Fantasy Heartbreak Workshop

This is a supplement meant to refine and flesh out the idea of languages in an RPG a bit and expand the concept of cants (as inspired by D&D's Thieves' Cant ).  Most of this has been wrapped into the still nascent KROP game (a homebrew based on GLOG), but it should be relatively easy to adapt to other similar types of fantasy games. Supplement here. You can find more related info here: Earlier Stuff  - This supplement is an expansion of some of the ideas discussed in earlier posts: Languages: Cants (Thieves' and other) Languages: Monastic Linguistics & Unusual Tongues Thieves' Cant Thieves' Cant - Defined Thieves' Cant - Lexicon Other things of interest  - None of these were directly adopted into this work, though they were things partly in mind at the time: Back Slang  & Rhyming Slang 1337 - Hacker obfuscation jargon. Hobo Signs Polari - Cant used by a number of professions historically and notably mentioned in recent years due to it's use in...

Another post regarding languages, this one came about as a brainstorm in response to a Quora question: In D&D 5E, what (possibly exotic) languages could a monk have picked up in a monastery? Depending on the monastery, I think a case could be made for literally any language.  Examples below could probably apply to other other religious, arcane or academic institutions of the right sort as well: All normal languages - Might be common if the institution focuses on learning in general. Axiomatic and/or Gith  - Axiomatic was proposed as a descriptor of lawful plane traits in D&D 3rd Edition. A language of this sort might be common in monasteries run by by the Githzerai, or those founded on Githzerai teachings. Possibly also useful for legal training. Anarchic  - Similarly Anarchic was proposed to describe chaotic qualities.  This might be used by sort of "anti-monks", chaos-warriors, or covenant of  sorcerers of unmaking . Basically any gr...

Working on Creatures & Catacombs today and finally realizing this is definitely not going to end up the minimalist dream I'd originally intended.  While trying to give at least a little description to the various PC races, the idea of language came up, and I started wondering if I should include Thieve's Cant.  This further got me wondering what the heck a "cant" even is. Wikipedia turned up the definition: A cant, cryptolect, argot, anti-language or secret language is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. Each term differs slightly in meaning, and their use is inconsistent. This was frankly fascinating.  It inspires the idea of sub-languages spoken by various in-groups concealing the secret or semi-secret in broad daylight.  Not sure I'll manage to include this gracefully when running my own sessions, but I'd like to put the idea in there so it's available if I need it.  The real tempt...