Written Languages of Ariel

We had lost dozens to the seemingly nonsensical twists and turns of the labyrinth, crowded with traps and lousy with opportunistic monsters. It was only after several days that our scholar awoke from the sleeping poison and was able to identify the seemingly nonsensical writings on the wall as an obscure form of Elvish… granting useful directions.

• Sgt. Boson Runcible Spoon, Splishenfellow Expeditionary, Wanderings Across Ariel (2013)

The various nations of Ariel have differing languages – often divided by the primary species within a nation. Despite this, most residents of Ariel will speak some variation on the common trade tongue (with some unique words and phrases specific to their region of origin), which is based loosely from modern Harodonian. The existence of the multi-century Continental Trade Agreement, along with periods of linguistic calibration throughout the centuries, when great threats or challenges brought together representatives of most every nation, has meant that in most cases people on the continent can speak some variation on a shared language, especially if they expect to travel.

With this said, many of the peoples of Ariel still maintain individual languages or scripts, which have developed fairly independently of one another. Magical writing shares a place of pride as a constructed language common to all mages. However, scholars, academics, and skilled tradespeople from all nations have cause to make notes, create written works, and otherwise preserve information in their own way. While Harodonian Common is still taught as a written language of preference to travellers and merchants other written languages exist. As well, there exist large bodies of work that are sufficient to teach languages now extinct.

While learning to read and write any of these languages is an admirable scholarly pursuit, most documents within the Lakes Region are written exclusively in the Common script, and it is recommended that most travellers from, to and around that region learn it first and foremost.

Those encountering a written language that they do not understand can magically glean its meaning through the use of Arcane Lore, unless the writing is encoded. In those rare cases when a traveller who does not speak Harodonian Common at all comes to the region, the Translate spell allows its beneficiary to understand any spoken language.

Written Languages of Ariel

• Harodonian Common or ‘Common’ is a trade language based on the common tongue of the Empire of Lannick, and is consequently used by most humans. Already the principle tongue of Michian and the nations that came to make up the kingdom of Harodom, this is the script used by most merchants across the continent due to the Continental Trade Agreement.
• High Elven is a flowing cursive script that has changed slowly if at all over the past centuries. It is said that this elegant script was inspired by the waves on the ocean, the leaves on the trees, and the clouds in the sky – all coming together to create a text that has never seen a right angle in its existence, save examples of exceptionally poor penmanship.
• Dwarven Runes are traditionally made only from straight lines intersecting one another, and as a runic language, both the placement of the runes and their relationship with one another alter and adjust the reading of each sentence. This allows for relatively few runes to form complex sentences, but does make reading runic script more complex for people used to phonemes.
• Gnomish Script actually uses Dwarven runes, using several additional runes as well as emotional markers, and leaving out several runes that are common in Dwarven writing. Although beautiful, this script is usually only used on formal or governmental documents, or as a part of art installations – although some say that nigh-unbreakable gnomish codes derive from this written language.
• D’shunn Writings use the High Elven alphabet, but include accents as well as an interesting use of punctuation, which helps them stretch nuance and subtlety into what in the base script would be plain speech. Truly formal D’shunn calligraphy requires the use of inks which are only visible in differing light conditions.
• Lizardfolk Glyphs are used only by those Lizardfolk who pursue academic paths, such as alchemists, sorcerers, or theologians. More resembling hieroglyphics than a phonetic script, explorers have come away from trade negotiations with bemused Lizardfolk thinking that they have just purchased an artwork, instead of an ingredients list for a favourite dinner.
• Goblin Sigil is a complex written language usually read from right to left. A spidery phonetic language, much of the body of Goblin writings rely heavily on cultural idiom, and it is not uncommon for sentences that (to the writer) clearly allude to a cultural touchstone to go unfinished, as the writer assumes that anyone with any business reading them will understand.
• Orcsign is a non-serifed script with simple, non-mirroring characters, with words and lines of text well-spaced. Orc scouts will often learn some basic orcsign, as a few basic words can inform those that follow of nearby dangers or possible opportunities – and most who assume that orcs do little writing of their own will overlook that information, to their detriment.
• The Malkin settlers who have come to the Lakes Region have a higher-than-average literacy rate, but tend to be able to either read and write Harodonian Common, or a seemingly antiquated dialect of Elvish apparently more common in Magedom.
• High and Low Minotaur are a paired language, given a great deal of weight by artists and poets among the minotaurs. The High language uses a different but related script from the Low, and High Minotaur is traditionally only used for matters of great import – the discussions of scholars, or declarations of leaders. Low Minotaur is far more commonly learned, and deigns to be used for grocery lists and common conversation.
• Giant Runes are entirely dissimilar from Dwarven Runes and often involve series of circles or semicircles, surrounding or being surrounded by dots. Although giants are relatively uncommon in the Lakes Region, ogres and trolls have also been known to use these runes, when they have not chosen to learn local writing instead.

Dead Languages

Although some long-lived species and the indirect divine intervention of the Goddess of Knowledge help to ensure that linguistic drift occurs slowly if at all, it is nevertheless the case that some written languages have fallen into utter disuse. Regional languages often fail to survive the test of time, and international catastrophes and threats have spelled an end to some historical scripts that now survive only in the studies of scholars.

The existence of the Arcane Lore spell has nevertheless ensured that functional literacy can be derived from even fragmented or limited samples of these writings, with the capacity to understand what the original writer had intended to be understood.

• Ancient Alexandrian shares some syntax and grammar with modern Elven, but is distinct enough that simply being a fluent reader of one grants no more than topical understanding of a few words here or there in the other. A common tongue of its time, the script is also considerably less stylized – suggesting that if there were a more formal language used in court, fewer script samples have survived to undergo study.
• Imperial Lannean is linguistically similar to what some scholars call Old Haro – and indeed, is its predecessor. Although it was a human written language prior to the Empire of Lannick, it was the imperial expansion that made it common to the Lakes Region in the late 14th and early 15th century. While recognizably similar to the current trade tongue, this writing is functionally a different language, and uses different grammar and vocabulary.
• Deep Writings are often etched in stone or bronze recovered from the ocean floor or the bottom of deep lakes; some few examples have been found in caverns and tunnels well below where kobolds or D’shunn make their homes. The found examples tell little of who wrote them, but the writings are dissimilar to those of any known language on Ariel.

Supernatural Written Languages

Some writing comes not from the natural convergence and desire between mortals to directly communicate; it either sets out with a purpose, or is brought to Ariel by supernatural means. In either case, some polyglots expand their studies to understand these other scripts, for good or ill.

• Arcane Script is magical writing, most often used to create scrolls or spellbook entries, and describing particular magical processes. A magically constructed language, it translates perfectly to any other known mortal script, and is required to study magery at all. As complex as it is however, arcane script requires that a mortal have learned to read and write a more mundane language before it can be learned.
• Celestial Script is the common written language of the divine; hieroglyphic in nature, it has a grammar that matches to, but which does not describe, the prayers understood only by students of theology that allow a cleric to pray for miracles. Some holy relics – notably ones that are celestials taking a utility form – have writing in this script upon them, and scholars have pieced together the language.
• Infernal Script has not yet been pieced together sufficiently for anyone to learn the language mundanely. Although most infernals writing in their own language seem to share an alphabet, the world beyond the Curtain is vast, and it is surmised that there are as many infernal written languages as there are terrestrial ones. With irregular summons, it is therefore uncommon for even serious demonologists to have enough written samples to learn any of them.

Authored by: Andrew Dunlop
Fantasy Alive Lore Team 2026
Copyright © Endless Adventures Ontario