Magical Writing Systems

[tanis]

     Hey David, have you ever considered giving a brief example of each coding system as you envision it? Just a thought. And please, when you do, for me make Huridian look the coolest.

[avisarr]

Absolutely. I do want to create examples (and maybe even TrueType fonts) of each of the magical writing systems. It's a tall order though. This is one of many projects that are on the to do list, but I haven't tackled yet because it would be so time consuming. One day though... 

[tanis]

     The Day Has Come, Hallelujah!

[avisarr]

For those who hadn't noticed, I just want to let you know that the examples of the magical coding systems are online now. I created some samples just to show what they look like. I added a few notes here and there. I may make slight modifications for one or two of them, but most of them turned out pretty good. I particularly like Bendothi, Parueli and Shamat.

I'm having some trouble with the poisons and mithridization notes this month. It's hard to write about mithridization and NOT talk in gaming terms. But I'll try to have something on that soon.

[Djelukh]

What about other writing systems in general? Will there be a day that you post the other writing systems? Or just the magical ones?

[sid6.7]

oh yeah...

tough stuff making up languages i myself use a little tool
called langmaker....then to actually try neographies like
your doing is 1000 times harder still.

making a neographie actually ends up being a work of
art if you build a large enough representation.

good job dave....

[avisarr]

You want to see the scripts for all the languages? Hmmm, ok. We'll make that the September spotlight. I'm already working on something else for August, but for September, we'll take a closer look at the languages. I'll give you script samples and such, similar to the magical coding systems. I guess these are neographies, aren't they Sid6.7? I never knew that term til you mentioned it and I just looked it up. That's exactly what they are. Pretty cool.

Ok, neographies for the rest of them. Look for them in September.

[tanis]

sweet

[Delbareth]

Yesterday I looked for the magical writing system of some scroll found in Coalition. And there is nothing for that in the list.
Ok, we know that :

• Rukemia, Kitar or Mercia... uses Iskren
• Corvenia (and probably other country from Irenni League) uses Iretic
• elvish kingdom uses Parueli
• dwarven kingdom uses Inedka

but... what about the country from old Traxx Legion?

[avisarr]

You are absolutely right. There should be a separate coding system for the Traxx Legion. And coincidentally, this ties in rather nicely with something I'm working on right now for the Crystal Dominion campaign. So you will see something on this fairly soon. As a matter of fact, I'll add it to the February spotlight.

[avisarr]

The magical coding system used by the Traxx Legion has been uploaded.

[Delbareth]

Well done for the Dreth system!
But I still have a question. In the first table resuming writing system, we can find :
"There are many books and scrolls written in Dreth filed away in libraries throughout southern Ithria and many mages learn this code for research purposes."

but in the Dreth page, we have :
"Many mages in southern Ithria study Dreth in order to read old Drethian scrolls that can be found in ancient Traxxian tomes or in libraries of the south. A few mages use Dreth to code their spells."

So, the question is: do mages of The Coalition or Drakkellian Alliance use this system today?

[tanis]

Okay. As I understand it, Dreth is used mostly for research, so it is used by a few mages, but like Thullic, it is more or less a dead system. However it is possible that some mages in The Coalition would use it in place of Roeda. Roeda would be very extensively used in a nation mostly made up of orcs, ogres, and goblyns.

As for Drakkel, I can't be sure. Since they border Cyrell and Jannerus, they may use one or more systems borrowed from their neighbors. They could use Parueli due to proximity to elven lands, Iskren due to the fact that the grumman lands are friendly with Rukemia along with the fact that they border Carrikos, or they might use Inedka due to Jannerus bordering many northern lands.

All this said, it looks as if either David will have to go with something similar to what I just said above or he needs one more coding system.

[avisarr]

I agree with Tanis' description.

There isn't one dominant coding system in Drakkel or the Coalition. In the Drakkellian Alliance, Iskren and Parueli are probably the most common, but some use Inedka, some use old dead languages (like Thullic or Dreth) and some use others. Same thing in Coalition. There's a lot of Roeda being used there, but several other systems as well.

The Drakkellian Alliance and the Coalition are both "melting pot" nations and so they see many different races, languages, coins and spell systems pass through.

This might answer your question though... what does the Drakkellian Guild of Sorcery teach in their classes? Iskren. Iskren is the single most widely used spell system in Ithria.

I should add that to the description of the wizard schools, shouldn't I? A brief mention of what spell code systems each uses... hmmm....  Actually, that just gave me a great idea. A bit too big to tackle right now. I think I'll save it for either the Feb or March spotlight. I need to think about it a bit. Thanks guys. These forum discussions are great... they lead to new ideas!

[Delbareth]

You're cruel Dave! What is your idea!!!
Thanks for these explanations, it helps a lot.
And the player who discovered a lot of scrolls and books in the Coalition should be happy to know that he can read some of them.