How do aquatic races write underwater

dungeons-and-dragonsforgotten-realmslanguagesloreunderwater

There are lots of situations where underwater races will want to send messages to each other, write in spell books, create maps, etc.

Are there any examples out there in D&D lore (any edition, any canonical setting, Forgotten Realms preferred) of aquatic writing?

Best Answer

Eberron's Aquatic Species

The sahuagin, merfolk, and sea elves of Eberron all have sophisticated cultures. The descriptions often imply the existence of writing, but it is not often explicitly stated nor desribed.

Engraving

Sahuagin and sea elves in Eberron use engravings. Descriptions in Ghosts of Saltmarsh describe some in Sahuagin structures:

page 127:

Glowing symbols and strange designs are engraved into the walls of this place

page 130:

One side of the medallion carries an engraving of a shark. The other side's engraving depicts a dozen tridents offset in a circle to form the shape of a star. This symbol is the baron's personal seal

Exploring Eberron (p.198) has references to engravings used by sea elves:

... connected by rune-lines—glowing patterns engraved in the sea-bed

Existence of Aquatic Archives

In Exploring Eberron, there is description of the inhabitants of the Thunder Sea. A tangential reference to the existence of written records is the undersea city Hal'daan which includes in it's description:

This city also holds the bureaucratic archives of the Dominion.

Magewrights and Korlass

Likely candidates, but not explicitly referenced as such, for creating written or symbolic representations of messages are fabricate and korlass. As detailed in Exploring Eberron on page 194:

[sahuagin] magewrights can cast fabricate as a ritual, shaping raw materials into their desired form through magic.

[sahuagin] also uses a substance called korlass (dreamstone), formed from dreamer biomass, as an industrial material; it can be sculpted like clay, then fixed in its shape by a magewright ritual.

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