Vistani PCs

TwinPeaksGuy

Explorer
Not being well versed in Ravenloft, do the Gur have their own language, and is a speaker of Gur intelligible to a Vistani and vice versa?

Presumably a PC with a specific ethnicity would speak that ethnic language (if it exists) as well as common and possibly others, depending on education.
 

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kalani

First Post
I believe the Gur would speak the southern language used by the Rashemi (forget what its called). Common is common across the planes however.
 


Ainulindalion

First Post
According to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Gur speak "Guran (a patois of Roushoum and Rashemi)" in addition to Common AND another language. If they are a PC, anyway.

Roushoum is the language of the Imaskari, so that ties into what Pauper said.
 

Pauper

That guy, who does that thing.
Roushoum is the language of the Imaskari, so that ties into what Pauper said.

Yep, the history of the area goes way back, lore-wise.

(Warning! Realmslore diversion incoming!)

The Imaskari Empire was one of the ancient empires of humanity. They were mighty magic-users, kidnapping humans from other worlds as slaves. These slaves eventually became the ethnicity known as the Mulan. After the fall of the Imaskari Empire, the Mulan left what is now known as the Raurin Desert and founded Thay, enslaving a different, nomadic people known as the Rashemi.* The Rashemi eventually threw off their bondage and migrated to the lands they now occupy.

Traditionally, the Gur have been suggested to have originated in a wholly different part of the Realms**, the Western Heartlands (the region containing Baldur's Gate and Elturel), and my own feeling is that the current placing of the Gur in the Hordelands comes from a confusion*** between the nomadic, gypsy-like Gur people as described in this adventure and the Gur tribe of the Hordelands patterned after a Mongol tribe of Genghis Khan's day. The Mongol-like Gur were first mentioned in a box set called The Horde, published in 1990, while the gypsy-like Gur were first mentioned in the Heroes' Lorebook published in 1996.

* - the Ravenloft domain of Hazlan is patterned after this time period in Thay's history, with its darklord a Mulan fire wizard -- yes, there was at least one Thayvian wizard even more evil than Szass Tam!

** - though some lore has suggested that the Gur, like the Mulan before them, were refugees from a larger war, in this case that of the Raumathari Empire that rose from the ashes of the Imaskari Empire and their enemies in Narfell, who were known as demon-binders. Lotsa magic in that part of the world!

*** - Edit: the confusion goes back well before the current season of Adventurers League!

--
Pauper
 
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kalani

First Post
AL uses the 4E lore as official canon. As such, the Gur and Vistani are a singular extra-planar culture (most likely seeded by their spelljamming ancestors). Despite millennia of separation between them, both cultures have kept to their historical roots, and haven't deviated significantly.... That doesn't mean however, that they would not consider each others unique customs vastly different - only that to an outsider, both cultures seem remarkably similar.
 

Pauper

That guy, who does that thing.
I don't want to take this discussion off-topic, so I'll just express my own opinion that the 4E lore being referenced is a ret-con that does violence to the past lore of both the Vistani and the Gur, and isn't even necessary to tell this story, as Vistani lore includes numerous references to the Vistani's ability to 'adopt' other races and cultures into their own -- this is the only way you get non-human Vistani.

I suspect that if an official 5E Ravenloft sourcebook is ever released, this ret-con will be undone.

--
Pauper
 

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