Hazard Runes are the AXI's official name for all shapes that produce a preternatural or even supernatural effect on the real world when they are perceived by a sapient entity.

Hazard Runes are designated No Release: Sensitive Compartmented Information by the AXI, meaning no-one may know what the runes are, but may know that they exist if they have clearance.

Effect: Subjects perceiving the rune experience auditory hallucinations of looping temporal feedback (e.g., echoes of their future/past utterances). Prolonged exposure (>20 mins) causes irreversible neural synchronization with the “echo,” rendering speech incomprehensible.

Effect: Induces progressive cellular desiccation in living organisms within a 10-meter radius. Symptoms manifest as accelerated epidermal mummification, culminating in full-body petrification after 72 hours of exposure.

Effect: Triggers perpetual eyes-open REM sleep in viewers, trapping them in recursive nightmares. Subjects exhibit zero physical decay but cannot be awakened without rune removal.

Effect: Causes rapid topological inversion of organic matter (e.g., internal organs externalize, skeletal structures reconfigure into non-Euclidean geometries). Reversible only if perception ceases within 15 seconds.

Effect: Generates a localized causality loop within a 5-meter radius, resetting all events/actions in 47-second intervals. Affected subjects retain memory of loops but cannot alter outcomes.

Effect: Warps perceived light into “information vacuums,” deleting sensory data (memories, recordings, written text) related to subjects observed through its influence.

Effect: Warps local gravity within a 15m radius. Causes immediate structural collapse and internal hemorrhaging in biological entities.

Effect: Selectively erases color perception in viewers, progressing to grayscale vision and eventual permanent achromatopsia.

Effect: Causes immediate amnesia regarding the object/entity bearing the rune. Subjects cannot perceive, recall, or record the “marked unit”. Effect persists post-exposure.

Effect: Lowers ambient temperature to -170°C within 3 seconds of perception. Rapid cryogenic freezing originates from viewer's neural tissue.

Effect: Auditory perception triggers uncontrollable synesthesia—sounds manifest as physical sensations.

Effect: Induces hemolytic cascade: blood vessels rupture externally, forming identical rune patterns on victim's skin. Fatal within 90 seconds. Synthetic sapients unaffected.

Effect: Corrupts cognitive reasoning—viewers become convinced of impossible truths (e.g., “2+2=5”) and violently defend these beliefs.

Effect: Generates infrasound pulses that liquefy calcium-based structures.

Effect: Refracts light to create localized visual and spatial distortions. Unprotected viewers experience time discontinuities (e.g., missing hours/days).

Effect: Synchronizes all bioelectrical activity in perceivers to a single rhythm. Cardiac/neural arrest occurs if rhythms mismatch.

Effect: Accelerates oxidation by 10,000x. Metals crumble within seconds; organic tissue develops rapid systemic corrosion.

Effect: Creates perfect optical duplicates of viewers that exhibit hostile behavior. Copies dissipate after 24 hours or if original dies.

Effect: Rewires autonomic nervous system—viewers swap voluntary/involuntary control (e.g., consciously regulate heartbeat, forget how to breathe).

Effect: Prevents death in critically injured viewers by binding consciousness to decaying bodies. Subjects remain aware during decomposition.

Effect: Corrupts digital/analog information storage. Viewers permanently lose literacy (cannot comprehend written/typed symbols).

Effect: Fuses biological matter within line-of-sight into chimeric entities (e.g., human/plant hybrid). Fusion irreversible.

Effect: Transfers viewers' consciousness into a shared nightmare realm. Physical bodies enter catatonic state until “killed” in the dream.

Effect: Forces viewers to physically reenact their deepest traumas as phantom wounds manifest on their bodies.