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| My slightly foxed copy of RuneQuest 2. |
Thoughts on Role Playing Games and possibly beer.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query runequest. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query runequest. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, November 27, 2015
RuneQuest Kickstarter Launched Today
Monday, January 11, 2021
2021 Character Creation Challenge: Day 11 - Judges Guild Universal Roleplaying Adventure
Anyway, I've found the system written up at the back of the Tarantis and Wraith Overlord books. The core mechanic of the system is that every characteristic is a three digit code, making spacing easy in a fixed space font on a manual typewriter. Note that there are some differences between Wraith Overlord, published 1981 and Tarantis, published 1983. In particular, the third digit in Wraith Overlord was used to determine "the number of times per day the characteristic can be tested to the utmost without checking for stress damage." How to set it and what checking for stress damage entailed were not detailed. SO, I'm going for the simpler system and setting the first digit of those scores to 0.
The Characteristics
CLS - Class. Profession or Occupation. The list of abbreviations in Tarantis lists 27 different classes, from Alchemist to Witch, including Child, Demon and Valkrie. Not really sure why you would play a child, but handy for an NPC I guess.
ALN - Alignment is an indication of moral tendencies. Positive Law/Good, Negative Chaos/Evil. First two digits are significant, the third digit indicates a "suppressed tendency." Whatever that was supposed to be.
LVL - Level in the class. First two digits are the level; third digit indicates the total number of occupations in which the character is skilled. Doesn't make a lot of sense when I read the last bit, every occupation should have it's own Class/Level combination; so is it if you're an armor you are skilled in making, say 11 of the 32 different armors? You're hitting old Traveller hexadecimal notation now to keep it to a single digit.
HTK - Hit to Kill. i.e. Hit Points. Took me a while to puzzle that out first time I encountered it. In URA, characters don't die until the damage equals negative Constitution. That's a convention worth stealing.
ACL - Armor Class. Only exists in the Tarantis version. I'm using the AD&D AC
ARM - Armor Type worn. But not really. In URA armor acts to reduce damage. ARM is the sum of the armor points of all the armor you are wearing. It will absorb up to one tenth the ARM in a single round, the rest presumably bleeding through as damage to the character. Wearing armor reduces the Agility and "SPD", an otherwise undefined term, but I'll presume speed of a character. Each piece of armor has it's own three character code indicating the type of armor, gauntlet or tower shield, etc and the material that piece is made from. Probably going to give that a pass this time.
PSL - Personal Social Level. C&S and Runequest have this as core mechanics, but in this case I'll use the system from City State of the Invincible Overlord. First two characters are the social level, third is "notoriety gained in a twenty mile radius." Hmm, using CSIO it will be Hierarchy (1st) Social Level (2nd & 3rd positions).
STR - Strength
INT - Intelligence
WIS - Wisdom
CON - Constitution. Ability to withstand and recover from physical hardships
DEX - Dexterity. Coordination and manual ability.
CHA - Charisma. Raw animal magnetism
END - Endurance. Amount of physical hardship a character can be subjected to. Almost but not quite the same as Constitution.
AGL - Agility the character's ability to maneuver their entire body. Sounds like coordination? See Dexterity
LED - Leadership. The ability to command respect and boost morale.
LCK - Luck. The first two are the character's luck, the last one is the number of times a character can test their luck before incurring the wrath of the gods. No instructions on setting it.
PSY - Psionic Ability
WPN - The character's commonly carried weapon. The table runs form Sword to Trebuchet and includes codes for all of Gary's favorite polearms. First position is material, last two are the weapon codes.
Let's get rolling. I'm going to use 3d6 to generate the stats, assuming that this is basically an AD&D character from the City State. Rolled the physical stats first, ended up with a high dex, so going for a straight Thief. Level 1, has master one occupation so LVL = 011. Gets his dex bonus to ACL so leather with 17 dex is 5. ARM, I'm calling leather as a "Hooded Tunic" (9 pts), material is Leather (2 pts) 982 = ARM of 18. As a thief he's automatically in the guild, so Hierarchy 4 Social level 3 (Apprentice). Weapon is an Iron (I) Shortsword (SS)
Aldo
CLS ALN LVL HTK ACL ARM PSL
THF NN 011 005 005 018 403
STR INT WIS CON DEX CHA AGL LED LCK PSY WPN
012 011 014 013 017 014 010 013 09A 011 ISS
Of Altanian descent, he has sable hair, the typical reddish brown skin and gray eyes. An apprentice thief looking for loot and adventure (but especially loot) in the City State of the Invincible Overlord.
I just noticed I skipped a couple of systems, like this one and AD&D. I'm going back and picking them up.
Character Creation Challenge Posts:
2021 Character Creation Challenge
Day 2 - Empire of the Petal Throne
Day 9 - There was no Day 9. Bumping the schedule back a day.
Friday, January 8, 2021
2021 Character Creation Challenge: Day 8 - The Morrow Project
The Morrow Project is a post apocalyptic RPG where characters have been frozen, awaiting the wake up call to restore the world after World War III. Sabotage has delayed the call for around 150 years, meaning that your mission of finding and gathering survivors to rebuild the United States has suffered a bit of 'mission creep'. There are three types of teams Recon, Science and MARS (Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike) who were intended to have complementary missions - now it's as scrambled as the DM or 'Project Director' wants to make it.
I didn't get the books until last year when it came to me from the estate of one of my best friends and fellow gamer of almost 40 years.
I may have played it once in college, but I feel like maybe it was a different game with a similar setting. Anyone know of candidates?
Reading through the character generation rules, it uses an odd 4d6-4 system to generate scores between 0 and 20 on a bell curve. The stats are mostly self-explanatory Strength Constitution, Dexterity, Accuracy (how good is your aim), Charisma, Psi (mental strength if you roll 15+ you may have psionic talents) and Luck. Interestingly they have no Intelligence of Wisdom stat - but they solve that later:
As reading further through the rules, I found a separate handout containing ANOTHER character generation system based on Runequest, complete with percentile skills. And it's complements of Chaosium and Tadashi Ehara himself! RPG game design was a small world in 1980. In this system they drop accuracy and replace it with intelligence.
I'm going to go ahead an use the original system.
Harrison Black
ST 11 CON 11 DEX 14 ACC 14
CH 9 PSI 12 LUCK 13
The next item is to calculate "Structure and Blood Points", in other word Hit Points
Structure & Blood Points (ST * CN) + 100 = 211
Now it gets fun, calculating S&BP by hit location and they have more hit locations than Runequest. I cheated and threw it into a spreadsheet and created an image of it. I can't imagine doing this by hand, fortunately back in the day I had my trusty TI-30 hand calculator.
Then roll d20 for Blood Type: 4 = Type O
Look up Movement Points: Dexterity 14 = 4 Movement Points. Each action has a number of MP, from FIre Weapon (1 point) to Don or Remove Powered Armor (30 points) Kind of like this system actually, but it does show it's roots in hex and counter board games.
And calculate Endurance = DX* CN = 154. Lose 1 point per combat round
Harrison Black
 |
| Mutant Wolverines capable and willing to attack vehicles |
ST 11 CON 11 DEX 14 ACC 14
CH 9 PSI 12 LUCK 13 S&BP 221
Blood Type O Move 4 END 154
Harrison is a member of a Recon Team charged with scouting for survivors and recommending aid from other more specialized teams.
In addition to his standard issue kit (basic clothing and survival gear ~10.5kg); he carries a #7 (Demolition) load with a Ingram M-10 submachine gun/6 mags; 1 M83 Demolition Charge, 4 M2A1 Detonators, 2 M1 Timers 2 M26A1 (Fragmentation) Grenades and 1 M34 White Phosphorus Grenade (~20.1 kg).
He's the team expert in breaking and entering.
A bit more about the system, the first four pages are a list of US cities and military bases and the type and warhead of the Soviet missile that hit them. Character creation is only three pages, followed by setting background fluff and 16 (out of a total 62) pages of illustrated weapons and equipment statistics. 10 pages of combat rules, descriptions and tables, then setting encounters and creatures. Finishing with four pages of mutants, that I'd forgotten about. Need to update my random table generator. The crunch is strong in this game.
Character Creation Challenge Posts:
2021 Character Creation Challenge
Tomorrow looks a bit iffy for posting, as I have work to do down at Traveller Adventures farm and will be stopping to play some AD&D on the way home.
Friday, October 30, 2020
Cross System Conversions
I like mixing and matching between multiple systems, genres and milieus, as my various random encounter tables will show. One of the things I have somewhere is a sheet of paper detailing my cross system AC conversions. But I can't find it so I'm going to rebuild it with a little help.
My basic approach for conversions has been to use armor description as the starting point, if you know what chainmail is in AD&D and Runequest, then you can figure out the rest of the armor classes from there. And since monsters are rated on the same scale as humans (at least for all the systems I can think of); the process is to look at the table I just derived and assign the appropriate AC.
THAC0, %to hit, attack roll - whatever you want to call is more subjective for me. Usually, I'll look for a comparable monster in the system I'm converting to and peg the attack roll to the comparable. Take for example, the 'Great Kommata', a gigantic Martian flying beast from Space 1889: it has two attacks Talons and Drop (rocks). Comparable is a Roc from AD&D, two 3-18 attacks at 18HD. Add in a rock attack like a stone giant throwing, but can only hit one character. Presto, all I need to run a combat encounter with one.
Converting to Chivalry & Sorcery is a bit different, as I all have to do is select the appropriately sized attack form, say 'MLB' or Monster Large Bite and it gives me the attack rolls against every armor class.
Magic is either a spell for spell translation to the target system or I need to define the effect in the target system. For example, "Crumble Wall" in Warhammer FRP is similar effects to "Transmute Rock to Mud", the stone dissolves into sand instead of collapsing into mud. The description is different, but the effect and therefore the level is really the same.
This shouldn't be a surprise to the grognards, system conversion has been around since at least the AD&D DMG, right there starting on page 113 where they give conversions for Boot Hill and Gamma World to AD&D (The text mentions both Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World, even though Jame Ward wrote both, they use different armor scales).
What I didn't realize until I was looking the the C&S Saurians book, which I was sure I'd reviewed last year, but haven't, is this little gem.
Look at that conversion from D&D and Runequest to C&S. Of course, the Runequest conversion is handwaving the difference between bronze and iron armor in RQ (iron is 1.5x as strong); so I'd take it with a grain of salt. Still it's a good reason to rebuild my AC conversion table that I've misplaced.
| Description | From | AD&D | C&S | ACKS | WFRP | MA | GW | RQ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Banded Plate | ACKS, C&S, AD&D | 4 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| Brigantine / Brigandine | C&S, RQ | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 5 |
| Chain Mail | ACKS, AD&D | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 5 |
| Chain Mail Hauberk | C&S | 4 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Chain Mail Shirt | C&S, WFRP, RQ | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 5 |
| Chain Mail Shirt & Plate Cuirass | C&S | 2 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 5 |
| Cuirbolli | RQ | 8 | 2 | 2 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 3 |
| Cured Hide | MA, GW | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0/1 | 5 | 6 | 3 |
| Duralloy Shield | MA | +4 | +4 | +4 | +1 | 1 | +4 | 16 |
| Energized Armor | GW | -4 | 15 | 14 | 3 | -6 | 2 | 14 |
| Full Carapace | MA, GW | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Full Plate | C&S | 1 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Furs or Skins | GW | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Hardened Leather Cuirass | C&S | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Heavy Furs or Skins | MA | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Heavy Scale Armor | RQ | 6 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 5 |
| Heavy Shield | C&S | +1 | +2 | +1 | +1 | 6 | +1 | 12 |
| Hide & Fur Armor | ACKS | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Inertial Armor | GW | -4 | 15 | 14 | 3 | -6 | 2 | 14 |
| Lamellar Armor | ACKS | 4 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| Leather Armor | ACKS, AD&D | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Leather Jack/ Jerkin | WFRP | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Light Scale Armor | RQ | 6 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
| Light Shield | C&S | +1 | +1 | +1 | +1 | 6 | +1 | 8 |
| Linen Armor | RQ | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Mail Coat & Hose | C&S, WFRP | 4 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 10 | 0 |
| Padded Armor | AD&D | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0/1 | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Partial Carapace | MA, GW | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
| Piece Metal Armor | GW | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| Plant Fiber Armor | MA, GW | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0/1 | 5 | 6 | 4 |
| Plastic Armor | GW | 0 | 11 | 9 | 3 | -2 | 3 | 10 |
| Plate Armor | ACKS, AD&D, RQ | 2 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Plate Cuirass | C&S, WFRP | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Power Scout Armor | GW | -4 | 15 | 14 | 3 | -6 | 2 | 14 |
| Powered Alloy Armor | GW | -4 | 15 | 14 | 3 | -6 | 2 | 14 |
| Powered Assault Armor | GW | -8 | 19 | 18 | 4 | -10 | 1 | 18 |
| Powered Attack Armor | GW | -8 | 19 | 18 | 4 | -10 | 1 | 18 |
| Powered Battle Armor | GW | -4 | 15 | 14 | 3 | -6 | 2 | 14 |
| Powered Plate Armor | GW | 0 | 11 | 9 | 3 | -2 | 3 | 10 |
| Ring Mail | ACKS, AD&D | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
| Scale Mail | ACKS, C&S, AD&D | 6 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
| Shield | ACKS, AD&D, WFRP, GW | +1 | +1 | +1 | +1 | 6 | +1 | 12 |
| Shield of Non-metallic Substance | MA | +1 | +1 | +1 | +1 | 6 | +1 | 8 |
| Soft Leather | C&S, RQ | 9 | 1 | 1 | 0/1 | 7 | 9 | 1 |
| Splint Armor | C&S, AD&D | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Studded Leather | AD&D | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 5 |
| Superior Chain Mail | C&S | 4 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Thin Metal Armor | MA | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| None | AD&D | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
ACKS - Adventurer, Conqueror, King: Ascending armor class
AD&D - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Descending Armor Class
C&S - Chivalry & Sorcery: Ascending Armor Class
GW - Gamma World: Descending Armor Class
MA - Metamorphosis Alpha: Descending Armor Class, starts at 8
RQ - Runequest: Armor absorbs damage rather than setting the target to hit. Also the armor can vary by body part, i.e. you can wear a plate cuirass and have only soft leather on you legs. Note, I hand waved the difference the system makes between bronze and iron armor.
WFRP - Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing: Armor absorbs damage rather than setting the target to hit. Also, the armor only protects certain body parts. Leather is rated 0/1, as it only absorbs damage from blows where the damage is <=3. If the damage is 4 or greater, all of the damage affects the character.
Converting RQ and WFRP armor to other systems, I'll use the highest value provided.
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
2021 Character Creation Challenge: Day 6 - Runequest
Another game I would love to play more. I played it once in the service and ran it once a year or so ago. Despite that I have done quite a bit of playing around with it, to the point of writing javascript to create
descriptions of ruins in the city of Pavis and a generator to create stat blocks for creatures. (The function for equipping weapons and armor seems to be broken now.) I've used it as a source of inspiration in countless posts and have delved into it's mysteries on occasion. I backed the Kickstarter where they republished the classics and have picked up a number of third party and Mongoose Runequest publications that expand on it.
Things I love about the game, no levels, learn whatever skills you want and advance by using them. That everyone use magic is odd, but not destabilizing. And the setting - not so much Glorantha in it's magnificent, glorious weirdness (OK, I like Ducks, the annoying little buggers) but Pavis and the Big Rubble a whole unique adventuring site, with a consistent history and reasons for monsters and opponents being there. Not to mention the Lunar Army Occupation bureaucracy - they know about the secret tunnel and have a tax collector waiting for you.
The system is fairly well known as it became the basis for Basic Roleplaying and Call of Cthulhu. Seven stats: Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power (Magic Points), Dexterity and Charisma. A whole raft of calculated values come off of them - Hit Points equal Constitution plus of minus bonuses for Size and Power. High Power in addition to fueling spells gives a character an advantage in almost everything - as one of the rationals reads "It's nice being on touch with the Universe". Humans roll 3d6 for their stats, other races may roll individual stats differently, such as Ducks having a 2d6 for size.
The combat system tracks the location you hit, so you can have different hit points and AC in different locations and they handle it elegantly. You see it on the right hand side of the stat block below R LEG 0/7 is Right Leg AC 0/ 7 Hit Points. He has three points of natural armor in his head.
Other parts of the stat block.
 |
| Dragonnewt from Runequest |
Def = Defense, a passive capability subtracted from the opponent's attack,
ENC = Encumbrance, how many 'things' can a character carry. Tracks bulk as much as weight.
TF = Treasure Factor a rough guide for how tough a monster is.
SR = Strike Rank, calculated for each weapon, modified by Size and Dexterity, more or less far does your weapon reach and how fast can you move it.
Pry% = Parry, active defense;
Pts - Hit Points in the weapon - you take damage, so can your weapon. If it takes enough you need a new weapon. The butt is natural, if you break his head he's dead anyway.
I thought about doing a Dragonnewt, but decided to roll up a Broo. Broo being the satyr like evil humanoids who breed with anything they can catch (regardless of gender) and let the young eat their way out of the host. For various reasons most are vaguely goat like, but there are occasional exceptions such as the rhinoceros broo of the Big Rubble and Razalkark, the Unicorn Broo ruler of cursed Dorastor.
Half the broo carry disease and many of them, like the one below have mutations.
Blord the Greasy Broo
 |
| Broo from Borderlands & Beyond |
STR 16 CON 18 01-04 R LEG 0/7
SIZ 15 INT 13 05-08 L LEG 0/7
POW 13 DEX 15 09-11 ABDOM 0/7
CHA 5 HP 19 12 CHEST 0/8
Move 10 ENC 16 13-15 R ARM 0/6
Def 15 TF 7 16-18 L ARM 0/6
19-20 HEAD 3/7
Weapon SR Atk% Damage Pry%Pts
Butt 5 25 1d6+1d4 - 0
Skills: Tracking 60, Listen 40
Feign Death 35
Basic Magic: Binding, Bludgeon
Detect Spirit, Extinguish 2, Healing 2
Special:
The creature exudes a
greasy, flammable oil from it's skin.
it receives a +10% bonus to skill
checks involving navigating tight
places or escaping bonds.
The
creature is infected with Wasting
Disease
Base Attack 10 Base Parry 5;Base Manipulation 10 Base Stealth 5
Base Knowledge 5 Base Perception 5 Base Oratory -5 Base Move 10
Strike Rank (SIZ) 1 Strike rank (DEX) 2
Kitting him out
Blord the Greasy Broo
STR 16 CON 18 01-04 R LEG 2/7
SIZ 15 INT 13 05-08 L LEG 2/7
POW 13 DEX 15 09-11 ABDOM 4/7
CHA 5 HP 19 12 CHEST 2/8
Move 10 ENC 16 13-15 R ARM 3/6
Def 15 TF 7 16-18 L ARM 3/6
19-20 HEAD 3/7
Weapon SR Atk% Damage Pry%Pts
Butt 5 35 1d6+1d4 - 0Long Spear 4 25 1d6+1+1d4 25 15Armor: Leather Hauberk (Chest & Abdomen);Leather Pants (Abdomen and Legs) CuirbolliVambraces (Arms)Skills: Tracking 60, Listen 40
Feign Death 35
Basic Magic: Binding, Bludgeon
Detect Spirit, Extinguish 2, Healing 2
Special:
The creature exudes a
greasy, flammable oil from it's skin.
it receives a +10% bonus to skill
checks involving navigating tight
places or escaping bonds.
The
creature is infected with Wasting
Disease
Base Attack 10 Base Parry 5;Base Manipulation 10 Base Stealth 5Base Knowledge 5 Base Perception 5 Base Oratory -5 Base Move 10
Strike Rank (SIZ) 1 Strike rank (DEX) 2And I want to say that coding html stat blocks to display and print evenly is a pain.
Character Creation Challenge Posts:
2021 Character Creation Challenge
Friday, December 27, 2019
Languages in Chivalry & Sorcery 1e [Updated]
Chivalry & Sorcery 1e falls in the middle of the first generation as far as rules concerning languages. Dungeons & Dragons posited a Common tongue, very influenced by the concept of the Westron tongue of Lord of the Rings, along with a number of racial languages as well as the Alignment languages that never seemed to be useful. On the other end of the scale, Runequest provided a number of human and racial languages with rules for learning, and Empire of the Petal Throne provided not only the names of the languages, but included syllabaries and multiple alphabets for Tekumel.
By contrast C&S only provides rules and hints for languages. In the basic rules, you get the character’s ability to learn languages, expressed as the total number of languages in a lifetime or language points per level based solely on the character’s Intelligence. Under the Power Word magician we learn that there are 21 modern languages and 7 Ancient or Magick languages. Modern languages cost 1 language point to speak and 2 to read; Ancient languages cost 3 to learn to read.
The Swords and Sorcery expansion covers Nordics, Mongols and Celts - but provides no information on languages. It’s only the Saurian expansion that includes an excerpt from the Complete Roleplayer’s Guide expanding on languages. Saurians does leave the number of languages (other than Elvish and Dwarvish) up to the Game Master.
Languages are broken down into Human, Elven, Dwarf, Goblin (includes Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins and Trolls [who may speak ‘Nordic’ instead]), Animal languages for Felines, Canine, Hooven, Rodent, Avian and Saurians (normally only available to Foresters, Shamen and Enchanters), Intelligent Saurian (Hss’Taathi and Dragonish [nice shout out to Runequest by referring to the latter as “or Auld Wormish”]) and Ancient languages.
The cost of learning the languages now changes based on how well you can speak them - Minimal, Fluent or LIke a Native. The costs vary by language and Saurians have different costs than humanoids. Reading costs 3 points on top of the cost of knowing a language at a Fluent level. The time to learn to Speak a language is a function of Intelligence and Bardic Voice, while learning to Read is a function of Intelligence and Wisdom. Magick Users now earn experience for learning languages.
This still doesn’t give much information on the identities of the 21 modern and 7 ancient languages, for that we have one more clue and then a whole bunch of guessing. The clue is a note under Barons in the section on Designing the Feudal Nation, where the authors reveal that their campaign was set in France.
I’ll start with the languages listed in Saurians. The animal languages are immediately eliminated as they are conveyed through behavior and body language more than words and lack a written form. Similarly, the goblin tongues are eliminated, while they have strong oral traditions; the goblin races are creatures outside of polite society. Ignored, defended against and victims of pogroms depending on the needs of the local regime. The Hss’taathi, intelligent saurians, if they were present in the campaign at all, were relative interlopers into human society, brought forward in time. And finally, I will eliminate Dwarvish (Khuzdul), as it is “virtually never taught to non Dwarves; Dwarves normally speak in Nordic languages….”
That leaves me with three canonical languages: Elvish, Dragonish and Nordic. Three down, twenty five real world languages to go - and there are a lot more than twenty five languages available to choose from in medieval Europe.
Guesswork Follows
Romance - languages descended from Latin
Langue d’oil - predecessor of modern French, this term includes Norman and Picard as well as the dialect of Paris.
Langue d’oc - the languages of Gascony, the Pyrenees and the south of France
Galacian - a predecessor of Portuguese, spoken in the western Iberian peninsula
Catalan - the main predecessor of modern Spanish
Tuscan - an Italian dialect
Sicilian - an Italian dialect
Romanian - language of the old province of Dacia north of the Danube to the Black Sea coast.
Germanic
Nordic (Canonical) - the language of Denmark, Norway and Sweden
High German - dialects found south of the North German Plain
Low German - dialects of the North German Plain, east of the Rhine and east into Prussia
Old Dutch - dialects of the Rhine delta
Old English - Anglo-Saxon heavily modified by the imports from Norman French
Celtic
Brythonic - the western insular celtic languages of Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and Brittany
Goidelic - the Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland
Slavic
Keivan Rus - eastern Slavic dialects dominating the river systems between the Baltic and Black Seas
Polish - western Slavic dialects of the Bug and Vistula basins and the south Baltic Coast.
South Slavic - Bulgarian, Serbian etc, languages of earlier migrants now isolated from the East and West Slavic root stock by Romainian and Germanic language users.
Semetic
Hebrew - language of the Jews. Considered a Magick language by this time, as local Jewish creole languages, such as Yiddish are already springing up across Europe.
Arabic - the language of the Islamic conquest. Still present in Andalusia and parts of Sicily as well as the North African coast and Levant.
Turkic
Common Turkic - covers a number of dialects spreading from Anatolia through the Central Asian steppes. I’m also lumping the unrelated Mongolian language here, as it adopted the Turkic script and I’m almost out of modern language slots.
Greek
Byzantine Greek - the language of the Eastern Empire, tottering though it may be.
For the most part I have followed the point guidelines from Saurians, where I have differed is primarily in the Cost to Learn to Read, when the language doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. In those cases, I have increased the cost to Read from 3 to 5 language points. I’ve also used the canonical cost of learning Elvish for the non Indo-European languages as well. This all assumes that the character is from a country with a Romance, Germanic or Celtic language that uses the Latin alphabet, in a campaign centered in Poland, for example, the cost of learning to read languages would be swapped between languages using Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.
Magick Languages
Good news, we only need seven and we already have two identified. Dragonish and Hebrew. Others quickly come to mind - Latin, the language of the dead empire and Ionic or Attic Greek, the language of Athens at its glory. Old Persian harks back to the Magi and Demotic Egyptian, post-hieroglyphics but containing the knowledge of that most ancient land. And finally, given that all Elves are Primitive Talent magicians, and the extensive influence of Tolkien’s work on Chivalry & Sorcery, it seems fitting that we reuse Tolkien’s languages here too.
What did I leave out - vast numbers of languages and dialects, such as Basque, Frisian, Finnish and Hungarian. Trying to work out a plausible set for their original campaign - or any medieval European campaign means that choices have to be made.
What did I get wrong, besides lumping Mongolian in with Common Turkic and leaving out all the Indian, Chinese and African languages? Take your pick, let me know, write your own.
{Update] It came to me as I woke up this morning, that Polish is written in the Latin alphabet rather than Cyrillic. A quick search also determined that Romanian was written in Cyrillic rather than Latin up until the 1800's. These have been changed and reading costs updated.
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