Languages in a recently dead Empire

This week's post is directly inspired by this post from Prismatic Wasteland, one of the best TTRPG blogs I know. Go give it a read, it's worth it.

In short, that post wonders why D&D (and most TTRPGs derived from it) have a "Common tongue" that everyone seems to know - even though in 1974's OD&D non-human NPCs only had a 20% chance of knowing Common, but let's not nitpick - and most non-human species have their own language, shared between all members, no matter how far in the world (or multiverse, in some cases) they are spread, when that was not usually the case in the real world's Middle Age, which D&D is obviously inspired by. It then gives 3 possible solutions for this discrepancy:

  • Ignoring it altogether, to avoid adding complications to the game, but they don't like this solution and neither do I; 

  • Gamifying it, making it so that PCs don't start with a list of known languages, but every time they encounter a new one and it's reasonable that the character could know it they make an ability check to see how well they know it; 

  • Assuming that "D&D is always right" and work backwards, finding a way to make it make sense.

While the second solution is fascinating to me, I have to agree with one of the comments on the original post in saying that it would possibly lead to convoluted moments when every time the PC reach a new area they have the risk (more and more as they get far from their home base, I assume) of none of them knowing the language and therefore having to find a translator before they can do anything, or having to carry a translator per area they visit as part of their hirelings, and that might discourage or even annoy players at many tables.

The third solution, though, is the one that sparked my imagination the most, because to make it make sense in the standard D&D setting - which, as PW correctly points out, is usually established to be post-apocalyptic - the game would need to be set right after the collapse of a big empire that included most, if not all, of the lands of the setting. A human empire, to be specific, since humans are the only ones not having their own language but starting out knowing just the Common tongue.
This might seem restrictive at first, but in reality it's the opposite: 
  • How did the humans conquer all the lands?
  • Why didn't anyone (elves, dwarves, orcs, even dragons or giants!) try to stop them?
  • And if they did, why did they fail?
  • What was the technology level of this Empire? 
  • What caused the Empire to fall?
  • Do the people of the world know of the cause, or is it a mystery? 
These are just some of the questions you could try to answer while making your own setting, and the way you answer them is going to be what shapes your world.
In this scenario, the other languages would be explained as PW says in their post, as a way for those communities to mantain their identities while being dominated by the Human Empire, and the presence of many dungeons full of riches that have not been plundered yet would make sense too: the cataclysm (or whatever else you decide caused the fall of the Empire) has just happened, and the ruins are therefore newly formed and ready to be empited of their treasure by whoever is brave (or stupid) enough to venture into them.
In case you decide to make the cause of the fall a mystery, you could spread clues about it here and there, in dungeons or between them in the overworld, letting players who are interested try and figure out the solution.
The question about technology is there in case you want to make a more science-fantasy setting, maybe letting players find some very powerful weapon no one knows about hidden in a dungeon.

Many more questions with even more answers may occur to you, obviously, and your setting would be even more unique! If you try to do this, I'd be curious to know about your results, so please, let me know.

This is all for this week, see you next Sunday for my next post!

May your dice never betray you,
Kirhon


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