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[Insert_Gnome_Here]

I'm perfectly happy with ASCII, but the default's a bit ugly, IMHO. 
I'm thinking of making an ASCII tileset in Carolingian Minuscule, as used in the dark ages. 
Would anybody be interested in using such a set? 

Also, how do you make a calligraphic 16*16 sprite look pretty? 
 
EDIT: fixed mistake relating to my xS keyx.

[PopTart]

Do it!

I would have done it myself, but didn't think I could improve on Duerer. So I made a tileset based on Georgia bold. Georgia bold is also what I use in Angband, for what that's worth.

Anyway, I think the time has come for a new 16x16 calligraphic font!

[PopTart]

I refreshed my memory of what Carolingian minuscule looks like... There's definitely no DF tileset like it yet!

Seems like it'll be challenging to make the characters all look clear and distinguishable from each other.

[CLA]

Mifki made a web application that converts a font into a DF tileset (I don't have a link handy, but you probably find it if you go back a few pages in the utilities subforum). If you're lucky, you can find an existing font based on Carolingian Minuscule and have your tileset created automatically. It won't have all symbols ready to use, but it will probably save you a lot of time.
I'm a big fan of the Duerer tileset, so I can see myself using something similarly styled.

Also, how do you make a calligraphic 16*16 sprite look pretty?

Manually, with lots of trial and error. Main question will be how much anti-aliasing you want in your font and how much looks good.

[Taffer]

It's not Carolingian Minuscule, but you might be interested in my Blackletter sets. I abandoned them mostly because I could never get the 20x20 variants looking good. (Wish I could just drop the 20x20 sets without upsetting people).

Thanks for the motivation to dust them off and polish them up a little!

[jecowa]

Making square fixed-width fonts is kind of challenging. Square tiles give you very limited vertical space while also giving you too much horizontal space. It might help to look at the designs of other square tilesets with old-looking fonts to see how they handle this stuff:

Spoiler: Storyteller Gothic 16x16 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Obsidian 16x16 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Duerer 15x15 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Taffer Blackletter 10x10 (click to show/hide)

To fit in the short vertical space, a common theme in these is using shortened descenders (the part below the baseline). Duerer almost truncates some of its descenders to make them fit.

You can see two strategies for handling the wide width of the square tiles. Storyteller Gothic and Taffer Blackletter add some extra space between the letters to allow the letters to maintain a more normal aspect ratio. Obsidian and Duerer change the aspect ratios of the letters a bit to help them fill the horizontal space.

If you want your tileset to be good for reading, it might be better to use a non-square tile shape. An aspect ratio between 1:1.33 (such as 15x20) and 1:1.6 (such as 15x24) might be a pretty good shape. The aspect ratio of 1:1.5 (e.g. 16x24) is very common for non-square tilesets.

If you're interested in any of the tilesets above, here's the links to their forum pages (and download links where needed):

• Storyteller Gothic 16x16
• Obsidian 16x16 (Obsidian latest version Download page)
• Duerer 15x15
• Taffer Blackletter 10x10 (Taffer with Blackletter option Download link)

[Rose]

Do it.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

It's nice to see that so much cool stuff has already been done. 
Might have to set up some directory of calligraphic tilesets, since the wiki and forum search had returned almost no information.