In-universe Orthographies

[Alexinor]

Stumbled upon this little tidbit about the lore while translating the Timeline of Wesnoth and it got me thinking — could this kind of thing actually make it into the game?

51 YW:

Wesnothian New Writing (the script later called "steel-hand", to distinguish it from the more complex "brush-hand" cursive brought from the Green Isle) is promulgated by royal decree. From this date all royal documents and public inscriptions are in New Writing. It spreads rapidly via the mercantile class. The older brush-hand writing continues to be used for magical purposes, scholarship, and in certain elevated literary forms.

I get that ESR probably made it up in one afternoon, but wouldn't it be a great contribution to immersion if we could actually see different writing systems ingame? Making an actual conscript and implementing it would certainly be an undertaking that not many would support, but the devs could probably get away with Tolkien's good ol' "Rohirric = Old English" strategy and assign already existing writing systems to different races (latin as the aformentioned "steel-hand" for humans, tengwar for the elves, futhark for the dwarves, arabic for the dunefolk, greek for merfolk, etc.). Not talking about relocalizing the entire game of course, just throwing it out there that it would be cool to see different scripts used in newly developed campaigns (irrelevant stuff like village names on specific maps, or a character's name being written differenly before they introduce themselves, just for the immersion points).

[mctom]

I think that at most it could be added as a guideline for illustrators, but I cannot recall any single image that would contain any writing..

[redbeard2]

Stumbled upon this little tidbit about the lore while translating the Timeline of Wesnoth and it got me thinking — could this kind of thing actually make it into the game?

51 YW:

Wesnothian New Writing (the script later called "steel-hand", to distinguish it from the more complex "brush-hand" cursive brought from the Green Isle) is promulgated by royal decree. From this date all royal documents and public inscriptions are in New Writing. It spreads rapidly via the mercantile class. The older brush-hand writing continues to be used for magical purposes, scholarship, and in certain elevated literary forms.

I get that ESR probably made it up in one afternoon, but wouldn't it be a great contribution to immersion if we could actually see different writing systems ingame? Making an actual conscript and implementing it would certainly be an undertaking that not many would support, but the devs could probably get away with Tolkien's good ol' "Rohirric = Old English" strategy and assign already existing writing systems to different races (latin as the aformentioned "steel-hand" for humans, tengwar for the elves, futhark for the dwarves, arabic for the dunefolk, greek for merfolk, etc.). Not talking about relocalizing the entire game of course, just throwing it out there that it would be cool to see different scripts used in newly developed campaigns (irrelevant stuff like village names on specific maps, or a character's name being written differenly before they introduce themselves, just for the immersion points).

Spoiler but the new script is a closing plot point of Cyrillas Great Work, it’d be interesting to actually show the script in the campaign somehow (though new script only shows up at the very very end).

[alexanderamoreau]

I like the idea, especially for small bits of environmental text rather than anything the player needs to read. A banner, inscription, sign or old manuscript in an illustration would be enough to suggest different writing traditions.
The bigger issue might be fonts and licensing if real-world scripts are used. I’m also wondering if the existing lore has any more references to what the different peoples actually write with?

[redbeard2]

I like the idea, especially for small bits of environmental text rather than anything the player needs to read. A banner, inscription, sign or old manuscript in an illustration would be enough to suggest different writing traditions.
The bigger issue might be fonts and licensing if real-world scripts are used. I’m also wondering if the existing lore has any more references to what the different peoples actually write with?

Orcs use bloodscrolls, though not very much. Dwarves presumably have a script that resembles their magic runes, but normal writing would have no power. Other than that Saurian script, elvish script, naga/merfolk, or even dune folk are total unknowns. Undead have no unique writing as they always derive from a different race. Trolls and woses have never been depicted as having any writing.

[redbeard2]

In Cyrillas Great Work the merfolk use Quipus (a South American knot system) at least partially, I put that in feeling a more tactile system might make sense for an underwater race where light would be poor, but that is utterly non-canon