DF Khoramandu Sea Campaign Languages
For my DF campaign I use the GURPS language levels rather than the simplified DFRPG system. I like the option for knowing a language at Broken or Accented levels, rather than simply Native or None. Regardless, full fluency in both written & spoken costs 6 points using either rule.
Many fantasy RPGs assume some form of Common language across most of human civilisation, and many of the non-human races too. It's convenient even if not universally plausible. This also applies to the setting; the World of Jordoba is systemless but clearly has many D&D assumptions.
By default, PCs in DFRPG only know the Common Tongue. To start with additional languages costs character points. In aid of encouraging this, I have given 2 bonus CP to all the PCs for the purpose of partial proficiency in another language.
In addition to the ubiquitous Common Tongue, there are some rarer languages available to PC races, as well the languages of past human empires, monster languages, and the tongues of those human cultures that developed outside the influence of the historic empires.
Human Languages
Common Tongue
- default for PCs
- spoken by most humans and PC races
- functions as the defacto trade-language between cultures
- known as "the Food Tongue" by some lizard-folk
Ancient Te-Minoan
- language of the original human empire that controlled much of the region
- precursor to the Common Tongue
- used in many religious texts
High Vycenaean
- old speech of the empire that rose to supplant Te-Minoa in the second age
- still used by the elusive witch-breed, and by some Vycenaean nobles
- most Vycenaeans actually use the Common Tongue
Ianthean
- language of the city-state of Ianthe
- remnant of a strange human empire that mostly sank below the sea
Non-Human Languages
Demontongue
- language of truly Evil extra-planar beings
- those demons who wish to communicate with mortals will use common
Elvish
- ancient language of the wood elves
- most elves now use the Common Tongue
Felinid
- old language the cat-folk brought with them from their world
- most cat-folk now use the Common Tongue
- spoken only - there is no written form
- non-cat-folk can only reach Accented proficiency, due to lack of a tail
Gnomish
- still spoken by those gnomes (and some halflings) that live apart from humans
- most gnomes now use the Common Tongue
Goblintongue
- spoken by goblins and hobgoblins, and other goblin-kin
- related to Orcish
Orcish
- spoken by most orcs, and some other goblin-kin
- related to Gobintongue
This list is not exhaustive. It is just the languages and cultures that the PCs know about. I will add to the list in time.
I agree, a lot of FRP just handwaves language through "common", really, that should be a universal second language (like Latin, or Imperial English), also, I think the cost of languages tends to be high in many settings, draining away from adventure skills so most players just ignore them (and if the GM starts to enforce language difficulties, the game quickly becomes unplayable).
ReplyDeleteOf course, real medieval France where people in one village would be unintelligible to the people at the next village is something that should come into play.
I favour using backgrounds, like you have, and giving players an allocation. I also favour some form of synergy between languages so that there is increasing returns, it's hard to learn a second language, less hard to learn a third, and increasingly easy for subsequent...
In a previous GURPS fantasy campaign I ran a few years back, I had a more detailed interrelationship between languages. That was a somewhat more quasi-historical setting than this DF game though.
DeleteFor this campaign there may be a few languages that give a default to each other, such as Goblintongue and Orcish. However if you want above that default, there won't be a discount, for simplicity. As much as I reintroduced the GURPS 4E levels of fluency, DFRPG did away with buying up from defaults for skills, and I don't intend to include that degree of complexity just for languages.
Ultimately if you want to more than a handful of languages, then Language Talent (Exploits p.51) is worth it for 10 points.