Dead Language

Dead Language Social Apprentice 600 hours Counts as two skills at character creation Double learning difficulty Requires: Literacy You can read one of the languages that are no longer in use. You cannot speak the language (excepting Gothic and Nocturne), as there are none alive who remember it. That is, unless your Game Master is enough of a sod to allow you to play a 5000 year old Elf or Vampire. The cultures that spoke these languages may have left behind artefacts, carvings, or texts that still are legible.

These languages include:
 * A-oc—an ancient race that lived in what is now the Killian Empire, exterminated by the Killian
 * DHTML—an ancient technomantic language no longer usable
 * Draconic—the reputed language of Dragons; artefacts with this script written on them are attributed to creation by the Dragons; no one has ever heard them speak this language, nor can anyone convince the Dragons to do so; if this is their language, the Dragons aren't saying
 * Gleer Marks—this was believed to be used for battle signals and trail markings by the Old Empire; the accuracy of modern translations is in doubt as they may include innocuous scratches on stone walls and scars on old trees
 * Gothic—the spoken form is not quite dead, but is dying; the few Goths that still speak their native tongue usually use Anglan or Bizzannite script
 * Kobold—since their integration into Elven society millennia ago, the Kobolds have lost their language; now found only in the most ancient caverns in the Elven lands; related to Gobbley
 * Nocturne—mostly found in ancient necromantic texts, the pronunciation of this language has been uncovered, but no one uses this for conversation; related to Gothic
 * Nordikkite—named for the island in the Great Sea, the former inhabitants had mysteriously vanished by the time Bizzannite explorers discovered the island, no one knows what the Nordikkites were like, only their written language and a few magic artefacts remain
 * Ogrenon—a study in tragedy, these peaceful giants (9 ft tall) were already dying out when Humans arrived in Midian, they just couldn't (or wouldn't) compete with the new species, even the Elves considered the Ogrenon shy and reclusive, related to Gobbley
 * Old Anglan—this ancient form is far removed in pronunciation, grammar, and alphabet from modern Anglan; it is now quite incomprehensible to modern speakers
 * Scathach—a Human language belonging to a country destroyed by the Bizzannite Empire early in its history, the Scathach were supposedly the aggressors and numerically superior to the fledgling Byzant army.
 * Tarkin—not exactly an ancient language, as the Tarkin recently became extinct (but mostly wiped out by the Old Empire); their native language was pitched higher than other races could hear; found throughout the Kingdom of Formour
 * Yuan—the old form of Killian, now found only in the most ancient manuscripts, its spoken form was believed to be quite different to modern speech
 * Zanir Pictographs—the ancient form of writing in Ebonstone, and mostly a lost art; modern Zanir is written using Bizzannite