Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist
Public (OOC) => Setting and Lore Discussion => Topic started by: BahamutZ3RO on March 01, 2016, 12:47:20 PM
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This is more for curiosity's sake, but I've read the Gazetteer on Sithicus a few times and it's sort of nebulous. The Gazetteer refuses to refer to any of the Halflings in Sithicus as Kender (I'm guessing this is due to licensing, same way that they refuse to refer to Soth by name), though it does state that Falkovnians call them Bitterkinder. We know that the Dark Lord converted a bunch to vampires, but the Gazetteer also mentions that some have escaped and settled and that they'd make good Paladins.
So where is the line drawn? The vampires are Kender but the escapees remain Halflings?
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They're kender, but I think it's probably worth noting there isn't a single living kender in Sithicus. Soth tortured them all and transformed all of them into vampires.
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The "Sithican Hero" tab of the Gazetteer implies that not all Kender were tortured and turned.
"A select few from the growing numbers of halflings have turned to the life of the paladin, as younglings born to halflings who escaped with their lives have not grown up under the grim rule of the Black Rose."
These would be second and maybe third generation Kender who survived long enough for Soth to disappear and the new guy to not really care.
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Sounds like someone needs to finish Soth's work.
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The "Sithican Hero" tab of the Gazetteer implies that not all Kender were tortured and turned.
"A select few from the growing numbers of halflings have turned to the life of the paladin, as younglings born to halflings who escaped with their lives have not grown up under the grim rule of the Black Rose."
These would be second and maybe third generation Kender who survived long enough for Soth to disappear and the new guy to not really care.
Yes; Dread just meant that none remain living in Sithicus. Those who escaped the domain do live elsewhere.
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Okay, but that still goes back to the original question of what are they? Are they still technically Kender or do they somehow become Halflings?
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Okay, but that still goes back to the original question of what are they? Are they still technically Kender or do they somehow become Halflings?
They're still Kender. They are, however, so numerically insignificant as not to merit demographic notice, and most of the Core can't tell the difference, anyway.
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Iiiinteresting...
(http://media2.giphy.com/media/5zkLai9w9GJnW/giphy.gif)
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R.I.P Vampire Kenders in Sithicus... Poor guys. No one deserves that fate.
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Okay, but that still goes back to the original question of what are they? Are they still technically Kender or do they somehow become Halflings?
They're kender. The authors of the 3rd edition books believed (erroneously) that they couldn't refer to them as kender because of licensing issues, so that's why it's "vague and nebulous". This is also why Soth is always called "the Black Rose" in those same books.
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It might be that they are all just halflings, as kender only come from the Dragonlance universe. maybe a few wandered out of the mists, but there are simply a lot more halflings around in all the fantasy universes.
Also Ravenloft uses some Dutch and German, sometimes not correct, bitterkinder translates as: dark children, or bitter children.
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It might be that they are all just halflings, as kender only come from the Dragonlance universe. maybe a few wandered out of the mists, but there are simply a lot more halflings around in all the fantasy universes.
Also Ravenloft uses some Dutch and German, sometimes not correct, bitterkinder translates as: dark children, or bitter children.
Sithicus is a Dragonlance domain. Sithican elves are Silvanesti, the Halflings are Kender, the ancient deities are dragons, etc.
Also, the bitterkinder thing is totes appropriate because they're referring to the evil vampiric Kender who live in the darker areas of Sithicus.
Sithicus continues to confuse me a bit cause no matter what, no playable PC elf from Sithicus is really a native. They'd be older than Sithicus itself, meaning either they'd remember Krynn or they came into being spontaneously when the domain appeared, I guess.
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Sithicus is a Dragonlance domain. Sithican elves are Silvanesti, the Halflings are Kender, the ancient deities are dragons, etc.
right, I knew that.. somewhere deep down in my memories, do I don't really know how Lord Soth ended up in Ravenloft.
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Sithicus is a Dragonlance domain. Sithican elves are Silvanesti, the Halflings are Kender, the ancient deities are dragons, etc.
right, I knew that.. somewhere deep down in my memories, do I don't really know how Lord Soth ended up in Ravenloft.
If i recall from what i was told... Takhisis sent him To ravenloft... to either concur or... punishment which i cannot remember. I just know he could have taken it all over but got board since it was to easy... again just things I have been told by friends who know more then me..
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Sithicus is a Dragonlance domain. Sithican elves are Silvanesti, the Halflings are Kender, the ancient deities are dragons, etc.
right, I knew that.. somewhere deep down in my memories, do I don't really know how Lord Soth ended up in Ravenloft.
If i recall from what i was told... Takhisis sent him To ravenloft... to either concur or... punishment which i cannot remember. I just know he could have taken it all over but got board since it was to easy... again just things I have been told by friends who know more then me..
No he got swallowed up by the Mists after he betrayed Kitiara and let her die so he could turn her into an undead slave at the end of Test of the Twins.
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And he toke thousands of other beings and all his lands with him, on the world of krynn there was just a big hole :roll:
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And he toke thousands of other beings and all his lands with him, on the world of krynn there was just a big hole :roll:
I think it was more like the Mists Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V a new domain for him.
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
So does that mean that PC Sithican elves literally were created out of thin air? They wouldn't have memories of Krynn?
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
Right, when he first appeared in Ravenloft he was in Barovia. After pissing off Strahd, he went to Gundarak. After pissing off Duke Gundar, he went off into the Mists and got trapped as the darklord of Sithicus.
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
So does that mean that PC Sithican elves literally were created out of thin air? They wouldn't have memories of Krynn?
They have memories of Krynn. They believe that they are trapped in Ravenloft for failing to stop Soth's atrocities. Now whether they are truly from Krynn or are just copies made by the Dark Powers is not clear, although there are no records of a large population of Silvanesti elves vanishing into thin air in any Dragonlance material.
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
So does that mean that PC Sithican elves literally were created out of thin air? They wouldn't have memories of Krynn?
They have memories of Krynn. They believe that they are trapped in Ravenloft for failing to stop Soth's atrocities. Now whether they are truly from Krynn or are just copies made by the Dark Powers is not clear, although there are no records of a large population of Silvanesti elves vanishing into thin air in any Dragonlance material.
...Both kind of depressing, yet intriguing at the same time. Hate to find out that my Sithican elf isn't even real, but a creation of the Mists. That could make for an excellent story arc. In written material mostly, not sure HOW that would be handled in game.
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
Right, when he first appeared in Ravenloft he was in Barovia. After pissing off Strahd, he went to Gundarak. After pissing off Duke Gundar, he went off into the Mists and got trapped as the darklord of Sithicus.
Didn't Soth geek Gundar and then drag the Vistani girl off to find Kurchek's grave, or something? It's been a while since I read Knight of the Black Rose.
I distinctly remember him telling his power ranger mode good self to suck an egg, and that he almost brought down Castle Ravenloft with a giant, magical fist.
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He only took the ghost of his sceneshal with him. First he ended up in barovia. He even was in vallaki. Sithicus was only created by the mists later when Soth entered the mists again.
So does that mean that PC Sithican elves literally were created out of thin air? They wouldn't have memories of Krynn?
They have memories of Krynn. They believe that they are trapped in Ravenloft for failing to stop Soth's atrocities. Now whether they are truly from Krynn or are just copies made by the Dark Powers is not clear, although there are no records of a large population of Silvanesti elves vanishing into thin air in any Dragonlance material.
...Both kind of depressing, yet intriguing at the same time. Hate to find out that my Sithican elf isn't even real, but a creation of the Mists. That could make for an excellent story arc. In written material mostly, not sure HOW that would be handled in game.
At worst, he'd be a copy, but copies are still real!
I assume that *if* the Dark Powers are copying people, it would be like a mass version of the clone spell that copies the spirit as well.
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I assume that *if* the Dark Powers are copying people, it would be like a mass version of the clone spell that copies the spirit as well.
And this is what happens when people get NPCs killed by mistake.. * chuckles* Sorry i know was of topic but it made me chuckle thinking of the Mist just cloning people... So thats like.. say you die in the vampire cave... and use the mist to come back... Maybe that body is just a clone then!!?!
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I assume that *if* the Dark Powers are copying people, it would be like a mass version of the clone spell that copies the spirit as well.
Ah-hah! Like that time that players were accidentally creating clones of their characters when they logged in! I knew there was something evil about that.
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I assume that *if* the Dark Powers are copying people, it would be like a mass version of the clone spell that copies the spirit as well.
And this is what happens when people get NPCs killed by mistake.. * chuckles* Sorry i know was of topic but it made me chuckle thinking of the Mist just cloning people... So thats like.. say you die in the vampire cave... and use the mist to come back... Maybe that body is just a clone then!!?!
It's not the Mists, it's the Dark Powers. The Dark Powers are either gods or equivalent to gods, given that it has been shown in Ravenloft books that they can:
:arrow: Make an exact duplicate of Barovia that's identical to the original in every way (in Roots of Evil)
:arrow: Transport people through time (in Castles Forlorn)
:arrow: Split a soul between two copies of the same person (Vampire of the Mists and presumably The House on Gryphon Hill)
:arrow: Physically wrench a piece of land from its home plane (in Castles Forlorn)
:arrow: They can send the Mists to retrieve/steal people from places that are normally cut off from planar travel, such as Athas and the Gothic Earth
:arrow: They were able to imprison a demigod, Vecna, for a brief time.
:arrow: They are able to keep the gods out of their demiplane
:arrow: They can replace gods that have died, such as Bane for the people of Hazlan after he died in the Time of Troubles on Toril
Given all that, and probably more I've forgotten, I can't see how copying people down to their souls is that much of a stretch for the Dark Powers. It's conjecture, of course, and was never confirmed that is how the people of the domains of Ravenloft came to be (and likely never will be), but that's one way I could see it working.
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Meant to say dark powers sorry.
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As a tangent, makes me wonder if the Dark Powers and the Lady of Pain from Sigil took courses at the same omnipotent university. Hehehehe. Kind of a lot of similarities, in my opinion. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
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So "maybe" all outlanders are just clones of themselves, and if they ever get home their mother will have two sons or daughters ;)
Off topic, I know.. sorry.
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Bumping this given the conversation that cropped up in the languages thing.
My current working theory with Sithicus is that the powers copy/pasta'd the domain into the mists and left it there for a few centuries to 'incubate', then brought it out for Soth. It's the only thing I can think of that makes sense, given the long Elven lifespan and the amount of time that would have been needed for the changes to Sithican languages/societies/religions/etc.
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I addressed the language thing. Sithican language = Silvanesti language. It's separate from standard elven, though. I will change the prefix for Silvanesti to be the same as the one for Sithican.
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As I implied before as well, consider too the curse the Dark Powers surimposed on Soth's already cursed existence, that his domain would closely remind him of his former home but with little differences everywhere which annoyed him much. The DPs would not need to incubate the domain for a few centuries. It copied whatever it wanted from Krynn tempering with the new Sithican Elves memories from the get go, thus explaining the differences.
Now of course Sithican or Krynnish elves would never understand the problem in those terms, but most Sithican elves, created by the DPs or not, do remember their "time" on Krynn in a fashion, even if the memory is muddled on some aspects, especially religions. So a domain incubated in the Mist for centuries makes no sense.
//Addendum: Blue has clarified the language thing. But this explanation is still an option for other Sithicus vs Krynn differences.
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I believe the most logical explanation is the dark powers created the land with the elves from scratch but made them seem like the elves from krynn with false memories and all.
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I addressed the language thing. Sithican language = Silvanesti language. It's separate from standard elven, though. I will change the prefix for Silvanesti to be the same as the one for Sithican.
I understand that, I'm just struggling to find explanations for how the language changes that drastically over the course of 50 years. These are the sorts of things that need to make at least a bit of sense when you want to make a PC, otherwise you're just acknowledging that your character is essentially a cardboard cut-out prop that the Dark Powers put there to bug Soth.
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There's no changes? Silvanesti have always had their own distinct language on Krynn. The Sithicans speak that exact same language.
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There's no changes? Silvanesti have always had their own distinct language on Krynn. The Sithicans speak that exact same language.
Sithican elven is described as having a 'hissing' quality to it that makes it harder for Elves to understand, whereas Silvanesti elven is considered one of the most beautiful languages spoken.
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There's no changes? Silvanesti have always had their own distinct language on Krynn. The Sithicans speak that exact same language.
Sithican elven is described as having a 'hissing' quality to it that makes it harder for Elves to understand, whereas Silvanesti elven is considered one of the most beautiful languages spoken.
Sibilant languages can be beautiful, depending on your preference!
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Sithican elven is described as having a 'hissing' quality to it that makes it harder for Elves to understand, whereas Silvanesti elven is considered one of the most beautiful languages spoken.
And that is a good ol' D&D discrepancy between products. Now... beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe that hissing sound is the definition of beauty for Krynnish folks? (Joking here, I don't buy that either).
Faced with such though you have to go with the authoritative source for the setting you play in, ie. Ravenloft. Hence, Silvanesti and Sithican is the same language and has a hissing sound.
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Here's the example names given for both Sithicans and Silvanesti in their respective sourcebooks. It's pretty obvious that there's been some changes to their language.
(http://i.imgur.com/DLeVWUR.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Xr5X6SV.jpg)
So I guess the whole Sithican as a separate language thing makes sense, especially if we're going with all of the other dialects being their own languages as well. Now, this is just one example of something that has changed way too drastically to have happened over 50 years. The entire domain is riddled with these imperfections and errors and it makes me wonder whether it's supposed to be that way, and Sithicans are meant to discover or feel that they're not necessarily real, or if they're just oversights and the Dark Powers would have been more thorough in covering up their work.
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You're reading way too much into it. They're the same language.
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Agreed with Blue. Beside, many of those Sylvanesti names do have that sibilant property if you say them aloud and they don't have to have S sound in all their names or words. Your solution may be as simple as Sithicans merely emphasing their S sounds further than most Sylvanesti would.
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There's no changes? Silvanesti have always had their own distinct language on Krynn. The Sithicans speak that exact same language.
Sithican elven is described as having a 'hissing' quality to it that makes it harder for Elves to understand, whereas Silvanesti elven is considered one of the most beautiful languages spoken.
Have you ever heard France French? It's got a hissing, purring quality to it. I have no idea how they make that R noise, but they do. France French is also considered a really beautiful sounding language.
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As the grand lord jackass that built Sithicus and that has spend lots of hours delving into its insufferably boring lore, I can conclude, with absolute, boundless, and inscrutable certainty that Blue is correct in saying that the Silvanesti and Sithican tongues are the same. The latter's just a slightly different, more hissy dialect of the former.
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To note:
Everyone entering Sithicus are eventually overcome by guilt, and recall memories where they acted poorly. These memories only subside upon leaving. Natives are not as affected by this.
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To note:
Everyone entering Sithicus are eventually overcome by guilt, and recall memories where they acted poorly. These memories only subside upon leaving. Natives are not as affected by this.
If that's true, would be neat to have a script pop up to inform people.
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To note:
Everyone entering Sithicus are eventually overcome by guilt, and recall memories where they acted poorly. These memories only subside upon leaving. Natives are not as affected by this.
If that's true, would be neat to have a script pop up to inform people.
Outsiders also recieve a -1 to Initiative, Spot, Listen, and Search because they're so consumed by these memories of their shortcomings. Natives don't get these downsides. Natives also receive +1 vs Illusion while in Sithicus, because they've accepted their own shortcomings and are harder to fool.
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To note:
Everyone entering Sithicus are eventually overcome by guilt, and recall memories where they acted poorly. These memories only subside upon leaving. Natives are not as affected by this.
Is that Natives to Ravenloft or Natives ot Sithicus?
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To note:
Everyone entering Sithicus are eventually overcome by guilt, and recall memories where they acted poorly. These memories only subside upon leaving. Natives are not as affected by this.
Is that Natives to Ravenloft or Natives ot Sithicus?
Natives to Sithicus.
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Alright, I need more clarification on Sithican elven.
Gazetteer 4 says that Sithican elves and Darkonian elves can communicate. Gazetteer 2 doesn't make any mention of a special or particular version of Elven that Darkonian elves would speak, so presumably they speak generic D&D elven. Doesn't that basically mean that, barring the occasional confusion of phrasing or dialect, just about any elf would understand Sithican elven? Why does Sithican even exist as a language in the language system? It's making things confusing for players.
As it stands, I'm content to let it play into the Sithican superiority thing and just mock elves for not being able to understand.
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They're kender, but I think it's probably worth noting there isn't a single living kender in Sithicus. Soth tortured them all and transformed all of them into vampires.
There's a website that has reposted material on the Demiplanes of Dread, including Sithicus, that appears to be earlier in the timeline than the server's time period, because Lord Soth is still in Sithicus in the texts and the kender race is mentioned by name. This is what it says regarding the kender in Sithicus during the time of Lord Soth's reign.
Although Soth destroyed most of the kender that existed in the domain by turning them into kender vampires through dark experiments, a few survived and now live in the woods. They have the reputation of being some of the most violent and xenophobic people of the Core. Natives avoid the areas of the forest that have been claimed by the kender. Visitors to the domain can recognize the boundaries of kender territory by the rotting heads that are spiked to the trees at its edges; the kender of Sithicus thus turn trespassers into "No Trespassing" signs.
I found the following to be surprising. After describing the racists attitudes of Sithican elves towards others, it reads:
Heroes from Sithicus are generally not plagued by the racist attitudes of their fellow elves, although there are exceptions. Half-elf and half-Vistani player characters are also found in Sithicus.
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Gazetteer 4 says that Sithican elves and Darkonian elves can communicate. Gazetteer 2 doesn't make any mention of a special or particular version of Elven that Darkonian elves would speak, so presumably they speak generic D&D elven. Doesn't that basically mean that, barring the occasional confusion of phrasing or dialect, just about any elf would understand Sithican elven?
This may be off topic, but it at least touches on the connection between Elven and domain languages. It is an excerpt from a "Domains of Dread" publication online (a text scan of an official published work). It is not about Darkon, but rather seems to suggest a similarity between Elven and the languages of Kartakass and Hazlan, so much so that those who know Elven or Hazlan have a 1 in 20 chance of understanding a conversation in the language of Kartakass and the odds grow with each passing day exposed to the language.
The language spoken in Kartakass is similar to that spoken in Hazlan, yet oddly enough, it shares many elements with elvish; foreign heroes who know either of those languages have a 5% chance of understanding any conversation, with an additional 1% added to that chance for each day spent among the populace.
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Alright, I need more clarification on Sithican elven.
Gazetteer 4 says that Sithican elves and Darkonian elves can communicate. Gazetteer 2 doesn't make any mention of a special or particular version of Elven that Darkonian elves would speak, so presumably they speak generic D&D elven. Doesn't that basically mean that, barring the occasional confusion of phrasing or dialect, just about any elf would understand Sithican elven? Why does Sithican even exist as a language in the language system? It's making things confusing for players.
As it stands, I'm content to let it play into the Sithican superiority thing and just mock elves for not being able to understand.
No, Sithicans, just like the Silvanesti of Krynn, speak their own distinct language.
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But Silvanesti Elven is the 'original' Elven of Krynn, that all other forms of Elven (Kagonesti [a mix of Elven and Sylvan] and Qualinesti [Elven and human/kender/dwarven/etc) have deviated from, and every form of Elven in the setting is understood by the other subraces.
(http://i.imgur.com/nGWJDtB.jpg)
Source; Dragonlance Campaign Handbook.
And here's the blip on the Sithican language, where it states that Sithicans and Darkonian elves can 'generally understand eachother'.
(http://i.imgur.com/TeZkFVC.jpg)
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Lets see if we can simplyfy this to be logical how about: the darkonese elves all speak sithican but the darkonese dialect of sithican then :P
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Bah, serves me right for commenting on lore without being near my books. :P
I suppose all of the elven languages can be considered dialects of "generic D&D elven".
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Bah, serves me right for commenting on lore without being near my books. :P
I suppose all of the elven languages can be considered dialects of "generic D&D elven".
Stupid dnd monoculturalism strikes again! It is honestly the thing I hate the most about dnd races, all elves are like blah, all dwarves are like blah, while humans have a dazzling array of different cultures and languages. Other races should have plenty of different cultures and differences. :)
or to quote Sten and Wrex :P
Kaidan: I haven't spent much time with krogan before, Wrex, and I have to say, you're not what I expected.
Wrex: Right. Because humans have a wide range of cultures and attitudes, but krogan all think and act exactly alike.
Warden: Tell me about the qunari.
Sten: No.
Warden: I wasn't expecting that.
Sten: Get used to disappointment. People are not simple. They cannot be defined for easy reference in the manner of: 'the elves are a lithe, pointy-eared people who excel at poverty.'
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Bah, serves me right for commenting on lore without being near my books. :P
I suppose all of the elven languages can be considered dialects of "generic D&D elven".
Like I said, I don't really mind that Sithican occupies it's own slot, so long as it's ruled that it can be recognized (potentially with some difficulty). It's actually making for some interesting interactions with non-Sithicans who claim they can't understand. My char gets to ridicule them for being unable to speak 'proper' elven. :D
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D&D continuity is a mess with its own contradicting lore and the Ravenloft setting suffers a lot for those discrepancies.
Not all sourcebooks agree on whether or not the different elven dialects are close enough to be understood by each other sub-races of elves. But generally, they do indicate all type of elves can understand each others. I believe it all comes from the early days of D&D, where a decision was made for the sake of simplicity that all sub-races of elves could understand each other. It is a silly rule, one which deprive us from the RP opportunities of elves from different cultures encountering each others.
Above all we play in the Ravenloft setting, we should be bound only by its rules (and even then we certainly have our fair share of rule variations of our owns within the mod). Sure it is nice to be accommodating as best as possible with the rules of other D&D settings, but we certainly don't have to be bound by them. We have not addressed the question of Elven languages from Non-D&D settings either. Some, like the languages of Middle-Earth are quite clearly different from each others, I fail to see why they should be able to understand all other elven dialects as well.
To avoid all issues we should put all languages on the same footing regardless of their setting of origin (D&D or otherwise), I propose the following rules:
1) Unless specifically noted otherwise, all racial dialects are considered unique enough to be their own different languages. Speaking one does not allow a player to understand the other dialects of his race. This applies even if this contradicts a non-Ravenloft sourcebook.
2) Darkonese elves speak the generic elven language of D&D [Elf].
3) Sithican Elvish & the Sylvanesti language from Dragonlance setting are one and the same [Sc]. But while the Sylvanesti speaks it graciously, the Sithicans are known to speak it in a dissonant way. They would still understand each other perfectly well.
4) The generic elven tongue [Elf] and Sithican [Sc] are still close enough, that speakers of those tongues may understand each other, but such communication requires a measure of efforts, concentration and to talk slowly to each other. //Here I would suggest a concentration check DC 15 in normal conversation conditions, DC 20 in times of stress (as in a combat).
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^ Very good proposals.
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Can the Sithican elves go back to following their old deities? For purpose of being a cleric?
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You mean like Paladine and the like?
It's not forbidden or impossible or against the rules or anything, but it's very unlikely.