Runemages get their magical powers not from the gods, as more conventional mages or clerics do, but from ancient concentrations of magical power, that are rumoured to originate from the times when the world itself was created. It is the fractions of this power that the runemagi have over the millenia successfully learned to master and encapsulate in artefacts that they call runestones. The skill of using the power withheld in these stones for their spellweaving is yet another arcane art that the runemagi have to get acquainted with.