My campaign has reached sort of a lull recently (even though we're only level 4) and I want to revive it with a setting change via sea expedition. As such, I'll probably be including groups of prowling Sahuagin to add some spice, especially since my players haven't had many combat encounters with creatures they can reason with, and their apparently high mutation rate gives me a lot of nasty DM ideas. However, I feel as though they should have an extra language instead of just the one (the one that is unique to them, I might add). Which language would make the most sense, lore-wise?
yeah, aquan would make sense. idk about abyssal though, though i don't know enough about them to discredit it.
Now that i think about it, the type of languages that I give them might have rippling effects later on. For instance, if they, as a culture, knew Deep Speech, perhaps later on they could tag along lesser aberrations and stuff. I've had enough of my fill of demons, though, and I feel like my players have too.
Maybe Elvish could work, if only due to their immense enmity for elves that they would use any opportunity to sling foul (yet beautiful, as is the Elven language) curses.
They have above average INT and can be out of the water for a few hours, seems reasonable they could have learned the language of any coastal settlement. Either for trade, or for spying or diplomatic reasons.
I've leaned heavily in the opposite direction in recent months. In that, I prefer the language barriers.
Sometimes a creature may speak broken Common or Elvish just to facilitate communication, or perhaps one out of the 100 sahaguin present is passable in Dwarvish, meaning the party's Only dwarf gets to take point. My sorcerer just added the Tongues spell, meaning he has to burn spell slots just to foster limited communication. Language barriers can add a lot of fun roleplay, a mispoken word, mistranslation, or outright one innocent word in common is a curse word in Aquan.
I'd recommend making the party figure out communication on their own, as something "extra" to explore, and to encourage non combat communication spells being almost a necessary moving forward.
Absolutely, respect to you as the DM (no sarcasm!). Your earlier post about Elvish and the jealousy/enmity involved is probably the most sensible choice in that case. Hopefully at least one non-Elf in your group's Party speaks Elvish as a second language, if not you can have fun roleplay between distrustful Sahaguin and any Elves in the Party.
There is also probably an adventure in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book that features Sahaguin to jump start ideas. Have fun!
Yeah we've currently got quite a few half-elves, though i don't know how to portray their attitudes in that case. Perhaps they don't even recognize them as elves? Or perhaps they smell their Fey blood and treat them as slightly less stuck-up, hairier elves. Maybe they even take a sick form of pity on the half-elves for their "sylvan deformity".
It could be interesting if you decided some Sahuagin treat the Half-elves with distaste, some with outright hostility, and some as you mentioned almost pitiable towards them. Could be an opportunity for them to chum up the Sahuagin most likely to work with them or negotiate. It could also be that they aren't even able to really tell they are Half-elves at all (in reading the Race descriptions it's entirely likely to conceal it conciously to just look Human; maybe the Sahuagin should make its own Perception or Insight check?). Even by just allowing the Players to make Insight checks or general Knowledge checks to give them a sort of heads-up about Sahuagin animosity towards Elves in particular could lead to Players making intentional choices to downplay any Elfishness (Deception, disguise kit, etc.).
At the end of the day, though, the Sahuagin Baron is a smart, tough baddie with a high passive perception, and your decision of his opinion of Elves vs. Half-Elves likely won't be challenged by the tribe. I wouldn't be surprised if the 4 armed Baron "requests" the Party with Half-Elves to "prove" themselves having no love towards Elves by actually going to hunt down and help fight a different clan of Sea Elves. Because if not, the Baron will just throw the Party into the "Pit" to fight a pack of sharks.
Have you read the encounter of the week Coral Colosseum? https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/485-encounter-of-the-week-coral-colosseum if not it provides some interesting scenarios, and even just works around the language barrier with a priestess casting Tongues on herself to foster language communication for the group
I have read Coral Colosseum, but I don't necessarily want to use it, just in case one of my players has already taken a peek at it. If I did, though, I would personally use some sort of glassy, underwater dome instead of a coastal cave, just because it seems cooler imo.
And yeah, the "real" reason I want to give Sahuagin an extra language is really so that the priestess in the group can keep all of her 3rd level spell slots just in case combat breaks out.
I guess something that's probably the most important to this whole predicament is that for my setting in particular Sahuagin don't particularly want to kill or enslave or eat people. They're more interested in plundering things of value that they can either use or give to a really powerful creature on their radar. Their sea elf hatred stays intact, however.
(Although personally, I'd say that Sahuagin might hate drow more than sea elves, particularly because there ain't enough space in the Abyss for both Lolth and Sekolah (well there is since it's infinite but you get the idea))
My campaign has reached sort of a lull recently (even though we're only level 4) and I want to revive it with a setting change via sea expedition. As such, I'll probably be including groups of prowling Sahuagin to add some spice, especially since my players haven't had many combat encounters with creatures they can reason with, and their apparently high mutation rate gives me a lot of nasty DM ideas. However, I feel as though they should have an extra language instead of just the one (the one that is unique to them, I might add). Which language would make the most sense, lore-wise?
Sahuagin, Aquan, Common, Abyssal?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
yeah, aquan would make sense. idk about abyssal though, though i don't know enough about them to discredit it.
Now that i think about it, the type of languages that I give them might have rippling effects later on. For instance, if they, as a culture, knew Deep Speech, perhaps later on they could tag along lesser aberrations and stuff. I've had enough of my fill of demons, though, and I feel like my players have too.
Stupid cold/fire/lightning resistance.
Maybe Elvish could work, if only due to their immense enmity for elves that they would use any opportunity to sling foul (yet beautiful, as is the Elven language) curses.
They have above average INT and can be out of the water for a few hours, seems reasonable they could have learned the language of any coastal settlement. Either for trade, or for spying or diplomatic reasons.
I've leaned heavily in the opposite direction in recent months. In that, I prefer the language barriers.
Sometimes a creature may speak broken Common or Elvish just to facilitate communication, or perhaps one out of the 100 sahaguin present is passable in Dwarvish, meaning the party's Only dwarf gets to take point. My sorcerer just added the Tongues spell, meaning he has to burn spell slots just to foster limited communication. Language barriers can add a lot of fun roleplay, a mispoken word, mistranslation, or outright one innocent word in common is a curse word in Aquan.
I'd recommend making the party figure out communication on their own, as something "extra" to explore, and to encourage non combat communication spells being almost a necessary moving forward.
Boldly go
True, but I personally find it irksome that Sahuagin speak Sahuagin and only that.
Absolutely, respect to you as the DM (no sarcasm!). Your earlier post about Elvish and the jealousy/enmity involved is probably the most sensible choice in that case. Hopefully at least one non-Elf in your group's Party speaks Elvish as a second language, if not you can have fun roleplay between distrustful Sahaguin and any Elves in the Party.
There is also probably an adventure in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book that features Sahaguin to jump start ideas. Have fun!
Boldly go
Yeah we've currently got quite a few half-elves, though i don't know how to portray their attitudes in that case. Perhaps they don't even recognize them as elves? Or perhaps they smell their Fey blood and treat them as slightly less stuck-up, hairier elves. Maybe they even take a sick form of pity on the half-elves for their "sylvan deformity".
It could be interesting if you decided some Sahuagin treat the Half-elves with distaste, some with outright hostility, and some as you mentioned almost pitiable towards them. Could be an opportunity for them to chum up the Sahuagin most likely to work with them or negotiate. It could also be that they aren't even able to really tell they are Half-elves at all (in reading the Race descriptions it's entirely likely to conceal it conciously to just look Human; maybe the Sahuagin should make its own Perception or Insight check?). Even by just allowing the Players to make Insight checks or general Knowledge checks to give them a sort of heads-up about Sahuagin animosity towards Elves in particular could lead to Players making intentional choices to downplay any Elfishness (Deception, disguise kit, etc.).
At the end of the day, though, the Sahuagin Baron is a smart, tough baddie with a high passive perception, and your decision of his opinion of Elves vs. Half-Elves likely won't be challenged by the tribe. I wouldn't be surprised if the 4 armed Baron "requests" the Party with Half-Elves to "prove" themselves having no love towards Elves by actually going to hunt down and help fight a different clan of Sea Elves. Because if not, the Baron will just throw the Party into the "Pit" to fight a pack of sharks.
Have you read the encounter of the week Coral Colosseum? https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/485-encounter-of-the-week-coral-colosseum if not it provides some interesting scenarios, and even just works around the language barrier with a priestess casting Tongues on herself to foster language communication for the group
Boldly go
I have read Coral Colosseum, but I don't necessarily want to use it, just in case one of my players has already taken a peek at it. If I did, though, I would personally use some sort of glassy, underwater dome instead of a coastal cave, just because it seems cooler imo.
And yeah, the "real" reason I want to give Sahuagin an extra language is really so that the priestess in the group can keep all of her 3rd level spell slots just in case combat breaks out.
I guess something that's probably the most important to this whole predicament is that for my setting in particular Sahuagin don't particularly want to kill or enslave or eat people. They're more interested in plundering things of value that they can either use or give to a really powerful creature on their radar. Their sea elf hatred stays intact, however.
(Although personally, I'd say that Sahuagin might hate drow more than sea elves, particularly because there ain't enough space in the Abyss for both Lolth and Sekolah (well there is since it's infinite but you get the idea))