Runeplate

Runeplate is a type of body armor consisting of enchanted metal plates. This type of armor offers excellent protection against all forms of attack, since it has as much magic resistance as any other type of magical armor, but is additionally in a physically robust form that does not permit its magical components to be separated from its physical components by an attack (as is the case for crystmail or crystplate. The drawback of this is that runeplate is expensive to manufacture.

The main difficulty in producing runeplate is that the irregular shapes of the armor make it more difficult to control a mass-enchantment process. This limits the size of batches that can be enchanted at once, which in turn means that the cost of the enchantment ritual is divided over fewer pieces of armor. In addition, in order to enchant steel, the armor must be made of either plain iron or pattern steel rather than more common core steel. This raises material costs for the armor.

In order to make the enchantment process easier to control, runeplate is inscribed with patterns to direct the flow of magic through the armor piece. These patterns may also facilitate the addition of other layers of enchantment.

Runeplate manufactured by the Gomla empire is notorious for its use of layered enchantments. In addition to the normal enchantment that gives it resistance to melting blades, Gomla runeplate carries a thought projection enchantment, similar to mindscript, that induces feelings of terror in the wearer's enemies. This effect can subjectively manifest itself in a number of ways, for instance, the wearer may appear to grow larger over the course of a fight.

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