[✗] Dead Men Dead Language

[King_Kunuk 3022]

Amendment Proposition to Al'tahrn-Durngo, the Ebrietaean Language

All changes have been underlined. Parts that are removed have been slashed through

Under Lore
Was:

 

Spoiler

Lore

Al'tahrn-Durngo is known as the Black Language for one reason; all things tainted, evil, corrupt or dark are capable of speaking it. (Including but not limited to: all undead, necromancers, mystics, frost witches, shades, striga, silit, and shade parasites) The origin of the language is the Ebrietaes, in which the grating and guttural ‘true language’ is used telepathically by mortal souls adrift in the stream to communicate with one another. The language was unleashed upon descendantkind when Ikuras set Its eyes upon the stream and prodded  the language toward the dreaming  minds of living mortals with wounded souls, those plagued by dark knowledge, and those  unnaturally connected to the Soul Stream without the song of Aeriel to prevent the intrusive language from reaching their minds. Due to its very nature as the language shared in the Ebrietaes however the souls of all races are doomed to inevitably wield knowledge of this supernatural tongue and once they have heard it enough every sapient being with a soul will  develop a resistance to its grating effects and can even learn it while still among the living.

While The language is unpleasant to those unaffiliated with the dark arts at first and grates at the ears like nails on a chalkboard or scraping metal the longer you persist in listening to the language the less disgusting it becomes to hear. Eventually a complete tolerance to its guttural vernacular will be developed and the listener can even be taught the language at which point one’s ability to learn Al’tahrn-Durngo is restricted only by their motivation and learning retention.

 

Too

Spoiler

Lore

Al'tahrn-Durngo is known as the Black Language for one reason; all things tainted, evil, corrupt or dark are capable of speaking it. (Including but not limited to: all undead, necromancers, mystics, frost witches, shades, vampires, silit, and shade parasites) The origin of the language is the Ebrietaes, in which the grating and guttural ‘true language’ is used telepathically by mortal souls adrift in the stream to communicate with one another. The language was unleashed upon descendantkind when Ikuras set Its eyes upon the stream and prodded  the language toward the dreaming  minds of living mortals with wounded souls, those plagued by dark knowledge, and those  unnaturally connected to the Soul Stream without the song of Aeriel to prevent the intrusive language from reaching their minds. Due to its very nature as the language shared in the Ebrietaes however the souls of all races are doomed to inevitably wield knowledge of this supernatural tongue and once they have heard it enough every sapient being with a soul will  develop a resistance to its grating effects and can even learn it while still among the living.

While The language is unpleasant to those unaffiliated with the dark arts at first and grates at the ears like nails on a chalkboard or scraping metal the longer you persist in listening to the language the less disgusting it becomes to hear. Those not initiated in the dark arts of death magic or of the undead can never learn the language, their souls not corrupted or having touched the Ebrietaes to allow comprehension.
 

 

Under Redlines

Was

Spoiler

-Al'tahrn-Durngo's abrasive pronunciation cannot be weaponized or somehow made relevant to combat; the discomfort of hearing it cannot cause damage.
 

-Al'tahrn-Durngo is a language and as such cannot be instantly known and understood; it takes years (e.g. 2 IRL weeks or more) of practice before someone is fully fluent regardless of whether they naturally develop it as a dark mage or creature or as someone being taught.

 

Too

Spoiler

-Al'tahrn-Durngo's abrasive pronunciation cannot be weaponized or somehow made relevant to combat; the discomfort of hearing it cannot cause damage.
 

-Al'tahrn-Durngo is a language and as such cannot be instantly known and understood; it takes years (e.g. 2 IRL weeks or more) of practice before someone is fully fluent regardless of whether they naturally develop it as a dark mage or creature or as someone being taught.

 

-Al'tahrn-Durngo as a language cannot be learned by anyone who does not have an approved Dark Magic MA (Necromancers, mystics) which pertains to the undead or a Dark Magic CA which makes them Undead (ghouls, ghosts, vampires, liches). Revoking of the approved MA or CA will cause the ability to understand and comprehend Al'tahrn-Durngo to be lost over the course of a few years (e.g. 2 IRL weeks or more)

 

Reason for this amendment

Other spooky themed or MA themed languages (Such as the demonic language Ilzakarn for Naztheraks and Demons, or Low and High draconic for heralds and azdrazi) are hard locked to those specific MAs and CAs, giving those languages a uniqueness which cannot be taken away from. It has always irked me to some measure that someone could have their spook hunter CA be taught this secret language by their spooky friends or a random ghost, which takes away from the uniqueness of the rp aspect of the language. This amendment aims to make the Language of Undead creatures and those who practice death magics now wholly unique to said magics. Also it removes striga (a CA that doesn't exist) and flatly just calls vampires vampires in the language instead.

[Morigung-oog 5697]

I don't really see the issue people learning al'tahrn over the span on a couple of IC years. I don't think it necessarily needs to be gatekept from player bases. 

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

12 minutes ago, King_Kunuk said:

Amendment Proposition to Al'tahrn-Durngo, the Ebrietaean Language

All changes have been underlined. Parts that are removed have been slashed through

Under Lore
Was:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Lore

Al'tahrn-Durngo is known as the Black Language for one reason; all things tainted, evil, corrupt or dark are capable of speaking it. (Including but not limited to: all undead, necromancers, mystics, frost witches, shades, striga, silit, and shade parasites) The origin of the language is the Ebrietaes, in which the grating and guttural ‘true language’ is used telepathically by mortal souls adrift in the stream to communicate with one another. The language was unleashed upon descendantkind when Ikuras set Its eyes upon the stream and prodded  the language toward the dreaming  minds of living mortals with wounded souls, those plagued by dark knowledge, and those  unnaturally connected to the Soul Stream without the song of Aeriel to prevent the intrusive language from reaching their minds. Due to its very nature as the language shared in the Ebrietaes however the souls of all races are doomed to inevitably wield knowledge of this supernatural tongue and once they have heard it enough every sapient being with a soul will  develop a resistance to its grating effects and can even learn it while still among the living.

While The language is unpleasant to those unaffiliated with the dark arts at first and grates at the ears like nails on a chalkboard or scraping metal the longer you persist in listening to the language the less disgusting it becomes to hear. Eventually a complete tolerance to its guttural vernacular will be developed and the listener can even be taught the language at which point one’s ability to learn Al’tahrn-Durngo is restricted only by their motivation and learning retention.

 

Too

  Hide contents

Lore

Al'tahrn-Durngo is known as the Black Language for one reason; all things tainted, evil, corrupt or dark are capable of speaking it. (Including but not limited to: all undead, necromancers, mystics, frost witches, shades, vampires, silit, and shade parasites) The origin of the language is the Ebrietaes, in which the grating and guttural ‘true language’ is used telepathically by mortal souls adrift in the stream to communicate with one another. The language was unleashed upon descendantkind when Ikuras set Its eyes upon the stream and prodded  the language toward the dreaming  minds of living mortals with wounded souls, those plagued by dark knowledge, and those  unnaturally connected to the Soul Stream without the song of Aeriel to prevent the intrusive language from reaching their minds. Due to its very nature as the language shared in the Ebrietaes however the souls of all races are doomed to inevitably wield knowledge of this supernatural tongue and once they have heard it enough every sapient being with a soul will  develop a resistance to its grating effects and can even learn it while still among the living.

While The language is unpleasant to those unaffiliated with the dark arts at first and grates at the ears like nails on a chalkboard or scraping metal the longer you persist in listening to the language the less disgusting it becomes to hear. Those not initiated in the dark arts of death magic or of the undead can never learn the language, their souls not corrupted or having touched the Ebrietaes to allow comprehension.
 

 

Under Redlines

Was

  Reveal hidden contents

-Al'tahrn-Durngo's abrasive pronunciation cannot be weaponized or somehow made relevant to combat; the discomfort of hearing it cannot cause damage.
 

-Al'tahrn-Durngo is a language and as such cannot be instantly known and understood; it takes years (e.g. 2 IRL weeks or more) of practice before someone is fully fluent regardless of whether they naturally develop it as a dark mage or creature or as someone being taught.

 

Too

  Hide contents

-Al'tahrn-Durngo's abrasive pronunciation cannot be weaponized or somehow made relevant to combat; the discomfort of hearing it cannot cause damage.
 

-Al'tahrn-Durngo is a language and as such cannot be instantly known and understood; it takes years (e.g. 2 IRL weeks or more) of practice before someone is fully fluent regardless of whether they naturally develop it as a dark mage or creature or as someone being taught.

 

-Al'tahrn-Durngo as a language cannot be learned by anyone who does not have an approved Dark Magic MA (Necromancers, mystics) which pertains to the undead or a Dark Magic CA which makes them Undead (ghouls, ghosts, vampires, liches). Revoking of the approved MA or CA will cause the ability to understand and comprehend Al'tahrn-Durngo to be lost over the course of a few years (e.g. 2 IRL weeks or more)

 

Reason for this amendment

Other spooky themed or MA themed languages (Such as the demonic language Ilzakarn for Naztheraks and Demons, or Low and High draconic for heralds and azdrazi) are hard locked to those specific MAs and CAs, giving those languages a uniqueness which cannot be taken away from. It has always irked me to some measure that someone could have their spook hunter CA be taught this secret language by their spooky friends or a random ghost, which takes away from the uniqueness of the rp aspect of the language. This amendment aims to make the Language of Undead creatures and those who practice death magics now wholly unique to said magics. Also it removes striga (a CA that doesn't exist) and flatly just calls vampires vampires in the language instead.

 

This feels more like your upset that undead spread the knowledge to non-undead. Books exist of the language, and players have spent time within these groups. Besides, your actively writing out people's ability to speak a langauge theyve been speaking? that doesnt make any sense 

[Security_ 2287]

Al’tarhn Durngo wasn’t ‘learnable’ for most of its life, until it was randomly decided to allow for it. There’s no putting the cat back in the bag sadly.

 

That being said, then Ilzakarn and Lower Draconic should also be teachable to any person as a normal language. If you can learn the language innate within all dark things, why not the language innate in inferi?

[Hawkeye_Gough 624]

I came in to +1, but reading the comments I have to agree with Security. As much as I want my darkspeech spam to be unique and esoteric and unknowable, I think expanding rp is a better solution than diminishing it. An amendment should happen, but maybe this is the wrong lore to amend?

The only real exception for me is Moonspeech, which I think should remain very locked. Even master voidalists and atronachs can't learn it by default, so it being unteachable makes sense

The thing that irks me more than the fact the language can be taught is, as you said, how some chars will just get a buddy to help them so they can icly decode stuff forevermore. But I think it's darkspeakers' responsibility to gatekeep, if we want to keep it gatekept

[KBR 2046]

2 hours ago, King_Kunuk said:

Also it removes striga (a CA that doesn't exist)

not in my heart

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

35 minutes ago, Hawkeye_Gough said:

I came in to +1, but reading the comments I have to agree with Security. As much as I want my darkspeech spam to be unique and esoteric and unknowable, I think expanding rp is a better solution than diminishing it. An amendment should happen, but maybe this is the wrong lore to amend?

The only real exception for me is Moonspeech, which I think should remain very locked. Even master voidalists and atronachs can't learn it by default, so it being unteachable makes sense

The thing that irks me more than the fact the language can be taught is, as you said, how some chars will just get a buddy to help them so they can icly decode stuff forevermore. But I think it's darkspeakers' responsibility to gatekeep, if we want to keep it gatekept

Metagaming is metagaming; if u suspect this is happening you should report it imo.

[Hawkeye_Gough 624]

On 11/19/2025 at 6:22 PM, PrimnyaQuorum said:

Metagaming is metagaming; if u suspect this is happening you should report it imo.

I think that would technically be metaplay rather than game, and I don't have any screenshots of ooc agreements to do it. I think some folks just want to rp with their friends, and it's mutually beneficial (ic as well) to do some basic teaching

Nothing wrong with it imo, and no rules broken afaik but it diminishes some of the coolness of darkspeech

[wowj 9747]

This lore has been denied.
Went to a vote and did not pass..

Cats outta the bag, sadly