The difference between runes and wild runes in Arcane explained

Arcane Season 2, Act 1 introduced viewers to a new form of magic called “wild runes,” but what are they and how are they different from other runes? When Jayce discovered how to mix technology with the arcane to create Hextech, he didn’t really understand what he was dealing with. At the end of Arcane Season 2, Act 1, he learned that the power of this magic was out of control.

According to Jayce, part of the problem lies in the emergence of what he called “wild rules”. He made a somewhat strained analogy that compared wild runes to an involuntary and spontaneous response compared to standard runes; this raised many more questions than answers. So what exactly are wild runes?

Arcane Runes Explained

You have to start with the basics…

To understand wild runes, you first need to understand standard runes – and that means understanding the program’s basic magic system, which is modified from League of Legends. In the game, “magic” is power drawn from the very realms of existence. There are four kingdoms, and Jayce’s Hextech appears to combine the power of the Material and Spiritual Realms.

League of Legends introduces another concept called “runes”, improvements that can be used to add abilities or buffs to a character. Arcane modified this, revealing that runes are linked to the manipulation of magic. Initially it seemed that these were the inputs that allowed control of magic in a standardized and predictable way, but Jayce’s analogy in Arcane season two seems to imply that they are, in fact, predictable bursts of energy resulting from carefully controlled inputs. In other words, they manifest wherever magic is found and bound.

How Wild Runes Vary From Standard Runes

Wild runes are manifesting in Piltover

Wild runes are different, however. They are unexpected and unpredictable responses generated by the attempt to control and bind the arcane. Jayce claims that wild runes manifest “where is the border between [the physical world] and the arcane is the most tenuous.“They occur naturally to some extent, but have grown in number because of Hextech. This certainly reflects the boundary between the Material and Spiritual Realms being placed under increasing pressure due to his experiments. Heimerdinger speculates that this is why he saw only chaos whenever magic was wielded to any significant degree, because of some mysterious property of the arcane.

Interestingly, Jayce used an analogy suggesting that they are generated by repeated manipulation of the arcane. If this is the case, then it stands to reason that they would not have manifested themselves in his initial experiments; instead of, These are side effects that increase over time. Worse still, the wild runes manifested in a place Jayce wasn’t looking – meaning they grew larger over time. It is reasonable to assume that this was where the border was at its thinnest.

Standard runes have a predicted impact on reality. As wild runes have never been seen before, their influence is currently a mystery – and will certainly increase over time. Without a doubt the rest Arcane season two will explore the cumulative impact of these wild runes, revealing exactly what they have done to reality in Piltover and Zaun.