Editing Exploring the Halls of Arden Vul: Writing

[[Exploring_the_Halls_of_Arden_Vul | Back to main page]]

==Languages==
{|
|-
!Language
!Modern Speakers
!Written Form
|-
| '''Archontean'''
| Archonteans, halflings, imperial goblins, beastpeople
| Mithric
|-
| '''Goblin'''
| Imperial and non-imperial goblins
| Mithric
|-
| '''Halfling'''
| Halflings
| Mithric
|-
| '''Thorcin'''
| Thorcinga
| Mithric
|-
| '''Beast-tongue'''
| Beastpeople
| Mithric
|-
| '''Mithric'''
| Mithric is a dead language. It is still employed as the language of arcane theory and practice, so all magic users trained at one of the imperial collegia (i.e., the majority) have some knowledge of Mithric. (In game terms, a PC magic user has a 10% chance per experience level to decipher something written in Mithric. This chance is doubled if the magic user has access to a good library to aid in reading it.) Otherwise, Mithric must be acquired like any other language. 
| Mithric
|-
| '''Wiskin'''
| Wiskinga
| Wiskin Runic
|-
| '''Stone-tongue'''
| People of Stone
| Stone Runic
|-
| '''Sylvan'''
| Sylvari
| Sylvan Runic and Sylvan
|-
| '''Fey'''
| Fey
| Sylvan Runic and Sylvan
|-
| '''Draconic'''
| Dead language amongst humans. 
| Draconic
|}


There's more information on the [https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Exploring_the_Halls_of_Arden_Vul:_chargen#Languages character generation page] regarding learning languages.

==Systems of Writing==

{|
|-
!Writing System
!Associated Spoken Tongues
!Description
|-
| '''Mithric'''
| Mithric, Archontean, Thorcin, Beastperson
| Mithric was the original writing system of the Archontean Empire. In expressing the spoken form of Mithric, the early Archonteans employed a set of angular letters (30) alongside a relatively small corpus of symbols (50); the symbols were mostly those used for public expressions of power and might. In the past 1,000 years, spoken Mithric has largely died, having been replaced by its linguistic daughter, Archontean. While Archontean uses the same Mithric alphabet, four letters and all the symbols have largely fallen away; this means that modern written Archontean uses only twenty-six letters of the old Mithric alphabet. As citizens of the empire, both the halflings of the Grain Islands and the imperial goblins speak Archontean and use the exact same version of Mithric for writing. The Thorcinga adopted the Mithric alphabet to their own distinct spoken language; in so doing, they retained two of the now-lost original Mithric letters and have added three others (for a total of 31 letters). Finally, the beastpeople of Arden Vul have retained Mithric as their writing system; their version of the Mithric alphabet is simpler, as it uses only 22 letters.
|-
| '''Wiskin Runic'''
| Wiskin
| Wiskin Runic is a simple runic system modeled on the Runic system of Stone. Wiskin Runic is able to convey numbers from 1-10 and in groups of 10, 50, and 100. It also includes a set of 200 or so angular runes used to describe concepts, temperatures, time, and nouns.
|-
| '''Stone Runic'''
| Stonetongue
| As a runic system comprising some 350+ images, Stone Runic expresses concepts, nouns, and adjectives symbolically. Differences in time, number, and gender can be indicated by adding small flourishes to the base rune. Stone Runic is famous for devoting 63 characters to various descriptions of the shape, smell, taste, hardness, and color of rock. 
|-
| '''Sylvan Runic'''
| Sylvan, Fey
| In the distant past the sylvari contented themselves with a set of 275 runes that were used primarily for aesthetic and simple descriptive purposes (e.g., in smithing). Their system was adopted and modified by the intelligent Fey. While the sylvari eventually adopted a true alphabet (see Sylvan, below), they still employ Sylvan Runic for artistic, decorative, and symbolic purposes.
|-
| '''Sylvan'''
| Sylvan, Fey
| In response to the growth of human culture and writing, the sylvari commissioned a true alphabet to complement Sylvan Runic. This system, begun 4,500 years ago, was intended to represent spoken Sylvan in both aesthetic and functional ways. Sylvan appears as a cursive, semi-continuous script of 31 letters, in which new thoughts are represented by elaborate geometric patterns which themselves carry hints of meaning (that is, each symbol, including symbols denoting pauses, connotes a different intention, emotion, or expectation).
|-
| '''Draconic'''
| Draconic
| Draconic is one of the oldest languages native to Magae. Spoken draconic sounded like long wheezes of sound, varying in intensity of expelled breath, in timbre, in volume, and very occasionally in the presence of glottal interjections. Written draconic is a continuous and elaborate cursive script, without distinct words or punctuation; it is thus very difficult to get a sense for the meaning of a text without reading the entire thing, as context and shades of meaning can be modified by the expressions found later in a manuscript. Now a dead language; dragons haven't been seen in the Archontean Empire for millennia.
|}