Languages and Alignment

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drpete
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Languages and Alignment

#1 Post by drpete »

Alright, so this is a topic I wasn't sure what to do with, but I think I've figured out a reasonable solution to. I'm trying to follow the Holmes/Blueholme idea, but flesh it out enough to make sense. Though PC evil alignments may have worked in the old days, I'm going to steer us away from evil PCs because having somebody in the game actually backstabbing other players is not really fun.

Alignments

Alignments embody a character's moral and personal attitudes. They are also significant enough human factions that they have their own languages and dialects.

Clerics must be Lawful Good (Futuri) or Chaotic Good (Anganach). Fighters and Magic users can be Chaotic Good, Neutral, or Lawful Good. Thieves must be Neutral. Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil are for NPCs.
  • Lawful good characters tell the truth, keep their word, uphold the law. This is effectively siding with the Futuri and the movement to bring light and order to the backward, savage places.
  • Chaotic good characters have a strong moral compass, and care about doing the right thing, but think that organized civilization is corrupting. This is basically the noble barbarians, worshippers of the old gods, and rugged individualists.
  • Neutral is staying out of moral arguments, and looking after yourself. The average peasant.
  • Lawful evil are those who care about tradition and order, but in a cruel way, not caring about life. The nation of Stygia, which worships a snake god, Set, that wants to impose its evil religion on the world.
  • Chaotic evil are those who want power, and are willing to let the world burn to get it. Orcs, devil worshippers, necromancers.

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#2 Post by drpete »

Languages

Staring at the language question, I realized that we either needed a structure for this, or it wouldn't be a thing in the game at all, so I'm going to adapt something from Warlock, an rpg that Holmes evidently was familiar with to fill in some of the structure.

Each PC has points with which to select languages.
Language Points: (int + wis)/2
Elves: x2
Dwarves & Halflings: x1.5

Languages can be learned at a cost of 1 point for each level of difficulty.
All players get 1 language at no cost. For humans and halflings, this is the alignment language. For elves and dwarves, it is their racial language.
Everybody gets common, which costs 1 point.

For 1/2 of the normal cost, a character can learn enough for a simple conversation, but not enough to fully command the language. So with 1 point, a character can learn enough chaotic good for simple conversations using that language... this is the level described in Blueholme for alignment languages. Rudimentary conversation, basic commands, etc.

Once a character has learned a language fully, they can learn additional dialects at half price. Priests of a given alignment have a religious dialect of that language that they must learn.

Language Descriptions

Common: The trade tongue of most humanoids. Not a native tongue, but a mixture of words and phrases generally understood for trade and communication.
Difficulty: 1

Lawful Good: The normal language of lawful good humans and non-human beings. Also called Imperial.
Difficulty: 2
Neutral: The normal language of neutral humans and non-human beings. Also called the Northern Tongue. Difficulty: 2
Chaotic Good: The normal language of chaotic good humans and non-human beings. Also called the Old Tongue.
Difficulty: 2
Lawful Evil: The normal language of lawful evil humans and non-human beings. Also called Stygian.
Difficulty: 2
Chaotic Evil: The normal language of chaotic evil humans and non-human beings. Also called Black Speech.
Difficulty: 2

(The languages that follow are not universally available... if you have the ability to learn them, I'll let you know):
Other Human Languages:
Greek: Difficulty: 3
Latin: Difficulty: 2
Norse: Difficulty: 2
Arabic: Difficulty: 4

Common Non-Human Languages:
Elvish: Difficulty: 5
Dwarvish: Difficulty: 5

Uncommon/Rare Non-Human Languages:

Dragon: Difficulty: 10 (each type has a dialect)
Giant: Difficulty: 2 (each type has a dialect)
Goblin: Difficulty: 1
Kobold: Difficulty: 1
Trollish: Difficulty: 3 (Ogre is a dialect)
Mer: Difficulty: 5 (various undersea creatures speak dialects of this)
Wisp: Difficulty: 4 (flying creatures. pixies speak a dialect of this)
Old Forest: Difficulty: 4 (Dryads and other beings of the forest)

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#3 Post by drpete »

Wick: You get (11+10)/4*1.5 = 9 points.

You get Neutral for free.
Common costs 1 point, leaving you with 8.

Available Languages:
Lawful good, lawful evil, chaotic good, chaotic evil (1 for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)
Elvish (3 for basic conversation, 5 for fluency)
Greek (2 for basic conversation, 3 for fluency)
Latin (1 for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)
Norse (1 for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)
Trollish (2 for basic conversation, 3 for fluency. 2 more to also speak ogre)

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#4 Post by drpete »

Theglid: You get (10+15)/4 = 6 points

You get Lawful Good for free.
You need common (1 point) and the Futuri religious dialect of Lawful good (1 point)
This leaves you with 4 points.

Available choices:
Neutral, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, Lawful Evil (1 for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)
Dwarvish (3 for basic conversation, 5 for fluency)
Norse (1 for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)
Goblin (1 for fluency)
Kobold (1 for fluency)

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#5 Post by drpete »

Lhainor: You get (11+12)/4*2 = 12 points

You get Elvish for free.
You need Common for 1 point.
This leaves you with 11 points.

You can select from the various (human) alignment languages. Neutral is something you should probably get, but you can select others. These are 1 point for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency.

Orcish, for example, is a dialect of Chaotic Evil, so if you choose to learn that, you can choose how deep you want to go... learning rudimentary "black speech" (1 point), learning black speech fully (2 points) or learning the orcish dialect of black speech (3 points, total)

You can also learn:
Dwarf (3 points for basic conversation, 5 points for fluency)
Latin (1 point for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency)
Norse (1 point for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency)
Goblin (1 point for fluency)
Trollish (2 points for basic conversation, 3 points for fluency. Ogre dialect is 2 more points)

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#6 Post by drpete »

Carling: You have (11+11)/4*2 =11 points.

You get elvish for free.
You need common, for 1 point.
This leaves you with 10 language points.

I'm not completely clear what alignment you want to be. We've got a "5 point" alignment system here, so you need to pick Chaotic Good or Neutral, but not Chaotic Neutral. In any case, it's probably a good idea to buy that alignment tongue.

Language Choices:
Alignment tongues: N, CG, LG, LE, CE (1 point each for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency)

Dwarf (3 points for basic conversation, 5 points for fluency)
Latin (1 point for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency)
Norse (1 point for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency)
Dragon (5 points for basic conversation, 10 points for fluency)

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Re: Languages and Alignment

#7 Post by Spearmint »

Carling

Speaks elvis and fluent common and will learn both chaotic good and chaotic evil alignment tongues.

He completes his vocabulary with a degree of basic dwarven and old world Latin and Norse.

He is Chaotic Good in morals and life choices.

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Re: Languages and Alignment

#8 Post by leafcutter »

Theglid is fluent in chaotic evil, goblin, and kobold!

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#9 Post by drpete »

leafcutter wrote:Theglid is fluent in chaotic evil, goblin, and kobold!
ROFL.

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Re: Languages and Alignment

#10 Post by drpete »

Fane, you have 6 language points.

You start out with Neutral, for free, and should take Common (1 point). This leaves 5 points.

In addition to the other alignment languages, which you can take if you want, you can choose from:

Dwarvish (3 points for basic conversation, 5 for fluency)
Norse (1 point for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)

If you don't want these, you don't need to spend all your points. Maybe you'll learn something new later.

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drpete
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Re: Languages and Alignment

#11 Post by drpete »

Betdas, you have 4 language points.

You start out with Neutral for free, and should take Common, for 1.

This leaves you with 3 points.

You can take other alignment languages... 1 point for basic conversation, 2 points for fluency.

Also, you can pick among:

Dwarvish (3 for basic conversation, 5 for fluency)
Norse (1 for basic conversation, 2 for fluency)

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Re: Languages and Alignment

#12 Post by snake_hunter »

Fane knows these languages:

Northern Tongue, Common, Norse (fluent), Stygian (fluent), Black Speech (basic)

He might have learned them from his previous employer, or perhaps many enemies spoke these...

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Re: Languages and Alignment

#13 Post by drpete »

Mooney's languages...

Mooney gets: 7 language points.

He gets his alognment language free, but needs to spend 1 on the religious dialect, and 1 on common, leaving 5 points.

He can choose between:
Elvish (3 for basic, 5 fluent)
Dwarvish (3 basic, 5 fluent)
Greek (2 basic, 3 fluent)
Latin (1 basic, 2 fluent)
Norse (1 basic, 2 fluent)

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