Languages

Language (and literacy) plays a large part in the world of Hythal. Language, dialect and accent tell others where you are from and potentially reveals your political affiliations, religious preferences and even your loyalties. At the very least, others may make assumptions about the character based on these linguistic clues, even if they prove to be inaccurate in your character's case. The importance of language in the game is reflected in the rules below. Use these rules in place of the language rules in the Player's Handbook when creating or modifying your character.

At Character Creation

The core 5e rules assume that humans learn Common and a secondary language while non-humans learn a racial language and Common. This "racial approach" to starting languages is not satisfactory given the political and religious tensions in Hythal. Instead, ensure the character complies with each of the language-related rules below.

No Common Tongue

The Common tongue does not exist - there simply isn't a Common tongue to learn. Instead, the character learns a "human language" based on the general geographical region where they were raised:

In the case of Humans, they choose the language most applicable to where they were raised and spent the younger, formative years of their lives. In the case of non-humans, they choose the region closest to or surrounding the area in which they were raised. Note that Humans of Darian origin hailing from Thrindaria begin with two languages which must be those shown in the table. They do not receive other languages simply by selecting their race although they may gain other language skills via their Background.

No Halfling

Halflings do not have a distinct language, having lost it in their endless wanderings. They are treated as Humans when selecting starting languages.

Native Language

A character must indicate which starting language is their native language. In short, a character's native language should be reflective of their upbringing and the culture in which they were raised, regardless of their race. They will speak this language without accent while all other languages they learn will have this accent unless special effort is taken to perfect use of the secondary language. Rather than writing a bunch of complicated rules, use common sense here and choose a language that best fits the intent of this rule. See your DM if there are any questions regrading this choice.

Lack of Literacy and Use of Dialects

The Achaka language does not have an alphabet. It is not possible to be literate in this language. Achaka is comprised of similar dialects and knowing one dialect of the language will allow you to converse readily with other speakers even if the dialect is not exact (think dialects of English in the US, UK, and Australia with a little more variation and differences).

Final Language Selections Must Reflect Background

By the time character creation is complete, all the languages known to a character should make some sense in how they were learned or acquired and the character's native language should reflect the the language in which they were immersed in their formative years. Regardless of character race, the selected languages must comply with this rule. Thus if a Gnomish child is abandoned and raised among the tribal peoples of Gor'Fon (for some odd reason), that character will not know Gnomish unless other background circumstances exist to make this possible. Additionally, it is highly unlikely that such a character could select Gnomish as their native language given that this language is not spoken with any degree of frequency among the tribal peoples of Gor'Fon.