Dungeon Glyphs
Ever since playing Chants of Sennaar I've thought it would be cool to write logograms for dungeon languages that players could use for clues and to communicate with otherwise hostile monsters.
This post by Throne of Salt re-ignited that desire and so I threw this together today. It's very minimal and sketchy but I was pleased with how many sentences I could form.
(Sorry for my terrible handwriting)
Notes
- These are specifically aimed at my preferred style of arcade-y OD&D underworld. My envisioned use-case is in handouts (e.g. treasure maps) or as graffiti. The list of morphemes was compiled accordingly.
- I would like to try creating a few more sets with the same basic vocabulary. Making separate languages for Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, etc. is too big of a lift, so I like the idea that this is a shared writing system used for different spoken languages. But I could see this working as "vulgar dungeon-ese" and another, more abstract script for "deep dungeon-ese" or something.
- This also opens up an interesting diegetic approach to language. Rather than saying "oh, I speak Kobold" and then playing out the conversation in English, you could be strict about spoken words mapping 1-1 with the diegesis, but have these as a viable (if crude) way to communicate.
- I copied Sennaar in building most of these around a few radicals. Once those are in place it's surprisingly easy to generate new combinations. The tricky part is making them different enough to combine intelligibly.
- The glyph for "Dungeon" is "Corridor" + "Room" + "Plural". The glpyh for "World" is "Dungeon" + "Plural". The glyph for "God" is "Make" + "World". Proud of this one.
- If you want to try using them for something, feel free, just give me a shoutout if you use it in a published work.