This is a repository of references for as many runes, symbols, and other writing as can be collected from The Dragon Prince and its supplemental materials. The intent is not to update very often unless new material is released, but please submit your own examples or requests!
TDP does not use a fantasy conlang alphabet, nor is linguistics (beyond ASL translation) a factor in designing the filler writing and decorative symbols used throughout the setting. However, because I am personally insane, I wanted a way to check if the various styles of glyphs could be grouped in any meaningful way. Which meant collecting and organizing every possible instance of writing in the entire show. So here we are.
By Appearance:
book one: moon, book two: sky, book three: sun, book four: earth, book five: ocean, book six: stars, book seven: dark, credits sketch
tales of xadia, through the moon, bloodmoon huntress, puzzle house, dreamer's nightmare, callum's spellbook, tdp: xadia
concept art
By Identified Family:
primal rune, sunforge runes, handwriting
By Culture:
human kingdoms, xadia, moonshadow elves, skywing elves, sunfire elves, earthblood elves, tidebound elves, startouch elves, order of the blood moon, celestial elves, draconic
moon nexus, sky nexus, sun nexus, earth nexus, ocean nexus, star nexus
By Primal Source:
primal sources, moon primal, sky primal, sun primal, earth primal, ocean primal, star primal
I never did anything on these before because honestly Danish, Italian, and Arabic are not what this blog is for, and I was not in the fandom when they were being discovered/translated (nor do I speak any of those languages) so I figured there was nothing to add.
I did not take into account the absolutely disgraceful state of the wiki, however. The section with the translations has been protected from editing and I'm not interested enough to challenge that, but I do want a record of all the squinting I did to expand and verify the tiny text in these terrible-resolution images. Especially since I know for a fact that I've done the "found"/"truncated" dance before.
I did actually check that I hadn't previously edited the page and was the reason for the editing block, but that has been in place since 2023. So it would have been funny, but no.
The Midnight Star Poem
Thankfully, this one has an official translation. The fan translations I've seen were all pretty dire, presumably because poetry is extra hard... but I definitely could not do it any better (or at all).
As far as I can tell, the page as depicted in the artbook does show the same text as the version posted on the official site with Aaravos's character reveal, but it has been reordered to put the appearance of "Aaravos" in what is otherwise the second-to-last stanza closer to the middle of the page. For the sake of completeness, comparing the in-show version with the isolated official Arabic shows the same kind of rearrangement:
Comparing with the artbook image, I'm willing to declare that they're the same, and the artbook image is most likely intended to convey the Midnight Star poem as presented in the official translation, despite the order being altered for cinematic aesthetics. Note that they also include the fourth stanza ("Elarion, unworthy whelp...") twice, presumably to pad out the length.
I'd be willing to entertain the idea that the reordering is somehow significant, except for the fact that they left the title in its same position relative to the rest of the text, i.e. right in the middle. (And, y'know... the general total disregard for book pages.)
Library Book Page
The wiki is missing the second half of the Danish text, presumably because someone was working from what was visible in the series appearance and then just came back later to update with a full translation. I reconstructed the Danish by comparing with a reddit translation and going back and forth with Google Translate to (hopefully) get all the diacritics accurate. The final English translation is also provided by Google Translate.
The one significant dispute I have in terms of what the text actually shows vs. what the redditor used (presumably due to lower image quality) is their "forfrosne og blege" (frostbitten and pale) versus my "forfrossen og bange" (frozen and afraid):
Worth noting, however, is that "forfrossen" does specifically mean "frozen" as in cold. In English, the idiomatic use of "frozen" when placed alongside "afraid" almost completely loses any association with cold, being interpreted as equivalent to "paralyzed." I'm inclined to keep the connotations of coldness in mind when considering interpretation, though depending on exactly what went into creation of this text it could be a holdover from translating an idiomatic English phrase into Danish (and then back).
Danish: Endelig fortalte han mig sit navn. Jeg havde aldrig hørt et navn som hans, men jeg havde heller aldrig forestillet mig en elver som ham. Han er stærkere, ældre og visere end noget andet magisk væsen i Xadia. Alligevel er han en ven for alle mennesker. Hvor andre ser ned på os, kalder os underlegen, ser han stort potentiale i os. Når vi tager imod foræringerne Aaravos har lovet os, skal de betale for deres indbildskhed de vil være tvunget til at se os som ligeværdige. Og når vi er ligeværdige kan vi tage vores skæbne i egne hænder og bygge vores fremtid. Jeg ser det for mig i mine drømme - en storslået, glorværdig by, hele menneskelighedens stolthed. Et sted hvor vi ikke længere vil være nødsaget til at gemme os, forfrossen og bange, for elvernes og dragernes fordomme. Et sted der kan stå imod ethvert overgreb, og stå i menneskelighedens historie for generationer. Det bliver ikke let, men med hjælp fra vores velgører...
English: Finally he told me his name. I had never heard a name like his, but I had never imagined an elf like him either. He is stronger, older, and wiser than any other magical being in Xadia. Yet he is a friend to all men. Where others look down on us, call us inferior, he sees great potential in us. When we accept the gifts Aaravos has promised us, they will pay for their conceit; they will be forced to see us as equals. And when we are equal, we can take our fate into our own hands and build our future. I see it in my dreams - a magnificent, glorious city, the pride of all humanity. A place where we will no longer have to hide, frozen and afraid, from the prejudices of elves and dragons. A place that can stand against any assault, and stand in the history of humanity for generations. It will not be easy, but with the help of our benefactor...
The Artbook-Only Page
The wiki's Italian text is missing a word or two, but is otherwise accurate. However, there are absolutely glaring inaccuracies in the provided translation of the final section, specifically "words mentioning his name have been truncated since the time of the great schism" is absolutely not what that says. It's "texts" (not "words") and "found" (not "truncated").
Unfortunately it makes just enough sense in our context of all mentions of Aaravos's name being obscured that I guess no one questioned it. The original text does not say "truncated" ("troncati") or anything I can discover as being reasonably interpreted that way. So while this would otherwise be some startling evidence for Aaravos having been scrubbed from history as early as the division of the continent... it's not.
Italian: Delle sei Sorgenti Primitive, le stelle sono le più misteriose. Nessun'altra creatura al di fuori degli elfi Toccodistella ha compreso l'arcano delle stelle, e, a differenza delle altre sorgenti primitive, i maghi umani hanno faticato anche solo a esprimerne il concetto a parole. Lo studio delle stelle è reso più difficile dalla scarsità di creature magiche collegate alle stelle. Le uniche creature delle stelle note sono i misteriosi elfi Toccodistella e i rari, affascinanti unicorni. I maghi oscuri hanno cercato di dare la caccia agli unicorni per capire meglio il loro potere, ma la loro magia stellare e la loro subdola astuzia li rende quasi impossibili da cacciare. Per quanto riguarda gli elfi Toccodistella, è rimasta ben poca traccia della loro esistenza nella letteratura Xadian, sembrano evasivi, inscrutabili, distanti dal resto della società elfica. Nessun elfo Toccodistella è mai stato visto da esseri umani - eccetto uno.
Conosciuto con molti nomi nelle storie antiche - la stella caduta, l'ultimo dei grandi, il portatore di doni, ma il suo vero nome era Aaravos.
Testi che menzionano il suo nome sono stati trovti fin dai tempi del Grande Scisma, anche se i racconti sono in disaccordo riguardo il suo ruolo negli eventi storici. Alcuni lo dipingono come una figura benefica, un alleato dell'umanità, disposto a condividere il suo grande potere magico con coloro che ne avevano più bisogno. Altri lo ritraggono come…
English: Of the six Primal Sources, the stars are the most mysterious. No other creature—save for the Star-touch Elves—has ever truly grasped the arcane secrets of the stars; indeed, unlike the other Primal Sources, human mages have struggled even to articulate the very concept in words. The study of the stars is further complicated by the scarcity of magical creatures linked to them. The only known star-aligned creatures are the enigmatic Star-touch Elves and the rare, captivating unicorns. Dark mages have attempted to hunt unicorns in hopes of better understanding their power, yet the creatures' innate star magic and elusive cunning render them nearly impossible to catch. As for the Star-touch Elves themselves, precious few traces of their existence remain in Xadian lore; they appear elusive, inscrutable, and distant from the rest of elven society. No Star-touch Elf has ever been seen by human eyes—save for one.
He is known by many names in ancient tales—the Fallen Star, the Last of the Great Ones, the Gift-Giver—yet his true name was Aaravos.
Texts mentioning his name have been discovered dating back as far as the Great Schism, though the accounts diverge regarding his role in historical events. Some portray him as a benevolent figure—an ally to humanity, willing to share his immense magical power with those who needed it most. Others depict him as…
Claudia's Silver Queen runes are a repeating pattern of six with very slight variations visible (mostly in the form of dot placement). There is surface-level similarity to a few possible sets, but I swear I've seen a couple of these almost exactly before... and yet I can't find them anywhere. (For now. I'm hopeful that if I sleep on it a bit, it will magically come to me.)
I started this post, uh... months ago, and then (believe it or not) kind of lost interest? There's not really a lot to say, unfortunately. It turns out there are three-ish subsets of runes used in the Puzzle House and Kpp'Ar's cane, and while it turns out the overlap between them is small, it does exist. That's about it. Here's a breakdown, though.
The clearest set are the tower runes, because they're very helpfully laid out in Adam Ratcliffe's concept art:
They're included exactly as designed when we see the tower in s7e2:
Then we have Kpp'Ar's cane, which was the main point of comparison I wanted to study. Are the tower runes the same as the cane runes? I ran into two small problems, here: first, it is extremely difficult to get a good look at the cane. Second, the cane's two appearances (s5e2 and s6e6) seem to show exclusively opposite sides of it. I wound up treating their runes as two different subsets as I tried to track whether it was even the same prop model at all. (Jury's still out. It would be weird if it wasn't, but it would also be kind of weird if they just happened to show only two exact opposite angles.)
The cane as seen in s6e6 shares some runes with the tower (green) and introduces some new ones (pink). They are also identifiable in and their relative placement lines up with the end credits art:
The cane as seen in s5e2 appears to share only a single rune with the s6e6 cane, and I'm honestly not very confident in that identification because the relative placement is wrong. In hindsight, I think it's a very similar but ultimately distinct rune. There is, however, a positive identification of another rune from the tower set:
Combining all three sets, there's the house exterior matte painting. The tower runes (green) are faithfully replicated on the near tower, and the far tower incorporates runes from both cane views (s6e6 in pink and s5e2 in cyan). There's also a small set of runes near the door that draw from both the tower and s5e2 cane sets:
Finally, there's the interior, in both its concept art (by Lillian Lai) and finalized appearance. There are runes visible on the rug, but the one in the final screen appearance doesn't match the concept.
You can also see the other reason I did all this work, which was to confirm whether the big "K" crest over the fireplace is a recurring rune or a unique piece of (presumably) heraldry. It's a rune: s5e2 cane rune #2, visible there, here, and in the exterior.
In the interest of exhaustive detail, there are also a couple runes on the floor in the map/dungeon room, but they do not correspond to any others as far as I can tell:
(Nor do any of these correspond to the carousel runes, just in case you were wondering. Or to the runes in Puzzle House, but that part isn't very surprising.)
... is there any better way to sum up the intermingled systems of magic in this setting? Huh.
Anyway, I did a post a while back on primal runes vs. linguistic(?) runes for spellcasting, which prominently featured the Starscraper elevator:
I have personally hated every single thing about this stupid elevator from the first moment we saw it, most of all the design of the runes. The only good thing I have to say about them is that for something we're meant to believe are legible draconic words, they are shaped in a way that makes sense as being easily drawn by the large claws of a generally quadrupedal species. Otherwise, like most of the runes not attached to primal spells, they're just obviously designed for aesthetics—and usually with an intention of repetitive aesthetic filler—over any consideration for how written language actually looks or works.
This is actually not something that torments me, in the sense that I don't think about it so often that it floats into my consciousness unbidden at every opportunity. I think I had just looked at it enough while doing that post for it to gain a foothold... such that, while looking for something completely unrelated, I cracked the secret of the draconic elevator runes.
Behold: the Temple of the Blood Moon, and its rune-encrusted pillars!
Yes, really. Now if we do a little zoom and enhance:
Why... erigo, subrigo, surrigo! Fancy seeing you here!
The draconic runes from the Starscraper elevator are, in fact, drawn from the same repeating pool that fills the background pillars of the Blood Moon temple. It was a bit harder to find orior, ascendo, scando for some reason, but:
There it is... or there scando, orior, ascendo is, I guess, since the order is different. (For what it's worth, resisto appears to be unique, but I also didn't look very hard for it.)
Now, is this recurrence meant to indicate anything, beyond that the production of arc 2 was sometimes thin on resources? Well, it could be taken to reinforce draconic as a shared root language and writing system across Xadia, before distinct cultures developed among primal elves. Then there's the fact that spoken draconic is a language of power attached to the rune spells for all primal sources, so its written form could also hold some similar innate, universal power. In that case, given the ancient roots of both the Blood Moon cult and the Celestial elves, and their mutual ties to what may or may not be deep magic, for them to both feature in both actually makes a suspicious amount of sense. Even the Blood Moon temple being arbitrarily covered in words meaning rise, ascend, etc. isn't totally crazy—the Blood Moon rises, Kim'dael and her kind all seek to elevate their power, possibly even to ascend to a higher form of (immortal) being.
I still think the more likely explanation is "we had spiky runes designed for the temple and decided to use a few for the elevator," but... look, I can't completely rule out the alternative. I have to admit that there might actually be something to this.
