[Volaire] Languages of the Tapestry

D&D assumes a default linguistic standard of racial tribalism. Walking into a village, you would expect it to be an "Elf village" or a "Goliath village," and this was how D&D presented the setting - in 1977. Since then, the presentation of randomly generated communities are no longer homogeneous tribes, but comparatively much more metropolitan. Your enemy warcamp will have orcs, hobgoblins, and kobolds.

While Volaire is exceptional in its racial demographics, the setting as a whole absolutely supports a diverse distribution of races. People are culturally raised in and subsequently identify with their community more than their species. An orc raised in Volaire finds more familiarity and understanding with a fellow Volarian elf than he does with an orc from one of the Soltsa worlds. Subsequently, languages are instead separated by cultural groups.

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Common/Mondrian: The lingua franca for travelers throughout the Mondrian system.

Athasian: A complex language, with heavy variation based on spatial context; there's a literal linguistic difference between their indoor and outdoor voices. This is known by the people of the planet Athas, and cannot be fully spoken by those without telepathy.

Laadan: Primary trade language of the Greater Fratol Co-Prosperity Sphere, an expansionist empire with a strong dueling culture. Not on friendly terms with the Mondrian system, except for Volaire, who are more concerned with profit.

Tir'Su: Language of nobility & scholars for the Grand Visory, who are economically entwined with the Fratolian Sphere.

Qualith: The braille-like written language of the now-shattered Illithid Empire.

Zakhod: Trade tongue of the Soltsa, a series of dark colony worlds who retained a fair bit of autonomy even when they were under the control of the Illithid Empire.

Utu: The language of academia with the Sikato Church and the Celm Faith, the two being different enough to notice, but not enough to meaningfully preclude understanding from the other side.

Ichtacan: Language of the scholarly moons of Ichataca, allies of the Grand Visory.

Vulgar Tongue: Not a single language, but a catch-all term for the local language of whatever community is encountered, including isolated races/tribes who have not developed the means to leave their world. Volarian is a vulgar tongue, but its relevance/prominent is obvious in a campaign set in Volaire.

• Volarian: Commoners of Volaire and its colonies.
• Speronese: Commoners of Speron, a Mondrian nation with a love for masks.
• Kanei: Indigenous tribes of Mondria's moon.

Vulgar tongues tend to use the same alphabet/script as their local trade tongue, other than Kanei, which uses its own unique script. Contrariwise, each of the major trade tongues listed above use their own alphabets other than Ichtacan, which uses the same as Utu.

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Secret Messages

The purpose of language is to ease the conveyance of information. For many situations, this is too easy, and thus hurdles have been instituted by various people to make certainly only people they want get the information. There are numerous ways for communication to be shrouded, and can easily be the subject of an entire sourcebook. Suffice it to say, a single blog post is not a sourcebook, and so I will only provide a few samples for surreptitious communication.

Obscure Script: A catch-all term for ciphers created for use between spies of Volaire, and in fact, there's a secondary meaning behind which cipher is used to encode a piece of text. In 5E, each cipher can be cracked with an Intelligence check, the DC listed with the cipher below. It is known among the spycraft community of Volaire that Comprehend Languages is an absolute key against obscure scripts, & therefore knowledge of this spell is closely guarded/monitored by multiple factions. It is not unheard of for courier to be assassinated simply for transporting a written copy of the spell, & wizards who are overly open with their use of the spell are a short-lived phenomenon.

• Sunlight (DC 7): A low-effort cipher more often than not used to keep messages from being read over your shoulder or to make a message look more important than it actually is.
• Semaphore (DC 14): Used for surreptitious communication within the Armament, Volaire's star ship construction district.
• Trick (DC 20): Popular among the arcane, this cipher uses sigils and scripts normally reserved for use in spellbooks, seeing use throughout the Mondrian system. What makes this cipher unique is that it can be read with read magic.
• Vinegar (DC 15): Used by those who feel their messages are getting intercepted.
• Lily (DC 12): Popular among lovers, it is exceptionally common to douse the message in a particular scent to serve as the key.
• Habit (DC 18): Predominantly used by members of the clergy, especially between the numerous monasteries of Volaire.
• Scicolo Major (DC 25): The personal cipher of the Rao, established for use in personal correspondence with foreign officials, and is reset to a new key with every new Rao. Named after a famed cryptographer, and is known for being nearly impossible to decipher. Even with the key, it's a DC 5 Intelligence test if you don't have a cipher disc (specialized cryptography tool).
• Scicolo Minor (DC 18): The cipher used by secretive agents of the Volarian government, a different key being used within each city district.

Learning an obscure script is a simple matter of picking it up from your background or making the associated check past the DC.

Code: Whether it's Thieves' Cant or a prearranged list of code phrases/words with specific meanings, this method is proof against comprehend languages. It does require either foreknowledge of the specific code, via memorization between the two parties or a written primer that can be referred to, depending on the code's complexity. Of course, an understanding that code is being used can be inferred through keen social awareness (5E's Insight or 3.X's Sense Motive, opposed by Deception & Bluff respectively).

Telepathy: This method of communication is remarkably effective, so long as your target is within range. The hindrance in its use is social, as people who are known telepaths (especially Athasians) are severely distrusted & frequently barred from even entering various establishments.