Runes Way

Runes Way is a deck of 31 hexagonal cards that are designed primarily for playing games in the live action role-playing (LARP) world of Empire which is run by Profound Decisions. Players do not need to know anything about LARP, The Empire or runes to enjoy the games.

Runes Way comes with rules for three quick and simple real-time mini-games designed by The Guild of Good Games called The Way of The Runes, The Runes of The Way and Runic Skein'. There is a further turn-based solo or cooperative game challenge called Paragon's Path. The cards can also be combined together into The Runes Way Labyrinth puzzle that forms an elaborate structure with hidden meanings for those who seek its secrets. Finally, the cards may also be used for divination purposes using the Wheel of Meaning method of Rune-Reading.

The Runes Way cards each feature six runes from the world of Empire. One of the runes on each card will match exactly one other rune on any other card - this is a similar feature to that used in the game of Dobble where one symbol on every card matches a symbol on any other card. The Runes Way cards may be placed adjacent to each other to connect matching runes along adjoining edges, enabling cards to be connected into a line - this has similarities to how pieces connect in dominoes. Since the shapes of many of the runes are very similar, it can be challenging to quickly spot which runes match correctly.

There are 2 similar but slightly different standard editions of the Runes Way deck (the Blood Red Runes Edition and the Empress Lisabetta Memorial Edition). These may be combined together to increase the number of players who can play the different games, and to add variety and additional challenge to the gameplay.