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[schnobs]

These are remains of what I learned in school, checked with the wikipedia. Forgive me if it's euro-centric. Btw, german wikipedia generally has much more detailed sections on historical methods, at least in the Ink, Paper and related articles.

Oldey-timey writing materials were papyrus and similar material (where suitable plants grew: papyros in the mediterranean, but bamboo also worked; even the Maya had something). Where they lacked suitable plants, they still had parchment (basically thin leather). Papyros was expensive, parchment even more so.

Paper was invented in the far east and reached europe in the 14th, 15th century.  Many fibrous plants were used, but a large part of it already had to be fabric -- the demand for rags (worn clothes) is mentioned dozens of times throughout the article.

Wood paper didn't come up until 1850. Although the demand for paper had long since outgrown the supply of rags, attempts to come up with recipes that would require no or considerably fewer rags were not convincing. It required some chemical breakthroughs to make wood paper possible.

Of all these, the concept of rag paper appeals most to me. It's industrialized enough to fit into the game, it's reasonably period, and it could serve as a means to rid yourself of the abundance of rags that clutter many a fortress.

As to ink, far and away the most easily available source was soot (if that's the right word: I mean the black stuff that remains in chimneys).

[Entropy]

I think metal would be most appropriate - seems to me there were metal scrolls...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_scroll

[Goodgame]

Good ideas, especially about bringing adventures and quests to Dwarf mode.

[Solara]

quote:Originally posted by schnobs:
<STRONG>
Of all these, the concept of rag paper appeals most to me. It's industrialized enough to fit into the game, it's reasonably period, and it could serve as a means to rid yourself of the abundance of rags that clutter many a fortress.

As to ink, far and away the most easily available source was soot (if that's the right word: I mean the black stuff that remains in chimneys).</STRONG>

Sounds good to me. Finally a use for all those narrow clothing items that clutter up the place, and it wouldn't hurt to have more uses for wood ash.

[Captain_Action]

Why not stone tablets?

[Aquillion]

Dwarves could also write how-to books for some skills, such as alchemy, cave-farming, metalworking, and so forth...  occasionally a high-level dwarf in a skill might decide to write a book on that skill, sorta like an artifact.  The better the dwarf writing the book (and their writing skill), the better the resulting book is.  Then scribes could copy it.

Having skill books in your library would help your children learn, assuming you have dwarves assigned to work as scribes or teachers or something.  Adult dwarves could also occasionally stop by to consult books on skills they're using, granting them small bonuses and helping them learn a bit faster.  Adventurers who have a book on a skill and consult it every so often would get the same bonuses...  naturally, all this would work only as long as your skill is less than the information in the book.

So eventually a fortress could become a repository of knowledge on mining or metalworking or whatever, rather than just a place where one dwarf happens to be good at it.

Hmm...  I wonder, maybe dwarves could even engrave the secrets of their skills on the walls themselves sometimes.  Not so useful to an adventurer, but adds to the fortress' reclaim value.

[Xeirxes]

And, of course, again, there would always be the cool possibility of quests being made in a library. Imagine if goblins held a successful raid on the fortress, killed many dwarves and ran off with some loot, and there was a named goblin after the event. This might be recorded in a book, and then if someday wandering adventurers ever start coming to your fortresses, you could give them a quest to maybe bring back the goblin's head or whatever. Just some fun things to flesh out the world.

[4bh0r53n]

If a dwarf writes a book, there should be a chance that he will write another book a couple of months later. If he writes enough books, he will become a noble (something along the lines of Author) then he will continue writing more books/ copies (until this point there might only be one of each book) Therefore being able to trade them. This would be useful as it provides a valuable trade resource but the dwarf would not then do his original profession. HE could also hold 'seminars' or something else like that which give all dwarves that attend a certain amount of exp in that skill.

[Gauteamus]

This raises the question of literacy among the common dwarves. Do the dwarves have an alphabet at all? Do some groups, social or occupational, know the Wyzzardry of Wryting while others don't?
Maybe a legendary crafter in the mood of creating the Work of Reference of his art would need some other dwarf to actually do the writing.
When specific stockpiles were introduced, it was my theory that dwarves only at that very point in world(#3) history mastered the use of alphabet - so they could communicate the content of a storehouse beyond simple symbols.
I may have been wrong here, though, dwarves being into high literature (Wuthering Depths anyone) all along.

[Entropy]

I'm liking the idea of highly skilled (maybe just legendary) dwarfs writing instructional books.

Perhaps the best idea would be to have a 'scribe' noble that shows up when a library is built.  He then sits down and interviews a highly skilled dwarf and writes a book about their experiences.  This book can then be read by a dwarf to improve whatever skill was written about.

The level of improvement would be based upon the quality of the book, which is set by some combination of the skill level of the skilled dwarf in that skill, the scribe's writing skill, and a little bit by the quality of the blank scroll.

Perhaps a writing desk could work as a workshop so you can set the orders and commission a book - choose which skill you want written about (dwarf with highest skill level will be chosen for interview) and which scroll to inscribe.

[Goodgame]

I would imagine the Dwarven script is runic, and not a true alphabet, so it's probably not awesome for for regular discussion, but more like Ancient Egyptian, for recording major events.

Not that books can't be written.

If it were anti-alphabetic, then training skills via reading would be hard. I.e. Self-help would be hard.

But no reason not to have active schools for transmitting skill knowledge (another building class of course, The School). And books might be used up in the daily operation.

[herrbdog]

actually, runes are a phonetic alphabet. reading/writing runes is actually easy. yes, I am an uber geek, i can read and write germanic runes, celtic runes, and tolkiens "dwarven" (based on the germanic) runes, and the "feanorian" - the elvish writing. they are all phonetic alphabets.

egyptian hieroglyphs are actually phonetic as well. the ancient language survives today as Coptic, used by the Coptic Christian Church. there were two forms of heiroglyphs, one used for common everyday writing, and one more picturesque which was SORT OF pictographic but still essentially phonetic.

chinese, korean, japanese, etc. use pictographic "alphabets" - their characters, which can use thousands of characters for a language, unlike the phonetic alphabets, which use a limited amount of characters based on sound to produce a wide range of words.

um... so i think i am saying runic wouldn't be hard to read at all.

edit: the reason runes were very angular in shape was becuase at the time they were developed their writing surfaces were typically stone, and sharp angles are easy to carve, unlike the common roundness of our roman alphabet.

[ March 14, 2007: Message edited by: herrbdog ]

[MoonCabbage]

a bookshelf should behave like a statue where dwarves natually congregate around them. They should also behave much like bedrooms where noise should be a factor. The librarian should also be able to collect late fees in the form of daily beatings for overdue books.

[Grek]

What if children are brought to the library by the writer or a library noble and taught things from the books you have. That way the little buggers will grow up to become craftsdwarfs meatalsmiths and masons instead of just growers and peasants.

[Chthon]

quote:Originally posted by herrbdog:
<STRONG>chinese, korean, japanese, etc. use pictographic "alphabets" - their characters, which can use thousands of characters for a language, unlike the phonetic alphabets, which use a limited amount of characters based on sound to produce a wide range of words.</STRONG>

Actually the main Japanese alphabet is not pictographic, it is only phoenetic.  They simply use a portion of the Chinese alphabet to hold to their roots/shorten their writing.  The amount they use it has actually diminished over the years and they may move away altogether at some undefined point as it's possible to replace any Kanji character with  Kana characters.

Korean however is not pictographic in the slightest.  They used to use Chinese, but after developing their own alphabet, they don't use Chinese any more.  Their letters are actually made of 2 or 3 parts, the positions determine the order of the sounds, and the parts determine what sounds are made.

From what I understand, Chinese may be one of the last, if not the last, spoken language that is solely pictographic.