[Glorantha] Re: Written form of Darktongue?

In message <20070317100607.46223.qmail@web27202.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Jane Williams writes:

>Hmm, Earthspeech in its written form is done in clay
>tablets. Trolls could see that. Different types of
>clay would harden with different densities. Embed
>different types and shapes of small stone in there as
>well, you're heading towards a compact writing system.
>But hardening the clay? Trolls don't like fire, or
>sun. ZZ the troll scribe....?

Humans use wet earth because they aren't equipped to cut the rock directly. Uz just chew bits out of the wall or floor. That's for permanent records - messages and trivia use chewed pieces of wood.

>There exists a LM feat that lets anyone who can speak
>a language read a document in that language. I suspect
>that in this case you'd need to have Darksense to even
>percieve the written form, which limits things
>somewhat. Would there be any further limitations, do
>you think? Could any passing troll with the feat cast
>on them read the writing? (My mind boggles slightly at
>the idea of a Sage actually doing this, but the
>players have suggested it, so...)

I think there'd definitely be a mental block to recognising it as writing at all but I don't see why a human couldn't understand it with a combination of sight and touch.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/