What race has Sorcerers' Tongue as their native tongue?

[hcobb]

And how successful would the party wizard be at translating the magical terms they speak of into mundane terms the rest of the party can understand?

[Shadekeep]

No race would speak that as their default language, unless you consider wizards a distinct race a la Tolkien. It's a fit-to-purpose language designed to describe magical concepts, not a full blown language with syntax, grammar, and a complete lexicon. It's useful to think of it more like a programming language or a technical diagram - a system of symbols used to express very specific notions within a narrow domain (in this case magical workings).

Other tailored languages include Thieves' Argot, which is in many ways more of a cipher, and Old Hieratic, which is a language I added in The Book of Unlife that serves the same purpose as Sorceror's Tongue except for religious rites. None of these are languages in the conventional sense that English, Japanese, or Latin are.

[hcobb]

I think I might freak out some players someday by having an NPC wish in ST, because it's the demons' native tongue.

[Skarg]

No race, but there might be some places where that is the local language and/or some children are raised with it as a native language.

[Shadekeep]

On further consideration, Sorceror's Tongue does have a syntax. It's just a very rigid syntax, again like a computer programming language. For example, there are dozens of ways in English to invite someone to join your party, but only one way in Sorceror's Tongue to invoke a column of flame.

Naturally this is just my take and not canon. If GMs want to make it a full-blown language, that's certainly in the realm of the possible. Perhaps an isolated magic school started out using it as the pidgin common tongue amongst themselves, and over the generations it became their core language.

[hcobb]

My take on SoTg is that spells are described as the multiplication of sparse arrays with subjects, verbs and modifiers inserted in the proper places. Hence you have to start over on the slightest error.

[Shadekeep]

I think one risk of using it as a language is that it is designed for invocation. While there is more to magic than just saying the words, these are particularly powerful words and could lead to unintended consequences.

[hcobb]

Hi my name is poof!

[EKB]

My house rule/notes for Sorcerers' Tongue is:

Magical language spoken by wizards and supernatural creatures such as Earthkin, Godkin, and Demonkin. Words spoken in Sorcerers’ Tongue are magically understood by any who hear them to the extent that the listeners can understand speech. However, the listeners react toward the speaker at a -1 reaction penalty unless they also can speak the language. Costs 4 IQ points for non-wizards to learn. Wizards pay only 1 IQ to learn it if they have IQ 15 or less and get it for free at IQ 16.

Gloss for the post:
o Wizards under IQ 16 who haven't taken Sorcerers' Tongue as a language know only the bits and pieced needed for their spellcasting, rather than being able to hold conversations and write letters in it.

o The -1 reaction penalty is because Sorcerers' tongue sounds creepy if you are only understanding it via its magic.

o Animals and creatures of like intelligence will have a very limited ability to understand any spoken language, and thus a very limited ability to understand things said in Sorcerers' Tongue.

o Characters with the Literacy talent automatically understand written Sorcerers' Tongue.

o Being able to speak Sorcerers' Tongue does not mean you automatically understand replies made in other language. (That's left for Truespeech.)

o "Earthkin" are basically Fay. "Godkin" are the surviving minor spirits formerly associated with the now-dead gods. Demonkin are greater demons, lesser demons, and demonlings - creatures condemned to the "summoning spell pool" as a punishment for various supernatural crimes.

[Steve Plambeck]

Sorry to have missed this thread the first time around. This is indeed a very interesting subject.

By way of preamble before I can answer this question I should explain the World setting I helped co-design (in which was played a nearly 20-year long campaign) didn't use Sorcerer's Tongue per se, but a language with the same function that we'd invented well before Advanced Wizard was even published. This setting actually started in 1977, based around only the original Melee and Wizard rules.

We'd already determined spells had to be cast in a special, magical language we named Runish. Runish was the "Language of Creation" the Old Gods had originally used in creating our World. It had power -- anything stated in Runish would come to pass, or try to. Nothing would be created unless it was stated perfectly correctly and the speaker could provide the mana (read ST) for implementation. So you could say casually in Runish "There's a bear" without actually having a bear appear, but say it precisely enough and allow the universe to draw upon you for the mana needed and, lo and behold, a bear would appear. So while anyone could learn to speak Runish, only wizards were properly trained in casting spells with it. There was also a written form of Runish we called Cryptic, and spell books and magic scrolls had to be written in it.

Back to the OP's original question, in our World and following the Creation, the gods taught Runish to the Elder (very first) Races, and thus it became the native tongue to Elves, Dragons, and the magical creatures that could speak. Thus in human and other later cultures Runish was usually called Elvish, without the peoples who called it that understanding what it really was (unless they were wizards, scholars, or members of an Elder Race themselves).

Originally Posted by EKB

My house rule/notes for Sorcerers' Tongue is:

Magical language spoken by wizards and supernatural creatures such as Earthkin, Godkin, and Demonkin....

o "Earthkin" are basically Fay. "Godkin" are the surviving minor spirits formerly associated with the now-dead gods. Demonkin are greater demons, lesser demons, and demonlings - creatures condemned to the "summoning spell pool" as a punishment for various supernatural crimes.

Amazing how much overlap we had! While my setting's Old Gods had disappeared after the Creation, they had been succeeded by a pantheon of Greater Gods, Lesser Gods, elemental spirits, Greater Demons, and Lesser Demons, all of which naturally communicated in Runish. And for Elves it was also their native tongue, giving them just a tiny advantage in becoming wizards because they didn't have to learn a new language to do so.