Sword & Planet phrasebook

[Agemegos]

Spoiler warning: if you are going to play in my campaign Red-Blooded Earth-Men, reading this thread will materially diminish your enjoyment thereof.

If you go ahead anyway, please do not convey spoilers to the other players. If you do, your character will be skinned alive, and I will not give you any cheesecake.

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

SPOILER SPACE

In about a month I am going to start a new campaign that will involve PCs from Australia mysteriously transported to a completely re-imagined equivalent of Barsoom (Mars, in a famous pre-Golden Age sci-fi series by E.R. Burroughs). Unlike Burroughs, I will not be granting them convenient telepathy. So they will start out not speaking the local language, and will have to learn it by immersion during the early part of the campaign. Eventually (after a language-immersion montage!) I will use a translation convention, with conversation in English being taken as representing conversation in the Martian common tongue. But for the first session I would like to have representative bits of "Martian"† to jabber at the players. I'd like to keep this consistent, so one of my bits of prep is going to be to construct a brief "Martian" phrase-book, containing the few dozen phrases that Martians are most likely to say to a number of large, hairy, pink-coloured barbarians in ragged AIF uniforms and toting strange weapons. In case this matters, I see five likely courses the PCs might take from the initial situation in the campaign: They might settle in a remote village that they have rescued from slavers, they might be enslaved, they might join the slaves, they might join a cadre of elite household troops on a special mission who are among the slavers and directing them, or they might fall in with an ancient engineer and flee with her a thousand miles along a ruined canal choked with desert sand, and then travel steadily through inhabited country as her companions and bodyguards.

Obviously I'm going to need "Martian" words for much of the stuff in Bio-Tech and Ultra-Tech. What other phrases ought I to have at my fingertips? Suggestions please!



† As a bit of an in-joke referencing Leo Szilard and the Fermi Paradox, I am going to represent "Martian" by translating phrases into Hungarian. I doubt anyone will notice.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Brett

... I am going to represent "Martian" by translating phrases into Hungarian. I doubt anyone will notice.

Do I deduce correctly that you want to prepare these translations, rather than just talking to the players in Hungarian?

One starts with the Martians talking to each other along the lines of "What the Hellas Major are these?" and "Search me!" Followed by trying to talk to the PCs, and probably realising fairly fast that both parties seem to have languages that the other could learn, from the sound of them, but they don't have any common language.

Then we get to the pointing and walking to indicate "come with us", possibly also involving weapons being pointed. How fast do you expect the PCs to realise they are on Mars? From experience of playing this sort of scene, expect some gestures for "yes" "no", and "don't understand" to emerge rapidly.

Looking at your possible outcomes, it looks important to have solid descriptions of the different sets of Martians available. Figuring the difference between slavers and troops mixed in with them may be possible by observing equipment and body language, but you're going to need good descriptions to let the players use their wits.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Do I deduce correctly that you want to prepare these translations, rather than just talking to the players in Hungarian?

Exactly so. If I could speak Hungarian (or any language that the players wouldn't recognise) there would be no problem. But I'm monoglot, so I am going to have to prepare a phrasebook of things that the Martians will say and that the characters might learn to recognise before the language-learning montage. Also, I am going to have a permanent requirement for "Martian" terms for things like kevlar and lasers that did not exist on Earth in 1917.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Brett

What other phrases ought I to have at my fingertips? Suggestions please!

Adventurers and their adventures being what they are, they'll probably hear a lot of cries for help (from Martians directed at other Martians), commands to stop or go away, warnings like "Look out!" and "Behind you!", demands for information ("Who are you? What are you doing here?"), and things like "Kill the aliens!", which they'll probably be happier not quite understanding.

Originally Posted by Brett

As a bit of an in-joke referencing Leo Szilard and the Fermi Paradox, I am going to represent "Martian" by translating phrases into Hungarian.

In that case:
I will not buy this record. It is scratched.
I will not buy this tobaconist. It is scratched.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
Do you want to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Then we get to the pointing and walking to indicate "come with us", possibly also involving weapons being pointed. How fast do you expect the PCs to realise they are on Mars? From experience of playing this sort of scene, expect some gestures for "yes" "no", and "don't understand" to emerge rapidly.

Gestures are a good way to make a culture seem alien. As an example, I recall reading somewhere about a fictional culture based on dogs (can't recall if it was actual Earth dogs uplifted, or if the author had just been inspired by dogs).

Holding one's nose in the air would be interpreted as an arrogant gesture by us, while to them it is exposing one's throat as a sign of submission. As for a friendly grin, well...

[Ed the Coastie]

Please tell me that sniffing each other's backside had replaced handshakes as a form of greeting...

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

Please tell me that sniffing each other's backside had replaced handshakes as a form of greeting...

I honestly don't recall anything other than the exposing throat and baring teeth things. Thinking more about it, it seems like it may have just been a thought experiment in an article on worldbuilding.