Languages of Ravenloft

[Guardian of Twilight]

Hello, everyone. It's been quite some time since I was here, and spent some time in the Mists. It's good to be back.

I'm soon to be running a campaign for my girlfriend, and have been trying to find something I read about a long while ago, discussing the languages in Ravenloft. It gave a basic overview of what the languages were like, such as (I think) Borcan being the language of the church, what each language is like, and so on. Can anyone tell me where I saw this chart before? I appreciate your help and your time, everyone, and thank you.

[The Pickled Punk]

The best suggestion I can give is the 3rd Edition Ravenloft Campaign Setting from Arthaus (or the 3.5 revision Ravenloft Player's Handbook) which have a list of languages used in Ravenloft. The Ravenloft Gazetteers go a step further, giving paralells to real world languages (such as High Mordentish being a version of French and Low Modentish being a form of Anglo-Saxon) and to fantasy languages (Quenya, Tolkien's form of "Elvish" is used for Sithican).

The various Ravenloft products from 2E contain hints about languages, and the there was a Kargatane Netbook that formed the basis for the language rules in the 3.X books.

Hope this helps!

[misterguignol]

This is the summary I use on my handout for new players:

Languages in Ravenloft
Balok – the language of the southwestern Core; it is used as the “common tongue” by traders and merchants throughout Ravenloft.
Darkonese – the language of the people of Necropolis; Darkonese is also used in many occult texts.
Draconic – the language of arcane magic; many grimoires are inscribed in this language.
Dwarven – the language of the dwarves and gnomes; many magical runes stem from this language.
Elvish – the language of the elves; many witch-cults and fey creatures use this tongue.
Mordentish – the language of the northwestern Core; many works of literature are composed in this tongue.
Vaasi – the language of the southeastern Core; this is the language of religious writings and rites, particularly those of the Lawgiver.
Vistani – the language of the gypsies; also used by many rogues and criminals.

[steveflam]

I tend to use Mordentish as the common tongue of the Core. What about you guys/gals?

[Ryan Naylor]

I leave it with several regional tongues and no Common. The closest is Draconic, which is the international language of scholars (like Latin in the Middle Ages).

[HuManBing]

Darkonian for Darkon.
Trecht for the Germanic nations: Falkovnia and Nortenmark (Lamordia renamed).
Paradel for the Frankic nations: Cosabel (Mordent), Maresotes (Dementlieu), and Praquadie (Richemulot).
Different dialects of Baloch for the "central European" flavor realms (which are most of the rest).
Welsh for elves.

[steveflam]

So High Mordentish is like French, no problem.

I always thought of Souragnien as Louisiana French or Haitian or a mix of it.

[Zilfer]

I consider four languages 'basic' which are balok, high mordentish, darkonese and Vassi. Anyone from outside that has Basic get's balok for free. (based on the fact the ravenloft was somewhere in Faerun which our other campaign takes place)

[The Pickled Punk]

Here's how I'm handling the "No Common" issue in my 4E campaign:

• For native PCs (which is everyone in my group) Common is replaced by the native language of the PC's Home Domain. With the exception of four Core Domains (Falkovnia, Lamordia, Sithicus and Tepest) the native languages are all one of the "main four": Balok, Darkonese, Mordentish or Vaasi.
• I treat High and Low Mordentish as one language for the purposes of choosing languages. 4E PCs don't get access to as many languages of 3.X PCs, so I'm trying to simplify matters. High and Low Mordentish are treated as dialects; if you can speak, read and understand one you can speak, read and understand the other.
• Three of the four Domains listed above each have an exclusive language not found elsewhere in the Core: Falkovnian, Lamordian and Tepestani.
• Sithican is a dialect of Elven. It may have more sibilants, but an Eladrin, Elf or Gnome from Darkon will be able to understand an Elf or Human from Sithicus (they may need to wipe the speaker's spittle off their face. )
• Eladrin, Elves, Gnomes and Half-Elves all speak Elven, as per the 4E PHB. Dwarves speak Dwarven. They replace Common with a language of their choice. Calibans, Halflings, Tieflings, replace Common with their native tongue, the same as humans do.
• The only Draconic speaker in my group is a Kobold PC from Falkovnia. After some discussion with the player, I made a Background related to the Spawn of the Lizard resistance movement which granted him Falkovnian as an Associated Language, allowing him to replace Common with Mordentish. (Yeah I bent my own rules, but I want the PCs to be able to communicate in some way.)

There are no Outlander PCs in my group, but here are the language
rules I came up with for them:

• Outlanders from Faerun can speak, read and understand Vaasi, with a bit of difficulty. Their accent is unfamiliar, they probably don't understand twenty to thirty percent of what they hear, and they would have to squint to read any books.
• Outlanders from Oerth or the Points of Light/Nerath campaigns speak, read and write fluent Darkonese without a hint of an accent. I would try to make that unnerving to the player.
• Outlanders from Krynn would only understand Falkovnian if they are from Drakov's homeland of Taladas; only Outlanders fluent in Elven would understand Sithican.
• Likewise, Outlanders from Eberron would not be fluent in any of the Core's languages.
• Outlanders from Athas would be able to speak and understand the language of Kalidnay. They should probably keep the fact that they know how to read and write a secret; Thakok-An doesn't know that King Tithian legalized literacy in Tyr. They would not be able to speak, understand or read any other languages used in the Core except Elven and Draconic (not even Dwarven).

[High Priest Mikhal]

Personally I use the "No Changes" rule from the RDMG. Outlanders are pretty much SOL without spells like comprehend languages and tongues. Natives, depending on where they're from, may or may not have learned additional languages and that's where the optional rule for learning languages by "saving" unused bonus languages comes in. If nothing else I direct them to Darkon, let the Memories of Darkon take affect, then direct them back out. I honestly believe that effect is partially a tool to establish a common language when all else fails.

[HuManBing]

I do something similar - if the PCs are close to Darkon, they're encouraged to visit, usually through rumors that they have other foreigners or offworlders there.

They could probably find a native of their homeworld, after a bit of searching, who could teach them rudimentary skills in other languages at least. Or, for a fee, sell them a lexicon.

I'd imagine that a fairly established industry for receiving and debriefing foreigners would have sprung up in Darkon. Azalin probably has parallel goals of information brokerage which would encourage such grassroots endeavors.

[The Pickled Punk]

Personally I use the "No Changes" rule from the RDMG. Outlanders are pretty much SOL without spells like comprehend languages and tongues. Natives, depending on where they're from, may or may not have learned additional languages and that's where the optional rule for learning languages by "saving" unused bonus languages comes in. If nothing else I direct them to Darkon, let the Memories of Darkon take affect, then direct them back out. I honestly believe that effect is partially a tool to establish a common language when all else fails.

Alas, 4E DMs don't have that luxury. PCs get one to three languages at first level, depending on their race. Backgrounds and Themes can provide new languages, but otherwise there is a steep cost. The Linguist feat gives a PC three new languages, but it costs a feat. The Comprehend Languages ritual allows a PC to understand a spoken language she has heard or read a written language she has looked at in the past 12 hours, provided the caster can make a DC 15 Arcana check. A DC 35 Arcana Check allows the caster to actually speak or write the language, and the ritual costs 10 gp to cast. Residuum doesn't grow on trees, you know.

By allowing PCs from Faerun or Oerth to comprehend some local languages (but not others) I can avoid a group of PCs where one or more players can't actually communicate with any of the other PCs. (Having one PC translate on another's behalf is fine, especially if the player doing the translating is a bit, shall we say, "free-form" in his translations.)

[herkles]

I don't have a common language as well. Of course I also I use BRP, this also makes languages a percentage. which allows for a graidant of how much you might know of a language.

I personally like the idea of having to have a translator if you are in a land that is foreign to you, hence the no common language I just mentioned. That does not mean there are not langugaes that people can not understand. Dementlieuse, balok, vaasa and Darkonian are four main lingua francas that tend to be spoken by the educated elite across the core. Obviously other languages exist, but those four languages act as a means of communicating. While a peasent in nova vaasa may not understand Darkonian, you can possibly communicate with the noble of the manor in darkonian.

[Zilfer]

Yeah i kind of do the similiar thing of a "weird accent" to anyone from my faerun campaign in ravenloft it sounds like Balok is an ancient or old dialect of Common tongue. or the "trader's tongue".

[Jester of the FoS]

We list most if the languages in the FAQ here:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/FAQs.html

I deal with the languages and learning new ones in my 4e Ravenloft document.