The presence of strong spin-orbit coupling in heavy 4d and 5d transition metal compounds can give rise to a variety of novel electronic and magnetic ground states. Perhaps the most famous example of such phenomena is α-RuCl3, a Ru3+ (4d5) honeycomb lattice material which displays highly anisotropic, bond-directional Kitaev interactions, and represents the closest experimental realization of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid state reported to date. In this talk, we will discuss two very different examples of spin-orbit-driven physics in Ru-based quantum magnets: the 6H-perovskite Ba3MRu2O9 (M = In, Y, La) and the double perovskite La2MgRuO6. Ba3MRu2O9 is a 4d cluster magnet, with a structure consisting of face-sharing Ru2O9 dimers. We find evidence of a fragile molecular orbital state in this system, with an electronic instability that can be tuned by subtle changes in local structure and trigonal distortion. La2MgRuO6 is a Ru4+ (4d4) double perovskite which displays a non-magnetic Jeff = 0 ground state. We observe a spin-orbit exciton that reveals a surprisingly small energy gap to the Jeff = 1 excited state, identifying this system as a promising candidate for excitonic magnetism. In both cases, we will show that resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) and inelastic neutron scattering (INS) can reveal crucial information about the underlying physics of these novel materials.