The Textile Markup (2.4) Reference for Textpattern
Some unicode symbols can be produced by placing simple characters in parentheses or square brackets.
1) Other unicode characters and symbols
Unicode symbols that are entered directly are ignored by Textile.
p{font-size:20pt}. ☢ ☁ ♘
With a browser that is capable and a font that supports the characters you will see this:
☢ ☁ ♘
Paste code into the box above.