Almost everything that gets posted in other than English is pasted from Google Translate (Jareth is the exception here -- Chou-Zhen speaks Eldritch, but the player can't even consistently make sense of Jareth's posts with both translators, never mind go the other way).

If Mario says something in Shevnian that someone in the thread shouldn't understand, I'll type what I want to say, plug it into Google Translate, and then copy/paste the result to the thread.  Aldous is Triunist and has Latin only at broken (aside from memorized prayers), so a word or two here and there does the job; I usually have to dig up the pre-1980s version of Catholic prayers for that.

Rather than using true spoilers for the translation, you'll want to use "insert a private line" in the lower right of the editor, and select GM.  PCs who should understand what you've said can retranslate, and those who shouldn't can choose to metagame or not (Aldous has understood almost nothing of the recent exchanges in the Mug and Cauldron, because he doesn't speak a word of Shevnian (it's not that common in Artisan, that area is mostly goblins and they mostly speak Aralaise in public).

And yes, it's a bit of extra work, but it's a fun role-playing opportunity that few if any face to face games can include (picture looking up what you want to say in Shevnian in an English/Slovakian dictionary, then not being able to read the Cyrillic/Greek alphabet well enough to pronounce the words).

Wanted to make a few observations for Jareth's driver here.

Honestly, I think he's fairly refreshing, as he breaks most of the typical fantasy RP conventions.  Most of your characters hit this mark, to varying degrees.  That's pretty much what GURPs is all about, and so I applaud you for the creativity.  (this applies to many people, by the way)

The flip side of that is the characters can be a little hard to relate to sometimes.  I don't mean that to be negative in any way.  Your deep knowledge of the system from more of a developer perspective is impressive.  It's more of an observation for myself.

As a player, I have to guess what your characters can and cannot do.  They don't fit into traditional roles, or match up with conventional stereotypes.  In real life, the different people in the group would have a much better feel for each other.  In a RP setting, I am sometimes unsure how my characters should act.  For example, when Jareth seems to know all about the Eldritch realm, how should Nodwin and the group react?

From a metagame standpoint, we work together and recognize that the players are typically unified for one goal.  If this were real life, it strikes me just how different this would be.  The other characters would likely start with fear of Jareth's abilities, leading to judgement because he is different.  Realistically, I have to ask myself if the relationship between the characters would be strong enough to ward off the inevitable bigotry that would creep in for some.  It's a deep philosophical question well worth a few minutes of examination.

I personally think it's a great allegory for real life.  Let's think about it in that context, and not discuss it here.  I want to preserve the sanctity of the game for everyone, no matter their backgrounds or world views.  Why do I bring this up?  It is my hope that we could learn something from the game, and bridge some divides in our lives.  No one seems to be happy with the current state of affairs, and I'd like to build on what we can agree on instead of focusing on the tribal groupings.  We should be coming together in times like these, at least in my opinion.

Please, please, forgive the soap box.  I'm (perhaps naively or innocently) trying to make things better in my own little way.

Pretty much the entire reason I created Gareth...and the way I play him! It is actually fun to play out some of these bigotries a little.

And I have patiently been foiled by you again and again.  No easy button for Haveron.  Ever.

Thanks!  Most of my characters are a bit more 'straightlaced', Jareth is a bit weird.  He wasn't quite this weird five years/days ago (years real time, days game time), but his last five days have been real eventful...


Hah, yaeh.  Well, he was hired as a Sage and a guide into the undercity.  So he has specific knowledge there, as well as a lot of broad, but not deep knowledge in general.

But he was built as a Linguist and Sage with the potential to go Psi... and his boosted Hidden Lore skill is Elder Things.  Basically he knows a lot about stuff you don't want to know about, which means you don't have to worry because he knows it (hah).  And like all good Call of Cthulhu cultists detectives, the guy with the elder thing spells and knowledge is going to go crazy first...

I've been waiting* for Nodwin to decide he needs to have a talk with Jareth about what sorts of things are okay to invoke, or parlay with, or even talk to...  what is allowed to be 'known' is way passed stopping.  That barn doesn't even have doors no more.


* But it has only been an hour or two game time so Nodwin is probably still processing.



About the only thing he's done that's really out there* is accidentally invoke a manifestation of YOG-SOTHOTH, which I mean, if I was thinking about it makes sense, there we were in the "outer realms" beyond space and time, and Jareth basically (as part of a spell) said "hey big guy, can you do me a solid and give me the power to shut these gates down?" and good ole YOG went "DON'T MIND IF I DO!".  So really, Jareth will be more careful about name dropping in the future.  Maybe.  Probably.  As long as he remembers to.  (which for someone with Eidetic Memory his Absent Minded kicks in a lot)


* And parlay with the Hob slaves of the Dark Ones who are probably setting out to murder everyone?  I'm still not sure exactly what they were talking about, but we seemed to part on good terms.  Maybe their dark gods will eat us last.




That's because A) R'lyehian is weird, half the 'words' are suffixes or prefixes to be added to other words, so I jam them on all hodge-podge, and 2) sometimes I have to fudge words in from other sources (like Black Speech) because there is no correspondent word in either R'lyehian or high Valyrian.

And lastly I'm just aiming at "does it look right"?  I mean, the dictionary has like maybe a 100 words between them, so I do an awful lot of shrugging and saying "yeah, that looks like someone with heavily accented Eldritch".


I can still pronounce Cyrillic.  But Greek has always been Greek to me...

You, sir, just happened to pull the long straw.  Your main healer happens to have Curious, Selfless, and Weirdness Magnet, along with Imaginative and Broad-Minded as quirks.  Things have been strange for him his whole life, so he has learned to take all the oddities in stride.  In fact, he has come to accept that there is more out there, and is curious about it.

When I inherited the character, I had a few moments where I asked the very same question.  But Nodwin also has the  Sense of Duty to his fellow adventurers.  As built, he's going to watch you and support the group, and try to learn from all the craziness.

It does seem to be a bit at odds with his god of worship, but perhaps he was chosen by Vejovis because of his weirdness.  Maybe there is a greater plan for him spinning in the mind of...Gwythaint...?

Vejovis needs Nodwin to speak for the underdog,  provide healing for all, and maybe overthrow the monarchial system. That work may take you into strange places.

Jareth also came to the group with needed benefits, Clarence and Charlene were originally his hirelings, and he used a personal item to really mess up the first batch of cultists they had dealt with. His abittraction of weird things (there were 4 people with weirdness magnet in the group at one point brought the Ymid to them, instead of to another are for its investigation of the street collapse, and he was able to speak with the gobbo slaves, but they are pretty chill with everyone due to experimental neurosurgery...

In reply to Narrator (msg # 419):

Be back Monday

In reply to Narrator (msg # 419):

I probably should have had weirdness magnet as well, but most of my other character have it and it was becoming a bit cliche. So instead he is a socially repulsive criminal with loyalty to his companions (read, whoever hired him!)

Not the most socially normal character though...

"...Here there be spiders..."

In reply to Nodwin Zideqick (msg # 422):

"Cute little fluffy little eight leggy spidies..." [Must be sung as a nursery rhyme]  why does he not have weirdness magnet again? Oh that is right, he is the weirdness attracted to the magnets!

See, and now we totally need to rescue those guys and get them some help.

In reply to Jareth Mooncalled (msg # 424):

I did indicate in their descriptions that they had shaved heads with scarring on them.

In reply to Narrator (msg # 425):

Is a lobotomy on a Gobbo a bad thing? :)

Both Jareth and I geeked out over the linguistics and ignored any oddities they displayed.




Depends.  Who is doing the lobotomy?  Why are they doing the lobotomy?  Is the goblin a friend or client or enemy of mine?

In reply to Jareth Mooncalled (msg # 427):

They were not friends before, or you would have known about it. Given they are Gobbos, odds are on enemies...

Gareth, it isn't long (game time a couple weeks at most) since my group went to considerable effort to keep the population of town-dwelling goblin artisans from winding up in a war against the population of town-dwelling orc entertainers -- over a Romeo and Juliet situation involving rival crews of juggers and their cheerers.  I personally count Glosso the Quick and Razpodiel, one of Fezokeel's guards, as friends.

In reply to Ardenas Barehand (msg # 429):

Friends? You have friends? Poor, vulnerable you...

Though Gareth might count some of his companions as friends. Well, those who can accept his weird twisted version of morality, perhaps! Probably would not use him as a character reference though...

In a dramatic twist of irony...would Gareth consider Haveron to possibly be his closest friend...?

In reply to Haveron Stormwal (msg # 431):

Nah, It's the Adept I am sure...

Hmmm, that might be even more ironic....

In reply to Amelia Montaigne (msg # 433):

I may be slowbovervthe next several days, I am not quite in the right headspace, and I have commissions  to work on tomorrow.

In reply to Narrator (msg # 434):

Well, they say you need to have feeling for folk to fight with them over little things...lol, maybe he and Haveron are becoming friends without either of them noticing!

Did you... did you just admit to stealing the plot from the Friday the 13th tv show?



;)

In reply to Jareth Mooncalled (msg # 436):

You yourself returned an uncataloged book on demonolgy from the dismal tower to the Hadereum- where do you think it came from?

Seriously  though, Bazaar of the bizarre   in Newhon, a similar shop in Thieves World, andpart ogmf the Fluff text in Monster Hunters:The Enemy.


Not everything in the shop is cursed, but there were cursed items ampng the other gewgaws.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:18, Thu 28 May 2020.