Shout Out to Ralf
JackTheMapper
🖼️ 3 images Traveler
Hi everyone!
I'm an old school mapper, going back to CC2. Back in the 2000s I did a lot of mapping with CC3 as I introduced my kids to the joys of both table top RPGs and the joys of worldbuilding. Life and its responsibilities dragged me away for the last decade, and the kids were grown and gone.
Now that I've got free time again I came back to my old hobby. I still had CC3, DD3, etc on my laptop, having saved the installation files and transferred them over when changing machines. However I couldn't remember which email I used to make my account and buy everything, thus being cut off from updates and deals. I emailed in, and Ralf sorted me out like lightning. He located the correct email, and offered to transfer everything over to a new email address if required (happily, it wasn't). And he did this on a Sunday.
I'm really thrilled to be back at this, and looking forward to moving to CC3+ and diving into the annuals I missed, as well as diving into this vibrant community.
So by way of fun, here's a mini-poll weaving my interest in creating languages in with mapping.
- Do you indulge in conlangs (constructed languages) as well as mapping?9 votes
- Yes55.56%
- No22.22%
- No, but I should22.22%
- If you answered yes to question 1, do you or would you make maps in the language you created?9 votes
- Yes66.67%
- No33.33%
Comments
Hi Jack! And welcome back :)
EDIT: The results to question 2 on the poll may be a little skewed. I answered 'No' to the first question and left the second one alone. However, it registered as a No by default.
Hi Loopysue! Poll is just for fun, anyway! You've got some stunning maps up! I've got the first six annuals and will slowly acquire the others. Which is your favorite?
Thank you :)
I don't really have a favourite. All the styles are useful for different situations. It really depends what kind of maps you want to do.
If you want a slightly better idea of what's in each annual I made a wall of links that's in need of a serious update at the moment, right here.
Wonderful resource! I'm looking through it now. Thank you!
You'll find there's a lot of catching-up to do, I suspect, so good luck with that!
With the poll, I've never constructed actual languages for RPGs/mapping, though I've used bits of those others have done (or adapted them; Tolkien's the obvious, though not the only, one). What I have done more frequently is generate random names from tables, and then adapt those, tweaking the spelling/pronunciation quite often, and then giving the names a supposed meaning sometimes. Or sometimes just making up interesting-sounding words.
As for the Annuals, while I have all of them, I've used only a fraction of them for actual mapping so far, though I do try to go with new styles when I'm doing maps for the Community Atlas especially. I agree with Sue though, that they all have their uses under different conditions and settings, and deciding which one(s) to use for each specific map is an interesting challenge in itself. Not found one I deliberately keep going back to repeatedly, as I'm always a bit concerned I'll get stale doing that (likely that's just me though😉!).
I don’t make up languages, but I do rely on existing languages to provide names of people, places, and especially gods. For example, for one religion I might pick Finnish as a commonality, and then when designing the pantheon, I will look up words in Google Translate like thunder, storm, rain, lightning, etc. for a Zeus-like god. If I find a word I like, I will then tweak it a bit to make it unique. For a nature god in the same pantheon, I might look up words for forest, woods, tree, nature, spring, etc. That way, all of the proper nouns will all sound like they came from the same language. Another religion might use Croatian or something else unfamiliar to a majority of English speakers as the base. For the names of ancient things, like the name of the world, I looked to long-dead languages like Sumerian. But that’s not the same as creating a whole new language. I have a book on how to create languages written by the guy who devised the languages in Game of Thrones series on HBO, but I was overwhelmed by it and didn’t pursue it.
I've made up words for my dungeons, like sword, etc. names, and if the players' characters have something like Read Languages, I tell them what it means. No concerted effort to make wholesale levels of languages.
However, back in my starting computer days... Sinclair ZX-81 and I have no idea where that particular cassette tape might be, I came up with some vague attempts to make an Elvish language using runes I found in a book. I don't remember the name of the book. This was about 1987.
I haven't made up complete languages yet, but I have enjoyed tinkering around with individual words here and there. I guess I caught the bug from reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and J.R.R. Tolkien a lot when I was a kid. I've employed some of them in my own book, like names for creatures or various objects which are unique to the world I created. Names like bathalisk, theralon, sironath, and the like. Character names and place names are certainly common among fantasy writers, I would think. And good names are always useful. I met Anne McCaffrey some years ago and she urged those in attendance to compile and keep a list of names which we could draw upon whenever we needed one. That practice has stuck with me all these years later, and I have lists of thousands of names I can use.
Marc Okrand is well known for creating the Klingon language for the Star Trek franchise. Being an actor and a writer, that had greatly appealed to me, but I never really had the time to develop those kinds of projects fully on my own.
The other thing I've played around with is creating my own fonts, ones that are unique to different places and people groups. I think that sort of thing can add a lot of depth to whatever stories you are writing. Tolkien certainly was masterful at doing that with his dwarf runes and elvish scripts.
I met Anne McCaffrey some years ago and she urged those in attendance to compile and keep a list of names which we could draw upon whenever we needed one. That practice has stuck with me all these years later, and I have lists of thousands of names I can use.
That's what I do, too. Unusual last names are good fodder for fantasy realm names of people or geographic places, though I sometimes tweak the spelling. I keep a notepad list on my phone that jot down names as I encounter them. Every so often, I paste the list into Excel where I can make notations when I use a name.
The real hardcore linguists make it seem really difficult, but it's like making maps--you can go as far in as you want, analyzing geographical features, climate zones, tectonic shifts, or you can...just have fun making a map!
I usually give bonus XP for players who ask for, and use, a few phrases, from the setting. Just simple stuff, like greetings, and so on.
Fonts! Now, that's a challenge. I've constructed a few languages from scratch for use in fantasy settings, including a writing system or two, but creating fonts is well outside my element!