Do ethnic half orc / half elves gain the extra language?


Pathfinder Society

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

I've been reading through Bastards of Golarion and was wondering if the racial ethnicity (ie. Osirian Half Orc) get the corresponding language?

Silver Crusade 4/5

Nope. You get orc or elf as your extra racial language, instead of a human ethnic language.

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

Fromper wrote:
Nope. You get orc or elf as your extra racial language, instead of a human ethnic language.

That is weird given that RAW you can never meet an orc as a PC half orc and yet you still end up speaking the language.

Scarab Sages 4/5

There was a thread here last year asking to have that added for PFS. I thought John posted a reply, but I'm not sure.

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5 ***

If Half-orc/Half-Tian PCs get Tien for free, I can't understand why Half-orc/Half-[ethnicity] PCs wouldn't get [ethnic language] for free.

Same for Half-elves.

Scarab Sages 4/5

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HERE is John Compton's comment on the matter when they made the Golarion languages available to the core campaign. I don't think any further decision was issued. Maybe now that the team is settled in, they'll have time to consider it further.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

Russ'K wrote:

If Half-orc/Half-Tian PCs get Tien for free, I can't understand why Half-orc/Half-[ethnicity] PCs wouldn't get [ethnic language] for free.

Same for Half-elves.

I'm pretty sure that they don't get Tien for free.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

As I understood it, the Tien thing is that humans from Tian Xia get Tien as their ethnic language, instead of Minatan/Minkaian/etc.

Tien characters don't get more languages than other humans, they just get Taldan-Common and Tian-Common instead of Taldan-Common, their ethnic language and a gaping gap where you'd expect the common language of their native continent.

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5 ***

Michael Eshleman wrote:
Russ'K wrote:

If Half-orc/Half-Tian PCs get Tien for free, I can't understand why Half-orc/Half-[ethnicity] PCs wouldn't get [ethnic language] for free.

Same for Half-elves.

I'm pretty sure that they don't get Tien for free.

The last time this came up, people argued that the Guide granted Tian characters the Tien language for free.

So whether you were Aasimar, Elf, or whatever, you got Tien in addition to all of your other languages.

Half-breeds included.

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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Although I couldn't find the thread itself, I found reference to it in the Guide 6.0 changelog:

We already had a thread on the Tien language thing, and I don't think it's changed. We agreed in that thread (without any feedback from anyone at Paizo) that anyone from the continent of Tian Xia gets Tien as a bonus language, regardless of race. Humans still get their ethnic bonus language, too (ie Minkaian for Tian-Min).

But confirmation from John would be stellar.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Yeah, the thing is the guide doesn't say "Humans from Tian get Tien" it says:

Quote:
Tian characters receive the languages Tien and Common for free.

Silver Crusade 3/5

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LINK to my thread asking John to change this. We had nearly universal support from those who responded. One or two holdouts.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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That line is regarding the Kitsune, Nagaji, Wayans from one of the Dragon Empires books. Those races don't get common. So if you are only using those books, you get both Tien and Common for free. If you are human you can pick an ethnicity and get that language and common for free.

No other characters can just arbitrarily decide to be Tien so the get Tien for free.

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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The Fox wrote:
LINK to my thread asking John to change this.

^ this I would happily support.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Andrew Christian wrote:

That line is regarding the Kitsune, Nagaji, Wayans from one of the Dragon Empires books. Those races don't get common. So if you are only using those books, you get both Tien and Common for free. If you are human you can pick an ethnicity and get that language and common for free.

No other characters can just arbitrarily decide to be Tien so the get Tien for free.

The issue is that's not what the Guide says. I believe that's fully the intent of it, since you helped write the Guide, but you should know how such a general statement can and will be read by a decently sized portion of our population.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Andrew Christian wrote:

That line is regarding the Kitsune, Nagaji, Wayans from one of the Dragon Empires books. Those races don't get common. So if you are only using those books, you get both Tien and Common for free. If you are human you can pick an ethnicity and get that language and common for free.

No other characters can just arbitrarily decide to be Tien so the get Tien for free.

Interesting. That is NOT what I thought it meant.

Does that work the same for wayangs made with the ARG instead of DE?

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5 ***

MadScientistWorking wrote:
RAW you can never meet an orc as a PC half orc and yet you still end up speaking the language.

Orcs exist in Golarion; the Society just doesn't hire them. There's at least one scenario where you visit an orc city (Urglin), and another where you interact with an orc tribe. So besides the obvious possibility that one of your parents was an orc, it's also possible to meet orcs in game.

The same rationale holds true for the plane-touched races.

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:

That line is regarding the Kitsune, Nagaji, Wayans from one of the Dragon Empires books. Those races don't get common. So if you are only using those books, you get both Tien and Common for free. If you are human you can pick an ethnicity and get that language and common for free.

No other characters can just arbitrarily decide to be Tien so the get Tien for free.

Interesting. That is NOT what I thought it meant.

Does that work the same for wayangs made with the ARG instead of DE?

That is a good question because it would mean my one character has an extra language she's missing

Shadow Lodge 4/5

I'd like to know how it really goes since we've locally been reading it as an extra language for any characters hailing from Tian Xia.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

MadScientistWorking wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Andrew Christian wrote:

That line is regarding the Kitsune, Nagaji, Wayans from one of the Dragon Empires books. Those races don't get common. So if you are only using those books, you get both Tien and Common for free. If you are human you can pick an ethnicity and get that language and common for free.

No other characters can just arbitrarily decide to be Tien so the get Tien for free.

Interesting. That is NOT what I thought it meant.

Does that work the same for wayangs made with the ARG instead of DE?

That is a good question because it would mean my one character has an extra language she's missing

No. The Dragon Empires books are the only ones that let you pick the Tien ethnicity. But there is no reason you can't use both books. Maybe a bit expensive if all you are looking for is a free language though.

5/5

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Jeff Merola wrote:

Yeah, the thing is the guide doesn't say "Humans from Tian get Tien" it says:

Quote:
Tian characters receive the languages Tien and Common for free.

Key question, what are "Tian characters". It would follow simply that they are characters with the Tian ethnicity, which are thus human. Comparably, if it said "Varisian characters", I would assume humans with the varisian ethnicity, unless there were some context to indicate characters from the region of Varisia (not a nation). Assuming otherwise, Varisians from Ustalav wouldn't get the language. {All if there were a similar statement regarding "varisian characters" instead of explicit entries for ethnicity in ISWG.}

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5 ***

I think it's interesting to point out that owning one source for your Kitsune/Wayang/whatever essentially gives you a bonus language compared to the other.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Majuba wrote:
Jeff Merola wrote:

Yeah, the thing is the guide doesn't say "Humans from Tian get Tien" it says:

Quote:
Tian characters receive the languages Tien and Common for free.
Key question, what are "Tian characters". It would follow simply that they are characters with the Tian ethnicity, which are thus human. Comparably, if it said "Varisian characters", I would assume humans with the varisian ethnicity, unless there were some context to indicate characters from the region of Varisia (not a nation). Assuming otherwise, Varisians from Ustalav wouldn't get the language. {All if there were a similar statement regarding "varisian characters" instead of explicit entries for ethnicity in ISWG.}

Ethnicity is already covered prior to that line, and humans get common by default so that wouldn't make any sense anyway.

As pointed out it's supposed to only refer to Kitsune, Wayangs, and Nagaji made with the Dragon Empires book because they don't start with Common, it just does a bad job of communicating that.

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