ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ (Futhorc)

The grave is horrible to every knight,
when the corpse quickly begins to cool
and is laid in the bosom of the dark earth.
Prosperity declines, happiness passes away
and covenants are broken. from the Old English rune poem, which while written in Latin introduces the runic letters¹

Futhorc is a runic² script used by the Saxons - very similar³ to the more famous Elder Futhark. It’s most often carved into bone, wood or stone.

While many of the tribes closest to the old Roman world know and use some Latin even for their own languages, the use of this ancestral script is still common, especially for mystical purposes or prestige purposes. In further regions or more traditionalist groups it may be even more common.

Even before the Saxons arrived in numbers with the likes of Hengest and Horsa, these runes were at least passingly familiar on the islands from trade and cultural transmission across the North Sea - and now they’re one of the most common scripts on the island.

Footnotes

1. Specifically each stanza is a riddle about one of the runes, or letters. ↩

2. Runic alphabets evolved from the same early Mediterranean scripts that developed Greek, Latin etc. but are a distinct family that developed in Northern Europe with common features, often with notable simple lines and angles (useful for carving into surfaces rather than writing with ink) and ideographic meaning. ↩

3. Close enough that in this game we’re not covering the split between the continental and northern variants and the ones the Saxons use. Those will become more distinct with the even more famous Younger Futhark but there’s always some blending and similarities and at this stage of time (and with the focus of this game) it’s not consequential. ↩