Languages

Even something as basic as gestures and expressions are a form of language. Without understanding the same language as another, even something incredibly basic and limited, it is impossible to communicate with them. This same principle applies even in the world of DnT, though it usually boils down to checking weather you and another creature share a language in your respective bios and moving on with the interaction. The cases where you don't share a language with another creature is much more entertaining. Without being able to tell them what you want, or being able to understand what they might want you know, you are forced to scramble some manner of getting whatever you want from them. This is why languages actually exist in DnT: to create conflict and opportunities when you don't have them.

A player, barring unique exceptions, will always known Common. They may also learn additional languages due to their background or race, or during the course of their adventures. Unless specified otherwise, characters can speak, read and write the languages they know.

### **Known Languages**

#### **Arsian**

Arsian is the language of spirits and fey. Its origins can be traced back to times following the First War, where it was created by Kvasir as an alternative to Ganev, as the gods had become wary of it. The language is spoken, or at the very least recognized, in every universe. As Arsian is a magic language, very few alterations can be made before it loses its esoteric properties, which has ensured that the tongue remains unchanged since the time it was created.

There are 21 letters in the script, and text is written from up to down, and from right to left. Each letter has a specific meaning associated with it, and the combination of the meaning of each letter and the sound of the word as a whole establish connection between subjects. The language also relies on this system to carry tone. There are very few adjectives and pronouns, making the language come off as detached and capricious. When spoken, Arsian sounds melodious, if a bit somber.

#### **Beastspeak**

Unlike other languages, Beastspeak has no script or alphabet. In fact, it might make more sense to refer to it as a special sense, one that allows its holder to intuitively understand and be understood by Beasts. It is thought that Beastspeak is a gift Acteon bestows upon pious believers, which may explain why the Thersians, his creations, are born "fluent" in the language.

The knowledge and awareness of many Beasts is limited by their Intelligence, but at minimum, Beasts can give you information about nearby locations and creatures, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day. You might also be able to persuade a beast to perform small favors for you, or even form friendships with them.

#### **Common**

The Common language is, as the name implies, the lingua franca of the mundane peoples. It origins can be traced to the late Dragon Era, beginning as the mortals' interpretation of the words spoken by the gods when they established their covenant with the first men. The Great Punitive War, which lasted for hundreds of years, quickly beat the language into shape and popularized it among the mundane races.

This language is spoken by most people in the mundane world. Local variants to common do exist, but due to the nature of the language, these are still similar enough to 'high' common that they can be understood with little difficulty.

#### **Dawn**

The Tongue of the Dawn is the language of hags and earthly fey. Despite the language's similarities with Arisan, from which it is thought to have evolved from, the tongue of the Dawn uses the Giant script. This drains Dawn of Arsian's musical veneer and instead highlights its capriciousness due its choppy form. As the People of the Dawn degenerated and materialized, they bonded themselves to the bones of the earth and transmigrated into all living things. Most inhabit dark forests and remote areas with strong spirituality.

As a magic language, Dawn excels as a medium for divination, binding and ritual magicks.

#### **Draconic**

The draconic language was created as the ancient dragons took charge of the Mundane World. The dragon tongue spread trough the entire universe thanks to its similarity to Arsian, which it was based on. The enumerable ruins, grimoires and artifacts that hold the dragon's unparalleled knowledge of magic and theology are highly secluded, and require mastery of the tongue to be deciphered. With draconic also being a Magic Language, one that is relatively easy to learn and independent of institutions, makes it very tempting to mages and adventurers. Few choose to learn it, however, as speaking the dragon tongue is highly sacrilegious. The majority of those who do take the risk are rogue mages, dungeon delvers and remnants of the dragon cult, further associating the language to ne'er-do-wells and heretics.

Draconic script is a type of cuneiform, with rough and simple signs composed of horizontal, vertical, and angled claw marks. Despite this, the dragons never wrote with their claws, draconic texts were either inscribed by mortal priests, or 'spoken' into tablets by careful use of a dragon's own breath. The script is written from left to right and is alphabetical, much like Common.

#### **Ganev**

All languages are, one way or another, descended from Ganev - the language of the gods and the universe, trough which the true names of things are spoken. Ganev is unique in that one does not have to be proficient in it to understand it, the meaning is inherently deciphered by a creature's subconscious. One still needs to be proficient in Ganev to speak it, however, and proficiency in Ganev can only be attained trough Ascension.

Ganev is written and sung as music. Its script is highly geometric and natural, but incomplete. New words are learned from completely understanding something, which is why speaking something's 'true name' with Ganev allows one to have complete control of it - knowledge is power, and power makes the name.

The way in which Ganev is constructed means that a sentence will always contain much more wisdom than initially gleamed from it. The more one understands, the more meaning one will be able to derive. The placement of a single word can touch the entire text, harmonizing with its rhythm, or with other seemingly unrelated words, creating an overlaying diagram, a text within a text. A lot of the time, this meaning will be produced even when not intended by the author, seemingly being generated by the language itself, or arranged for by a long series of coincidences. Because of this, speakers of Ganev usually derive their own languages from it, fearing even thinking in the tongue. Ganev is typically spoken by deities, powerful angels, outer gods, and abominations. This, coupled with its inherent ability to be understood, makes Ganev the most dangerous language in existence, as understanding these beings, even partially, leads to Annihilation.

#### **Giant**

The language of the giant-kin, known to them as Ana'kh, is of the same language family as the Common tongue. Indeed, Giant is the closest language to the original Common, in the state when it was first created from the scant Arsian words left behind by the gods. Much like its native speakers, Giant diverged from the tongue of the Ancestor-Men when the giants were sent to the four corners of the earth and sky. It has changed little over the centuries, partially so as to preserve its magical potency, and partially due to the giant's long lifespan.

Ana'kh is a runic language. Each rune represents a sound, though some also carry a particular meaning, which is of particular importance for its use as a magic language. As Giant lacks vowel sounds, these must be inferred by the reader using the third rune of a sentence as a guide on where and how to place them.

#### **Hadean**

Hadean is the nominal trade language of the Hollows and other underground regions of the Mundane World. It shares many elements of the Primordial language, spoken by many creatures of the under-world, whilst integrating Common, Infernal and Dawn motifs due to trade with gwarven settlements and the presence of powerful spirits. Hadean is spoken by almost all sentient inhabitants of the under-world, including many gwarven clans, as they frequently trade, raid or are raided by other underground races.

Halean adopted the Infernal script due to how easy it is to cast into stone, which is ubiquitous in the under-world. The Hadean language is spoken trough clicks, percussion and Dawn phonetics. Sounds eerily similar to beat-boxing.

#### **Infernal**

The infernal language was derived from Igaleth's research on His prison-plane. It began as a transformation of Arsian into a runic language, and was then streamlined to circulate Numen in modular circuits. The result is a relatively simple magical language that can be used to quickly assemble stable, and scalable, formations. Its properties also make it ideal to encode magical arrays, making it a favorite of artificers and summoners. The demons of the Infernal Rings quickly adopted the language of their creator, taking it to be a natural extension of themselves. The Secret Emperor also adopted the language when He Himself was sealed away.

There are 21 letters in the script, and text is written from up to down, and from right to left, as with Arsian. When spoken, Infernal sounds like a mixture between a bird chirp and a brutish roar, coming in burst of high pitched sounds and ending with a grave hum.

#### **Ye'Hara**

Ye'hara is the lingua-franca of underwater civilizations. Original spoken by the sea-dwelling Cho'en, evolving parallel to common due to their relative isolation from the rest of the Thersian races, the language spread with their contact of other aquatic races. Ye’Hara relies heavily on context and tone to relay information. as complex toughs are usually assigned into single characters. Additionally, adjectives are prefixed and fused with the word they are qualifying trough *apostrophes*, which can change the meaning of that word entirely. It is also harder to describe locations in absolutes, as they are transmitted by referencing the cardinal direction between the location and a point of reference. As such, a sentence can have many different interpretations depending on how it is read, from where it is read, and on whom speaks it. The Cho'en made a sport of this quirk, competing with poetry that blossoms with the talent of both the reader and its creator, and wielding their tongue like swords, layered and layered with different, vicious intents.

Ye'hara borrows its script from Draconic, but sounds distinctly similar to Giant.