Tychogrammic (from Greek τυχη, tykhē, “fortune, chance”, + γραμμα, gramma, “symbol, letter”) is a script used in The City of Dice. It is based on random combinations of twelve hooks turning on a shared center:
Reading the second line of images above from left to right, one can see first the six lefthand hooks, then their six righthand equivalents. Here are examples of how the hooks can be combined to create tychograms, or letters of the Tychogrammic alphabet:
Each pair of hooks, a lefthand and a righthand, is assigned to one of six slots in a tychogram. To create a tychogram, one rolls a hexahedral die to determine how many slots are filled of the six available. Suppose the die rolls three. One then rolls it twice for each of the three slots it has assigned to the letter. The first half of these double-rolls is a slot-roll, the second a hook-roll. The slot-roll determines which slot of the six is filled, the hook-roll determines which hook or hooks are placed in it. If the hook-roll is one or two, then one uses a lefthand hook; if three or four, a righthand hook; if five or six, both hooks at once. Here is the creation of a tychogram by these aleatory principles:
Initial roll: 3 (fill three slots in total)First slot-roll: 2 (fill slot #2)
First hook-roll: 1 (use lefthand hook)
Second slot-roll: 5 (fill slot #5)
Second hook-roll: 3 (use righthand hook)
(=
Third slot-roll: 2 (repeat roll if identical to a previous roll); 4 (fill slot #4)
Third hook-roll: 1 (use lefthand hook)
(=
The Tychobet, or full Tychogrammic alphabet, has thirty-six (62) characters, assigned to the following sounds:
p, b, m, f, v, mh*, t, d, n, th, dh, nh, c†, g, ng, ch‡, gh, ngh, k, G, Ng, kh, Gh, Ngh, l, r, lh, rh**, L††, R, Lh, Rh, s, z, h, ’‡‡* Voiceless nasal.
† Palatal.
‡ Palatal fricative.
** Voiceless liquid.
†† Uvular.
‡‡ “Empty” consonant — see below.
If during creation of a Tychobet the form of a character proves identical to that of an earlier character, the process is simply repeated until the form differs (except for Tychobets created for certain mystical or ritual purposes, where identical characters are acceptable). Here is a Tychobet generated at random according to the rules above (reload the page or click here to create a new one):
When a Tychobet has been created to write a text, the text itself always begins with a formulaic pangram, or sentence containing all letters of the alphabet, to enable its readers to establish which letter-forms are assigned to which sounds. The text may not be easy to read thereafter, however, for it may employ sound-exchange or hook-exchange. In letter-exchange, two adjacent letters exchange phonetic values for the future when, having written them down, the scribe throws a certain value on his die. Sound-exchange leaves the form of each letter unaltered, but is marked by a sub- or superscript symbol. In hook-exchange, two adjacent letters exchange hooks at random according to rules of varying complexity, creating a new form for each. It is marked by further sub- or superscript symbols. Especially complicated texts may employ both sound- and hook-exchange. For these exchanges to work, words must contain an even number of letters, which is why Tychogrammic has an “empty” letter, the thirty-sixth, to add to the end of words with an odd number of letters.