Questions tagged [written-material]
For questions about the creation and usage of different sorts of written material such as books and newspapers.
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Determining the qualities of a quill based on the qualities of the bird [closed]
Quills made from different birds are noted to be different, but I cannot find information of what factors are behind these quill differences
The relevant species is a flightless flamingo-like wader ...
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Alternative chalk board materials
For the sake of context, this is a fantasy setting where this character has no access to magic and lives in a small village. He would like to write a book and since wiriting materials are a little ...
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What are good heat-resistant materials for writing a self-immolating spellbook?
The magic in question operates on a magical language of runes that give off a constant heat. When the runes are "at rest" (as in, nobody is reading them) the heat is very mild but warms up ...
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Was there a waterproof paper or a substitute that could be written on in the medieval ages?
I'm making a character that keeps their books stored in their many large mouths. Thing is, it's a medieval setting and I'm not sure how the book would be made to survive being in such an environment.
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Specific type of invisible ink
I know so called ''invisible ink'' exists in the real world.
The most common types can be revealed either by applying heat to the paper it is written on (lightbulb, clothes iron, candle, lighter, etc.)...
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Paper or Ink that naturally degrades in a month or less?
The end result is that a delivered envelope or the writing on it is designed to completely decay within 2 weeks to a month, ideally through natural processes caused by the type of materials used, so ...
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I'm making a tattooed repository of paramedical knowledge for a religious ceremony. How small can words be if they're tattoos made of cremation ashes?
I have a character. One of their parents died. Said parent was cremated, and then - by their own choice; this is a quasi-religious thing - their cremains were mixed into tattoo ink, and the character ...
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Immortals and privacy: how do they protect their writings and drawings?
We are pretty used to read private letters of important and less important people who lived in a distant past: for example we can read the quite explicit letters that Mozart wrote to his wife and love ...
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How to write martial/magic arts manuals so they can be deciphered and practised in a distant future?
TL;DR
This question is about an information encoding method/system. The text below describes the types of information that need to be encoded and lists limitations existing in the world I am building. ...
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What sort of texts would survive in a sunken ruin?
Hundreds of years ago, the once-opulent city of not-Atlantis incurred the wrath of the gods and was cast to the bottom of the ocean. Now, our intrepid adventurers have been sent to the lost city of ...
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Underwater Cuneiform?
I am developing a culture for a species that lives in freshwater. They are solidly stone/bone-age, so no issues with "how do you develop metallurgy underwater?" and so on, but I would like ...
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What's a good fire-resistant material to write on?
In my setting (pretty generic medieval fantasy), certain valuable texts can simply not be copied (because of certain religious beliefs, a will to protect information through secrecy or because of some ...
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How to decide what language(s) to use for place names? [closed]
I have a homebrew world for a TTRPG where I have generated languages for each of the cultures populating the planet. When referring to those places (on a map, in the player's guide, in-game, etc.), I'...
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How could've Japan's Crown Princess foolproof guaranteed her letter of passage to Robert Childan? [closed]
Pre-suppose the background and context in the TV series Man in High Castle. If you remember the details I forgot, just edit this please.
I can't remember why and what episode, but the Crown Princess ...
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How do I make a writing system undecipherable, while not intended as such in-world?
It is relatively well known that hieroglyphs were not fully translated, or at all for that matter, until a while after the Rosetta Stone was found.
It is less well known that the script known as ...
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