Demons or devils can usually communicate in Common with no issue. Knowing Abyssal or especially Infernal mostly means you're better equipped to see through their deceptions. Devils especially are fond of using Infernal in contracts specifically so the recipient can't understand the multitudinous ways the devil is ******* them over.
The only language I can think of where understanding it might credibly present a danger to your character is Deep Speech, i.e. the 'language' of Aberrations. That's your Ia Cthulhu territory, where even simply being able to grasp the language may have inflicted damage on your character's mind. Entirely DM dependent, of course. RAW, it's just another language you're allowed to pick almost any time you pick a language. However nonsensical that is.
Demons or devils can usually communicate in Common with no issue. Knowing Abyssal or especially Infernal mostly means you're better equipped to see through their deceptions. Devils especially are fond of using Infernal in contracts specifically so the recipient can't understand the multitudinous ways the devil is ****ing them over.
The only language I can think of where understanding it might credibly present a danger to your character is Deep Speech, i.e. the 'language' of Aberrations. That's your Ia Cthulhu territory, where even simply being able to grasp the language may have inflicted damage on your character's mind. Entirely DM dependent, of course. RAW, it's just another language you're allowed to pick almost any time you pick a language. However nonsensical that is.
As I've stated before, I don't want my character to know infernal or abyssal because I don't plan on talking let alone making deals with devils or demons.
Demons or devils can usually communicate in Common with no issue. Knowing Abyssal or especially Infernal mostly means you're better equipped to see through their deceptions. Devils especially are fond of using Infernal in contracts specifically so the recipient can't understand the multitudinous ways the devil is ****ing them over.
The only language I can think of where understanding it might credibly present a danger to your character is Deep Speech, i.e. the 'language' of Aberrations. That's your Ia Cthulhu territory, where even simply being able to grasp the language may have inflicted damage on your character's mind. Entirely DM dependent, of course. RAW, it's just another language you're allowed to pick almost any time you pick a language. However nonsensical that is.
As I've stated before, I don't want my character to know infernal or abyssal because I don't plan on talking let alone making deals with devils or demons.
I know Latin, never planned on using it conversationally though.
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Elven, as most people said, or maybe Dwarvish - dwarves generally lean towards good alignments, though they are more lawful than neutral and elves are mostly good aligned too and both those races are usually relatively common in most settings. Gnomish and Halfling could be viable options too - they’re also races generally though of as “good” and with the majority of them being good aligned. Celestial is the language of angels so universally good but it’s generally less widespread than the other options.
Aarakocra seems like a good fit and I don’t believe it’s been mentioned here yet - Aarakocra are in vast majority neutral good and very few of them would be of any alignment other than good, it’s one of the more rare languages though, how much use exactly you would be able to get out of it depends a lot on the campaign.
People are likely to learn the languages of the creatures they are most likely to communicate so from a role play point of view in a location like Faerun they are likely to learn things like Elvish and Dwalf so they can talk to them in their natural tongue. It is often forgotten but the rule for choosing languages is they should be from the list of standard languages (Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Giant, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling and Orc). Some races have an exotic language as a given (e.g. Dragonborn) but to choose an exotic language you need your DMs permission. I would say you need a reason from your background to speak an exoctic language, A Cleric who prays to their God in Celestial is fine, having lived in a area where there were some dragonborn is enough reason to know draconic, but if you want to know Abyssal or deep speech you will need a good reason
A Cleric of Tyr who helps people get out of contracts they have sogned with Demons would be reason to know Abyssal. If the premise to the adventure is aberations have been appearing and a party of adventurers are sought by the authorities ot investigate it would make sense if they choose one who knows deep speech, but if the start of the adventure is they are travelling for some unrelated reason and the aberations appear then I would not expect any of ther players to know deep speech.
The way I see it, demons are associated with the abyss, which is associated with being chaotic evil. Whereas Devil's are associated with lawful evil. I'm thinking you won't have much success in talking to a CE entity as opposed to LE entity.
Learn infernal, that way you can actually read the contract that this character is eventually going to have to sign to save the world at the cost of their soul.
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Demons or devils can usually communicate in Common with no issue. Knowing Abyssal or especially Infernal mostly means you're better equipped to see through their deceptions. Devils especially are fond of using Infernal in contracts specifically so the recipient can't understand the multitudinous ways the devil is ******* them over.
The only language I can think of where understanding it might credibly present a danger to your character is Deep Speech, i.e. the 'language' of Aberrations. That's your Ia Cthulhu territory, where even simply being able to grasp the language may have inflicted damage on your character's mind. Entirely DM dependent, of course. RAW, it's just another language you're allowed to pick almost any time you pick a language. However nonsensical that is.
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As I've stated before, I don't want my character to know infernal or abyssal because I don't plan on talking let alone making deals with devils or demons.
I know Latin, never planned on using it conversationally though.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Elven, as most people said, or maybe Dwarvish - dwarves generally lean towards good alignments, though they are more lawful than neutral and elves are mostly good aligned too and both those races are usually relatively common in most settings. Gnomish and Halfling could be viable options too - they’re also races generally though of as “good” and with the majority of them being good aligned. Celestial is the language of angels so universally good but it’s generally less widespread than the other options.
Aarakocra seems like a good fit and I don’t believe it’s been mentioned here yet - Aarakocra are in vast majority neutral good and very few of them would be of any alignment other than good, it’s one of the more rare languages though, how much use exactly you would be able to get out of it depends a lot on the campaign.
People are likely to learn the languages of the creatures they are most likely to communicate so from a role play point of view in a location like Faerun they are likely to learn things like Elvish and Dwalf so they can talk to them in their natural tongue. It is often forgotten but the rule for choosing languages is they should be from the list of standard languages (Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Giant, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling and Orc). Some races have an exotic language as a given (e.g. Dragonborn) but to choose an exotic language you need your DMs permission. I would say you need a reason from your background to speak an exoctic language, A Cleric who prays to their God in Celestial is fine, having lived in a area where there were some dragonborn is enough reason to know draconic, but if you want to know Abyssal or deep speech you will need a good reason
A Cleric of Tyr who helps people get out of contracts they have sogned with Demons would be reason to know Abyssal. If the premise to the adventure is aberations have been appearing and a party of adventurers are sought by the authorities ot investigate it would make sense if they choose one who knows deep speech, but if the start of the adventure is they are travelling for some unrelated reason and the aberations appear then I would not expect any of ther players to know deep speech.
The way I see it, demons are associated with the abyss, which is associated with being chaotic evil. Whereas Devil's are associated with lawful evil. I'm thinking you won't have much success in talking to a CE entity as opposed to LE entity.
Infernal>abyssal
Learn infernal, that way you can actually read the contract that this character is eventually going to have to sign to save the world at the cost of their soul.