01
The hero
The name in ivory bone on a candlelit crypt wall, with a stone plaque underneath set in small caps.
Horror capitals built from real bones · v1.001
MARROWGRAVEMARROWGRAVEMARROWGRAVEMARROWGRAVEMARROWGRAVE
Marrowgrave is a horror display face for crypts, necromancers and Halloween titles. Each letter is put together from bones: long shafts with knuckled ends, curved ribs for the round letters and seams where one bone crosses another, cracked and pitted a little differently every time.
Type tester
Try it with your own words
All five layers are stacked here in the hero's ivory, with its lit bone and pores. Try ash, moonlit, cursed or blood-soaked bone, switch Effects off for flat layers, or the layers off for Solid. Lowercase keys type small capitals.
24 px
Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀
36 px
Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀
56 px
Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀
88 px
Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀Rise of the Bone King 💀
This preview covers Basic Latin and the bone extras. The full font adds every accented letter.
Features
Made for game interfaces
Horror capitals assembled from bones, with knuckled ends, seams and cracks, in five layers that stack into shaded bone, a one-colour Solid and crypt extras.
01
Five layers of bone
Shadow, Bone, Shade, Highlight and Cracks share every width and kerning pair, so stacked copies line up exactly and the letters come out fully shaded.
02
A one-colour Solid
The whole letter with its cracks and seams cut out, for menus, subtitles and anywhere one colour is enough.
03
Real bone shapes
Straight strokes are long bones with a narrow waist and two knuckles at each end; round letters are curved ribs; crossings are seams where bones overlap.
04
Cracks that don't repeat
Hairline cracks and pores follow their own pattern on every letter, so two Rs in a word still look like two different bones.
05
Capitals & small caps
Capitals on the uppercase keys and small capitals on the lowercase keys, for titles that read like a carved inscription.
06
Bone extras
A skull, skull and crossbones, crossbones, a single bone, rib cage, coffin, urn, candle, RIP headstone, bone dagger, bone dividers and bone arrows.
Built-in icons
Sixteen icons you can type
Each icon is a character in the font. Click one to copy it, then paste it into anything set in Marrowgrave.
Bones
The crypt
Dividers and arrows
Case study
How Marrowgrave was designed
Why I made it
Skeleton lettering is a horror classic, but most bone fonts are a stencil of a bone repeated along every stroke, and after a few letters you can see the copy-paste. I wanted letters that look assembled from an actual ossuary, where no two pieces are quite the same.
I also wanted them to look good in full colour without a painter's afternoon in Photoshop, and to keep that look inside a game engine, where effects are expensive and type has to be recoloured on the fly.
Built like a skeleton
Every straight stroke is a long bone: a shaft that narrows slightly in the middle, like a femur, and a pair of knuckles at each end. Round letters are drawn as curved ribs, so the O and the C stay round instead of turning into bent sticks.
Where two strokes meet, one bone lies across the other and leaves a seam, the way a real skeleton overlaps at the joints. The cracks and pores are drawn letter by letter, so a word never shows the same bone twice.
Five layers of bone
To paint the letters, Marrowgrave comes apart into five layers: Shadow for the dark outline and depth, Bone for the base, Shade for the dark side and the joints, Highlight for the lit edges and knuckles, and Cracks for the seams, cracks and pores. Same spacing, same kerning, so they stack exactly.
Change the five colours and the same title goes from old ivory to grey ash, cold moonlit blue, a sickly cursed green or bone stained with blood. Solid is the whole letter in one style when you need just one colour.
The crypt kit
The extras are drawn from the same bones and in every layer: a skull, skull and crossbones, crossbones, a single bone and a rib cage, then a coffin, an urn, a candle and a RIP headstone, a bone dagger, bone dividers and bone arrows.
They sit on their usual Unicode code points, so a skull is typed like any letter. Several of those are emoji, so if an app swaps one for a colour emoji, insert it from the glyphs panel instead.
In use
02
The Photoshop template
The editable hero layout from the download, with live type layers for the name and the plaque.
03
As a title screen
Necropolis in moonlit blue bone over a full moon and a graveyard, with an ivory subtitle and a small-caps menu.
04
Anatomy of a letter
A large R labelled with its knuckled ends, cracks and pores, seams and waisted shafts, beside a Crypt Keeper title and five bone extras.
05
The layers
Solid, Shadow, Bone, Shade, Highlight and Cracks on their own, then stacked into one shaded Ro.
06
Any bone
The same five layers recoloured as ivory, ash, moonlit, cursed and blood-soaked bone, with each recipe's swatches.
07
Bone extras
Skull, skull and bones, crossbones, bone, rib cage, coffin, urn, candle, headstone and bone dagger with their code points, over a bone divider.
08
Character set
Capitals, small capitals, figures, punctuation, arrows, accented letters and the bone extras.
What you get
Everything in the download
- Desktop fontsOTF for design apps, TTF for game engines and Windows, every layer.
- Web fontsWOFF2 for every layer, with unlimited web use.
- Game engine packBMFont bitmap fonts (.fnt, .xml and .png atlas) at 32, 64 and 128 px, for Godot, Unity, GameMaker, LibGDX, Phaser, MonoGame and Love2D.
- Photoshop templateAn editable hero layout with live type layers, layer effects and textures.
- README and licenseSetup tips for design apps, websites and game engines, and the full license.
License
Included with every purchase
- Games and apps, embedded for unlimited copies sold
- Logos, merch, videos, streams and print, with no limit on sales
- Installed on unlimited computers: yours, your team's and your company's
- Websites, with unlimited page views and traffic
Ask me first
- Products where customers type their own text in the font
- Resale in asset packs, templates or font collections
Please don't share or resell the font files. For anything the license doesn't cover, email me. idris.hadjoudj@gmail.com
FAQ
Before you buy
How do the 6 layers work?
Marrowgrave comes as 6 layer fonts (Shadow, Bone, Shade, Highlight, Cracks, Solid) with the same spacing and kerning. Type the same text in each, stack the copies exactly on top of each other and give each its own colour. Marrowgrave Solid also works on its own in one colour.
How do I get the shaded look from the hero?
Stack the layers from the bottom up: Shadow, Bone, Shade, Highlight, Cracks, with Shadow near black, Bone a warm ivory, Shade a mid brown, Highlight almost white and Cracks a dark brown. The marketing art also adds a soft gradient and a fine noise to the Bone layer, which you can add as a fill or leave flat.
Why does the skull show as an emoji?
The bone extras sit on their usual Unicode code points, and some of those are emoji. Chat apps and some phone keyboards always swap them for colour emoji. Insert them from the glyphs panel in your design app instead, and they show the Marrowgrave drawing.
Can I use Marrowgrave in a game I sell, or for its logo?
Yes. Commercial use is included for games, apps, logos, merch, videos, streams and print, with no limit on sales, and you can embed the fonts and bitmap fonts in games and apps for unlimited copies. Products where your customers type their own text, and resale in asset packs, need an extended license: just ask.
Does Marrowgrave work in Unity, Godot and GameMaker?
Yes. Use the TTF files in any engine that imports fonts, or the included game engine pack: BMFont bitmap fonts at 32, 64 and 128 px for Godot, Unity, GameMaker, LibGDX, Phaser, MonoGame and Love2D.
Can I use Marrowgrave on my website?
Yes. WOFF2 web fonts are included, and web use is unlimited, with no cap on page views or traffic.
Which languages does it support?
Each font has 384 characters, covering Western and Central European languages.
Is Marrowgrave part of a bundle?
Yes. Marrowgrave is in The Complete Font Collection, every font I've made in one download.
Give your game a voice in Marrowgrave.
Related reading
The thinking behind this
Longer write-ups on the craft this font draws on.
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