Heroes of Might and Magic V turned twenty in May 2026, and on 30 April 2026 the series started a new game, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, in early access. Anyone who goes back to the fifth game will sooner or later hire a dwarf Runemage, open the spellbook and find a school called Runic Magic that asks for a lump of ore instead of mana. Then the question comes.
No. The runes in Heroes V are battle buffs bought with resources, not letters. None of the ten has a sound, and nothing on them can be read.
What makes Heroes V worth its own answer is not the runes. It is the people casting them. Nival gave its dwarf heroes real Scandinavian names: Inga, Erling, Ingvar, Svea, Ebba, Helmar. Some of those names were carved in real runes by the people who carried them, and the stones can still be read today. The game kept the names and dropped the writing, and the real Inga, Erling and Ingvar are known to us only because of the writing.
What is rune magic in Heroes of Might and Magic V?
Rune magic in Heroes V is a school of ten combat spells that only the dwarf Runemage can use, and it costs resources instead of mana. It arrived with the Fortress faction in the Hammers of Fate expansion in November 2006 and carried on into the standalone Tribes of the East in October 2007.
The rules are short:
- The runes sit in five circles, two runes each. A hero learns them at the town's Runic Shrine, which has three levels: level 1 teaches circles one and two, level 2 circles three and four, level 3 the fifth.
- Using them needs the Runelore skill. Basic Runelore unlocks circles one and two, Advanced three and four, Expert the fifth. Only the Runemage class can learn it.
- In battle the rune goes on one of your own creature stacks, during that creature's turn, and the stack gains an ability for a short time.
- Each placement takes wood, ore, sulfur, gems, crystal or mercury from your kingdom's stockpile. The hero's mana is never touched.
The Fortress is the first faction in Heroes V to set the Magic Guild aside for a system of its own. A rune here is a spell with a price tag.
How much does a rune cost in Heroes V?
Every rune in Heroes V costs one or two units of a resource, paid each time you place it. The first three circles cost one unit, the last two cost two. This is the full price list, from the community wiki's Runic Magic page:
| Circle | Rune | Cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rune of Charge | 1 wood | +100% speed until the end of the turn |
| 1 | Rune of Berserking | 1 ore | Two melee attacks instead of one |
| 2 | Rune of Exorcism | 1 sulfur | Removes negative effects |
| 2 | Rune of Magic Control | 1 gem | Chance to steal a positive effect from the target |
| 3 | Rune of Etherealness | 1 crystal | Incorporeal for one turn |
| 3 | Rune of Elemental Immunity | 1 mercury | Immune to two random elements for the battle |
| 4 | Rune of Resurrection | 1 ore, 1 gem | Brings back 40% of the stack's dead |
| 4 | Rune of Thunderclap | 1 wood, 1 mercury | Chance to knock back the target's initiative |
| 5 | Rune of Dragonform | 1 wood, 1 sulfur | +100% attack and defence for one turn |
| 5 | Rune of Battle Rage | 1 ore, 1 crystal | Chance to strike every adjacent enemy |
Read the third column and the economy shows through. The abilities around Runelore are all about the bill. Fine Rune gives a 50% chance that a rune costs nothing. Greater Rune lets you place the same rune a second time in one battle at triple the price. The hero Brand starts with a 20% better chance at Fine Rune, and the Fortress grail building, the Blazing Anvil, lets defending heroes place runes for free.
So a Heroes V rune is a purchase that lasts a turn or a battle. You spend a unit of sulfur, a curse lifts from your Defenders, and the sulfur is gone. Nothing is left behind. That is the exact opposite of what a real rune was for.
Why do the Heroes V dwarves have Viking names?
Because the Fortress is dressed as the north. Its kingdom is Grimheim, the Kingdom under the Mountain. Its towns stand on snow. Its army has Thanes, Berserkers and bear riders, and its Runemages carry names a Swede of the eleventh century would have known. Three of them have real namesakes who appear in runes.
Inga. In the game she is a child of stonemasons who claimed she could "hear" the rock, and she left her family to study "the mysterious songs she heard in the bedrock" with the Rune Priests. Her specialty is called Master of the Runes. The real Inga lived in Uppland, Sweden, in the eleventh century, and her life is carved on the Hillersjö stone (U 29), 2.8 metres tall and the longest runic inscription in Uppland. It records her marriages, the deaths of her husbands and her son, and how her estate at Snottsta passed back to her mother, Gerlög. The text opens with a command cut into the eye of the carved serpent: Rað þu!, "Interpret!" The game's Inga hears songs in the stone. The real Inga is in the stone, and the stone tells you to read her.
Erling. In the game he came back from "an extended winter trapping expedition" with a white owl and "a profound knowledge of Dwarven Rune Magic", and nobody knows where he went. The real Erlingr Sighvatsson went north too, to Kingittorsuaq Island in north-west Greenland, and he left a stone. Found in 1824 and now in the National Museum of Denmark, it says that Erlingr, Bjarni and Eindriði built the cairns there "the Saturday before Rogation Day". It is usually dated between about 1250 and 1333. We know where the real Erling went, because he wrote it down.
Ingvar. In the game he held Frostclef Pass with three hundred Defenders, and only a handful survived. The real Ingvar the Far-Travelled led a Swedish expedition to the Caspian between 1036 and 1041, and almost nobody came back from that either. About 26 runestones remember the men he lost; our Crusader Kings III guide quotes one of them.
The pattern repeats three times. The game uses the name to colour a character. The real people are names to us at all only because someone paid a carver to put them in runes. Heroes V borrowed the names that runes kept alive, and left out the runes that kept them.
Heroes V runes vs. the Elder Futhark
| Feature | Heroes V (2006) | Elder Futhark |
|---|---|---|
| What one sign is | A battle buff placed on a creature stack | A letter with a sound, a name and a meaning |
| How many | 10, in five circles | 24 |
| What one use costs | Wood, ore, sulfur, gems, crystal or mercury | A knife and something to cut |
| How long it lasts | One turn or one battle | As long as the wood, bone or stone |
| Who can use it | Only the dwarf Runemage | Anyone who has learned the letters |
| Can it be read? | No, nothing is encoded | Yes, once you learn the letters |
| In use | Since November 2006 | Roughly 150 to 800 CE |
The Hillersjö and Kingittorsuaq stones are not cut in the Elder Futhark itself. They use its descendants, the Younger Futhark and the medieval runes. The principle is the same: one sign, one sound, and enough signs to spell any name.
The real runes, briefly
A real rune is first a letter. The Elder Futhark has 24 of them, cut into wood, bone, metal and stone by Germanic peoples from roughly 150 to 800 CE. In the Viking Age it was trimmed to the 16 letters of the Younger Futhark, the alphabet of the Hillersjö stone, and later grew again into the medieval runes the Greenland hunters used. Each sign is a sound and a name: Fehu is cattle and wealth, Uruz the wild ox, Ansuz a god.
Meaning came layered on top. In Norse tradition, Odin wins the runes by hanging nine nights on Yggdrasil, pierced by his own spear. From there runes served as charms and protections, were joined into bindrunes and sigils to hold one intent, and were read for guidance in a practice that continues today.
What they were never meant to be is spent. A runestone was raised once, at real cost, so that a name would outlast the person who carried it.
Why Grimheim has no room for real runes
Heroes V is set in Ashan, a world Ubisoft built from scratch when it rebooted the series in 2006. Its dwarves worship Arkath, the Dragon of Fire, not Odin or Thor, and their Rune Priests are dwarves born with golden eyes, the mark of that god. There is no Yggdrasil, no Edda and no futhark anywhere in the Fortress.
Given that, invented runes were the right call. A real alphabet would mean nothing to a dragon-worshipping dwarf of Ashan, and a rune that costs one ore is clean strategy design. It ties the Fortress's magic to its economy, so every buff in battle is a resource you did not spend on a building. Total War: Warhammer gives its dwarfs runes struck on an anvil; Heroes V gives them runes paid for at the treasury. Neither one writes.
Want runes you can actually read?
Heroes V gives you ten runes that each cost a lump of something and vanish when the battle ends. The Elder Futhark gives you 24 letters that cost nothing to learn and have outlasted everyone who carved them.
The easiest way in is to draw one. You can cast a free rune reading in your browser right now, using the genuine Elder Futhark and their traditional meanings, with a quick single draw for a fast question or a fuller spread for something weightier. If you would rather build the habit slowly, pull a rune of the day each morning and learn the futhark one sign at a time, or read how online rune readings work first. The rest of the series is on the runes in games hub, including Northgard, where runestones hold lore, and Elden Ring, where runes are money outright.
The real Inga's stone has been telling passers-by to interpret it for more than nine hundred years, in letters you can learn in an afternoon. , free on iOS, Android, and the web, in English and Russian.
Frequently asked questions
Are the runes in Heroes of Might and Magic V real runes?
No. The ten runes in Heroes V are combat buffs that a dwarf Runemage places on their own creatures, paid for in wood, ore, sulfur, gems, crystal or mercury. None of them is a letter, none has a sound, and nothing on them can be read. They are an invented magic school for the Fortress faction, built for the fantasy world of Ashan.
What is rune magic in Heroes V?
Rune magic, called Runic Magic in the spellbook, is a school of ten spells that only the Fortress hero class, the Runemage, can use. Instead of spending mana, each rune takes one or two units of a resource from the kingdom's stockpile. The hero places it on one of their own creature stacks during that creature's turn, and the stack gains an ability.
How many runes are in Heroes V?
Ten, split into five circles of two. Circle one holds Rune of Charge and Rune of Berserking, circle two Exorcism and Magic Control, circle three Etherealness and Elemental Immunity, circle four Resurrection and Thunderclap, and circle five Dragonform and Battle Rage. The Elder Futhark, the oldest real runic alphabet, has 24 letters and no circles at all.
How much do runes cost in Heroes V?
One or two units of a resource every time you place one. The first three circles cost a single unit each: wood for Charge, ore for Berserking, sulfur for Exorcism, a gem for Magic Control, crystal for Etherealness and mercury for Elemental Immunity. The fourth and fifth circles cost two, such as wood and sulfur for Dragonform or ore and crystal for Battle Rage.
How do you learn runes in Heroes V?
At the Runic Shrine in a Fortress town, which has three levels. Level 1 teaches runes of the first and second circles, level 2 the third and fourth, level 3 the fifth. To use them in battle the hero also needs Runelore: Basic for circles one and two, Advanced for three and four, Expert for five. Only Runemages can learn Runelore.
What do Fine Rune and Greater Rune do in Heroes V?
Both change what runes cost. Fine Rune gives a 50% chance that placing a rune uses up no resources, and the Runemage Brand starts with a better chance at it. Greater Rune lets you place the same rune a second time in one battle at triple the resource cost. Both are abilities of the Runelore skill, not runes of their own.
Which expansion added rune magic to Heroes V?
Hammers of Fate, the first expansion, released in November 2006. It added the Fortress faction of dwarves, the Runemage hero class, the Runelore skill and the ten runes. Tribes of the East, the standalone second expansion of October 2007, kept the system and changed some Runelore abilities. The base game of May 2006 had no dwarves and no rune magic.
Can you read the runes in Heroes V?
No. There is nothing to read. Each rune is an icon for one effect, the way a padlock icon means locked, and the signs never combine into words. The game's runes are named in English, Rune of Charge or Rune of Dragonform, and the name does all the work. A real runic inscription spells out words, letter by letter.
Are the Heroes V dwarves based on Vikings?
They are dressed that way. The Fortress lives in Grimheim, the Kingdom under the Mountain, on snow terrain, with Thanes, Berserkers and bear riders, and its heroes carry Scandinavian names such as Inga, Erling, Ingvar, Svea and Ebba. Their religion is not Norse, though. They worship Arkath, the Dragon of Fire, a god invented for the world of Ashan.
Was there a real Inga who appears in runes?
Yes. A woman called Inga lived in Uppland, Sweden, in the eleventh century, and her family story is carved on the Hillersjö stone, catalogued as U 29. It records her marriages, the deaths of her husbands and son, and how her estate passed to her mother Gerlög. The inscription opens with the words Rað þu, meaning Interpret.
Is there a real runestone with the name Erling?
Yes. The Kingittorsuaq stone, found in 1824 on an island in north-west Greenland, names Erlingr Sighvatsson and two companions, Bjarni and Eindriði, who built the cairns where it lay on the Saturday before Rogation Day. It is in medieval runes, usually dated between about 1250 and 1333, and it is now in the National Museum of Denmark.
What god do the dwarves worship in Heroes V?
Arkath, the Dragon of Fire, one of the elemental dragons of the world of Ashan. The lore describes him as rash and hot-headed and the patron of smiths. His Rune Priests are dwarves born with golden eyes, which mark them as his chosen. No Norse god appears anywhere in the Fortress: no Odin, no Thor and no Yggdrasil.
Do other Heroes games have rune magic?
Yes. Might and Magic Heroes VII, released in 2015, gave its dwarves a Rune Magic faction skill with runes such as the Rune of Fortune, Rune of Destruction and Rune of Resilience. As in Heroes V, these are battlefield effects, not letters. The series started a new game, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, in early access on 30 April 2026.
Where can I try a real rune reading online?
You can cast a free rune reading in your browser with the Way of the Runes rune-reading tool. It uses the genuine 24 Elder Futhark runes and their traditional meanings, with quick single draws for a fast question and fuller spreads for something weightier, and a full description for every rune. It works on any device, in English and Russian.
Which rune are you?
Seven questions, about a minute, and you get one of the 24 Elder Futhark runes. The scoring is shown as you answer. Free, no signup.