An additional thing about (@ominous-faechild original; do not steal /lhj) runic magic within my writing!
Styluses are essentially the world's early version of wands. They're made to draw runes, but require surfaces to draw on. They always encase—or utilize as the writing utensil—a conduit (an object containing pure magic, ready for use by anyone). After the invention of wands, styluses are often used as "baby's first wand", so to speak.
In other words: styluses become the giant pencil you give a toddler budding wizard for them to begin to learn runic.
For perhaps predictable reasons, artists are often recruited as wizards. Dyscalculia and dyslexia (although not named in-universe) are known to be a particular struggle for budding wizards, however.
Hugo “Cricket” Tinoco from Waves of Misfortune is an example of both. He was sponsored by the Minoguan government to join a runic academy thanks to being a skilled artist, but was eventually forced to drop out due to struggles “recreating” the runes.
(He's got some combination of the two.)
Wands aren't too dissimilar from the tool in Marvel's Doctor Strange that allows them to write in midair. They often resemble the stereotypical image of a wand, and serve as what's essentially a magic pencil that can write in midair.
However, twist: oftentimes, wizards will etch their most-commonly-used spells spells into the sides of their wands. With that, they can then later filter magic through those runes and quickly, easily, and frequently re-use their preferred spells.
Similarly, many more advanced wizards carry around staves—which are essentially larger wands—with larger conduit cores and many, many, many more runic sigils littered across their casing.
While this may seem to (and does, in fact) simplify the art of spellcrafting, there is a risk to relying on previously-etched runes: the caster has to remember where they've put each, or learn to distinguish between them by feel.
Considering the fact that they're often etched as small as possible both to fit more and to keep a possible enemy from seeing what spells you have at the ready... it is very dangerous, indeed, to rely on pre-etched spells. The practice is highly advised against except for master practitioners with several years of experience... and practice.
"Getting a new wand" is also highly frowned upon in this case, because if the caster fails to put their runes in the exact same spots...
Well.
