Accent-Assassins

🔪 About Accent-Assassins

Accent-Assassins (also known as word jesters) are clever players who use obscure, foreign, or visually deceptive letter variants to manipulate the starting or ending letters of words in word-based games like Super-Shiritori. The goal is often to confuse or trick the opponent — for instance, by making a letter look like a different one, even though it’s technically not.

A classic example is “ť”, which resembles a “t” followed by an apostrophe but is, in fact, a single modified character from Slovak.

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✅ ❌ What Variations to Use and Avoid

Not all accented or foreign letters are equally deceptive or useful. Some are brilliant tools of confusion; others just clutter the word.

✅ Commonly Used and Effective:

• ť → t
• ď → d
• ľ → l
• ß → ss
• þ → th
• œ → oe
• æ → ae
• λ → l
• β → v
• θ → th
• ψ → ps
• φ → f

These variations often appear convincing at first glance, especially in casual font rendering.

❌ Less Effective or Messy:

• ş, ě, ã, č, etc. These tend to add squiggles or distortions that make the letter stand out in an obviously "foreign" way, reducing the intended trickery.

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🌍 Where Do These Letters Come From?

Accent-Assassins borrow letters from a wide range of alphabets and phonetic systems:

• Greek: θ, φ, ψ, λ, β, π, etc.
• Latin-based languages: ß (German), ļ (Latvian), ŵ (Welsh), ť & ľ (Slovak), etc.
• IPA (Phonetic Alphabet): ʃ, ʒ, ŋ, ʈ, etc.
• Cyrillic (Russian): л = l, с = s, и = i, я = ya, and others.
• Old English & Nordic: þ (thorn), ð (eth), æ (ash), œ (ligatured oe)

They’re drawn from real language systems, which gives the game an extra layer of unexpected linguistic depth.

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ℹ️ Letter Variants and Their Standard Equivalents

Here’s a simplified breakdown of the most commonly used substitutions:

Symbol	Replaces	Origin / Note
ť	t	Slovak
ď	d	Slovak
ľ	l	Slovak
ß	ss	German
θ	th	Greek
þ	th	Old English
φ	f	Greek
ψ	ps	Greek
œ	oe	French/Latin
æ	ae	Old English/Nordic
λ	l	Greek
β	v	Greek

Many of these are implemented in the official normalize function used by the bot or normalization tools, helping detect or counter Accent-Assassin tricks.

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🧠 How It Works in Code (normalize_word)

Super-Shiritori’s normalization function contains over 150 rules to convert characters from:

• Greek
• Latin (diacritic-heavy languages)
• Cyrillic
• IPA symbols
• Musical notation

This ensures fairness and also keeps the gameplay sharp, even when someone tries to play “ģarbļē” instead of “garble”.

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🗓️ Current Accent-Assassins

Username	Status
Shlezv	Founder / Mastermind (@shlezv)
Ghost	(Technically counts) Known Trickster (@no_where.ghost_002)

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🎭 Final Note

"A normal player ends their turn. An Accent-Assassin ends your sanity.