Language is like an Onion

[SkidAce]

Just a random fact of my campaign world that "may" prove interesting to others.

There is no "common" language per se.

Trade Tongue replaces it, it allows travelers and traders (and adventurers) to communicate basic concepts. Normally not written down.

It is rumored to have been the tongue of an ancient human trading empire.

Trade is usually unknown in less traveled areas and countrysides.

Diplomacy and interaction are at disadvantage with trade, its always better and more polite to speak in the language of the person you are addressing.

Sooo....

Players are used to these concepts and immersed in the world.

On a transitive plane journey, they find an archway that is written in trade..."Woah" they say.

Traveling to other realms, they encounter others that speak trade, usually humans. "Woah, that human trade empire was wide spread" they say.

They encounter a yugoloth fortress, and nearly everything written is in an advanced form of trade. "Why do yugoloths use trade???" they speculate.

They discover there was a human civilization that was widespread across the multiverse, thus the remnants of their language can be found anywhere.

The human civilization fell because the god they followed was arrogant and proudfull, turns out to be the human creator god.

Human creator god does something bad and is destroyed and imprisoned, erased from memory of even most gods. (Hence no human creation myth)

Yugoloths turn out to be remnants of the humans that were corrupted and sided with the evil god in its downfall.

Insane and corrupted yugoloths working to discover and free their god, spread cultists.


Thus, trade tongue ("common") exists because of Tharizdun.

 

[cbwjm]

Although I was expecting Language to have layers, this was still an interesting bit of information about your campaign world.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

When I saw "Layers" I thought two things. First, obviously, was of ogres. Second was how I handle languages in my own home-brew RPG system that is heavily based on the old heartbreaker "Darkurthe Legends". In it, languages have various difficulties; a higher number, the more difficult. The easiest languages are the most simple and can only really convey simple things (say, "Ogre"). Some are extremely complex with one word having several different pronunciations and depending on inflection and where it is in a sentence can also change it's meaning (say, "High Elven"). In the game system, they are written as #/#; the first is what your fluency is and the second is the difficulty to master. So "Ogre 3/3" means you are fluent in Ogre, and the fact that it is only a 3 means it is very simple (e.g. "Droog" is Ogre for "hit real hard"; would be used for "violence", "force", "heavy", "loud", "rock"...depending on the sentence). But "High Elven 3/9" means the person only understands the basics of the language; they can ask for a room at the inn, order dinner, drinks, and maybe a few other 'simple day to day tasks').

Wow...kinda went on a bit there. Point is, you could instigate the same sort of thing for 5e "Common/Trade". Count each "+1" from Int/Proficiency/Whatever as one "level" of fluency. Someone with +0 can speak his/her local dialect to a basic level. Someone with +3 can speak his/her local very well, and out to one country around at a base level, and maybe have a couple key words for those farther removed. Someone with +8 would be a linguist in common languages of the world. Something like that. Keeps from PC's having to invest in a bajillion language dialects of "Common"...or just make "Comprehend Languages" a spell again (I don't think it's in 5th...is it?).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[AmerginLiath]

Probably the simplest method is not to change any mechanics, just limit what the Common tongue covers. If it's a trade pidgin instead of a full language, able to best convey concepts of trade, travel, and direction, it's still a useful thing – but it's like trying to carry on a conversation in High School Spanish, constantly substituting basic vocabulary in place of what you specifically mean and not knowing about the piece of grammar you should be using (this sounding sort of like a child) as you get the basic point across. Thus, learning racial or local languages – complete languages – allows two characters to speak complex concepts like combat tactics or diplomacy (a sergeant can tell his troops to charge in Common, but the officers can't plan out a battle in it). The only change in mechanics I might see is giving an extra starting language to some races.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

LANGUAGE

Frequency: Common
No. Appearing: 1-100
Armor Class: 5
Move: 1”
Hit dice: 100
% in Layers: 100%
No. Of Attacks: 1-100
Damage: nonlethal only
Special Att: grammar rules, spelling rules
Special Def: difficult to grasp
Magic Resistance: None
Intelligence: None
Alignment Neutral with both Chaotic and Lawful tendencies
Size: variable
Psionic Ability: None
Level/XP value: 10,000 per HP

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Probably the simplest method is not to change any mechanics, just limit what the Common tongue covers. If it's a trade pidgin instead of a full language, able to best convey concepts of trade, travel, and direction, it's still a useful thing – but it's like trying to carry on a conversation in High School Spanish, constantly substituting basic vocabulary in place of what you specifically mean and not knowing about the piece of grammar you should be using (this sounding sort of like a child) as you get the basic point across. Thus, learning racial or local languages – complete languages – allows two characters to speak complex concepts like combat tactics or diplomacy (a sergeant can tell his troops to charge in Common, but the officers can't plan out a battle in it). The only change in mechanics I might see is giving an extra starting language to some races.

If I were going to houserule and go along a more realistic route, besides making Common a “trade pidgin”, I’d designate certain languages to be the languages of certain fields. At various times in their turns, languages like Greek, Latin, French, and English were the languages of diplomacy and education- it’s where we get the term “lingua Franca”. English is currently the language of air navigation. German is the language of engineering. German and Italian are hugely important in music.

So perhaps...

Draconic is the language of magic. (Certain extraplanar languages might be considered for this, too.)
Elvish is the language of diplomacy. (Or it WAS, and has been supplanted by the language of the most powerful human empire.)
Dwarven is the language of engineering.
Goblin gets used in war terminology.
Elvish is the language of the arts.

Etc.

 

[SkidAce]

Although I was expecting Language to have layers, this was still an interesting bit of information about your campaign world.

Fair enough, I was considering that the info on the language's origin went through layers of info and history.

 

[Blue]

There is no "common" language per se.

Trade Tongue replaces it, it allows travelers and traders (and adventurers) to communicate basic concepts. Normally not written down.

As a side note, I think this was the exact definition of "Common" back in Basic D&D or AD&D - it was a pigeon trade-tongue that could be used to communicate across the real languages.

 

[SkidAce]

As a side note, I think this was the exact definition of "Common" back in Basic D&D or AD&D - it was a pigeon trade-tongue that could be used to communicate across the real languages.

Yeah, I've been DMing since then, and after so long I never remember where some of my ideas come from.

"thumbs up"

 

[Blue]

When I saw "Layers" I thought two things. First, obviously, was of ogres. Second was how I handle languages in my own home-brew RPG system that is heavily based on the old heartbreaker "Darkurthe Legends". In it, languages have various difficulties; a higher number, the more difficult. The easiest languages are the most simple and can only really convey simple things (say, "Ogre"). Some are extremely complex with one word having several different pronunciations and depending on inflection and where it is in a sentence can also change it's meaning (say, "High Elven"). In the game system, they are written as #/#; the first is what your fluency is and the second is the difficulty to master. So "Ogre 3/3" means you are fluent in Ogre, and the fact that it is only a 3 means it is very simple (e.g. "Droog" is Ogre for "hit real hard"; would be used for "violence", "force", "heavy", "loud", "rock"...depending on the sentence). But "High Elven 3/9" means the person only understands the basics of the language; they can ask for a room at the inn, order dinner, drinks, and maybe a few other 'simple day to day tasks').

That's pretty cool. Reminds me a bit of Champion / Hero System where they had language similarities. If I recall languages were out of 5 points of complexity, but knowing similar languages helped. For instance if you had German/4, you automatically had Yiddish/2, you could make a roll to understand Dutch, Afrikaans and English and if you bought any of those you got 1 extra point for free. There was also a lower level (like English, French and Latin) where you didnt' get a free chance to understand, but knowing one made picking up another easier (same 1 extra point free).

Switching gears, I did an overly-crunch homebrew system back in the 90s that used "languages of magic", where phrases of magic power were in different languages (or probably the other way around, that the different languages of magic were the predecessors of language). Say that language X was good at misdirecting, which could have magic words for disguises, for hiding, for making arrows miss, etc.

Spells were made of multiple phrases, with some sorts of words (like various durations) found in more than one language.

So casters got better by learning individual phrases of magic (that they had to spend skill points on), but when using them in a spell they used the lower of their worst language using phrases in that spell and the individual magic phrases.

Overly complex in play, but fun to design.