A guide to names and languages

Names and languages in the world of are often inspired by those of various cultures in the real world. The different peoples and species have unique names from each other based on the language of their kin. Names don't need to be directly copied from those of a real world culture(in some cases that might even be a negative thing), but should have the same feel to it.   Another important point is that while the different peoples mostly tend towards using their own naming traditions, it's not uncommon for one species to use a given name from a different species they live alongside. Some species of people does this quite often, while some not so often.   In the case of changing surnames, this usually only happens through marriage. If people of different species marry, it's common for one of them to take the surname of the other. In some cases they might keep both names, or they combine the two names to make a whole new one. If they have children, that child will usually continue with the surname their parents used.

Languages known

Player characters in D&D tend to be able to understand, read, and write an impressive amount of languages. In the world of , the rules for languages are a bit different.   Each language known by a character is accompanied by what type of understanding of the language they have. There are three types: Written, spoken, and complete.

Example: A gnome that never learned to write their cultural language might know spoken gnomish and complete common. Similarly, a human learning a deep speech by studying books might know complete common and written deep speech, but wouldn't be able to connect the spoken language to the written language.

  It's important to note that a character's cultural language is dependant not on the species of the character, but on the species of the parents that raised them.

Example: A halfling raised by goblins would likely know the goblin language, but not the halfling language.

  Mental capacity also determines how many languages a person is able to know. To be able to know more than one language, a character must have either an Intelligence or Wisdom score of 8 or higher, but they will only know the spoken type of the second language unless the two languages share a written script. Example:

A halfling with a Wisdom score of 6 and an Intelligence score of 8 might know complete common and complete halfling, while a dwarf with those same ability scores might know complete common, but only spoken dwarvish.

  A character with a positive modifier in either Wisdom or Intelligence is able to learn extra languages to the amount of their modifier. The modifier from the two abilities don't stack, only the highest one is counted. A character with both their Wisdom and Intelligence modifier at -2 can only know one language. At -3 they only know its spoken form. At -4 or -5 they don't know any languages, but might be able to learn simple commands through training.   Player characters start with knowing complete common and potentially a complete second language based on their species. If they gain any languages from their background, it will be either the written or the spoken form. If a character learns both the written and spoken forms of a language, they've learned the complete language. Their known languages is subject to the rules on ability scores stated above. Their first language should always be Common, unless important story and roleplaying elements argues otherwise, and it should be up to the discretion of the DM.  

Modifier	Languages known
-4 or -5	Don't know a language, might learn simple commands
-3	Spoken Common
-2	Complete Common
-1	Complete Common and spoken cultural language
0	Complete Common and complete cultural language
+1 or higher	Complete Common and complete cultural language. One additional language to the number of your modifier, as they are learned.

Languages

This is a list of languages found in the world of , and what real world languages they sound like.  

Language	Sounds like	Script
Celestial	French	Celestial
Common	German	Common
Deep Speech	Arabic	Celestial
Draconic	Latin	Draconic
Druidic	Gaelic	Druidic
Dwarvish	Norse	Dwarvish
Elvish	Spanish	Elvish
Giant	Norwegian	Dwarvish
Gnoll	Bantu	Bantu
Gnomish	Polish	Dwarvish
Goblin	Japanese	Dwarvish
Halfling	British	Common
Infernal	Finnish	Infernal
Orcish	Russian	Dwarvish
Primordial	Chinese(Mandarin)	Dwarvish
- Auran	Chinese(Tibetan)	Dwarvish
- Aquan	Chinese(Cantonese)	Dwarvish
- Ignan	Chinese(Shanghainese)	Dwarvish
- Terran	Chinese(Mongolian)	Dwarvish
Sylvan	Italian	Elvish
Undercommon	Australian	Common

*The Abyssal language of D&D: In , Demons and Devils are the same type of creature, and they both speak Infernal. Therefore, the Abyssal language does not exist in this world.

Names

Names are products of the language spoken by a culture. In the below list you can see which language is culturally tied to what which species, and example names found among their people. Cross reference with the languages' real world counterpart. You can also click on the name of a species in this list to go to the article on them, where more information on their naming convention can be found.

Species	Cultural Language	Example given names	Example surnames
Humans	Common, special	Aletta, Alfhard, Cyneric, Giselmund, Hubert, Swanhild, Thilde	Blau, Botwright, Damd, Fiedler, Foerstner, Vend
Elves	Elvish	Argonio, Saria	Castillas, Dragez, Medina, Varges
Halflings	Halfling	Robbie, Harper, Maddie, Kinsley, Autumn	Smith, Pickles, Hunter, Payne, Webb, Stevens
Gnomes	Gnomish	Zippledapple, Green Fingers, Tinseltop, Tori	Special
Draconians	Draconic	Ava, Hadria, Magnus, Octavia, Tiberius	Special
Dwarves	Dwarvish	Bjornhedin, Hilde, Hrafn, Sif, Ulf	Eiriksdottir, Ragnarson, Sigridsborn
Bastetians	Bastish	Amun, Heptet, Khati-Zet, Neb-Anu, Paru, Tai	Special
Orcs	Orcish	Artem, Kira, Pasha, Sasha, Tanya, Viktor	Belsky, Kozlov, Nikitin, Pavlishchev, Vasiliev, Volkov
Goblinoids	Goblin	Aoi, Hino, Kazujin, Keisuke, Tomoko	Arekawa, Miyahaka, Tohou