Tag: lang-confound
Orlecan (Language of the Lighbringers of the Steel Realms)
Posted on May 15, 2026 in Steel-Realms
Maximum Level of Learning is ‘Mastery‘.
Pronounced “or-lek-aan“; Orlecan of the Steel Realms is one of the obscure languages of the Steel Realms.
It has no written form, and is passed down through a strict oral tradition using strong phonetic recordings, in other written languages of the Steel Realms for teaching. It is not taught to those outside the clergy of the Church of Light or the community and idol/icon roles for priests. Creatures of darkness – the void and the Outer Darkness, cannot speak it – their mouths become tortured and broken in attempting to do so. The language of Orlecan was originally taught directly by the Lightbringer gods to their followers on the Godsrage Plain.
The normal Ryadian Oblis services do not function when trying to decipher and translate this language.
Language of the Lightbringers: Orlecan is the native language of the divine Lightbringers taught exclusively to their followers in the Church of Light. Part of the culture of the clergy and followers of the unified pantheon of Lightbringers of the steel Realms is the use of this language as a status and cultural symbol. Those who can speak it and are fluent in it generally speak it to each other as a form of secure communication. It is considered poor manners to speak it in the presence of nobles of the realms who cannot understand it, but there is no such feelings when dealing with commoners.
Druunae (obscure language of the Druunad)
Posted on September 6, 2022 in Steel-Realms
Maximum Level of Learning is ‘Mastery‘ within Language capability.
Pronounced “drew-nay” – One of the languages of the Steel Realms.
The language spoken by the small population of strange creatures known as the Druunad. There are only about 100,000 of them left by difficult reckoning. They do not normally teach it to outsiders, they are accomplished linguists themselves and typically learn other races and cultures language to communicate with them. Those dwelling in The Deeping also tend to gain some basic familiarity with the tongue.
Written Form
There is no comprehensive written form of the language, there never has been. Other races have attempted to phonetically represent the language, without known linguistic rules, they interpret as best as they can. This is always done in Dukat, the closest to represent the known syllabic stresses of Druunae. The “Whisperings of Warnings” are something the Druunad believe in. They never live in barren areas, and place warnings in the vines, grass, trees, and living things that whisper them back to other Druunad, so they need no written language. They do use symbols and rune-like markings to encapsulate concepts – this seems to be borrowed from Dukat. These conversant with it can make loose meaning of it, but not specifics. Those conversant in Dukat have limited capability to understand Druunae’s reduced representation.
Records: They will place their foreheads or horns together in order to use sound and their dream-speak to transmit data. The ‘Horns of the Dead’ are used to capture these dreams and carry the message. Their understanding of these comes in knowledge and feeling – far more intensely than mere written language can handle.
About/Chronicle of the Druunae Language
Information Sources: Mundane Reference | Associated Phenomenology Only | Specific Lore
Knowledge is broken down by ease of discovery/availability & Meticulous Record Keeping may improve usability; Any attempt to know more than what's Pervasive will require a reference, source, knowledge, check, or access to someone who can get or provide either of these. Specific Lores may increase the chance of knowing specific elements.
Trivial Outcome / Very Easy Difficulty & Pervasive Knowledge
Estimated Value: ? (Silver Crowns)
Blackmark (Markings of Darkhollow)
Posted on January 1, 2021 in Steel-Realms
Pronounced “bleckmerk” (by Orrish) – One of the languages of the Steel Realms.
Blackmark is a corrupted written version of Feyloise with elements of Vyzpyr. Its literary form had a limited vocabulary, and was specifically designed to be used in evil, unholy rituals and ceremonies of death and destruction. It cam to be used for many of the magics of the Unholy Trio, and though had no correlation to the spoken elven tongue it was represented by Orrish words of evil liturgy that corresponds to the ideas the corrupted writing represents. The very antithesis of life and beauty, it is considered vile in both its written symbols and in its hearing.
Black Tongue: Those who said its syllables aloud were inflicted with Black Tongue. It was said its users were the most dedicated servants of evil, as it marked them as both an Enemy of those who oppose the faith, and a dedicated practitioner of evil – black tongue would fade if it was not used repeatedly. Those who heard it and did not have proficient knowledge of it had their sanity assailed with a psychic scream.
The normal Ryadian Oblis services do not function when trying to decipher and translate this language.
About/Chronicle
Simple Outcome / Easy Difficulty & Common Knowledge
Most Recent History
Commonly Understood Origins
Commonly Understood Development
General knowledge…
- Key Places
- Key Entities
- Key Concepts
It first was developed around CY 4000, and fell out of use by CY 6000. It is believed that the sect of Gloombringer that was rumored to have created it was wiped out and the knowledge was mostly lost.
Obscure Knowledge / Near-Impossible Difficulty
Dunlupia (language of the Bronzefolk – dying language)
Posted on July 16, 2019 in Steel-Realms
Maximum Level of Learning is ‘Mastery‘ (physical/spoken)/Expert (inscribed/literate) within Language capability.
Pronounced “doon-loop-eah” – One of the languages of the Steel Realms.
Dunlupia was the language spoken by the Bronzefolk. It is considered a dead or dying language, not spoken by anyone now, outside of a few elders of their descendants in the heartlands territory of The Saelish (of Dunstrand). There may be a few scholars elsewhere, yet they are only guessing – it missing its cultural references. It is still used in its written form in a few places, but communicates only basic concepts. To most it is difficult to learn, and quite baffling in its use beyond simple conversational levels.Origins: The language’s fully-formed spoken and written origins are a mystery to scholars, and the descendants of its speakers do nothing to change that. It may be a guarded secret or simply lost to the mists of time.
Written Form
The language does not have a phonetic alphabet, but instead draws on small symbols and characters that combine sounds representing concepts and ideas – similar to a druidic approach.
The normal Ryadian Oblis services do not function when trying to decipher and translate this language.
Copying Record: Its written form, without the missing knowledge of its sources and context, loses exactness and nuance each time a written record is translated and/or copied. This is not well known except by scholars, who tend to deal in source materials carefully. Each successive copy reduces its precise meaning – the (reading) Practice Level by 1; e.g. If it is written at Accomplished level, it translates to Competent. This makes it very difficult for scholars, which is why most texts have noted the “generation” of copy they represent. Success copying devolves the script until it appears only a crude, barely Familiar representation of the original record with the person doing the recording not realizing it until it is complete. Exactly why this happens is not exactly understood.
Digital/Image Copy: Even these exact copy mechanisms fall prey to the mystical confounding – resultant outputs get scrambled or simply have some meaning lost in the copy process.
About/Chronicle of Dunlupian Language
Knowledge is broken down by ease of discovery/availability & Meticulous Record Keeping may improve usability; Any attempt to know more than what's Pervasive will require a reference, source, knowledge, check, or access to someone who can get or provide either of these. Specific Lores may increase the chance of knowing specific elements.
Trivial Outcome / Very Easy Difficulty & Pervasive Knowledge
Dunlupia was the language spoken by the Bronzefolk. It is considered a dead or dying language, not spoken by anyone now, outside of a few elders of their descendants in the heartlands territory of The Saelish (of Dunstrand). The inhabitants there now speak mostly Gladnorean. There may be a few scholars elsewhere, yet they are only guessing at some of the meanings – it is missing its unique cultural references for context. It is still used in its written form in a few places, but communicates only basic concepts due to its exotic nature. To most it is difficult to learn, and quite baffling in its use beyond simple [barely] conversational levels. Because of the confounding of its written records, the Bronzefolk are often thought to be a crude, elemental tribe of humans that lacked sophistication.
Origins: The language’s fully-formed spoken and written origins are a mystery to scholars, and the descendants of its speakers do nothing to change that. It may be a guarded secret or simply lost to the mists of time.
Bronzefolk Records: Because the character script was typically very small, the records of the Bronzefolk were densely stamped on thin single sided sheets (pages) of bronze and sealed in wax or resin. Their most important records were done this way, weighing in at 10-100 pounds each volume. Obviously these weather well compared to paper, or hide. There are almost no known examples of these records outside The Saelish – guarded and restricted (though copies are available). The few that do exist are in the libraries of Port Towne or personal collectors.
Simple Outcome / Easy Difficulty & Common Knowledge
Older Sources: Dunlupia and Dundarian are loosely related, sharing some of words, and borrowing from elder tongues such as Draconic and Celestial. The written form of Dunlupia is also said to incorporate elemental symbolism of Occulash, a runic form of magic; This often makes magical translations of the work difficult – prone to unintentional errors and even magical confusion or backlash. This is often cited for the errors and omissions inherent in copying/translating records.
Minor Outcome / Average Difficulty & Uncommon Knowledge
Difficulty in Records and Literacy: The language has a minor element of Cerebro Language,inherited from its preeminent ancient roots of Draconic and Celestine – requiring knowledge that has been lost to achieve a level of Mastery. This also makes it next to impossible to translate writings beyond a level of barely Familiar; most scripts are written at the Competent and Accomplished practice levels, dropping any complete translations of anything of higher conceptual elements (especially mystical texts). This, combined with its older source origins, makes translating/copying texts by a non truly native speaker (conversant in the source and missing elements), next to impossible.
Scarce Knowledge / Hard Difficulty
Sometimes, scholars will “reinterpret” a work, not copying it verbatim, but instead paraphrasing it, changing the order of elements, and using synonyms. This can rob the work of some special and specific meaning, but communicates the general ideas well enough without losing the level at which the original was written.
Ancient Forgotten Sources: Elements of the ancient ideas and words represented in Drunnae are also found in this language, though very few scholars actually recognize their source and influence. It is not necessary to completely understand this language, but observant scholars recognize the influence. At least 1 measure of capability in this language is required for fluency.
Rare Knowledge / Very Hard Difficulty
Native Speaker (Cultural Context): Additionally, to complete the knowledge of mastering the language the character needs to be either a native Bronzefolk, having grown up in their ancient place of origin, or have Lore: Bronzefolk/Lords of Bronze at Mastery level. There are places and cultural roles that are used as concept bridges that have no meaning without the context of their ancient culture, requiring specific knowledge.
Practice Level:
- Maximum achievable as a ‘spoken’ language by non native.
- Native Speaker + Cerebro
Obscure Knowledge / Near-Impossible Difficulty is not in known references; It is GM only and not Forbidden/Taboo Knowledge.
Dunlupian was invented by Hathor and Thoth on Helca in order for a select few Celestine to communicate about the Illuminated Awakening. It also was used to negotiate the bonds with the great animal archetypes of Helca (and could also on other worlds) that made them so potent against the monstrosities created by the Sea-Kings.
Dunlapian is close to celestial, but it is a new celestial type language. It exists beyond three dimensions on paper and speaking. It rewires the brain in its purest form using words of power and ruins for writing. This allows an easier pathway of changing a gifted speaker’s order of being. The Celestine of Helca created this for the Bronzefolk to improve the pathway to ascendancy to a higher order of being.
Expanded Mastery: + Draconic (conversational/fluent) + Celestine (conversational/fluent)
The ability to communicate on this level has the equivalent capability as Sylvan and the added capability to be able to charm or influence natural beasts/animals. It allows the practitioner to understand ANY spoken language at a practice level of 1 (though not speak back to them) as well as rudimentary communication in Drunnae and Dudarum. It also facilitates any attempts at calming effect on targets of draconic or celestine nature as well as the Druunad race on Helca.