Ancient Language

The ancient language is a series of unintelligible runes found on artefacts from the Forgotten Age. Curiously resistant to the Comprehend Languages spell, although those with the Eyes of the Rune Keeper invocation can read them some.   The Ancient Language is the original language that the elves introduced to the world when they descended from the moon during the Age of Ancients. In its original form, it was a form of galactic language, a common tongue spoken by all starfaring races from beyond the crystal sphere of the world, and to this day many spells invoke words of the Ancient Language as their verbal components. Rune magic and artifice also use letters and elements of the Ancient Language, due to its natural alignment with the nature of reality.   The language itself consists of strange complex runes in its written form that can be layered and combined on top of one another to create new compound words. To a layman's eye, a fresco covered in the script of the Ancient Language would instead be a wall of intricately carved artwork, as the many flowing runes swerve and flow into one another. The use of runes in the language would later to go on to inspire the runes of the giant language and the kanji of draconic.   Following the collapse of the Great Kingdom during the Forgotten Age, He Who Knows The Word cast a curse of unforseen power that rendered the Ancient Language completely illegible to all. Every creature that knew it at the time lost all memory of it, and it will defy the decoding attempts of scholars and of the Comprehend Languages spell. Only powerful magical forces, like those wielded by a demon or purple dragon, can decipher it.   As a relic of the Forgotten Age, it is strictly forbidden to be studied by the New World Trading Company with the exception of high-ranked and trusted scholars in the Company's university system. Any unauthorised personnel with knowledge of the language is eradicated with extreme prejudice. A huge bounty is placed on their heads, and Aegis agents are dispatched to make it as though they never existed, to begin with.   The Nanlie, a nomadic wood elf tribe located in the Old World still make use of the Ancient Language, despite not being able to understand it. When a child comes of age, the parents will tattoo the body of the child with a series of intricate patterns. Each pattern is unique to each elf, with the various patterns were chosen to have a symbolic meaning, which were cobbled together to form a unique series of tattoos that represent the elf in question. What the Nanlie don't know is that these patterns are simply altered Ancient Language runes passed down from their ancestors as a remnant of their culture. Each Nanlie, unbeknownst to themselves, is decorated with a poem that describes portions of the elves' past, present, and with those rarely born under the New Moon, their future.