Languages and Language Groups
As you can see from the descriptions in this chapter, there is a rather broad range of languages in Transylvania. Serfs speaking Vlach, pea-sants speaking Slav, Magyar-speaking Hungarians and German-speaking Saxons can offer many complications to a chronicle if the characterscannot converse freely with them.Some Storytellers may choose to downplay this aspect of the game. After all, the number of Cainites and ghouls in the story ensures that if afew characters can’t hear what a local Transylvanian is saying, someone can translate for everyone else. Storytellers who prefer a dark fanta-sy feel to the game may prefer this “Hollywood” approach to foreign languages. Players who stress realism, however, may find that this ideastretches credulity. Thus, a few optional rules should help represent the role of languages in the campaign. Customize them as you see fit.
Each dot in Linguistics represents one language a character speaks (but doesn’t necessarily write – this is the Dark Medieval world, after all),and a character is considered to be absolutely fluent in his native tongue (which is declared during character creation). As such, the Storyteller should make sure that everyone in the coterie has a method of speaking fluently with everyone else. (In one of the playtests, for example, the members of the coterie only shared one language in common: Arabic. This was suspicious, to the say the least, but gave the coterie a big edge over other Cainites.) The Storyteller may instead assume that a character fluent in an European language may be somewhat familiar with other tongues in that language group. For the purposes of this chronicle, there are five main groups of East-ern European languages. (We apologize for this gross simplification, but it is much easier than making each language a separate Knowledge specializa-tion.)
The languages are:
•Slavonic:
Actually a collection of dialects, Slavonic is well on its way to-ward becoming the vernacular of Eastern Europe. West Slavonic is spoken inthe regions of Bohemia and Poland. East Slavonic is spoken in the wastes of Kievan Rus. South Slavonic is spoken in Bulgaria and Macedonia. A Slavonic-speaking character must select a specific dialect with which she is familiar, though each dialect may be understood by anyone familiar with any of the other Slavonic dialects on an Intelligence + Linguistics roll at a difficulty of 6. This inter-dialect translation is considered automatic if the character in question has an Intelligence + Linguistics Dice Pool of 6 or greater, naturally.
•Hungarian:
Hungarian, unsurprisingly, is spoken in Hungary, as it is the native tongue of the Magyar people.
•Romanian:
The language of what will one night become Romania, this tongue is currently spoken by inhabitants of eastern Hungary (specifically, those who live in the province of Pannonia)
•Baltic:
Like Slavonic, Baltic is actually an “umbrella” term for the polyglot tongues spoken in the regions of Lithuania and along the BalticSea. Several dialects exist, but for game purposes, it is easiest to treat them as a common language. An Intelligence + Linguistics roll (diffi-culty 5-7) may be required to comprehend spoken communication with someone from a different region than where the character learned Baltic.
•German:
Actually a Western language, German is spoken by the increasing influx of settlers, merchants and drifters from the Holy Roman Empire. As it is spoken more widely than the other tongues of the region (and even outside the region!), German makes an excellent lingua francs
for the Transylvania Chronicles
Under this system (which Storytellers of Western European chronicles may choose to overrule), French, Italian and Spanish all default to each other at a difficulty of 7. Likewise, Turk and Finn default to each other at a difficulty of 7. The language referred to as “Arabic” defaults to Kurdish, Armenian and Persian at difficulty of 7. Greek and Latin default to each other at a 7 difficulty. Oddly enough, Slavonic and Romanian default to each other at a difficulty of 8, even though they have different origins. In addition, most of the Tzimisce in this story share a variant of Romanian, referred to as “Vlach.” This is considered to be a somewhat archaic form of Romanian; any simple peasant fluent in Romanian overhearing it is at a difficulty 7 to understand it.If this system seems overly complex, go Hollywood: Simply supply the coterie with several ghouled translators and assume everyone canunderstand everyone else (for everyone’s sake, though, don’t kill them off), or assume that some sort of common pidgin exists. If, on the oth-er hand, you do choose to adapt these rules, there are a number of interesting story ideas that can result from miscommunication and false translation in the Transylvania Chronicles
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Topic: Languages (Read 44554 times)