Topic: Suggestions Desired: Which Alien Text?

[arakish]

A friend asked if I would make a map for his upcoming campaign.  The map he wants to give to the players, he wants labeled with alien text.  The fonts used from top to bottom are:

Atlantean
AutoREALM Futhark
Bacata
Dark Arts
Galach
Guild
JSL Tencton
Leviathan
Minbari2
Runes The Elder Scroll
Wizard Speak
Wizard Speak Worn



I was wanting text that looks hand scribed.  Since looking at it, I have decided that the Tencton and Runes The Elder Scroll are out.

Which do you prefer?

Thanks for the suggestions.

rmfr

[Marc R]

I'd be wary of "Dark Arts" as my players would look at that and think pictogram and try to puzzle it out as if it were depictions rather than alphabetic characters.

[markc]

 I like Minbari2 myself.
MDC

[Thom @ ICE]

+1 for minbari2

[yammahoper]

JSL...its complete jibberish.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Which you use depends on who composed it, and what you want their style to look like. Bacata is suitable for things like clay tablets or wax. Galach, Guild and Minbari2 look like they are done with a brush rather than a pen. Wizard Speak looks penned, Leviathan and AutoREALM Futhark looks like something done on a cave wall using the burned end of a stick.

Dark Arts.... you need to find about a dozen other pictographic font types, mix and match them, and use characters as words or syllables instead of letters. That'll work for petroglyphs and the like.

[rdanhenry]

Have you tried asking the person you are doing it for? That's the opinion that really matters.

[jdale]

Minbari is from Babylon 5. If there is a big fan present it might be a distraction. Otherwise, no one will notice and it will be fine.

Many of these types of fonts have lots of duplicated characters. Assuming the goal is for it to be possible to translate, check that it is. Capital letters can also be issues, often the symbol for a capital is totally unrelated to the lower case symbol, which makes it harder to translate. Using small caps is an easy work-around. If it's just for appearances, you can ignore this too.

[RandalThor]

I think it really depends upon the civilization it is supposed to come from. Are (or where) they a highly technological species? Not so much? How do they balance their ideologies of art/culture with science/technology?

Generally, I like to go with something more technical-looking (like Leviathan and/or Minbari2, from above) if the society was high-tech, and more rough and "artsy" and more "pictographic" in nature for primitive/low tech cultures.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I think it really depends upon the civilization it is supposed to come from.

Exactly. The choices of characters in cuneiform were defined and limited by the fact that their "paper" was clay. The choices of characters in Chinese and Japanese were defined and limited by the fact that their "pen" was in fact a brush. Higher tech cultures will have presumably learned printing and mass production, and their characters will be defined and limited by the machinery they use... just like the Sumerians and the Chinese.

[arakish]

Okay.  Discussed this with my friend.  He likes the Atlantean, Leviathan, and Minbari2 fonts.  He still did not make a decision because he likes all three almost equally.  He even said he would be willing to let everyone here to decide for him.  Thus, I made a new image with just the three fonts.  From top to bottom, they are:

Atlantean
Leviathan
Minbari2



Cast your votes and I will tabulate them, showing him the results.

rmfr

[Thom @ ICE]

I added a poll to do your tabulating for you....

[Cory Magel]

Either...

Minbari2
Runes The Elder Scroll

[arakish]

I added a poll to do your tabulating for you....

Thanks.  I didn't know how to and was too lazy to try and figure it out.

rmfr

[markc]

 I was looking at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkhon_script and thought you might want to check it out as it was added to Unicode.


MDC

[arakish]

Thanks.  I already saw it since it was added in Unicode 5.0.0 (I think).  I regularly download the entire Unicode Database when a new major version comes out.

Again, thanks.

rmfr

[TAK]

Leviathan out of those 3, tho my vote went to Atlantean by accident.
I do think JSL Tencton might look pretty good on a map tho.