ToCha’r  

Origin

ToCha’r is a fantasy script for the language of the Dwarves
of Ehtome-Naom in the swords & sorcery roleplaying game,
Worlde Arcane.

Notable Features

• ToCha’r means “depicted thought,” the ‘r
  being a past-participle mopheme.
• Whereas a large percentage of characters in other writing sytems
  (especially connected scripts!) are contiguous strokes, 14 of the
  16 consonant characters in ToCha’r break in the middle, with each
  half connecting to its neighbor but not to its other half. Thus in
  ToCha’r, contiguous lines often represent two halves of two different
  characters.
• The vowel [ɔ] (open-o) is not available in ToCha’r;
  depending on environment, [a] or [o] must substitute.
• ToCha’r contains syllabic characters in its writing system that
  do not occur in the spoken language.

ToCha’r characters

Sample text

Transcription and transliteration

Links

• An “in-character” presentation of ToCha’r:
  http://www.worldearcane.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?138/1956
• The script can be seen engraved on the sword in the
  MysteryAndMagic.com
  logo and in a few places around Worlde Arcane.

Creator’s Note

When in mid-1998 I found came across the writing-based roleplaying
game Lands Of Aniada, (later to expand as Worlde Arcane),
I built myself a Dwarf character wearing a metal collar inscribed with
runes. For expediency’s sake–or was it just laziness?–I used a Klingon
font for the inscription. The game’s manager liked the look of it and asked
to use the writing for the new Dwarf homeland that he was creating for the
game. I had to confess that I had stolen the lettering, but to make good
on the gaff I promised him an original writing system that he could use
without worries of plagiarism or copyright infringement. Well, I got a
little carried away as usual … but it worked out to my benefit, because
on the strength of my submission he promoted me into the game’s management
cadre 🙂 and years later I am still with the same game, still having tons
of fun.

I have not (yet) built a font for ToCha’r, mostly because the character
mapping would be a nightmare just for the syllables, not to mention the
glides. Furthermore, the kerning, both horizontal and vertical(!) would
be extremely challenging. Yet furthermore, I managed to lose/destroy/delete
the original “clean” vector graphics for the characters. I did, however,
scan a hi-res JPG and recreate a set of vectors: they’re rough, but it
looks alright for pseudomedieval Dwarfen scrawls.