Is there a runic font?
Does anyone know if there are any fonts with runic symbols that are included with any of the ProFantasy products? (There are so many fonts to go through, so I thought it might be faster to ask.) I'm thinking about an inscription carved into the floor, but with runes rather than a western alphabet.
Also, is it possible for me to then turn it into a vector image or symbol so that it is shareable with others who don't have the font (like for an Atlas submission)? Is that what EXPLODE TEXT does?
Comments
I know there would be a few fonts I'd like to see.
That is exactly what Explode Text does, but it makes editing them more difficult. SO make sure you get it right before exploding. I did that in the Atlas Magumul Empire of minotaurs in the north-western part of Artemisia.
https://atlas.cdn.monsen.cc/atlas/artemisia/hi/magumul%20empire.png
So far as I can recall, there isn't a specifically runic font available for use in the Community Atlas list (which includes most of the PF-provided fonts and those from a standard Windows 10 installation), although that isn't fully up-to-date, as it doesn't include fonts provided by ProFantasy in the Annuals from the last few years.
Your best option would be to find a suitable font online, either free or paid-for, depending on exactly what you need the font for, install it, and then use an exploded version of that if you're wanting to submit the map for the Atlas. The fact you can't edit it after exploding it is a disadvantage, although that really depends if it's meant to provide functional labelling (which someone else might wish to amend if they have access to the FCW file), or simply for decoration (such as in a map border frame).
Rather than going through every map style, the faster approach was simply to go through the fonts installed on my computer and then check the ones I liked against the list of approved fonts on the How to Contribute page on the Atlas. I found some that unfortunately are not on the list. Davak is the Wizards of the Coast's official dwarven script, and Rellanic is their elvish script. I believe both are permitted for personal use, but I'm not sure if commercial use is permitted. Tengwar Cursive is Tolkien's elvish script, but in addition to limiting for personal use, the license specifically says that the Tolkien estate must approve for any commercial use. Similarly, there's a Hobbiton font for noncommercial use. Anglo Saxon Runes looks great but is also limited for noncommercial use.
Exploding a font and using them as symbols doesn't change the fact that they still read as a font and therefore are subject to any licensing limitations of the original font.
So a question for Remy:
Thank you!
I was going to use them with the Color Key effect and the brass inlay from Marine Dungeons as a magical inscription carved into the floor. So the usage would be more similar to decoration rather than labeling.
Try some of the bigger free font sites. Most of them have search bars. I have a runic font installed, but it's not a very good one, and the usage rights mean I can only use it for personal stuff anyway.
I've had to draw the characters of the runes I used in the magic circles.
I was just looking at the inlay symbols you designed for Marine Dungeons, and the runes on some of the symbols are exactly what I'm looking for. One of the uses I had in mind was for teleportation or summoning circles -- for which I can simply use those inlays as is.
In the meantime, I will also search font sites for ones available for commercial use for use as glyphs and other inscriptions.
Thank you, all!
Get a runic font anyway. You can use it to give you an idea of what the characters are - what shape you need to draw.
I drew mine in Affinity Designer as part of the symbol each time, but you could draw them in CC and make each one into a symbol.
@Royal Scribe asked:
If there's a font that's not on the approved list but is available for use, are we allowed to explode them and use them as symbols for Atlas submissions, or would you feel safer only using fonts on that approved list?
Commercial fonts, assuming you actually own the license to said font, allows you to produce documents using it, so exploding it should be completely fine, as you are not making the font available to others in any way by doing that. So I have no problem with that.
(Moot question if the answer above is "no.") If there's a font that's not on the approved list but is available for use only, does the Atlas count as noncommercial use that would allow permit that font to be used as an exploded symbol?
Well, the atlas is absolutely non-commercial, neither me, nor the contributors earn anything from it. The big problem with non-commercial though is that it is poorly defined, and a lot of licenses have a slightly different take on what that actually means. Technically, this forum IS a commercial entity, because it is connected to ProFantasy's business, but most licenses are still happy with end users posting things made with non-commercial usage licenses in such forums to show off their own work as long as they don't personally earn money from it. But for that atlas itself, I don't seeany problem with using such fonts as long as their license doesn't explicitly forbid it.
My use case was different, Royal. I was making a style for Profantasy to sell, so it was clearly commercial.
Anyone have a lawyer on staff? lol.
The funny thing is: although I am not an attorney, my day job in the business side of publishing requires me to be involved in copyright permissioning on a daily basis. Fonts, however, are a new wrinkle for me.
The closest I ever got was the font Tolkien, but I seem to recall using it sparingly and not for small text.
I love the Tolkien font -- I use it a lot with my maps designed with Mike Schley's styles. Seems to fit really well in that style. You're right, though: doesn't work as well for small text.
But actually, I was thinking of the runes like Sue used in the brass inlays in Marine Dungeons:
I discovered that FontSpace.com has a "Commercial" filter that allows you to limit the search/browse results to just the fonts that allow for commercial re-use:
There are some pretty elvish script fonts there, too. I am a little wary, though. Some seem to be based on Tolkien's elvish script, and while the person who designed it for FontSpace may have granted permission to use what they designed, I'm not entirely convinced that Tolkien's estate would agree.
and while the person who designed it for FontSpace may have granted permission to use what they designed, I'm not entirely convinced that Tolkien's estate would agree.
This is a very worthwhile point to keep in mind. The artist's permission isn't worth anything if their work is based on something someone else had copyright on. Goes for all creative work. I've seen way to many occurrences of people use illustrations based on copyrighted works because they got permissions from the artists, where the artist didn't have any rights to make/reproduce those illustrations. A few things can fall under fair use, but most of it not.