WARNING: This is a WORK IN PROGRESS. For more information see the main article and the enclosing directory
These rules expand the Language rules in Faster Than Light: Nomad by Stellagama Publishing.
Starting Languages
Every character speaks Tradespeak (Danaut) and one other language reflecting their culture, ancestry, or species. The character also knows how to read and write all languages they start with.
About Tradespeak
Tradespeak descends from “High Confederation”, the formal language used in Confederation deliberations, back when the Confederation used to deliberate. You wouldn’t know it, though; it has enough slang and foreign loanwords to make it a wholly incomprehensible new language. Furthermore, the variation of Tradespeak used one sector over is not the same as the one in the Danaut sector.
Tradespeak forms a “dialect continuum”. The version of Tradespeak used one sector away from Danaut counts as a dialect of Tradespeak (Danaut) with a +2D bonus to speak it. Each further sector away from Danaut imposes a cumulative -1D penalty.
Speaking Languages You Don’t Know
When a character encounters a language they don’t speak they make a throw against Social to see if they picked up a bit of it in their travels. One of the following modifiers will apply.
| Situation | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Language is a dialect of Tradespeak | see above |
| Language is a dialect of another language you know | +2D |
| Language is Common | +0D |
| Language is Uncommon | -1D |
| Language is Rare | -2D |
| Language is Very Rare | -3D |
| Language is Extinct | -4D |
If the throw succeeds, the player does not add the language to their list of languages, unless they study it during downtime for a period of months. The throw merely detemines whether the player can stumble through a conversation. The player will have to make the throw again until they learn the language properly.
Learning Languages You Don’t Know
A character can learn a language permanently if they:
- spend three months immersed in the culture that speaks the language
- make a successful Social throw.
Language relationships and Rarity do not modify the throw.
Reading and Writing Languages
If a character knows the language, they can also read and write the language unless they’re not a native speaker (i.e. it’s not their starting language) and it’s listed separately in the language tables below. In this case treat the written form as a separate language.
See also Written Languages.
Language List
This list may grow over time.
| Language | Rarity | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient (spoken) | Extinct | the Ancients |
| Ancient (written) | Extinct | the Ancients |
| Commonwealth | Very Rare | the Transhuman Commonwealth |
| Etanoi | Uncommon | the Etanoi Republic |
| First Ones’ Piping1 | Very Rare | First Ones |
| First Ones’ Writing | Very Rare2 | First Ones |
| Grey, Archaic (dialect) | Rare | some Greys |
| Grey, Danaut (dialect) | Rare | Danaut Greys |
| High Confederation | Rare | Confederation officials, old records |
| Kante | Uncommon | the Kante Empire |
| Timojinese | Very Rare | natives of Cabeirithyia |
| Tradespeak (Danaut) | Common | every starfarer in Danaut Sector |
| Tradespeak (other) | Common | every starfarer in other Sector |
| other starfaring languages | Rare | various |
| other “primitive” languages | Very Rare | various |