D&D Name and Language Generator

This package is a fantasy language generator. By defining a number of characteristics about your imagined language -- the graphemes, their relative frequency distributions, the construction of syllables, and so on -- you can generate random but internally consistent gibberish that feels distinct, evocative, and appropriate to your setting.

Usage

The fanlang command-line utility supports three commands:

• names: generate names
• text: generate a paragraph of text
• list: list the supported language in the current language pack

Examples:

% fanlang --language=dwarvish names --count 5
Tiny Châ Pothesadottyr
Khâkhu Zhûdothir
Quiet Ke Vêdothir
Cû Tozhon
Big Pâ Thadottyr

% fanlang --language=dwarvish text
Cû ne do tho khâ tasha, vê wûva lû, ku phu thâ thê, tûko kê, pevo kâ têtetv zha 
pataso keks khate? Fâ zhû shû yf pho pa me. Dupha dê thê khâ! Shikm tu! Cê 
sâdêto. Dê yo nâ topho, my sû pida phe, vi phûtw châcho, po sotê?

% fanlang list
Abyssal                                                                         
Celestial                                                                       
Common                                                                          
Draconic                                                                        
Dwarvish                                                                        
Elvish                                                                          
Gnomish                                                                         
Halfling                                                                        
Infernal                                                                        
Lizardfolk                                                                      
Orcish                                                                          
Undercommon

Language Packs

A Language Pack is a python package that defines one or more language modules. The default language pack includes a number of D&D languages with rules built according to the conventions established by my D&D group over several years of play in our homebrew setting.

The default language pack is language.languages; each submodule contains a README that describes the basic characteristics of the language, along with examples.

Using Your Own Language Pack

You can override fanlang's default language pack by specifying the FANLANG_LANGUAGE_PACK environment variable:

# Create your ancient_elvish module in campaign/language_pack/ancient_elvish
% FANLANG_LANGUAGE_PACK=campaign.language_pack fanlang list
Ancient Elvish

Setting the Default Language

'common' is the default language module. You can override this by setting the FANLANG_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE environment variable:

% FANLANG_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=gnomish fanlang names --count=1
Jey Lea

You can read about creating custom language packs below.

Library Quick Start

You can load all supported languages in a language pack using language.load_langauge_pack():

>>> import language
>>> language_pack, supported_languages = language.load_language_pack()
>>> common = supported_languages['common']
>>> common.word(2)
['apsoo', 'nirtoet']
>>> common.text()
Proitsiiiy be itkif eesof detytaen. Ojaot tyskuaz apsoo nirtoet prenao.
>>> commoner = f"{common.Name}"
"Quiet" Gushi Murk Lirpusome
>>> common.Name.name()
{
    name: ['Gushi', 'Murk'],
    surname: ['Lirpusome'],
    adjective: ["Quiet"],
}

You can also load individual languages directly:

>>> from language.languages import common
>>> common.Language.word(2)
['apsoo', 'nirtoet']
>>> str(common.Name)
"Quiet" Gushi Murk Lirpusome

Defining a New Language Pack

Language packs are python packages with the following structure:

language_pack:
  __init__.py
  language_name:
    __init__.py
    base.py
    names.py
    rules.py
  ...

Languge Modules

A language consists of several submodules:

• base.py, which contains grapheme definitions and the Language subclasses;
• names.py, which defines the NameGenerator subclasses; and
• rules.py, which is optional, and defines the rules all words in the language must follow.

Language Construction

Let's look at a simple example, the Gnomish language. Here's the Language subclass that would be defined in base.py:

from language import defaults, types
from .rules import rules

consonants = types.WeightedSet(
    ("b", 0.5), ("d", 0.5), ("f", 0.3), ("g", 0.3),
    ("h", 0.5), ("j", 0.2), ("l", 1.0), ("m", 0.5),
    ("n", 1.0), ("p", 0.5), ("r", 1.0), ("s", 1.0),
    ("t", 1.0), ("v", 0.3), ("w", 0.2), ("z", 0.1),
)

suffixes = types.equal_weights(["a", "e", "i", "o", "y"], 1.0, blank=False)


Language = types.Language(
    name="gnomish",
    vowels=defaults.vowels,
    consonants=consonants,
    prefixes=None,
    suffixes=suffixes,
    syllables=types.SyllableSet(
        (types.Syllable(template="consonant,vowel,vowel"), 1.0),
        (types.Syllable(template="consonant,vowel"), 0.33),
    ),
    rules=rules,
    minimum_grapheme_count=2,
)

Defining Graphemes

A Language definition includes graphemes, the basic building blocks of any language. We start with vowels, consonants, which are required in every language; Gnomish also includes suffixes, but no prefixes. Each grapheme is a WeightedSet, which is like a regular set except its members consist of a tuple of a string and a relative weight from 0.0 to 1.0. These weights will be used when selecting a random grapheme.

Gnomish uses the default vowels, defined in the language.defaults submodule, but define our consonants with a subset of English consonants. By experimenting with different sets and different weights, you can generate radically different feeling text output!

Gnomish also uses suffixes, which are graphemes added to the ends of words. Here we use the helper function types.equal_weights(), which returns a WeightedSet where each member is given the same weight. Normally this function also inserts the grapheme ("", 1.0) into the set, but we disable this behaviour by specifying blank=False.

Defining Syllables

A syllable is a collection of graphemes, including at least one vowel. When we create words, we select a random syllable template from a SyllableSet, which is just a WeightedSet whose members are Syllable instances. Each Syllable declares a template, and like graphemes, has a weight associated with it that will make it more or less likely to be chosen for a word.

A syllable's template consists of a comma-separated string of grapheme names. In Gnomish, we have two possible syllable templates, consonant,vowel,vowel and the shorter consonant,vowel, which will be selected one third as often.

Templates can also support randomly-selected graphemes by joining two or more grapheme types with a vertical bar, for example vowel|consonant would choose one or the other; vowel|consonant,vowel would result in a vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel.

How Words Are Constructed:

The main interface for callers is word(), which returns a randomly-generated word in the language according to the following algorithm:

1. Choose a random syllable from the syllable set
2. For each grapheme in the syllable 3. Choose a random grapheme template 4. Choose a random sequence from the language for that grapheme 5. Validate the word against the language rules
3. Repeat 1-5 until a valid word is generated
4. Add a prefix and suffix, if they are defined

When graphemes are chosen, the following rules are applied:

• Every syllable must have at least one vowel; and
• A syllable may never have three consecutive consonants.