Tomb Writings
by Diane

The following passages were written on the exterior walls of a group of pyramids located near Melaine's lands. Naturally, they came complete with cursed tombs. Windsor robbed one of them and almost died because of it.

Dave took the hieroglyphs from a pre-packaged module. Some of them were correct ('bones', 'this house') but most were not. So I get to be a pointy-headed linguist geek and do my own translation.

(Note that none of the party actually knows what the glyphs said -- but since we're now miles away, it's not going to matter much.)

Diane's minimalist guide to Egyptian hieroglyphs:

1. They're called hieroglyphs, not hieroglyphics. "Hieroglyphic" is an adjective; you can say "hieroglyphic writing", if you like.
2. Hieroglyphs can be written right to left or left to right, although right to left is preferred. You can tell the direction by looking at the heads of animals and humans -- they always face towards the beginning of the writing. All of the following passages are written right to left.
3. There are no spaces or punctuation between words and sentences. Glyphs are arranged so they look good, not along sentence or word borders. Sometimes they're even rearranged within a word. (And you thought medieval spelling was wonky.)
4. This is a sparrow:
   The Egyptians didn't like sparrows very much. Sparrows are used at the end of many negative words (evil, bad, poor, wicked, sadness). Nothing good comes from sparrows.
5. If you think my glyphs look bad, you should see the ones from Egypt's 26th Dynasty...

i nDty aA xwi pn pr
Mighty bodyguard protect this house.

m aq pn pr Dwt
Enter not this house of sorrow.

dn rHw Htpt r-HAt sf
Peace men killed before yesterday.

swxAy Dw kkw m-Xnw pr qs
Evil decay and darkness within house of bones.

nrw aA Xr tA Snt Hr-k Dt
Mighty terror under earth. Curse be on your forever!