Comprehensive guide to Eldar runes & symbols

[chandrila]

I've been working on a pet project for the last few months and it's now online.

Basically it's a page on my Eldar conversions site detailing all of the Eldar runes and symbols that have been featured in official publications, along with known meanings/translations and references showing where that information was found. The page can be found here - http://eldar.arhicks.co.uk/miscellan...ldar_runes.php.

The page is broadly divided into "runes" (those designs that can be represented in a single colour) and "symbols" (multi-coloured designs, often with overlapping features that can't be rendered in a single colour) and I've included miscellaneous, unidentified examples of both as well for completeness.

I'm sure that I've missed some/a lot, so if anyone knows of any obvious omissions or errors, then please let me know. I hope that this resource proves useful and interesting to Eldar collectors.

[eldargal]

Fantastic job!

[Lord Damocles]

Ooh, nice


Now that somebody else has done the hard work, I can finally see what all of the runes on the Mungs' 'Paravax Plaque' refer to.

[MvS]

Excellent work!

I'd suggest mailing this to anyone/everyone in GW Studio and/or Black Library. It might not make a difference, but then again it might stimulate someone to flesh out the runes even more...

[Fenrisian Ale]

one word, awesome

[Inquisitor Engel]

Excellent work!

I might open some discussion on some of the "miscellaneous" ones, if I may.

- I Believe this one could well mean "Shuriken" given its aesthetic design. It could be that it could simply mean "gun" and that shrunken weapons are simply the Eldar's oldest projectile technology, just like we call them "laser guns" even though they have nothing to do with actual guns.

- Could be "Waystone," i.e., an empty soul-stone.

- Almost certainly the rune for Storm Guardians.

- Given the thorns, I think this one is probably related to Biel-Tan in some way.


I know for a fact that some of the miscellaneous ones from the 4th Ed Eldar Codex are simply there to represent letters and sounds to form words the Eldar don't already have a rune for (similar to Chinese) or simply short-hand.

[aim]

- I Believe this one could well mean "Shuriken" given its aesthetic design. It could be that it could simply mean "gun" and that shrunken weapons are simply the Eldar's oldest projectile technology, just like we call them "laser guns" even though they have nothing to do with actual guns.

I was just about to post the exact same thing, great minds and all that. But it looks like a shuriken and is on a lot of Eldar weapons, maybe an eldar player could enlighten us as to wether its only on shuriken based weapons?

[Hendarion]

Too bad that FW didn't incorporate some other designs for flyers and super heavies. I had some mail-chat with Jes about those missing and if he had some sketches to publish or send me so I could work them into my paint-jobs onto the vehicles. He then had made a session with someone from FW (I forget the name) and they came up with some designs FW would print along in "the next book" (which would have been IA 11). Sadly they never got printed inside there Maybe FW will remember them for IA:Aeronautica.

Btw, I think the guide is partly incorrect about the rune shown as "Revenant Titan". What you see there is either a variant of the Revenant-rune or a mix between Revenant and Phantom. The Revenant-rune I have linked further down in the sketches has only one "head-wing". The Phantom has two.
Edit: Yep. The Phantom has two wings, the Revenant has one wing at the right and only two small "dots/lines" on the left:
(left = Phantom, right = Revenant, based on Epic-Titan clans and Jes Goodwin sketches)
The hands btw differ, bases on the armament of the titans - sonic lances, power fists, pulsars, heat lances (shown phantom rune has fist/heat lance iirc, revenant has 2 pulsars).

[Tindalos]

An amazing work.

There's a few more Eldar runes in the Dark Eldar resources.

The old Dark Eldar codex had a debased version of the Eldar Rune Atherakhia, or Destruction. Resembling a Serpent or Dragon.
The Broken Sigil kabal has as its symbol, the ancient Eldar Glyph Drethuchii, or the shattering of harmony. (Described in White Dwarf 372)

[chandrila]

An amazing work.

There's a few more Eldar runes in the Dark Eldar resources.

The old Dark Eldar codex had a debased version of the Eldar Rune Atherakhia, or Destruction. Resembling a Serpent or Dragon.
The Broken Sigil kabal has as its symbol, the ancient Eldar Glyph Drethuchii, or the shattering of harmony. (Described in White Dwarf 372)

Ah, good finds there. I might expand it to include Dark Eldar symbols too, since the line between the two "languages" is quite blurred (like the above example, where the Dark Eldar have taken an old Eldar rune).

[blackcherry]

Interesting and very useful. Thanks!

[Wyrmwood]

This thread should be stickied, or the link incorporated into Burnthem's FAQ.

[chandrila]

Btw, I think the guide is partly incorrect about the rune shown as "Revenant Titan". What you see there is either a variant of the Revenant-rune or a mix between Revenant and Phantom. The Revenant-rune I have linked further down in the sketches has only one "head-wing". The Phantom has two.
Edit: Yep. The Phantom has two wings, the Revenant has one wing at the right and only two small "dots/lines" on the left:
(left = Phantom, right = Revenant, based on Epic-Titan clans and Jes Goodwin sketches)
The hands btw differ, bases on the armament of the titans - sonic lances, power fists, pulsars, heat lances (shown phantom rune has fist/heat lance iirc, revenant has 2 pulsars).

Yeah, I couldn't decide if that was an artefact of the sketch being rough and incomplete, or intentional. The antlers on the Phantom runes differ in other ways too, so if the Revenant rune is symmetrical then the Phantom one will still look different. I think I opted for a symmetrical interpretation because it's just so unusual to see an asymmetry like that, but you're probably right.

I've not got around to adding the Phantom runes yet as there are multiple ones in the source material, but it's on the to-do list.

[Hendarion]

Well, the asymmetrical one makes sense for the Revenant, because he has only one "wing" on his back and not two. Is there any other source for Revenant runes except that sketch? I'd be rather interested

[chandrila]

Well, the asymmetrical one makes sense for the Revenant, because he has only one "wing" on his back and not two. Is there any other source for Revenant runes except that sketch? I'd be rather interested

Not that I'm aware of; as was pointed out earlier, the most obvious place for them (IA11) was sadly lacking...

[Poseidal]

Too bad that FW didn't incorporate some other designs for flyers and super heavies. I had some mail-chat with Jes about those missing and if he had some sketches to publish or send me so I could work them into my paint-jobs onto the vehicles. He then had made a session with someone from FW (I forget the name) and they came up with some designs FW would print along in "the next book" (which would have been IA 11). Sadly they never got printed inside there Maybe FW will remember them for IA:Aeronautica.

Btw, I think the guide is partly incorrect about the rune shown as "Revenant Titan". What you see there is either a variant of the Revenant-rune or a mix between Revenant and Phantom. The Revenant-rune I have linked further down in the sketches has only one "head-wing". The Phantom has two.
Edit: Yep. The Phantom has two wings, the Revenant has one wing at the right and only two small "dots/lines" on the left:
(left = Phantom, right = Revenant, based on Epic-Titan clans and Jes Goodwin sketches)
The hands btw differ, bases on the armament of the titans - sonic lances, power fists, pulsars, heat lances (shown phantom rune has fist/heat lance iirc, revenant has 2 pulsars).

Are those the designs in the FW book?

I find them a bit too literal for my liking (most runes are a bit more abstracted), and I'm not sure about the use of a different stroke width for some parts of it.

[chandrila]

Are those the designs in the FW book?

I find them a bit too literal for my liking (most runes are a bit more abstracted), and I'm not sure about the use of a different stroke width for some parts of it.

No, the Phantom runes are older designs from Codex Titanicus and the sketches are unreleased designs by Jes Goodwin. There aren't any officially-released rune designs for the Revenant, just the Phantom (and those are very old now).

[Poseidal]

No, the Phantom runes are older designs from Codex Titanicus and the sketches are unreleased designs by Jes Goodwin. There aren't any officially-released rune designs for the Revenant, just the Phantom (and those are very old now).

The sketches (now that you mention them and I followed the link) of Jes's ones don't have the stroke variation and have a much more balanced feel to them. I think the legs are too long from the Titanicus ones (or the ones attached in that post).

The runes mostly presented seem to be a more 'printed' or display/signage form (some of which would be based on actual crafted runes perhaps, the ones Seers use?). I wonder if there is a calligraphic form?

Looking through your site it seems quite clear that some Eldar symbols are more of a logo than a rune—Craftworld symbols are a big one; compare with the Aspect symbols/runes. Is the Flame of Asuryan derived only from Iyanden's symbol or is it shown separately? I'm wondering if it can be separated, or whether the symbols of the shrine and flame are meaningless without each other? On this, I'm thinking a lot of these might be the equivalent of a typographic logo; we would have football teams or similar with text and adornments like lightning bolts or wings coming out of it—these Eldar logo-runes could be an equivalent.

Nice site, btw though I have a preference for a more 'flat' display of the runes (and light coloured websites ).

[Hendarion]

The runes I have posted weren't shown for proportions, but just for the general shape and structure. Since I hand-painted them, they indeed might be off. I think that's a fair trade-off for the presented structural shapes. You know, like an M can be printed in various forms and fonts, but if you just write an N, it clearly isn't an M.

The flame of Asuryan is a separate rune which was incorporated into the Iyanden symbol. They are not meaningless when shown separately.

[Poseidal]

Ah, sorry for inadvertently criticising if they are your painting. The biggest bother for me is the detail around the 'hands', which may be on the Titanicus book (though not on Jes' sketches) but the whole runes are certainly well executed.

Actually, one thing that bothers me (which GW did) is when the Dark Kin are mentioned they use a different form of strokes which doesn't really make sense when you consider these are 'language glyphs'. I've attached a quick sketch my interpretation of what the 'Dark Kin' rune for Craftworld Eldar should look like, while the current one is what they write with Dark Eldar script — there may be 1000s of years between the two as the Craftworlders left (or didn't contact the core worlds) a while before the fall so may have had different script evolution.