This post collects a number of notes about Elder Tongue, one of the hidden languages of my Felltower campaign.
The original description is here:
Elder Tongue: An old language, out of current use. Used back in the day by evil wizards, ancient scholars, and still used today by ancient beings, usually of great evil. Not a great way to impress your local clergy, who might report you to the Inquisitors if you walk around showing you know this. Of course some Inquisitors will know it well, to better fight their enemies! Ancient magic books are often written in this language. Wizards sometimes (okay, often) learn this in its written form only, to read forbidden texts and learn dark secrets.
According to this post, it costs double for Gift of spells。
Other assorted facts:
- Elder Tongue's characters have many readings, both individually and when collected. A character's reading (and substance of its meaning) can change based on characters that come before it or after it.
- Elder Tongue can be written left-right or right-left. It's sometimes written horizontally, sometimes vertically. This can change the meaning substantially.
- Elder Tongue's writers are often willfully obscure and deliberately opaque. Even with a clear reading, the intent might not be clear - and characters may be used as code. Gift of spells let you read or speak the language, but don't provide you with the intent and meaning of coded messages. There are no spells available that break codes.
- Elder Tongue is fixed and unchanging - it's not a living language - on the world of Felltower. It's not clear if that remains the case elsewhere.
I use Eldritch as the language natively spoken by Dark Ones. All of the best works of Thaumatology are written in it.
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