So I want to have an "ancient language" in my upcoming game that players can gradually learn. It's a dead language, so I am not going to allow them to choose it as a bonus language or drop a single skill point into it and gain total mastery of it.
Also, since nobody alive understands it, it will not be translatable through standard magical means. (My reasoning being that such spells "borrow" understanding of a given language from someone else, and since nobody else knows it, nobody to borrow from. This allows said spells to still function for all the other languages in the campaign world, just not this one.)
Originally, I'd thought that I would make it a skill. A player would get a single skill point in "Ancient Language" whenever they came across a new sample of the language, rather than by spending skill points. So eventually they would become proficient.
My problem with this solution is that I mean it to represent studying the language, but nothing would prevent *every PC* from claiming to be studying it, just so they could also roll. Our group tends to metagame skill rolls outrageously. i.e. when one person gets the idea to roll to spot something, suddenly everyone wants to roll perception for no reason whatsoever, etc.
So I need some way for a player to choose to focus on this language for my idea to work, or come up with some other way to handle the ancient language altogether.
Thoughts?
I would only allow someone who already has linguistics to study the language and gain ranks from exposure. Other PC's simple don't have the skill to learn the language no matter how many times they encounter it.
Give the players the option to learn other skills with their downtime then.
If your option is to learn a language or twiddle your thumbs, they'll learn that language. Give them the option to get a bonus to something else and they might choose that instead.
Rosetta Stone type magical artifacts? You can't learn the whole language until you at least have a way to translate the ancient alphabet into something useful. High DC (failure should be a real possibility there) linguistics checks to make sense of the artifact. X number of artifacts successfully deciphered, you can now read the language. Good luck speaking it though :)
What's the purpose of this language in your plot, or is it just an interesting thing you want to throw into the world?
I would then make up a simple symbol alphabet for the PC's to encounter. Symbols that mean ideas are easy to start but get more and more cumbersome. Symbols that represent sounds are easier to master in the long run but have less of an ancient feel.
For instance develop a short list:
Star = danger
triangle = man
circle = woman
! = magic
square = home or town or village
rectangle = city
It becomes like one of those picture puzzles: horse + plane = horsefly
That sort of thing can be fun as the players can eventually learn to translate it themselves as a game instead of just rolling the D20.
I would then make up a simple symbol alphabet for the PC's to encounter. Symbols that mean ideas are easy to start but get more and more cumbersome. Symbols that represent sounds are easier to master in the long run but have less of an ancient feel.
For instance develop a short list:
Star = danger
triangle = man
circle = woman
! = magic
square = home or town or village
rectangle = cityIt becomes like one of those picture puzzles: horse + plane = horsefly
That sort of thing can be fun as the players can eventually learn to translate it themselves as a game instead of just rolling the D20.
I want to make a joke that the symbol for horsefly actually means a hippogriff. With all the things that run about the setting, combos like that can end up literal quite easily.
Anyway, is the language dead or dead dead? I mean, Latin is a dead langauge, but its serves as the roots for several other common languages (allowing rough understanding of some basic vocabulary and sentence structure), and it is still taught as an academic language today.
Looking at it like that, depending on the actual situation, I think you could make it something of a prestige skill, where you have to meet prerequisites before investing in it. So maybe have a formal familiarity with some derivative languages (maybe 2-3?), and some ranks in knowledge (history) that would allow them to more easily make the connection. Only then can they put ranks in linguisitcs(Ancient Language). This all seems troublesome, but it seems like enough of an investment that the players can't metagame it easily (or at least it would give them a solid excuse to be together rather than "we met in a bar"; being a group of archaeologists studying an ancient culture is a great adventure seed).
Just make them aware of this system, and add some decent enough rewards to justify spending their time and resources (maybe have a set of dangerous ruins only be dangerous due to the fact that people couldn't read the safety signs anymore; "->to the treasure room, <- to the chimera pits"). Heck, throw some decent magical items that have clearly labeled instructions that just happen to be written in the ancient language because the things are so old. Although that might just be the handyman in me talking because it is annoyed about how irresponsible fantasy characters are with high powered equipment
Thanks for all the thoughts so far!
The language is dead-dead, several languages removed from anything spoken currently, so it isn't possible to see pieces of it in modern speech/writing.
I have a couple of reasons for wanting to include the language. It will serve as a means to provide the players with information about the nature of their world. It may grant access to certain otherwise inaccessible magical items (such as ancient scrolls, etc.) It will also possibly serve to feed them plot information.
I also like the idea that earlier bits of the language they encounter and cannot understand at all at first could later be revealed to be interesting and/or important.
I have been playing with the idea of "other things in their downtime" sort of. In other words, just giving one player the extra skill and giving other players other unique perks. There are seven players total though, so it will depend on if I manage to come up with six more interesting perks. :p
I hadn't considered memory crystals. That could be a great way of introducing the ability to speak it, which couldn't otherwise happen without a lot of exposure otherwise.
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I hadn't considered memory crystals. That could be a great way of introducing the ability to speak it, which couldn't otherwise happen without a lot of exposure otherwise.
Submitted for your consideration, an alternative "device": A SETI-like setup where the ancient speakers projected a simple, fundamental "Hello, We Are/Were Here, [insert your ancient civilization's signature message here]" message in their language through space, which is somehow brought back to your campaign world after however-many ages (it bounced off a star or other extraterrestrial body, which, in such a case, ought then to somehow remain significant to the campaign somehow, or it's literally brought back in some form by extraterrestrial visitors, which could be anything from flumphs to a color out of space to a tzitzimitl).
Variations:
- Send PCs to an appropriately-distant extraterrestrial locale themselves somehow (a mysterious portal, astral projection, they're abducted by shantaks/nightgaunts/Bert), I'm thinking as an unforeseen consequence of a supposedly minor quest so it all comes as a shock, then it reaches them where they are. However you pull it off, the way they get home should amount to little more than a formality; it will help maintain the shock of the experience. ;)
- Perhaps the ancients were able to send the message through the 4th dimension, which would eliminate any need for "space" activity of any kind. The first message could just "come" to an anointed PC ("the right place at the right time"), or they could come as dreams. This way's certainly easier, but might not be as much fun - it depends on how things like this would/could work in your campaign setting.
You could also splice in a bit of words of power in the form of spell like abilities. I've been playing too much skyrim lately but maybe give them the option to use certain words from said ancient language as 1/day spell like abilities and based on their character level they can make more powerful words.
Just track the skills for them. Whenever a player roleplays trying to learn the language, just make a note, don't tell them, and when they try to translate something, you roll for them.
I also do that with perception checks and the like, to prevent the kind of metagameing you described.
I simply have a list with some skills for every player and they are obliged to tell me when one of them changes. If they forget, it's their problem. ;)
The "skills" are:
All 3 Saves
Appraise
Disguise
Perception
Sense Motive
Survival
Since those are the skills I tend to sometimes want to roll in secret.
So I need some way for a player to choose to focus on this language for my idea to work, or come up with some other way to handle the ancient language altogether.Thoughts?
I am not sure if it is what you are looking for, but one solution is to make a seperate knowledge skill for it, a la knowledge (Thassilonian).
If you include the understanding of the language (at different skill ranks), as well as actual knowledge about the ancient civilization (from the texts availiable), you could have a way of handling it, where studying it grants some perks that simply dumping 1 skill point to roll.
But it does require you to go beyond the ordinary 'skills simply have a DC' to 'min skill ranks needed to do X'.
On top of my head it could be something like:
Knowledge(ancient civ):
- Regonize symbols/letters (min. 1 rank): Allows for recognizing it as belonging to the language. DCs depend on how obvious the language is.
- Crude interpretation of symbols (min. 3 ranks): Allows for interpreting the symbols/words seperately, to make very crude translations of the meaning. DCs depend on difficulty of the text.
- Translate the language (min. 5 ranks): Allows for making an actual translation of the language, retaining most of the meaning. Able to read and write the language. DCs depending on difficulty of the text, as above.
- Speak the language (min. 10 ranks): Your mastery of the language is at a level, where you have a pretty good idea how it is supposed to be spoken. Well done, friend. Too bad it is a dead language, with noone to speak it with...
Also covering the knowledge of the civilization grants some other use of spending several skill points, and seems fitting since the character has spend time studying the availiable texts.
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You could also splice in a bit of words of power in the form of spell like abilities. I've been playing too much skyrim lately but maybe give them the option to use certain words from said ancient language as 1/day spell like abilities and based on their character level they can make more powerful words.
Don't forget the 3.5 Tome of Magic Truename Magic system! You're resurrecting something from the forgotten past, after all - and the result would scream "Ancient Egypt" from its every pore....
Yes, it got bad press, but A) the changes to the skill system in Pathfinder completely erase one of the main problems (the fact that you couldn't easily multiclass and remain puissant as a Truenamer), and B) the primary problem was always excessive Truespeak DCs to affect creatures, but that's easily solved: Just change the basic DC formula to a very simple "15+(target's HD/CR)" - and yes, I did some basic math to conclude that this formula will leave a Truename magician with even a modest modifier competent at every level.