Who actually USES alignment languages? How?

[Remathilis]

Simple poll.

Early D&D had alignment languages; some concept where each alignment (lawful good, neutral, etc) had a special series of signs and symbols communicated when speaking to others of like alignment.



Can anyone give me where this idea came from, and more importantly how you used it in D&D?

 

[thedungeondelver]

Simple poll.

Early D&D had alignment languages; some concept where each alignment (lawful good, neutral, etc) had a special series of signs and symbols communicated when speaking to others of like alignment.



Can anyone give me where this idea came from, and more importantly how you used it in D&D?

A full explanation of "why alignment languages" is in the PLAYERS HANDBOOK, IIRC, and as to using them, yes I do. They're not full-blown syntactical languages you can sit down and write a book in or have a conversation in - they're gestures, key-phrases, etc. that identify one's overall bent in regard to law & order, good and evil.

 

[Delta]

It's there in OD&D Vol. 1:

Law, Chaos and Neutrality also have common languages spoken by each respectively. One can attempt to communicate through the common tongue, language particular to a creature class, or one of the divisional languages (law, etc.). While not understanding the language, creatures who speak a divisional tongue will recognize a hostile one and attack.

I think the idea made more sense when there were just 3 "divisions" (Law, Chaos, Neutrality). Almost like a Cold War situation where 3 main factions are speaking mostly English, Russian, and Chinese. In a land of Chaos all the humanoids & evil men are speaking Chaos, etc.

It's harder to make sense of with the AD&D 9-alignment structure, where communities will have a greater mix of different alignments bumping into each other all the time (and you can't immediately guess by race who's who). I voted "tried to use it, but stopped".
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[pawsplay]

Once I realized that you would change what language you knew if you changed alignment, and others could not learn the alignment language, I simply replaced them with local languages. Later on, I also wondered why druids and many thieves would speak the same alignment tongue.

 

[howandwhy99]

In AD&D it's on page 24 of the DMG. I can't make heads or tails of it, but we use it in our OD&D game. I don't know what it represents, but it signifies to everyone listening that the speaker is of that alignment. You do have to know the language they are speaking though to understand the message, but somehow the alignment is signified no matter what. I guess it's a trust thing. Maybe it's useful against simulacrum, shapechangers, and other interlopers?

In my old 3E game I used it in place of Outer Planar languages and it worked nicely. Clerics received it by default and others could learn their own. And by the means I designed it, it was all the same language. But you had to be the alignment to speak it as it was a magical tongue. Anyone who had learnt a version of Alignment Language could understand anyone else who used it. So it was the Common tongue of the planes. But using it had different restrictions depending upon the type. LG users could not lie and had a possiblity to Bless/Curse those who heard them. CE users could only speak lies and also had the Curse/Bless dichotomy. Lots of fun stuff.

 

[justanobody]

Can anyone give me where this idea came from, and more importantly how you used it in D&D?

I use them like the place I think they come from.

Back when Christianity started(?) people were killed for being Christian IIRC. They developed a way to meet and greet each other.

One person would maybe make a curved line in the ground with his foot while talking to someone.

Now this could easily be seen as just a quirk or maybe nervousness so wasn't very suspicious of an activity. IF enough time passed and there was no response, this person would just keep making other lines on the ground so nothing could really be told that anything was going on.

Now suppose the other person was also a Christian and wanted to let this person know it, they also would make a curved line on the ground connecting to the existing one made by the other person.

You have seen the resulting shape before probably on car bumpers that resembles a fish.

Ichthys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some times I have used this same kind of symbolic indicator as an alignment language. Just something simple in case people wanted to tell another their alignment to actually converse about things that were important to like minded people.

 

[diaglo]

yes, i do use it.

it is a means of communication. not all understand what you are saying. much like any language. some of it is even misinterpretted by those who aren't fluent. and not all living things can speak it.

 

[Remathilis]

Some times I have used this same kind of symbolic indicator as an alignment language. Just something simple in case people wanted to tell another their alignment to actually converse about things that were important to like minded people.

See, that makes sense if "LAWFUL" or "CHAOTIC EVIL" were monolithic forces. Put another way, if all chaotic evil forces were united by a single unified goal, ethos, deity, or origin, I'd buy that they'd learn some means of using the Chaotic Evil Terrorist Fist-Jab to signal allied forces and intentions.

However, I guess I never thought that a CE human mage, CE bugbear, CE frost giant, CE drow priestess of Lolth, CE vampire and CE balor had much in common beyond a terribly twisted mindset and an appetite for destruction. And that is even giving credence to alignment as an Absolute Force concept that makes Detect evil spells possible.

Which would lead me to my next question; what does someone talk about in Chaotic Evil? What does it look/sound like? Can I walk into a room and realize the guards are talking Lawful Neutral while the chamberlain is talking Neutral Evil?

 

[justanobody]

Which would lead me to my next question; what does someone talk about in Chaotic Evil? What does it look/sound like? Can I walk into a room and realize the guards are talking Lawful Neutral while the chamberlain is talking Neutral Evil?

That is why I only use it sometimes. Not everyone will really have a language that they will use or want to hide in this manner. It depends on who and where you are as to IF you use it.

Also limiting to 6 rather than nine lets you be more specific. There not really something used to say I am lawful good, but lawful, good.

Then there may be some kind of cant that is known to those of a specific alignment of the 9/10 in some kinds of secret words that they could then speak openly and only they would really know what they are talking about sort of like twin-speak.

So these words are added into normal conversation and it isn't really a full blown language.

The odds someone CE wanting to hide who they are is not that far fetched as they are only out for themselves anyway.

The use of the alignment language would depend on how intelligent you are so a really dumb creature/monster will likely not even bother with trying to hide their actions and alignment and may just be hellbent on killing things and not even tlak with others of their alignment.

So could you tell the guards are talking LN? Probably not since you would just here some "slang" that you don't recognize or know the meaning of in the form of their "cant" that allows them to speak openly and without too much suspicion. So it may just seem to be a regional dialect or something as small as word association once you know who you are talking to and which "code" you are using. (see Ichthys for an example of a "code key")

That is what my games do.

 

[GQuail]

See, that makes sense if "LAWFUL" or "CHAOTIC EVIL" were monolithic forces. Put another way, if all chaotic evil forces were united by a single unified goal, ethos, deity, or origin, I'd buy that they'd learn some means of using the Chaotic Evil Terrorist Fist-Jab to signal allied forces and intentions.

However, I guess I never thought that a CE human mage, CE bugbear, CE frost giant, CE drow priestess of Lolth, CE vampire and CE balor had much in common beyond a terribly twisted mindset and an appetite for destruction. And that is even giving credence to alignment as an Absolute Force concept that makes Detect evil spells possible.

Older editions of D&D assume a slightly more Moorcockian world where, essentially, all those CE people are on the same side in a cosmic battle, even if they don't realise it.

In a more real-world way, the comparison seems to be with Latin as the language of the real-world Church - and arguably Arabic & Yiddish for many Muslims & Jews around the world. If someone speaks Lawful in OD&D, they know the tongue of the Lawful church, or at least enough to get by in the most basic concepts of that religion.

That falls down slightly when you crank it up to 9 alignments with many different gods per alignment, but again, that's part of the whole "Moorcockian worldview" thing.

Which would lead me to my next question; what does someone talk about in Chaotic Evil? What does it look/sound like? Can I walk into a room and realize the guards are talking Lawful Neutral while the chamberlain is talking Neutral Evil?

The vibe in AD&D/OD&D, as I understand it from reading the books (I never really properly played any edition before 3.0 although I dabbled in the basic boxed set), would be:

* The alignment languages are like Druidic and Thieves Cant in that they fail somewhat as fully-fledged languages and are best for discussing things intrinsic to the alignment.

* Even if you play them as a full language, it's considered very rude to use them casually as a free Detect Alignment spell - going back to that "religious language" idea, they're almost secrets guarded by an individual temple.

* They probably sound the same as I've always imagined Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal etc sound like in 3.X: that is, they'll in some way sum up how their alignment thinks in their very sound. (So you might say Chaotic Evil is a swirling harsh language whose pitch goes all over the place; or maybe it's oddly soothing and sugary...)

* Since you can't learn other alignment languages by the book, the LE dude can't tell what the NE people are up to: but he would probably know such church tongues exist and be able to take a stab at their use of a code being sign that they are up to something. I'd be more inclined to say an alignment language written down is easilly recogniseable as what it is than it's spoken form.

To be honest, I think later editions were right to chuck alignment languages, and that the alternatives we got later on fit better. A tongue for demons and devils and whatever makes sense - but anything beyond that becomes a bit too campaign specific.