Banestorm: Variak's languages

[Nelson Cunnington]

The character write-up for Varlak Northman here says for his languages:

Northward (Spoken) Native (Written) None
Anglish (Spoken) Accented (Written) Broken
Aralaise (Spoken) Accented (Written) Broken

I guess there's nothing in the rules against it, but doesn't it seem odd that Varlak should be completely illiterate in his own language, but able to read and write (however badly) in others?

If it's the case that Northward has no written form, or uses a different script to Anglish and Aralaise, then it still seems odd to learn to read and write in a second language when one has had no preparation in the native tongue. Does this ever happen in the real world?

[Sam Cade]

nevermind I misread.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Nelson Cunnington

If it's the case that Northward has no written form, or uses a different script to Anglish and Aralaise, then it still seems odd to learn to read and write in a second language when one has had no preparation in the native tongue. Does this ever happen in the real world?

It doesn't sound odd to me at all, and yes, in situations where a native language doesn't have a written form, it is very common to be able to learn the written form of other languages.
Having to learn the additional concept of written form can be more difficult if you don't have a base for it, but that's nicely reflected in the fact that the character has lower written literacy over spoken literacy.

There's also an ease of literacy with alphabets and often syllabaries, which isn't present in many pictographic written systems, so someone from a native language with a pictographic system can easily become more literate in another language's alphabet/syllabary than they are in their native system.
It's also possible that the Northward language is written in a runic alphabet or runic pictograms only used by certain jealous shamans and not shared with the general population, then everyone in that population could be illiterate in their native tongue.
(Possibly with a few common rune/pictograms recognized by most.)

[I don't have the book on me, and I just skimmed it when I got it, so I don't know what level of detail is given in it regarding language types...]

[Phil Masters]

Varlak's a bright lad whose mental development was stunted by his upbringing.

Having lived in the south for a while, he's discovered that (a) women don't usually have beards, and (b) writing is just a dark art for freaky shamans and wimpy wizards, but is actually quite useful. So he's applied himself and learnt how to write, a bit, from the nearest people who can write - southerners.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Nelson Cunnington

The character write-up for Varlak Northman here says for his languages:

Northward (Spoken) Native (Written) None
Anglish (Spoken) Accented (Written) Broken
Aralaise (Spoken) Accented (Written) Broken

I guess there's nothing in the rules against it, but doesn't it seem odd that Varlak should be completely illiterate in his own language, but able to read and write (however badly) in others?

If it's the case that Northward has no written form, or uses a different script to Anglish and Aralaise, then it still seems odd to learn to read and write in a second language when one has had no preparation in the native tongue. Does this ever happen in the real world?

It's not so much the case that Northward has no written form, though that's pretty much the case, it's a little broader in that Illiteracy is the norm for the people in the region. Make no mistake there are literate Northmen who write in Anglish characters, perhaps more runic for the same tool based reasons Germanic writing took on angles. There are also men and women in the Nomad lands who write Northward using Sahudese pictoglyphs or Dwarven runes, having picked the practice up from Sahudese or Zarakian neighbors.

(I'm reminded of Chinese writings no one could decipher until they realized the language was Turkish.)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Nelson Cunnington

I guess there's nothing in the rules against it, but doesn't it seem odd that Varlak should be completely illiterate in his own language, but able to read and write (however badly) in others?

It seems reasonable to me. Once upon a time it wasn't that uncommon for people to be illiterate in their native language, but have some small understanding of bith speaking and reading Latin.

[vitruvian]

If it's the case that Northward has no written form, or uses a different script to Anglish and Aralaise, then it still seems odd to learn to read and write in a second language when one has had no preparation in the native tongue. Does this ever happen in the real world?

Sometimes, sure, but more importantly it definitely happens in many fictional worlds. For example, at one point in his character development, Tarzan should logically have:

Mangani (Spoken) Native (Written) None
English (Spoken) None (Written) Accented

Yes, he taught himself to read English without any reference whatsoever to the spoken language...

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Sometimes, sure, but more importantly it definitely happens in many fictional worlds. For example, at one point in his character development, Tarzan should logically have:

Mangani (Spoken) Native (Written) None
English (Spoken) None (Written) Accented

Yes, he taught himself to read English without any reference whatsoever to the spoken language...

"The God of Tarzan" to be specific. He was lucky to find all those picture books in the wreckage of his parent's home. (Just try and pronounce C A T his way however!) ;)

[Hobbes]

I doubt this is the right place for it, but I'd rather not start another thread...

What jumped out at me upon examining the Banestorm characters was that Gaspard's block score is determined by his Cloak skill...which he does not possess. You can reverse engineer his Cloak skill to be at 14 (DX+0) [2]. but it doesn't appear on the sheet.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Hobbes

What jumped out at me upon examining the Banestorm characters was that Gaspard's block score is determined by his Cloak skill...which he does not possess.

Uh, yeah - he had Cloak-14 (DX+0) [2] on the file I submitted. Looks like somebody skipped an entry when transcribing.

Which, incidentally, further proves to me that these character sheets haven't been created via GCA. (I submitted the characters in a Word file.) I probably ought to put some errata notes together some time and persuade the company to update them.