R ecently I was seized with the idea that what if some of the “Languages” the Players gain access to in these games had a more Limited Vocabulary of Words than a full-fledged tongue. The “Common” Language is often characterized as a type of Trade Talk after all, so might not be as adept at communicating certain concepts without a bit of creativity. This led me down a rabbit hole of constructing “Vocabularies” for some of these more Limited Languages. In this document, you will find Ten Vocabularies, each featuring one hundred Words. The Common Tongue is present (and may also be useful for things like “Dungeon Graffiti”) and once I had finished this, I immediately began thinking of what other types of communication might “benefit” from this kind of terser treatment. Speak with the Dead is often maligned as a “Murder Mystery” Shortcut, so perhaps using this rather restrictive Vocabulary might help make it more puzzling. The words here could be used either by the respondent, or by the Players themselves to construct their queries. It’s often said that Spells like Speak with Plants and Speak with Animals might only provide a kind of curtailed conversation: Seeing as how these organisms may perceive the world much differently than us. I’ve included two lists (one for each) to help invoke this sensation for those kinds of contacts. Many games have a “Thieves Cant” or coded means of communication shared among ne-er do-wells. I found it really fun to try and focus on what they would be able to speak with each other about using this method.
Though often maligned, I personally adore Alignment Languages, and I think I like them even more when they’re limited by the lists I’ve made for each (one for Lawful, one for Chaotic, and one for Neutral.) Once more it might prove challenging to discuss granular topics with them, but I think this turns them into a bit of a mini-game or puzzle to solve sometimes. Another tricky thing to tackle sometimes are those Spells that allow a Cleric to Commune with their Deities, Contact other Planes, or perform Divinations/Prophesies. It’s usually best to keep these somewhat cryptic sometimes, so the Vocabulary I put together tries to emphasize that somewhat. Rounding out these, the final Vocabulary can be used in conjunction with Psionics or Telepathic Communication. While Psionics might not show up in every setting, there’s still plenty of Sentient Swords that might communicate with this method, or Magical Items and Spells that allow Minds to Speak directly to each other, even if it is sometimes stilted. I will have to see how these end up working out In Play, but my gut feeling is that I probably wouldn’t want to use them for every conversation. More as the occasional brain-teaser or quandary. Perhaps the Speaker isn’t very fluent, a text is fragmented or fractured in some way, or the mysteriously pulsing Gemstone only murmurs the occasional word into the minds of those who approach it. But due to the constraints, I wanted them to encourage some creativity: I view these Languages as relying on a lot of combinations and compounds: Trees have no word for Lightning, so instead they might call it “Sky FIRE.” Another inspiration was Kennings: There’s no word in Common for River, because everyone just says “Boat Road” and so forth. It can be surprising just how much this opens up the Lists in interesting ways, and finding those ways to “work around” their seemingly restrictive nature would be part of the fun for me.