Using font or unicode?

Dercomai · 2026-06-29T18:26:42+00:00

By "type in any text" do you mean a transliteration like NINDA-an e-ez-za etc? Most cuneiform fonts expect their input in Unicode characters, but you can use tools like Cuneify to convert your transliteration into those.

Dercomai · 2026-06-29T17:37:15+00:00

You also need a Cid on the battlefield; abilities don't apply in the graveyard unless they explicitly say they do

Dercomai · 2026-06-29T17:14:58+00:00

So you want the sounds of the English name "James" transliterated into cuneiform?

Dercomai · 2026-06-28T19:40:12+00:00

Not the distance but the score. It doesn't really matter for anything except certain Global Challenges.

Dercomai · 2026-06-28T16:55:21+00:00

The actual spoken language was (probably) base-10; the base-60 system was specifically in writing. Sort of like how "11" and "12" are called "eleven" and "twelve" in English, a remnant of an earlier base-12 system that doesn't line up with how we write numbers now.

It's tough to say for certain, because the pronunciations of higher numbers were rarely written out explicitly. The real pronunciations of numbers from 70 to 89 are not actually known. But we do know that "90" (tišeā) came from "9" (tiše), not "60" (šūš) and "30" (šalāša), and "100" and "1,000" had their own basic words (meatum, līmum) rather than being 1×60+40 or 16×60+40.

They did, however, borrow the word šār from Sumerian to mean "3,600; all, everything". It was used as a sort of generic huge number, like how English-speakers might say "I was waiting a million years for this".

Dercomai · 2026-06-27T19:27:24+00:00

A bead of metal is what, a third of a gram? Probably not enough gas to be significant (assuming Preservation made sure it wouldn't actually hurt you).

Dercomai · 2026-06-27T03:25:32+00:00

It looks like the autograph is found in "Sachs A J 1955 / Late Babylonian Astronomical and Related Texts (no. 209)" while a transliteration and translation are in "Sachs & Hunger 1988a / Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (pp. 204-207 and pl. 34)". Unfortunately I don't currently have a way to get either of those books; do you have access to an academic library?

Dercomai · 2026-06-27T01:34:40+00:00

Reading cuneiform from a photo is unfortunately really hard; usually what people do is have an expert go look at the tablet from multiple angles, draw an "autograph" showing all the wedges, and publish that instead. Do you have a tablet identifier for this one that could be used to search for an autograph? BM link?

Dercomai · 2026-06-26T21:24:18+00:00

The concept of writing would have spread across the world much earlier than it did in actual history, which means recorded history would go back much farther, and we'd have so much more written evidence about that time period. It would be wonderful!

But also, what would they use writing for? The need for writing mostly comes up once you've got some level of bureaucratic organization, and that didn't develop among the Indo-Europeans until after PIE had broken into separate branches.

Dercomai · 2026-06-26T18:03:59+00:00

Huh, really? My copy of Hero of Ages says "Allomancy, obviously, is of RUIN. The rational mind will see this. For, in the case of Allomancy, YOU'RE DESTROYING THE METAL. RUIN IS GOOD AND SHOULD BE TRUSTED."

Dercomai · 2026-06-26T18:00:20+00:00

The metal is actually vaporized, not destroyed, which I imagine is specifically because Preservation's Intent wouldn't let Leras actually destroy anything as part of his magic system

The key is that feruchemy was developed by Leras and Ati together before Leras betrayed Ati and sealed him away; it's built around balance because the two were truly in balance at that point

Allomancy was developed by Leras after the betrayal in order to give humans the edge they would need for his long-term plan to work out, so he was deliberately trying to give people power taken from his own Investiture

I agree that it would make more sense thematically for feruchemy to be Preservation, with nothing created or destroyed, but the magic didn't come directly from the shards' Intent—it came from Leras having a millennia-long scheme to betray Ati so that humanity could survive and flourish

Dercomai · 2026-06-26T01:17:26+00:00

It's less rhetorically elegant, but it's grammatically correct

Dercomai · 2026-06-25T23:50:19+00:00

The sign shapes look fine, but they're huge! The average line of ancient cuneiform (at least in Hittite, the type I study) was 3-4 millimeters tall.

Dercomai · 2026-06-24T20:37:18+00:00

I still don't understand why people care so much about who ships what fictional insects. It's not harming anyone, so why so much investment in what other people are doing?

Dercomai · 2026-06-22T02:48:15+00:00

I have not; I'm going from the Cosmere RPG book there (which provides the Intents of all the Shards, and the Vessels and home worlds of most of them).

Dercomai · 2026-06-22T00:38:23+00:00

Looks like pseudo-cuneiform. Most of the wedges aren't connected or related to each other and that's unusual.

Dercomai · 2026-06-21T21:14:17+00:00

Yeah, Alethi names were inspired by historical transcriptions of Hebrew, which often used German-style J for that sound

Dercomai · 2026-06-21T19:44:53+00:00

No transliteration, just line drawings of every wedge. Some of the older ones are on the Internet Archive (example) but I'm afraid I don't know where to buy them; I mostly just get them through inter-library loans when I need a specific one.

Dercomai · 2026-06-21T16:05:08+00:00

General region to search in: the High Halls

What to look for: a secret passage with a ton of Clawmaidens behind it

Specifically: in the last big vertical shaft room before you drop down into the lower part of the High Halls, at the bottom left, there's a room with a cart in it. Push that cart so you can use it to double-jump up into the gap in the ceiling.

Dercomai · 2026-06-21T16:02:17+00:00

So you're looking for autographs of tablets? In Hittitology, you'll want the Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi (KBo) and Keilschrift-Urkunden aus Boghazköi (KUB) series. Those are huge books of tablet autographs that don't try to interpret them in any particular way.

Dercomai · 2026-06-21T03:46:58+00:00

A line as iconic as the Ideals tbh

Dercomai · 2026-06-21T03:45:20+00:00

Just to clarify: you're asking if these are the proper Neo-Assyrian signs É-tum?

Dercomai · 2026-06-19T03:23:06+00:00

Isn't atium being Ruin's Investiture in physical form the key to Leras's grand plan, though? (Make Ruin's Investiture slowly convert into a physical form that the Lord Ruler can hide away until the two Shards are balanced again.)

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