signs. Maybe carved into trees too, who knows?

Then, after one learns literacy and hearthmagic, they can learn:
Runecrafting.
Then I was fertilized and became wise;
I truly grew and thrived.
From a word to a word I was led to a word,
From a work to a work I was led to a work.
(excerpt from whatever story in which Odin learned the runes)
You have learned to work the magic of the runes, and engrave their power into tools and items.

With Runecrafting, you can choose to engrave runes into weapons, tools, signs, runestones and trees.
Opening the runecrafting menu would give you a little visual keyboard, but with norse Futhark runes instead of english letters.
You may then, with a character limit obviously, be able to type runes onto the object. IF you write a certain word, a small bonus will be given to that tool, or the area around the runestone.
Lets say you write the sentence "May he who wields this blade be blessed with haste" onto a sword. The word "haste" would be detected and, depending on the writer's dex*psy, the wielder would be given a small cooldown reduction on sword attacks. There would be a few other words, and some wouldn't be compatible with others, to prevent overpowering a weapon. Multiple of one engraving will not stack. The buffs will be small, as not to prevent it being retardedly overpowered, but not so small that it is useless.

What do you think?

[painhertz]

Iron Age Germany although they seem to be taking a lot more liberty's with the lore this version....

[Smoopadoop]

Iron Age Germany although they seem to be taking a lot more liberty's with the lore this version....

Is it canon 100% set in stone Germany? or is it "somewhere cold near Germany and between those Scandinavian places and maybe a little bit Scotland and really lets just throw every cold country into it while we're at it"
While Germany and Scotland are close, the ring of Brodgar in real life is in Scotland.

[spavaloo]

I'm liking pretty much everything about this.

Any potential for weapon customization gets a +1 from me.