Hello. I loved Pyramid #3-44 - Alternate GURPS II regarding languages. Would you happen to know or have created a list of more ancient languages for use in a magic urban fantasy game? Such as if the families and maybe defaults for Aramaic, Old Irish, Sanskrit, Middle Egyptian, Coptic, Koine Greek, etc.? I am forming a game and knowing if these tongues “might” have any sort of defaults would be helpful. Thank you! again, great works!
Hey David, welcome! (And well done tracking me down.)
I’m afraid the scope of the article was strictly modern languages. That said it shouldn’t be too hard to build some of this material. The first step was to break languages down by family, in this case:
Aramaic → Northwest Semetic → Semitic → Afro-Asiatic
Old Irish → Celtic → Indo-European
Sanskrit → Indo-Iranian → Indo-European
Middle Egyptian → Egyptian → Afro-Asiatic
Coptic → Egyptian → Afro-Asiatic
Koine Greek → Hellenic → Indo-European
The only ones of those I’d expect to have a useful default at all are Middle Egyptian and Coptic. Old Irish and Sanskrit may both be Indo-European but they’re from opposite ends of the area…
That is fantastic and good to know, thx! Sorry for the late reply. So yeah, I guess you really cant “default” Sanskrit or Aramaic right? lol. I’m wondering if the game is cinematic, maybe extreme defaults are possible within a family or something like that? So, if you had another Northwest Semetic language you could try Aramaic or perhaps at a “close” language to it?
I’m also pondering if my magic is language based, maybe allowing a perk to buy a incantation phrase. Therefore, if you don’t have the language, but seek out someone that does, you can buy a perk to learn that specific phrase at a low skill or something.
1 Like
That sounds more or less like the way I’d do it, yeah. And I’m not sure a phrase learned phonetically is even worth a perk point; like a tool familiarity, you need to take time to acquire it, but your typical ritual magician doesn’t actually understand the Latin he’s using anyway…
you are probably right on a perk idea. Maybe it’s just a zero-point feature. Not sure. I like the idea of a caster finding an ancient tome with an Old Egyptian incantation in it. Does not have the language, so cant cast it on my world, since language are the buy in for spells…BUT has maybe some other tongues or skills that can decipher it, at least enough to say it …sort of … Maybe linguistics or something…or google translate ? lol.
“Klaatu barada nikto”
1 Like