Languages
Languages
The following details the languages in Drakomere and provides a summary of what they sound like. Use this for choosing languages and flavor for names of characters and such.
Languages and Proto-Languages
When you choose a language for your character to gain, choose one of the following fourteen languages. Additionally, you can choose a language you already know (apart from common) and learn the various previous versions of the language, label this as Proto-[insert language]. For example, if you were an extreme scholar of the Elves, you might know all previous forms of the Elvish language, so you would take the Scholar background, take the language Kethie, and take the language Proto-Kethie, so all Kethie you come across, even if it is Ages old, you would be able to read and/or understand it.
Aeberez
Aberrant is the weird language used by Aberrations and those who fight them. It is filled with extremely uncommon sounds and has very few common sounds. Additionally its grammatical and syntax system is completely alien to all other languages. It has an ideographic writing system.
Archipelagan
Archipelagan is a language used by the Locathah, Loxodon, and Triton. It borrows and lends a few words to Ìqáalìe, but the two are mostly separated, even though they were relatively isolated together for thousands of years. Archipelagan has an abjad writing system.
Draikyaan
Draikyaan is the language of the Dragons, Dragonborn, Tortles, Kobolds and other draconic creatures. It is filled with the deep guttural noises due to the deep large throats in Dragons. Draikyaan has an abugida writing system.
Druidic
Druidic is the secret language of Druids, used to both speak and leave hidden messages. Those who know Druidic can automatically see these hidden messages, but those that do not know the Language must succeed on a DC15 Wisdom (Perception) Check to be able to do so.
Dwarvish
Dwarvish is the language of Dwarves and a few creatures relating to Dwarves. It’s a daughter language to Giant, as Dwarves descend from a proto-race that was a type of Giant. It’s a hard language filled with a lot of impact. It has an alphabetic writing system.
Elemental
Elemental is the language of Genasi and other Elementals and creatures of the Chaos. It is filled with flowing and suddenly hard sounds. Elemental has an abugida writing system.
Kethie
Kethie is the language of the Kethie, and creatures related to the Kethie. It is a very analytical language where short words carry a lot of meaning, and can be spoken solely with hand movements to allow for quick communication in dangerous situations. It has swapped, exchanged, and assimilated words from Silvin. It has a syllabic writing system.
Giant
Giant is the language of Giants, Goliaths, Firbolgs, and other creatures related to Giants. It is filled with hard sounds and it uses an ideographic writing system where single glyphs portray entire concepts.
Goblin
Goblin is the language of Goblinoids, and often is used by many Fey creatures who don’t quite have the classic Fey joy and frolicking. It is a language descended from Sylvan and thus has the same writing system as Silvin, an alphabet.
Halfling
Halfling is the language of the Halflings and is a mix of Elvish and Dwarvish, just like Halflings. Its syntax is quite freeform. It mainly uses a mix of the Elvish and Dwarvish, but also incorporates elements from all the other languages into both its vocabulary and script.
High-Speech
High-Speech is the language of the few Fiends and Celestials of the world, collectively known as Highlings. It is a language of intense and complex grammar, and has complex words with very specific meaning. It uses a large range of sounds and its words often have syllable counts over five. Because of this, it is often seen as the language of science and progress. During the 2nd Epoch, when technology began to develop, High-Speech was used to determine the scientific names of creatures. It has an alphabetic writing system.
Ìqáalìe
Ìqáalìe is the language of the Ìqáalìe, or Lizardfolk, and is full of glottal sounds, clicks, and is quite a tonal language, carrying meaning based on how a word is said. This allows the language to convey a massive amount of meaning in just a few words. Additionally, because of this, Ìqáalìe is a completely oral language with no writing system, but the Ìqáalìe have a rich bardic, musical, and oral history and tradition.
Kalashtari
Kalashtari is the language of the Kalasthari and is full of vowels with very few consonants. Kalashtari has an alphabetic writing system.
Primal
Primal is the language developed by the humanoid beasts in the Wild-Plains. It's a colorful language full of clicks and other non “standard” sounds that most people are used to. Primal has a Alphabet writing system.
Silvin
Silvin, is the language of the Fey. It is a light, floaty language. It has swapped, exchanged, and assimilated words from Elvish. Silvin has an alphabetic writing system because many words both start and end in vowels and consonants, and there are words with multiple vowels between consonants, meaning that an alphabet fits it best.
Thieve's Cant
Thieve's Cant is a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows Thieves' Cant understands such messages. It takes four times longer to convey such a message than it does to speak the same idea plainly. In addition, you understand a set of secret signs and symbols used to convey short, simple messages, such as whether an area is dangerous or the territory of a thieves guild, whether loot is nearby, or whether the people in an area are easy marks or will provide a safe house for thieves on the run.