Monday, November 10, 2008

Making Sense of Alignment Languages

I use alignment languages even less than I use regular languages in D&D. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to recall I allowed any alignment language shenanigans into my game. However, if I was feeling like I needed to include them in my campaign, the only way I could make them work for me is to use alignment languages as ecclesiastical tongues. Basically, I'd set up a campaign with exactly nine gods, one of each alignment. All creatures of alignment X worship/honor/respect god Y, and worship services and other religious events are conducted in the alignment language. I've seen somewhere words to the effect that this is the scheme Gygax had in mind, but the scenario falls down if you have multiple gods. (Unless like Uncle Gary's novels alignment is a supernatural power unto itself beyond even the gods in scope. I personally don't want alignment as a ninefold manifestation of the Force.)

13 comments:

  1. A similar way of using them would rely on the Great Wheel cosmology, making alignment languages into planar tongues.

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  2. I just don't use them period. Never have. They just never made any sense to me at all.

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  3. Nine alignment languages is tough. Inspired by your Thor vs. Cthulu take on OD&D alignment, for a three-value OD&D alignment campaign I've been saying that the Lawful and Chaotic languages are remnants of the Thorite and Chthuloid ancient empires. Scholars of those alignments might actually be able to read those ancient tongues; common folk simply know some translated parables from the appropriate set of scriptures. So if you say "The rigid oak breaks in the storm," and the troll replies "Yes, and water wears away stone," you've just established that you both speak Chaotic. From there you can hand-wave the rest of the conversation; folks who need proof that you and the troll could in fact discuss how to betray the rest of the party wholly through the use of quotations that would be hard for an outsider are referred to Loyal to the Group of Seventeen's story in Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Plus my friend Susannah and her dad can do it with Dylan lyrics in real time.

    The languages spoken in Heaven and Hell might be a nice way to expand this to a nine-value system, perhaps with a set of Druidic scriptures for a Neutral alignment tongue (or the language of the beasts?)

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  4. Suddenly imagining a (never-existed) Dragonmirth cartoon entitled "Sentence Diagramming Part II: The Chaotic Languages"

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  5. Anonymous7:01 PM

    The only way I can think of them making sense is that they are a sort of code that you can find like minded creatures with. Sorta like the obtuse language you might use when you try to suss out peoples political leanings/religious beliefs/edition preferences before you start talking about sensitive topics.

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  6. In my primary D&D campaign universe, the alignments are indeed supernatural powers, less like the Force and more akin to the Emotional Spectrum being depicted in the latest issues of the DC Comic Book Series 'Green Lantern'.

    The alignment powers are embodied in uber-divine beings who supercede the various pantheons of deities, though this is not known to the majority of universe. Only those who learn the truth can communicate in their respective alignment language.

    Made that up when I was 14 and I see no real need to change it.

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  7. I agree that it worked better when there were just three alignments. It that regard, you could treat "language" as a sort of streetwise skill - if you're a Lawful urban scribe, you're going to find it difficult to talk to a bunch of Chaotic murderous thugs and villains. Likewise, if you're a Chaotic scumbag, you're not going to be able to communicate well with the local ladies social club.

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  8. Anonymous8:16 PM

    @badeklaire - I always thought something similar. I thought the Alignment languages were a kind of cant. Sort of along the lines of jargon that only those of a certain alignment can understand.

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  9. Each of the cults in the Harn setting has a "temple tongue" ... lay worshippers and clergy are fluent to some degree, and the potential is always there for bits of the argot to fall into the wrong hands, so it's not a foolproof "know alignment" spell.

    I personally don't use them, although some individuals in the mishmash of Chaotic humanoids in my Wilderlands campaign speak a pidgin called "Girgu-Bhlat."

    In my gonzo-fantasy campaign I was developing for Risus, I just said everyone had either breathed the linguospores or drank the slurry that allowed unimpeded verbal communication. :)

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  10. @bonemaster: That's how I usually played it. Aside from that, don't have much use for them.

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  11. I was just thinking about this topic the other day, when reading your post on languages. In my campaigns, I've NEVER had any use for alignment langugaes. I'm of the school that they are more like a type of cant, or "buzzwords" that characters use which would give subtle hints as to which way their motivations lay. I like the idea of temple-speak, but that's a little tough with multiple deity cosmologies like Greyhawk.

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  12. I always thought alignment languages weren't really languages, but just a way of speaking/acting that communicated your moral/ethical leanings. A mechanical representation of "ah, here's a kindred spirit" stuff. In addition to bearing, mannerisms, and the like, buzzwords and "coded" language that ligedog and others mentions are part of alignment "language."

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  13. a ninefold manifestation of the Force

    Hmm. In the right context that could be the awesome.

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