I just use different American accents, mostly because I’m American.
Also, because hillbilly gnomes are funny
As a native speaker I will use the very specific Baltimore MD accent on certain NPCs
One of my PCs is a ghoul, and I am incapable of speaking that rough without sounding like Fran Fine (if she smoked for 50 years)
Undercommon is just really thick Australian accent.
I would also accept Scots, since it’s barely recognizable as English
I think you mean “Pikey” as depicted by Brad Pitt in Snatch.
Or, is that simply the way Duergar speak it?
I played a furry porn game where otters spoke Tagalog and honestly, yeah that’s fine
I am curious.
Pfft, all dwarves are either Scottish or German. Just a fact.
Dwarves are Scottish, goblins are German.
I like that one podcast where they established that a dwarf was caught in a dimensional rift and went to Scotland for a number of years before finding a way back home. But he brought back the accent and all the dwarves loved how it sounded so now all dwarves speak with bad copies of a Scottish accent.
Probably because the DM can’t keep his accent straight. But fun nevertheless.
Yes Scottish Dwarf is really good.
But Goblins are not strong enough to yield German imo, maybe it could suit orc but also orc is metal voice.
No, Germans are goblins, there’s a difference ;)
What are the french?
I think there’re enough cautionary comments here re: cultural insensitivity that this is more than a little tone deaf, son.
Lmmfao.
I haven’t been called son by anyone but my dad in decades.
It was also by a condescending asshole the last time it happened.
Seeing as how one side of my family goes back to Baden-Wurttemburg and nearby areas, I can be as insensitive about my own ancestry’s culture all I want.
Germans are quite high on the cultural sensitivity list. Don’t want them declaring war on the entire world again, after all
We use German as common and Dwarves are Bavarian.
Drow are Australian, on account of the land they come from
Nice :)
I have my own language mappings in my homebrew. Most of them only appear as names since most people speak Common, but I did include some people in my game who don’t. (I make sure that they are some who speak a language that I speak too.) So the mappings are:
- Common - English. We’re playing in English, duh. (Before contact with Elves, humans spoke “proto-Common” which would be mapped to German if I had to use it. Many humans still have German names.)
- (High) Elvish - French. Yes, in-universe the Common language has plenty of Elvish influence. (Classical Elvish is Latin.)
- (Wood) Elvish - Greek. Most Wood Elves speak High Elvish, but their names are Greek and many of them still speak their own language as well. The continents and seas are often named in Ancient Wood-Elvish (i.e., classical Greek) because they used to be the primary explorers before the rise of the High Elves.
- Dwarvish - modern Dwarvish is Norwegian, old Dwarvish is Icelandic.
- Halfling - Frisian. (Fortunately I haven’t had to say anything in Halfling so far.)
- Gnomish - Welsh. (Again, fortunately I haven’t had to say anything in Gnomish yet.)
- Orc - Russian.
- Goblin - Mongolian.
- Tellurian (not a species, but an influential country) - Spanish. Many people alongside the Bay of Luria speak Tellurian as their native language instead of Common or their racial language.
- Sylvan - Finnish. (My go-to for weirder names as well. Many Fey-related creatures have Finnish names, as well as those who live near Fey portals.)
- Giant - Hungarian. (They feature a lot in Hungarian folk tales.)
- Draconic - Hindi.
- Hashiman (not a species, but a group of eight islands - though they are also the Kenku homeland so most Kenku speak this as their native language) - Japanese-ish. The language comes in two dialects, Hanego which is used primarily by Kenku but also Aaracokra, Owlin, Tortles, and other creatures with hard beaks that have difficulty pronouncing M and N, and Hadago which is used by the rest. They are identical in writing, differ mostly in pronouncing those sounds.
Orc - Russian.
Haha holy shit.
Draconic - Hindi
“The dragon rears back and bellows ‘DO NOT REDEEM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??’”
“No, Mr. Sorcadin. A Snickers is not a sprinkle.”
Tolkien was primarily a linguist, so the languages he made were actually based on real languages. Tolkien elvish is based on Finnish.
Why not just you Elvish for Elvish?
Because I don’t speak Quenya. (I wrote the signature of an Elvish character in Tengwar, but that’s about it.)
I thought Kenku couldn’t speak
That was pre-MotM, and also Forgotten Realms lore which holds no water in a homebrew setting.
Oh cool. I’m only really familiar with them from the 5e Monster Manual and Volo’s Guide to Monsters, I’ll have to check out Monsters of the Multiverse. Also this is probably a stupid question but what is Forgotten Realms lore?
The Forgotten Realms setting is the “default” D&D setting. Most published adventures take place in it, specifically a small part of it (planet: Toril, continent: Faerun, region: Sword Coast, the west coast of Faerun; this region has a number of famous cities like Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate, Candlekeep, Neverwinter, etc…). The vast majority of lore that you can find in books like the Monster Manual specifically relate to this setting (Volo, Mordenkainen, Tasha, Xanathar, etc… all live there anyway). It also has many famous characters and deities (e.g. Corellon, Gruumsh, Moradin…), countries, cultures, even some languages. And it also includes things like the Kenku curse.
But of course if you’re running a homebrew setting like I do, you can feel free to cherry-pick it or just straight-up ignore it.
IMO - Racial/Ethnic/National Coding isn’t inherently wrong. But using that coding to push Stereotypes and oppressive mindsets is.
Rule of thumb, if you’re worried you will in some way cross that line, don’t do coding.
Not oppressive mindset, but i’m ok with stereotypes too.
Because it can be funny, in comedy racial jokes are always set in some stereotypes for a reason. I think RP is mostly that, fun and joking around.
Esperanto is gnomish
Just want to point out that draconic has quite a lot of words already defined, as well as a few grammar rules. 1. Draconic, 2. Draconic Primer, and 3. Lonely Planet Vayemniri (vayemniri being the endonym for dragonborn in the Realms—a race that absolutely despises dragons wouldn’t exactly be happy about a name that says “dragon”).
I’m not sure what real-world language would be the best analogue. Maybe something Germanic?
You can’t be racist against the French. Same way you can’t be racist against dogs.
You can. And by the way, check how French are doing accent in their series. Spoiler: they don’t. It’s seen as racist. Yes, the way other people are cherry picking other accents is seen as racist. Roger Murtaugh has no accent for example.
Of course, it’s for fun you do it. Of course we still do funny things with accents. But in little groups where the context is clear (for fun or a group of racist shitbags). To quote a dead man (Desproges): “you can laugh about everything but not with everyone”. Thus not on a broadcasted channel.
Just remember that there are other cultures.
Hey, you see. I haven’t been offensive. It’s because I think that some times, it’s good to explain things in a detached way. Now, I can say that discussions about racism is just a joke in (current, let’s see if something better comes next) DnD. Not sure that accent is the problem: even when Darth Vador has a German accent to put a biiig clue of how the empire looks like the Nazis people are able to miss it.
I think you’re getting downvotes for a couple reasons, the least of which is not the fact that you seem to be hinting at the Empire being subtle with IRL fascist adjacency… The faction was literally designed from the start with Nazis at the top of the inspiration list, and this is pretty common knowledge.
Secondly, James Earl Jones does not have a German accent, and its “Vader”. I’d go on, but there’s just so much to unpack. 😶
What?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment.
It’s possible to be racist towards anyone. If you’re white go spend a couple of months in China and you’ll understand that after being told by multiple people that intelligence varies by skin colour and white people are in the bottom half.
I’m 90% sure they were joking…
I wouldn’t be so sure, I’ve been in arguments with a whole lot of people that were arguing that racism against my nation is impossible because it’s mostly white…
They literally compared French people to dogs…
As one rightfully should
I mean, if the baguette fits…
They did not.
They compared the relationship between a thought (racism) and what they believe is a disparate group (French people), to a thought (racism) and a disparate species (dogs).
The key comparison is about the relationship between racism and a group.
They could have said anything for the second example.
Latin is Primordial
I use portuguese for common, english for elvish, japanese for abyssal and i’m learning dovahzul to use as draconic, i’m thinking on learning german too but i don’t know what it will be yet
Goblinoids are German, with various tribes having dialectual differences (my personal fave is the Heßisch goblins of the wooded riverlands, famed for their spider silk surfing), but the most insidious in both regards is the hobgoblin Sweiß-Deutsch.
Thank you, i will go with that
Heßisch goblins are not unlike SoCal coasties, though landlocked; in stark contrast to the assumed harshness of the German language, this dialect reflects its cultural roots in a laid-back and oft syncopated meter with a healthy seasoning of slang, my groms. I guder vie, oder? 🤙🏼
Works at larps too. One I go to (in NL) has Dutch as common, and we use English as Elvish and, depending on with whom I talk, I express Dwarvish with either Scottish English, Northern English or German. If I really want to commit to the bit, I should learn High German or an Austrian dialect for Dwarvish.
Jello Apocalypse and crew did a Let’s Play of Skies Of Arcadia that was fantastic for a variety of reasons. Everybody in the Chinese-coded nation got Southern accents. It was… an alarmingly apt choice.
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