We played Session Zero of the Fallen Empire campaign on Saturday. It went very well. I found in some cases I was over-prepped and in a couple cases I was under-prepped. In the last couple of days I've set out to solve some of those under-preps and potentially head off some similar issues. In addition, I've gone from two box of note cards down to one, finding that the monster manual I have in my big binder of stuff is more than sufficient and I don't need my monster manual on note cards. That's actually a huge deal.
One of the picayune issues that came up is, "What's some good languages for my character to know?" Every campaign is different and every ref adjudicates the importance of talking differently. I want my players to take care not to rush into a fight every time, even when confronted with monsters. Therefore languages are very important. Delta's post from just this morning spurred me to talk about this particular aspect of Saturday's table time.
in Mythical Journeys, I do make a point of spending time talking about language and suggesting some that would work well in such a setting. But that's generic and this is specific. I will choose some languages now to suggest to the players.
Note: these are the suggested languages; the ones you would get the most use out of. There are doubtless thousands of spoken and written languages; some dead and some living in some weird corners of the Realm.
Race Languages:
1. Dwarven (gnomish is a dialect.)
2. Elven
3. Goblin (goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears)
4. Draconic (dragons and similar creatures with linguistic capacity)
5. Giant (including ogres and trolls)
Alignment Languages:
6. Simite (Lawful)
7. Achromatic (Neutral Alignment)
8. Vitian (Chaotic)
Outsider Languages:
9. Celestial (Good)
10. Infernal (Lawful)
11. Abyssal (Chaotic)
Infernal is very, very, very specific. It is the language chiefly of Devils. It is rarely if ever spoken by Men of the Realm but important contracts are written in Infernal as well as Common and/or Dwarven.
Celestial and Abyssal are superglottal languages. Men have not the ability to speak it, though they may learn to understand their aural form. Audible Celestial forces evil creatures to check morale or cower in awe. Audible Abyssal does the same for Lawful creatures. (Note: A creature may be both Lawful and evil.)
Pidgins:
12. Common (men and hobbits)
13. Sylvan (forest creatures)
14. Undercommon (kobolds and subterranean beings)
Secret Languages:
15. Thieves' Cant
16. Druidic
Secret Languages are not available to most characters at creation except for those characters who are part of the organizations which use them.
