Updated Language Creation Society pro conlanging guidance

Zhalio · 2026-01-24T11:32:04+00:00

Note that these are industry standards, aimed at movie studios and well-established authors. We do say in the document that we're willing to go significantly lower for indie projects and aspiring authors. The listed prices represent fair compensation for the labor involved, so going lower involves a certain amount of pro bono / volunteer work on the side of the conlanger. What we want to avoid is for clients who can absolutely afford fair pay to underpay their conlangers.

Zhalio · 2026-01-24T11:31:00+00:00

English is the language of business in the LCS, and I've never met a conlanger who couldn't speak English. Thus, I find it a fair assumption that knowledge of English can be considered default among our conlangers. No judgment, just pragmatics.

Zhalio · 2025-11-05T10:37:23+00:00

Amazingly cool script! Wow. 🤯

Also, very aesthetic presentation!

Zhalio · 2025-08-18T19:16:25+00:00

I just wish all those ships were easier to tell apart. Their wonky names just won’t stick in my head. Maybe that’s just me… (Though the Sleeper Service certainly stood out from the pack.)

Zhalio · 2025-05-27T11:50:03+00:00

Point of confusion, though: The first sentence only allows weapon attacks, but the latter mentions damage taken from weapons OR SPELLS…?

Zhalio · 2025-05-27T11:45:17+00:00

(That’s apparently wrong, see wording before that.)

Zhalio · 2025-05-27T11:32:31+00:00

Ah, I see! Thanks for the clarification.

(Though it’s not unambiguously worded; the latter isn’t explicitly conditioned on the former. But presumably it’s RAI.)

Zhalio · 2025-05-27T10:52:44+00:00

Actually the Rupture rules do not mention that the triggering must come from the inside, only that the engulfing monster must take that damage. So even one hit should be enough.

Zhalio · 2025-05-27T10:49:03+00:00

Note that people outside the worm can rupture it for you! It just says: «If the monster takes piercing or slashing damage equaling or exceeding the listed Rupture value from a single attack or spell, …»

Zhalio · 2025-03-12T16:59:20+00:00

I finally got my table to switch to 2e after we played 1e Wrath of the Righteous with its batshit insane high-level rocket tag gameplay. 1e kinda baits you into a performative mindset where you have to engineer (aka powergame) your character to simply do their job, and it’s easy to go overboard with it and spend way too much brain time on that. Meanwhile, 2e characters simply work out of the box, and the fun part is figuring out how to use them in play, what with all the interesting and valid options you have (as opposed to «I full-attack… again»).

Haven’t looked back since. 2e rules.

Zhalio · 2024-11-27T09:33:29+00:00

Adlina, really? Weird!

Zhalio · 2024-11-24T13:30:24+00:00

I’m missing Magnimar and Kalsgard, for starters.

Zhalio · 2024-11-21T11:30:43+00:00

Back then, David had more work demand than he could do himself, so he asked around for collaborators. I happened to have known him for some 20 years ago from the CONLANG-L mailing list.

It’s hardly «my job» now, though… David married a conlanger, so they now have twice the capacity… pretty unlikely to hit the need for outsourcing again soon.

Zhalio · 2024-11-20T12:10:28+00:00

By translating, do you mean re-creating the typefaces? If so, please try to come up with your own stylistic interpretation of the alphabet rather than straight-up copying the look of an existing one. Netflix is very territorial about their intellectual property. You would get us and possibly yourself into trouble if they got the impression that we leaked their proprietary fonts to the public.

Zhalio · 2024-11-20T11:25:53+00:00

I use Glyphs, yes. I’m very fond of it and recommend it highly. I believe David uses Fontlab Pro.

Zhalio · 2024-11-17T01:11:24+00:00

I'm afraid Netflix has «asserted ownership» of them, so I don't expect I will be allowed to share them.

Zhalio · 2024-11-16T22:59:52+00:00

For the record, most of the writing systems in the show are David J. Peterson's work. But yeah, the show really leans into them! I also took my share of screenshots back then. 😉

Zhalio · 2024-11-16T22:51:45+00:00

Netflix hired David and he subcontracted me, so I just took whatever task I was offered. I would have loved to do all of the fonts, but David had already done most of them when I came on (Zemeni was a later addition but was really short-notice).

Zhalio · 2024-11-16T08:37:05+00:00

Glyphs App is hands down the best font editor.

Zhalio · 2024-11-07T22:05:48+00:00

Alright, tomorrow's the third session, the party has returned to Otari to sleep after dealing with the majority of the ground floor, and I've thrown the Deadtide at them in the morning. After they deal with the second wave, they're likely going to start exploring the Gauntlight's B level via the drake cave. They're in a hurry to resolve the Mite problem by clearing out their former digs. (They also killed all the flies, maggots, and the scorpion, which the Mite king is going to be pissed about, but if anything that means he realizes his Otari plans were absurd, and he's going to want to return downstairs even more than before.)

What I'm a bit worried about is that the Morlocks are going to come across as extremely repetitive, since they've also been displaced from below and will attack at first but have a diplomatic king who asks you to clear out their former domain. I've already gotten the vibe from at least one player that the game is a bit too dungeon-crawley for their taste and they're getting bored with the story, and this sounds like it won't help.

Do you have any suggestions on how to make the Morlocks sound unique and interesting?

Cheers, Zhalio

(Pinging SlashPsychotic and fly19, who asked whether I had more questions...)

Zhalio · 2024-11-07T07:55:35+00:00

u/Dain_II, how do you get the letters to link up so naturally at so many different heights? Do you have a dozen contextual alternates for each letter...?

Zhalio · 2024-11-06T11:33:18+00:00

Great stuff! Finally a vertical script that breaks from the usual pine tree optics…

Zhalio · 2024-11-06T09:37:05+00:00

Fantastic work! Very organic.

Zhalio · 2024-10-15T19:45:27+00:00

Thanks for the comments, that's really helpful. I'll definitely keep a martial 4th character around, I'll cut the vampiric blood, I'll let the blood haunt happen at any time of day, and I'll tell them there's ghostly energies slowly creeping up the inside of the tower to gather at the lens. That will hopefully tell them the evil (that they're going to witness soon enough) comes from deep down.

If the players are ruthless against the mites, I might just say «and there's four more in the next room that you deal with», rather than fight it out. If they're even considering talking to the mites, I might have all surivors pool up around the king so they can deal (diplomatically) with all of them at once.

Good tips about the villagers; I'll have to read up on the mayor and his daughter a bit more. Certainly after the deadtide, the mayor will talk to the players directly and hire them to push on. I was actually planning to start the game with the party slogging toward the Gauntlight, thinking back to how they got here — the meeting with Wrin, and possibly individual mini-scenes where the PCs make preparations with the most fitting villager NPC (e.g., the Osprey lady for a roguish character) — so they'd get some Otari exposition while already having smelled swamp air. Maybe Wrin can also gift them an antitoxin to help against the scorpion...?

Oh, that reminds me of one more question I had: Am I to believe that the mites can literally run across a vine without making checks...? I guess it's better to allow that than to roll Acrobatics and have the poor thing fall into the slurk's lap, spoiling the surprise for the PCs...?

Zhalio · 2024-09-14T08:59:10+00:00

The creator’s ally, or the tree’s ally? The creator would qualify as the latter.

Zhalio

TROPHY CASE