Linguistics and Dialects

The Linguistics ability has a number of unique complexities relating to its dialect system and known languages. The following adapts and summarizes how these rules will be applied.

Each character knows one language family off the bat, then an additional language family for each dot of Linguistics (Old Realm*, Low Realm, Riverspeak, Seatongue, Skytongue, Flametongue, Forest Tongue, Guild Cant**). Instead of a language family, you can take 4 tribal languages, which are languages not part of a major family that are usually found around the edges of Creation.

* Language of the gods and sorcery. To take Old Realm requires Lore 1+.

** Secret language of the Guild. To take Guild Cant requires Backing (Guild) 2+.

Knowing a language via Linguistics makes a character a speaker of the language, but not neccessarily literate in reading and writing: to be capable of reading and writing characters need to have at least one dot in Lore.

Linguistics specialties come in two forms: the first are normal, things like calligraphy or poetry where they represent skill in certain specific uses of language. These are limited as normal to 3 specialties per ability total (NOTE: the core rules seem to drop this sort of specialty because they forgot that Linguistics is actually rolled and not just used to generate a list of languages).

The second subset of specialties represents specific dialects within known language families. These specialties can only ever be taken once, but they represent ability to speak the language as if you were a native speaker from the area where that dialect originates. On the Blessed Isle, each prefecture tends to have its own specialty, though the larger ones such as Juche, Arjuf, Eagle, and Lord's Crossing may be home to several dialects. The dialects from the Imperial City and the Scarlet Prefecture are almost identical, but with the slightest variance that distinguishes a Dynast who grew up in the Palace from one who grew up in Vatamu.

Every character receives a free language specialty for the dialect where they spent their early childhood (in the case of Dynasts, before primary school), or where they first learned to speak.

Not having a dialect specialty means to a listener you will not come off as a native of that region, should they be paying attention to such things. Having several dialects lets you choose what area you wish to sound like a native of.