Language Skills

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Language Skills
Skill Tree:	General Skills
Prerequisite(s):	None
Skill Point Cost:	1
Brief Description:	Speak and be literate in one common or (with plot marshal permission) a rare language, may be taken multiple times.

Language Skills

The language skill allow a character to read, speak, and write in one single chosen language. This skill can be taken more than once, and each time a character takes this skill they may select one language to learn. You can find information on the languages in the game here.

Common languages may be learned without a tutor and can be taken by starting characters freely. Characters who wish to be illiterate are welcome to do so voluntarily with any languages they feel is appropriate to do so with.

Uncommon languages are not actively spoken in the world. Characters learn uncommon languages ? through the scholar roleplaying skill.

Rare languages must have plot marshal approval (from Ryan Green) and require a special tutor to learn or can be acquired through long term advancement in the scholar roleplaying skill. A player who knows a rare language cannot teach another player that language, only certain special npcs are capable of passing on these languages.

The language of the druids can only be learned through druid skills.

Characters who have learned a language may request the key from logistics to translate that language on props.

Game Setting Information

Languages of Novitas

The languages of Novitas are broken down into different levels of commonality. Roughly speaking, these reflect how easy it is to find an active speaker willing to take the time to teach someone the language.

For more on the rules about learning languages in-game see this page.

It is assumed that all player characters are literate. They can write any language that appears on their character sheet (if they wish to be able to do so), but non-player characters may or may not write as the circumstances of their story dictates.

Creating In-Game Documents

Many of the languages below have fonts linked. These are for the players of characters who actively speak these languages to create documents that look setting appropriate in game. If your character doesn't speak a language please don't create documents using those languages. It should also be pointed out that for simplicity sake we often use fonts that translate directly from English like a cipher. Real languages don't work that way. A character who has a key to another language with what icon in that language links to which English letter shouldn't actually be able to translate off of that alone because they should be stuck trying to translate thousands of possible words, with grammar making everything more complex. Basically this is all to say, don't make a key to a language, and if you for some reason have one, it's not appropriate to use it to translate a language your character doesn't speak.

Having said that, keys for each language are available in logistics for players to have. These are available so that players can translate a few words that are on a prop or something cosmetic in order to more easily recognize flair created by other players. Any in-game document with story significance should have a translation (standard English font version) that is available for anyone with the correct language to read. As with most other things in game this is on the honor system, please do not read translations of anything your character cannot understand.

Some documents might use ciphers or other means to make reading them tricky. These are different from the language fonts. It's on a player to solve such puzzles for themselves.

Common languages

Common languages are actively spoken by one of the present day nations of Novitas. There are thousands of active speakers of each of them who can be found readily often without needing to travel to the nation where the language is being used.

Common

Common has its name because it is the single most spoken language in all of Novitas. Nearly every culture speaks it at least a little bit, even some uncivilized creatures speak it proficiently.

Documents written in common are represented by any standard English font.

Elvish

The language of the elves is the official language of both Evenandra, and the Great Forest.

Documents written in Elvish are typically represented by a Tengwar font (originated by JRR Tolkein for elves in the Middle Earth setting).

An example of this font can be found at: https://www.dafont.com/tengwar-feanor.font

Terran

Spoken by the people of Terra in their underground kingdom.

Documents written in Terran are typically represented by Norse runes.

An example font can be found at: https://www.dafont.com/dwarvinian.font

Snow Goblin or Gershan

Spoken by the Snow Goblins of Gersh

Documents written in Gershan are typically represented by characters used for Klingon from Star Trek.

An example font can be found at: https://www.dafont.com/klingon-font.font

Uncommon Languages

Uncommon languages represent languages either actively spoken by a species without a homeland in the modern era, or a language that is no longer in active use.

Draconic

Originally spoken by the Dragons who have faded from the land of Novitas. It is still used to this day by Drakes, Pisceans, and many Reptilian creatures. No present day nations actively speak this language, though there are a significant number of sentient creatures who use it as their primary language.

Documents written in Draconic are typically represented by the Daedric language from the Elder Scrolls franchise.

Two examples of this font can be found at: https://www.dafont.com/runes-the-elder-scroll.font and https://www.dafont.com/skyrim-daedra.font

Sylvan

This is the language of the Light Fae. Often learned by their Faekin descendants as part of their heritage.

Documents written in Sylvan are represented by this font: https://www.dafont.com/elvish.font

Diabolic

This is the language of the Dark Fae. Often learned by their Faekin descendants as part of their heritage. In the past this has been considered a dangerous language to learn because the Dark Fae aren't the most reliable of teachers.

Documents written in Diabolic are represented by this font: https://www.dafont.com/beth-david.font

Andaranian

This is a dead language, no longer actively spoken in Novitas by any one who lives there. Most often it is found in texts from days long past. It is not unheard of for creatures so disconnected from mortality to assume that this language is still in active use, and as such these creatures will sometimes attempt to communicate using it and will be very confused when those present have no idea what they are saying.

Documents written in Andaranian are represented by this font: https://www.dafont.com/clavat-script.font

Canine

The language of Kazvaks, a species that blends characteristics of humans and dogs. Written Kazvak documents exist but are relatively rare as most Kazvaks don't know how to read or write. Typically written Kazvak is incredibly simplistic, single words to pass along warnings or markings of territory. Most often full documents written in Canine were produced by other speakers who wish to use Canine as a way to pass hidden messages to one another.

Documents written in Canine are represented by this font: https://www.dafont.com/maras-eye.font

Apian

The language of intelligent insectoid creatures of Novitas. Different species have different levels of proficiency with the language, with Ettercaps being generally the most proficient of all the insectoid species. Most speakers of this language do not read or write it, again with Buzzer Queens and Ettercaps being the most notable exceptions.

Documents written in Apian are represented by this font: https://www.dafont.com/rigidia.font

Rare Languages

Rare languages are only known by a limited number of speakers, are zealously guarded by those who speak it, and/ or the species who speak it are actively hostile towards those who might seek to learn their language.

Thieves' Cant

A code language made by members of the elusive Thieves' Guild of Novitas. This language does translate directly to Common though some symbols have been added to here and there to quickly communicate important concepts like warnings, locations of safe houses, and such. To keep the cipher from being broken it is common for different thieves to add a lot of personal flair to writing in order to make it not obvious to an untrained reader what letter is which.

When spoken Thieves' Cant is nearly entirely slang and jargon meant to sound like common while passing basic information back and forth. An untrained listener won't even recognize that Thieves' Cant is being used, however when communicating in this way complex concepts are often impossible to convey.