Designing a Fictional Alphabet for Dungeons & Dragons

Sep 10

Designing a Fictional Alphabet in Dungeons & Dragons

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How to create your own alphabet for your stories and campaigns.

Have you ever designed your own fictional alphabet for your Dungeons and Dragons world? Well, strap in as we discuss doing just that. These simple steps will bring a level of awesome to your campaign that you will never forget.

So, why would we want to design our own fictional alphabet? Don’t we got enough to do as GMs? Let’s take a look at a short list of reasons why.

Written language is everywhere, and is a key component of nearly every culture. If you want your world to feel like it has its own living, breathing culture, then you need to think about its written language.

If your game is set in a fantasy such as Dungeons and Dragons, your characters don’t speak English (or your native language), they speak common. But what is common?

If your game is in a fictional world, a bespoke alphabet shows that you've put some solid effort into making your world feel new, fresh and unique. It is worth noting that Wizards of the Coast does have some unique writing for the more common languages such as Elvish, Draconic and Dwarvish.

Your alphabet could be used as a sort of code that your players need to try and decipher. You could even base puzzles around it.

A fictional alphabet means you can populate your world with fun-looking wanted posters, scrolls, signs and so much more. For instance, inscriptions in an ancient ruin could indicate the presence of a long-gone foreign race, while text on the side of a ship may mark it as an enemy.

Designing a bespoke alphabet is fun!

We found a fantastic image in our Crit Nation D&D Group some time ago. It’s a perfect 8 ½” x 11” file that you can keep hanging at your desk for ease of reference. Tracked it to Redditor OtherAtlas.

So, how do we do this?

Choose a Style

First, and foremost, we choose a style. Much like racial features in the game, style of the lettering should match the culture of the people. Is the group rigid? Are they elegant and graceful? Using simple techniques that include straight lines, swoops, small details, or other elements can give your alphabet a unique feel. Play around with scribbles until you find a nice style that fits the culture or theme you are looking for.

how to create a fictional alphabet — Art Compliments of Redditor OtherAtlas

Orientation and Reading Direction

When it comes to writing, there are two common ways to write, vertically or horizontally. Additionally, is the writing left to right, up to down, right to left or down to up? This decision is important as it affects the way we perceive the words as well as the flow of the reading process. The more you change this, the more alien the writing becomes.

Separate or Flowing

Lastly, we want to decide whether our new letters are connected during writing or disconnected. A great example is English print compared to cursive. The cursive is much more flowing and elegant. It allows for seamless writing by comparison to each letter being individual and forcing the writer to pick up their hand from the sheet. I really like the idea of a flowing text where each word is vertical, but the sentence as a whole is horizontal. It stands out and is so different from what we are used to that it will really feel like a different language.

Create Numbers and Punctuation

Now that we got the essence of our alphabet, we need basic punctuation as well as numbers. This further brings our fictional alphabet to life. Normally, we place commons, periods and other punctuation at the base of our words. Simply using the same ones,and moving them to the top could be enough, or reversing them if you find it too complicated.

Putting it all Together

In a perfect world we would also create sounds for each of our words in the alphabet, that is a bit much for most Dungeon Masters. We recommend just creating your alphabet in line with a language you're familiar with to save prep time. Though, going the extra mile can certainly make for a shocking surprise to your players. But, in most cases that’s unnecessary. We are going for entertainment not delving into the complexities of linguistics.

Whether you're making simple wanted posters, or delving into writing out a puzzle or ransom letter. Creating your own fictional alphabet can truly add to your worldbuilding experience.

Related Articles: Writing & Running Investigations in D&D

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Unearthed Tips and Tricks

5e Monster: Ijeroc

Origin Gray Ooze

Lost features: Corrode Metal, pseudopod

New Features:

Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. Hit: 3 (1d4 + 1) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 11). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. The ijeroc has two tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.

Body Thief. The ijeroc initiates a Constitution contest with an incapacitated humanoid within 5 feet of it. If it wins the contest, the ijeroc magically consumes the internal organs, seems into the target's flesh, and takes control of the target's body. While inside a creature, the ijeroc has total cover against attacks and other effects originating outside its host. The ijeroc retains its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. It otherwise adopts the target's statistics.

If the host body dies, the ijeroc must leave it. A turn channel divinity or similar magic can force. By spending 5 feet of its movement, the ijeroc can voluntarily leave the body, to the nearest unoccupied space within 5 feet of it. The body then dies.

Reaction:

Fling. When the ijeroc is hit by an attack, and it has a Medium or smaller object held or creature grappled it is thrown up to 30 feet in a random direction and knocked prone. If a thrown target strikes a solid surface, the target takes 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it was thrown. If the target is thrown at another creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw or take the same damage and be knocked prone.

Encounter: Bolstering Defenses

During the character’s travels, they pass into a land suffering from a plague of undead and disease. Local leaders have built guard towers set up at regular intervals to ensure the vile diseased undead don’t spread any further. Keeping the forsaken creatures away from villages.

When the characters arrive at a guard tower, they meet Arwerdas, a female half-orc paladin and captain of the defense force. She is stressed, angry and irritable. The size of the horde is growing and she doesn’t have the resources to stop it. She hasn’t received new recruits in some time. Many of the undead are beginning to make new bases in abandoned towers.

She calls to characters to help take action. She needs someone to consecrate the towers to prevent the undead from gaining a foothold until she can gather additional recruits. Arwerdas indicates there are currently five abandoned outposts, each deeper in the plaguelands with stronger undead toward its center. A character who succeeds on a DC 17 Intelligence (Religion) check recalls details that a powerful spell such as hollow can be used to protect the towers from the undead. But, the spell takes 24 hours to cast. During which, the characters must fend off hordes of zombies. Should the characters succeed, she offers the family heirloom of the Bellgard, a holy avenger as well as the title “White Shield”. The weapon belonged to a close friend who had died protecting the lands during the last wave.

Lastly, Arwerdas requests that the characters attempt to recruit potential soldiers to fill her ranks during their travels. She knows it won’t be easy. Many are aware of the challenges the plagued lands have. But in order to ensure citizens can continue their daily lives, unmolested by undead, some must fight.

Magic Item: Queensblood

“A beautiful and bright flower catches many with its unique heart shape. A mix of pinks and reds, the flowers grow in a group of a dozen or so along an arching stem. When it blooms, the bottom opens up and blood-red seed drops from it. They are most often found in temperate climates grown over the burial grounds of nobility.”

Reagent, very rare

When you cast a spell of 1st-level or higher that charms a creature, you can add the queensblood claw to the material components of the spell. If you do, you gain a +3 bonus to the spell save DC. The queensblood is consumed by the spell.

Dungeon Master Tip: Improved Initiative!

Improved Initiative is a simple and intuitive initiative manager for table-top RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder.

Combat Tracker

When combat is initiated, characters are ordered by initiative score. Once combat starts, characters will not be reordered by initiative until "New Encounter" is selected from the Character Manager Screen. Instead, the Dungeon Master is free to reorder characters by dragging and dropping. This allows for easier handling of held or readied actions, and for inserting new characters into combat once combat has been initiated.

On pressing "Next Turn" or "Previous Turn", the turn order will advance or step backward appropriately, maintaining the current initiative order. The combat state is saved whenever the user leaves this screen.

Characters can be added on the fly from the character management screen, and can be removed from combat by swiping left on the Combat screen (be careful here, swiping left on the Character Manager screen will delete your character).

Player Tip: Roleplaying and Improvisation - Start first, think later.

“We are fascinated by fear, risk, and death. Meanwhile, we go out of our way to avoid them. It's natural. Everyone does it.

It's also deadly dull.

Rather than waiting until you have a great idea, start first. Your mind and body will catch up.

If you say, "I'm going to do an amazing thing..." Your mind will come up with what it is. It will. Virtually always. And, if it doesn't, everyone will appreciate that you threw yourself into it.

If you want for a brilliant idea to step forward and make itself known to you... you could be waiting a long time... very long...

A person in motion tends to stay in motion. A person at rest tends to become a dull decomposing blob. (That's right, Science!)

Say, "I have an idea!" You'll likely get one. Say, "You've made three mistakes." Poof! One-by-one they'll appear in your head. Walk over and pick up an invisible object. You'll soon realize what it is you're picking up.

On a larger scale: desperately trying to think of the "right thing" to say to that attractive stranger? Probably won't come. Looking for the "perfect business idea?" Never was one. Waiting for "everything to come together" so you can do an improv class, learn to dance, or travel? It won't.

If you walk up to that stranger, start any business you care about, or sign up for the class or trip -- if you start the process somehow -- you'll soon find ways to make it happen.

Start what you're excited to finish!”

-Laura Upcott-