Languages

Modern languages: characters are considered to initially know three languages upon creation. These generally are a racial language, a language common to the area in general, and a language of another group commonly encountered by the character or spoken by his parents in childhood. Each point of the intelligence modifier allows the character to speak an additional language. Each rank purchased in Modern languages allows the character to speak another tongue or dialect.

Reading/ writing is a special skill that costs 5 skill points. Whether a character can read/write a specific language he speaks is a more complicated proposition. Some languages share alphabets and therefore should be easier to learn to read and write them, others use different alphabets, and others have no real written language. To simplify matters, if a character can speak a language and he has purchased the special skill read/write, then the character can be assumed to be able to read and writer that language, if the language has a written component. A wizard must be able to Read/Write at least one language to maintain a spell book.

Ancient languages is a skill that allows a character to read and write a language that is no longer spoken, or spoken in only a limited way, in modern times. The character gains the ability to read one ancient language or dialect for each rank he has in the skill. If he knows a particular ancient language and hears the language spoken, he has a chance of understanding it. That chance is 1d20 + ranks of ancient language + ranks of modern language versus difficulty class assigned by the DM. Bonuses may be given for speaking a modern derivative of the ancient language.

Magic Language: Magic is not its own language. Spells and spell notes may be written in whatever language the caster knows. Wizards often mix languages and use their own private terminology and notations. Read magic is a defunct spell, Comprehend languages spell may be used to read a spell book written in a language the character does not read.