The fictional D'ni numeral system that players must deduce in Riven is a base-25 positional system, with the twist that its 25 digits are constructed using an unrelated base-5 scheme in which the would-be fives place is orthogonally overlaid to form a single glyph:
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | |||||
| 5 | |||||
| 10 | |||||
| 15 | |||||
| 20 |
The number 241, for example, is written as , i.e. 9 in the twenty-fives place and 16 in the ones place:
25¹
+ 25⁰
25¹(5¹
+ 5⁰
) + 25⁰(5¹
+ 5⁰
)
25¹(5¹1 + 5⁰4) + 25⁰(5¹3 + 5⁰1)
241
Given the amount of symmetry in the notation I thought it would be fun to generate these procedurally. The following registers a custom HTML element that renders as an inline D'ni numeral:
Using it is as simple as:
This opens the door to such fun things as a D'ni numeral clock—
—or an interactive converter:
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