Dethek

A dwarven runestone, stating "This place is Dhurri's Bridge. Here 42 of the best warriors of the House of Helmung fell, to keep orcs from the Halls. We slew 608. [Day] 218, [year since the founding of the House] 377. Nain, warrior of the House of Helmung"
Dethek
Basic Information
Type	Writing script

Dethek was the name of a runic script used by the Dwarvish language, as well as some human languages, and by the giant, ogre, orc, gnome, goblin, and terran languages. It consisted of letters, numerals and symbols for common words or phrases.

"Dethek" was also sometimes used to refer to the Dwarvish language as a whole.

History

Dethek runes dated to back to the beginning of recorded history in Faerûn, but it was only one of a number of different runic scripts in use over the centuries, including individual clan codes. Dethek survived to become the most well known and commonly used runic script by the 14th century DR. The others became "dead tongues" and were little used at that time.

Strong links between the gold dwarves of the Great Rift and the early people of Unther led to the Untheric language used Dethek runes.

The Siremun dwarves of the Firepeaks taught Dethek runes to the Raumviran people for the Raumvira language.

The Damaran language used Dethek runes as a result of cooperation between the people of Impiltur and the dwarves of the Earthfast Mountains early in their history.

Speakers of the Shaaran tongue picked up Dethek runes from gold dwarf traders from the Great Rift.

Application

Dwarf-written Dethek runes were preferably carved into durable stone, and less often into metal, and rarely written on paper or cloth due to the short life and fragile nature of such materials. Dwarven runes were usually carved or scraped into the stone walls of a building or cave; on a cairn, pillar, or standing stone, or inscribed or stamped on metal surfaces such as a weapon. Particular forms of dwarven writing were books of bound metal sheets or on stone tablets called runestones.

The simplicity of Dethek runes and their straight lines made carving them into stone simple. Despite this, runes inscribed on runestones were typically written in a spiral-form, from outside in.

Alphabet

The Dethek runic alphabet consisted of 24 characters. The sounds "w", "x", and "z" were represented by the same character. This might have been confusing for humans trying to translate into Common. It was not an issue for native Dethek users, as few words in those languages had these letters.

Numerals

The Dethek method of counting used a collection of straight lines, joined together to create a number. This means that each number appeared as a single character. The characters for 1 and 5 were combined in various logical ways to create the numbers 1 to 9:

The characters for 1, 5, and 10 were combined to created numbers up to 20:

Numbers from 20 to 99 could be created using logical combinations of the 1, 5, and 10 symbols:

To make 100, simply invert a 10 on top of itself (10×10=100). The rest of the hundreds could be created using combinations of previous symbols:

To make 1000, flip a 10 symbol on its side in front of 100 (10×10×10=1000):

Symbols

Clans and tribes and some of the most common words, races, or phrases had their own symbols. These were useful for sign-posting or creating runestones.

Each of the main races in Faerûn had a collective symbol assigned to it. The symbol applied to both singular and plural, leaving the reader to work it out from context:

Other symbols were used for tracking and signposting. These were hieroglyphics based on commonly understood concepts: a foot to mark a safe trail, an inverted helm or drinking horn to indicate fresh water, and so on:

Others were "Marthammor Marks", after the dwarven god Marthammor Duin, the Finder-of-Trails.

Punctuation

Dethek was extremely lacking in punctuation. This was probably due to the fact that dwarves rarely recorded anything more than simple instructions, warnings, or spells.

The first letters of nouns and words that began sentences could be capitalized. This was achieved with a simple horizontal accent over the letter:

Words were generally separated by spaces. To end sentences, the most common method was a large line or slash across the line.

To emphasize or show contrast against the writing surface, the runes could be painted. Names of people, races, and locations were highlighted in red, while the rest of the text was painted black or left unadorned.

Any numbers enclosed in boxes were dates, written as day followed by year.

Example

This example shows Dethek letters, symbols, and punctuation:

This piece of text shows how written stories using the collective symbols can be misinterpreted:

Depending on how one wanted to tell the story, this passage could be read in two ways:

1. Durlag slew the dragon with ease.
2. Durlag slew the dragons with ease.

One of these accounts is more flattering to Durlag. The events would probably be exaggerated wherever possible for storytelling purposes.

Users

The following languages commonly used Dethek writing for their written forms:

• Dwarvish
• Giant
• Orc
• Gnome
• Goblin
• Terran
• Damaran
• Shaaran
• Tashalan
• Untheric
• Raumvira