Okay, we've seen that "Lots Of Lore Ranks" are needed.

And my initial response is one I still stand by: Junk all this "Seed6" and "Seed10" crap. None of the benefits merit anything that extreme. What's the big deal 6 or 10 ranks giving 3 or 4 steps of payoff right away, rather than only 1? But that only helps those who already have some ranks, by giving them more payoff.

Meanwhile, what about those people whose training points are tight?

But, here we all are with runestaves lurking in our inventory.

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So, how about new set of <pick a system: Forging, Alchemy, store-bought> items, Staff Badges.
(Those who recall that I hike with the Boy Scouts, and so see a fair number of things used to "help adult lard-ass wheeze his way up the trail" [I use two hiking poles, myself], including nifty-looking wooden staves and their attendant badges.)

Make them out of drakar, rhimar, gornar, and the rest, to attune to/affect their respective elements. Have others for the other Realm Lores. (Bone for necromancy?)

Allow them to have <something> put into them, I'm thinking in amounts looking like a triangle (row of 1, row of 2, row of 3, row of 4, almost exactly like a Seed1 progression).

Allow each tier achieved completely to trigger +1 of <something, like "the relevant Elemental Lore" which is why I started this whole thing>. (Obviously, putting chips of bone into the wrotwood Badge would affect Necromantic Lore, but you get the idea.)

Go ahead and put limits on them, like "No more than 5 tiers" on a badge. Allow all runestaves to hold 3-6 badges, not more than two (2) of the same kind [no "triple rhimar" without a special staff]. Naturally, store-bought staves might have different virtues; this lets the merchants kick it up a notch.

Allow them to be removed; go ahead and make this a process. This allows for shifting to a different runestaff, or getting this one Enchanted.

Maybe a Badge made by a specialist might be able to go more, to 6 or even 7 tiers. ("Hi, I'm Virilneus, and for maximum potency you really need to use my MaterialX Staff Badge...") Again, this opens things up for the player provider market.

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I'm really not sure about the <things> you put in to fill the tiers.

Maybe we need more Alchemy-material-type treasure drops, for fire- and air- and water- and earth- and necromancy- and demonology- and all that Spirit & Mental crap.

Maybe we make those made by the players, too. (At one point I was thinking, "Sure, collect pebbles/votes from other Wizards, but you can't have more than 1 pebble from the same Wizard on the same Badge." Want 5 tiers of benefits/1+2+3+4+5 == 15 pebbles needed, make buddies with fifteen Wizards.)

Maybe tie it to Lore already known. TierUsedFor-1 x 10 == minimum ranks of Lore to create a pebble for that tier. So any schlub with just 1 rank of Fire lore can make you a dull sparkly pebble, but only someone dedicated with 40+ ranks of Fire Lore can make you an immaculate gleaming pebble to into your Tier5 slots.

Have time, mana, <other ingredients>, whatever, be involved. Hell, require an orb gem; Xk minimum where X is tier. (FINALLY a use for all those frickin' orb gems I find.)

But this would be a quick way to let a spellcaster pick up 5 comparatively easy ranks of each of the Elemental Lores, in an item he always has.