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🗣️5e - Languages🗣️

Languages represent how different creatures across the world speak and interact with each other. Different species and ancestries speak a wide range of languages. There is a typical dialect that certain ancestries know if they were taught it growing up, but this can expand across the world and change based on a character’s location and upbringing.

Language Mastery

Language Mastery represents your fluency with a Language. There are 3 Language Mastery Levels: Speak, Read, Sign. Whenever you gain a Mastery Level in a language, you gain one Stage of fluency in that language. If you have no level of Mastery, you may choose between Speak and Read, but you need to be able to do both, before you can learn how to Sign a language.

Writing

Once you have Language Mastery in both Speak and Read for a language, you are able to Write in that language.

Gaining Language Mastery

Every 🎎Culture grants you 3 Mastery levels (full fluency) in a language, most of the times this is 🗣️Common. Most ⛏️Backgrounds and 🎎Cultures also grant you Mastery Levels in one or more languages of your choice.

Whenever you gain a feature that grants you Language Mastery Levels, you can spend them to gain levels in a language of your choice. Languages are categorized into three categories: Mortal, Exotic and Rare. To gain a level in a Mortal language, you have to spend one mastery level per level you want to gain in that language, for an Exotic language, you have to spend two mastery levels per level you want to gain in that language, and for a Rare language, you have to spend three mastery level per level you want to gain in that language.

Language Families

Languages, like in the real world, are part of a Language Family. Every language derives from an ancient, long dead language, which is that languages Language Family. A character that has any Language Mastery Level in that Language Familie’s root language, reduces the mastery levels needed to learn a language of that family by one (to a minimum of 1), if they try to gain the same language mastery level.

For example, a character who has 2 Mastery Levels in 🗣️Primordial is able to Speak, Read and Write in that language. If that character would try to learn 🗣️Aquan, an Exotic language, they only require 1 mastery level each to learn how to Speak and Read 🗣️Aquan. If they were to learn Signing for that language, they require 2 mastery levels, since they do not know how to Sign in 🗣️Primordial.

Mortal Languages

The Mortal Languages table lists languages that are widespread in the world and their origin country, the most prominent 🧝Heritage of that country, as well as the Language Family of that language.

Mortal Languages Table

Exotic Languages

The Exotic Languages table lists languages that are rarely spoken by mortals of the world. They might be languages of small tribes, secret languages, or very complex to learn. The table lists their origin, as well as the Language Family of that language.

Exotic Languages Table

Rare Languages

The Rare Languages table lists languages that are almost never spoken by mortals of the world. These languages are either long dead languages, bare secret meaning in the words or are incredibly hard to learn. The table lists their origin, as well as the Language Family of that language.

Rare Languages Table

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