Artefacts and Runes (Lore, no erotica)

Back during the empires time many more languages were in circulation on the vast continent and the ancient runic language, existing already millennia before the empires heyday, was chosen as the universal notation for research.

The problem was that most of the runic language, based on a mixture of complex characters and symbols, was lost and with it many secrets buried in ancient ruins remained inaccessible to current scholars.

Even when functional artefacts were available, copying them was far from easy.

After all, what could a medieval smith possibly gain from a microchip? He might be able to determine its composition but would lack the tools and knowledge to actually understand and replicate it.

That held true for this worlds artefacts as well until a decade ago, when a young scholar cracked the encryption of a manuscript pertaining to the handling of a certain mundane artefact. This small achievement in itself would be praiseworthy but nowhere near worth international recognition if it wasn’t for the fact that this very manuscript also existed in runic form creating a Rosetta Stone of sorts.

They still lacked the great majority of runes but now they had enough to build up from as a tipping point was reached and through more examples and conjecture steady progress was made.

Ever since more and more runes were slowly being deciphered and with it lost knowledge and technology regained.

They still couldn’t jump directly to the highest technology the empire once wielded as being able to read part of the texts didn’t mean one actually understood them or had the foundational knowledge to utilise that knowledge.

Therefore to close that gap in knowledge and accelerate the deciphering of the remaining runes a wide variety and especially older artifacts were needed.

Leading to a new age of exploration and discovery of old runes and dungeons bringing back to light many once lost relics sponsored and encouraged by the nations who were in a race to be the first to regain said knowledge.

Obviously not all relics were of scientific importance as a bikini certainly wouldn’t bring much value to the scholars unless they had certain inclinations.

Yet even those mundane items were imitated and became popular alongside many other replicas.

Like the rediscovery of ancient Egypt brought a craze to europe so too did the rediscovery of the ancient empires customs and fashion brought changes to society.