Rune weapon spells

[Soldier of Od]

Upon re-reading the rune weapon section of the main book, something just occurred to me - when using the spell casting abilities of a rune weapon, who is actually casting the spell, the weapon or the wielder? The section talks about rune weapons "knowing spells" and "casting spells". Obviously, most rune weapons (all those without free will consciousness) are unable to cast a spell without the wielder instigating it, but once "switched on" which of them is doing the actual casting? Does the wielder need to say the words of the spell (magically known to them by the weapon)? If the wielder is unable to speak for whatever reason, can they still use the rune weapon's magic? How long does it take to cast? Normal for spell casting? Can the wielder command the weapon to cast a spell and then continue to strike, dodge or cast their own spells while the weapon itself goes through the motions of actually doing the casting for half a melee? But rune weapons can't actually speak; does it just magically happen without speech? If using the casting time rules in Mysteries of Magic, how long would that take (these rules talk about attacks per melee, which a rune weapon doesn't have)?
Basically, I have just asked the same question many different ways - what is the answer? Thanks!

[Veknironth]

Well, I think that the entity within the item is casting the spell. It doesn't work like normal magical spell casting because of magic. I know that's not a particularl satisfying reason, but magic defies reason. There are examples of items in the book being able to withhold their powers, so it seems the opposite would be true. I wouldn't let the item add attacks to the PC, however. If it's a sword and it's being swung around in combat, that would be too discombobulating for the entity within it. The item would need to be relatively stable to be utilized.

-Vek
"One action per spell ability, like natural abilities and psionics."

[drewkitty ~..~]

The soul bound in the weapon make the magic.
The wielder makes commands.
How the commands are made are not really ""detailed"" but because the weilder and weapon are linked together (somehow) it can be presumed that the commands are mental in nature. If the wielder has to speak out the spell to cast, under the mental command presumption, would just be a mental crutch needed by that particular character.

Time: the implication is that spells cast from rune weapons are 1 APM castings.
Can they be cast durning combat...presumingly (see above reasoning) yes.
Having to speak words to cast magic is a crutch that even flesh and blood persons can overcome with training.

[Kraynic]

Who is casting the spell?

I generally treat this like activating an enchanted item no different than a Ring of Levitation or whatever, so at most there might be an activation word to indicate which ability is being called. For the rune items that have their own personality, I generally still make the PC activate the abilities. The item casting spells independently will only happen if the personality of the item is pretty compatible/content with the PC and the PC is in trouble (or if it is really unhappy and can get the PC into trouble). Basically, that is the only time I have the item act independently, and then only if it has some ability that would be useful. In that case, it is entirely the item doing the casting, and the PC could be unconscious or otherwise incapacitated without hindering the item doing its thing. I run first edition so it is just the choice between 1 or 2 casts per melee, so not so big of a deal. If I was running 2E, I would probably base the casts/actions per melee of the item on my idea of the original power of the spirit/soul that inhabits the item.

[Soldier of Od]

Okay, so effectively treat it like any other magic weapon ability and not a "spell" as such. Just the wording in the book made me think it might be more complicated than that. Thanks, guys, for the input.

[Axelmania]

I like the idea of it's the weapon casting the spell, but unless the weapon actually has a moving mouth (I vaguely remember one or two that did, I think?) it'd have to do that silently and use those double-time rules from Underseas for silent-casting...

...assuming of course that's even still canon because I remember something about "demons mouthing the words for spells in outer space" text bragging about how it was some kind of unique thing for them, which made it seem like they were forgetting/retconning underseas

The impression that any mage can just silent-cast is also sorta thrown off by those mouth-gagging apparati the CS uses in SOT for mage prisoners.

[Kraynic]

I like the idea of it's the weapon casting the spell, but unless the weapon actually has a moving mouth (I vaguely remember one or two that did, I think?) it'd have to do that silently and use those double-time rules from Underseas for silent-casting...

...assuming of course that's even still canon because I remember something about "demons mouthing the words for spells in outer space" text bragging about how it was some kind of unique thing for them, which made it seem like they were forgetting/retconning underseas

The impression that any mage can just silent-cast is also sorta thrown off by those mouth-gagging apparati the CS uses in SOT for mage prisoners.

What does any of that have to do with how rune weapons cast magic in the Fantasy game? They have been able to cast without a mouth since the original back in 83 before Rifts existed.