You have always been apt with languages both mundane and exotic. From a young age you have had the ability to quickly pick up new languages either from the people you encounter or from books and dictionaries, soaking up vocabulary, verb tenses, and sentence structure like a sponge. Your gift has been a useful skill in a world filled with tongues; while many travelers know just enough Common to ask where they can find the library, many others prefer to do business in their native tongue.
Your ability may have given you the ability to serve in the court of a local magnate, providing hospitality to foreign strangers or helping the titled nobility handle affairs of state in a diplomatic corps. Or perhaps you traveled, picking up new tongues as you visited the hamlets and towns of halflings and humans, gnolls and gnomes. Or maybe you were with a merchant caravan, helping them do business in far-flung locales where the Common tongue is not spoken by many.
Even if you are no longer attached to your employer or your patron, the skills you learned up as an interpreter in listening and observing, relaying information accurately, and bending language to your will still serve you in good stead wherever you go. Your abilities will serve you well in a life of adventure.
- Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion
- Languages: Four of your choice, one of which you will only be able to read and write.
- Equipment: A set of fine clothes, a scroll or map case, an ink pen, 5 sheets of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pouch with 5 gp
You have studied languages so extensively that you are attuned to key techniques that enable you to pick up additional languages quickly, even without the assistance of an instructor. When engaged in downtime activities, you may learn languages in half the time normally needed, and any skill checks your DM may require to learn the language are made at advantage. You may also learn to speak and write languages with the assistance of a textbook or dictionary in the language, bypassing the need to find a suitable instructor; you may only learn to read and write languages in this fashion, but not understand them when spoken or speak them yourself.
If you wish to develop your listening comprehension and speaking ability in a language you can read and write, you must either procure the assistance of an instructor for a quarter of the normal required time to learn a new language or find a group of native speakers willing to let you practice with them. If you pursue the latter option, you must succeed on a DC 16 intelligence check to understand the spoken language for a period of up to 8 weeks with fluent speakers of that language, or a DC 20 intelligence check to haltingly produce the language in conversation with native speakers for up to 8 hours, maintaining your concentration on the language as if concentrating on a spell (you may maintain your concentration on both understanding and producing a language at the same time, but you make each check independently). You may drop your concentration on a language to cast a spell or perform another task that requires concentration, resuming your concentration on the language upon concluding that task without having to make a second check. If you fail either of these checks, you must finish an extended rest before you are able to repeat the check.
Every time you succeed on one of these checks and maintain your concentration on active conversation for at least 4 hours, the DC of the check drops by 1. Once the DC of a check reaches 8, you are considered to have mastered that area of comprehension, and may either understand or speak that language. You cannot reduce the DC in this way more than once per week, but can reduce the check for listening comprehension and the check for speaking each once in the same week.
You may leverage your ability as an interpreter to maintain a modest lifestyle during downtime, translating basic documents, scribing letters, and performing other services. If you are formally attached to a noble court, merchant guild, civil court, or other important institution, you may easily maintain a comfortable lifestyle.
Suggested Characteristics
Use the tables for the guild artisan background in the Player’s Handbook as the basis for your traits and motivations, modifying the entries when appropriate to suit your identity as a interpreter.
The noble court or merchant organization where you got your start may be directly or indirectly associated with your bond (which could pertain to certain individuals in the group, such as your sponsor or mentor). Your ideal might be concerned with the prevailing philosophy of your organization, or with your desire to add languages to your collection.
| d8 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I can’t help it—I’m a perfectionist. |
| 2 | I often drop words from other languages into my sentences, to the confusion of those around me |
| 3 | I always want to know how languages work and if something about them affects how their speakers think. |
| 4 | I’m full of witty Gnomish aphorisms and have a proverb in Deep Speech for every occasion. |
| 5 | I’m rude to people who lack my commitment to study and the acquisition of knowledge. |
| 6 | I like to talk at length about declensions and verb tenses. |
| 7 | I don’t part with my services easily. If you want me to help you translate, it will cost you. |
| 8 | I’m well-known for my work, and I like to tell stories about the famous people I've interpreted for. |
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Communication. It strengthens civilization when people can communicate across language barriers. (Lawful) |
| 2 | Generosity. My talents were given to me so that I could use them to benefit the world. (Good) |
| 3 | Self-expression. Everyone has a right to speak and be spoken to in their own language. (Chaotic) |
| 4 | Greed. People need interpreters, and I'll provide a service if they pay for it. (Evil) |
| 5 | Language. I’m committed to the pure study of language, and its applications are secondary. (Neutral) |
| 6 | Aspiration. I work hard to be the best there is at my craft. (Any) |
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | The organization I interpret for is the most important institution in the world to me. |
| 2 | A greedy noble abused my services to swindle a merchant caravan. I quit, and I’m still looking for someone worthy of my service. |
| 3 | I learned my craft from a great teacher, and I owe them a great debt for teaching me their secrets. |
| 4 | I once encountered a compelling creature speaking in an unknown language. I hope to learn the language and communicate with the creature someday. |
| 5 | There has yet to be a dictionary written in Common of a particular exotic language, and I plan to change that. |
| 6 | I have in my possession a tattered book written in an unknown tongue. I intend to crack the secrets of the tome. |
| d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | I’ll do anything to get my hands on a sourcebook for an extinct language. |
| 2 | I sometimes speak in a foreign language for hours, forgetting that the people around me don't understand me. |
| 3 | No one must ever learn that a translation error in my past work for a noble sparked a period of war. |
| 4 | I’m never satisfied with what I know—I always want more. |
| 5 | I would kill to acquire a title letting me be the noble, rather than simply the noble's interpreter. |
| 6 | I’m horribly jealous of anyone who can speak a language I can't, and it shows. |
You are a translator for a noble institution at the highest level, called upon regularly to translate difficult issues with skill, care, and discretion. You are also relied upon to occasionally carry out duties of state; representing the needs of the court to a foreign ambassador, serve on the negotiating team for a trade agreement, or discreetly arrange for the indiscretions of a visiting dignitary to be papered over as they are quietly asked to leave the county until the scandal blows over. Your knowledge doesn't end at the languages of the people you interact with daily; you are also deeply aware of their customs, habits, mannerisms, preferences, and other small details that can make a native speaker feel at home in a strange and unfamiliar world.
When speaking in a language you know with a creature for whom that language is a native tongue (determined at the DM's discretion), you gain a +5 bonus to persuasion, deception, intimidation, and performance checks made to influence that creature's mood, decisions, or attitude towards you. Additionally, when you cast any spell with a verbal or somatic component which would require that creature to make a saving throw using their Charisma, Wisdom, or Intelligence modifier, that creature makes the save with disadvantage if you deliver the verbal component in their language and adapt the somatic gestures in a way appropriate to the mannerisms and gestures characteristic of their culture.
Additionally, whenever you make an intelligence check to recall lore about the culture, people, magic, history, or environment of a species whose native language you speak, you make the check at advantage.
Comments