I don't think that "Uthgardt speak their own language (called Bothii), which has no alphabet." necessarily means "Uthgardt don't also speak Common". The Uthgardt Shaman provided in the adventure confirms, since it lists "Bothii, Common" as languages.
Other than that, no idea what you two are arguing about !
Near as I can tell, they are trying to make the case that next to no one has any clue regarding familiars due to isolationism.
No. Not exactly. My point in bringing up the barbarians was to counter the implicit claim by you that I don't understand the history of the term "barbarian" and am being judgemental about cultures that aren't my own. And if you're thinking, "that seems like a bit of a non sequitur," then yes, I agree. I'm not sure why you brought it up.
You've ignored what I said with point 1. Yeah, they can talk amongst themselves. That won't accomplish anything.
Your mythic characters argument is so far from the point that I'm not even sure how to engage with it. I would ask you if you truly think people in "Odin's time," who would've been inclined to fight Odin if he ever showed up at their base, all knew the names of his ravens, but there are so many elements of absolute nonsense in that question, that it almost even distracts from the fact that any answer you could give would be raw speculation. But I digress. Why would you go from the specific, comprehensible examples of individuals delivering stories, to these nonspecific examples of stories propagating seemingly of their own volition? A story can't tell itself.
Maybe a more accurate comparison would be to ask if you know how many of the soldiers who fought in X town in our real world last month were injured. If someone was going to fight those soldiers, they'd probably want to know, because they can use that information to plan, but if you were a survivor in that fight, do you know? And is it going to be a priority for you, to go and deliver that information? Who would you tell it to?
Well yes, if every creature your party comes into contact with are barely sentient isolationists, sure. Strange world but you are within your right to build your world any way you want.
The Norse did actually have written language, regardless of how much you may believe otherwise. So did the Greeks. However even with respect to cultures with solely verbal traditions, those cultures existed because people in them did talk with each other. There are a lot of misunderstandings about the past, particularly around the concept of 'barbarians,' who were typically labelled such either over cultures that were simply different or seen as less developed in some technological way (also, though more often than not over cultural differences).
And what part of the PHB, precisely, advises anyone, player or DM of troop strengths or casualty numbers? Why are you even mentioning such things in this context? (Although they were usually recorded nonetheless. Even 'barbarians' built cairns or other grave markers).
Are we just talking past over another here? I guess I'll go to the trouble of addressing each of your points again.
A. It's not my setting, it's the Storm King's Thunder module from WotC. Not sure where you're getting "barely sentient" from.
B. Did I imply the Norse didn't write? I'm not here for a history lesson. The span of time between the ancient Norse societies and today renders the comparison you were making absurd. You're trying to compare it to the span of time between one part of a D&D campaign and the next. If, at your tables, it is a common occurrence for a handful of societies to rise and fall, a few world wars to occur, between when your party uses their cool trick for the first time and when they start to face opponents who have heard of said trick; then, and only then, will this comparison make sense.
C. My use of the word "barbarians" is just to reflect what they're literally called in the module. Uthgardt barbarians don't speak Common. They speak their own language. I think it's called Bothii.
D. I was referring to your Odin example. It's not important, but if you really want to know, the "you" in that scenario is the hypothetical NPC Bard.
A. Where does it say in the module that those giants have negligible knowledge of the outside world?
B. You seem to dismiss the concept of people knowing things on the basis that cultures change. How does that follow, exactly?
C. Uthgardt barbarians don't speak Common. So? Does that mean they observe nothing, learn nothing, have no clue? Or even are all barbarian class, simply because they are known as barbarian tribes?
D. History is recorded and passed along even without bards.
A. Well, the hill giants eat people. The fire giants enslave them. The cloud giants seemingly can't be bothered to involve themselves in the plot at all, and the stone giants are, by my estimation, not very well known by anyone. Thus, my point, which you keep dancing around by implying I'm just saying giants are stupid, is that no one in their right mind would go to a giant lair to tell them about adventurers.
B. What I'm telling you is that just because you and I know a lot about a story from long ago, that's no reason to believe that it was common knowledge among people at that time. And even if it was common knowledge, it's not the same kind of knowledge: it's literally a story. It's art. It's like knowing who Thor's father is in the MCU. (Oh look, it's Odin again.) Of course you're going to know about Odin -- it's fun to absorb information about Odin, you pay money to watch movies with him in them. Do you understand what I'm getting at, here? We have had so much time to beautify, distribute, and literally teach the story of Odin since its inception. The same cannot be said for the story of those adventurers that had a familiar. For the NPCs in the D&D world, it's been maybe a month since the story came into existence. Nobody's even made it fun yet, let alone put it into a curriculum for the nonexistent public education system.
C. I already addressed this in another post. I don't know why you're so dead set on portraying me as, like, an imperialist sympathizer or something.
D. Yeah, okay, sure. This isn't history though. In the example I gave, it's current events. And I think you recognize that I was using the word "Bard" as shorthand, given the context of everything else we've attempted to discuss so far, so this looks like an intentional dodge of the topic, and I don't appreciate it.
If you'd like to go back and engage with any of the things you edited out for having ignored for so long that they became clutter, maybe you will get a clearer understanding of my position.
I think I've had about enough of this conversation. If this seems rude, take solace in knowing it would've been far moreso if I'd kept going.
You honestly can’t imagine a situation in which a non-human, sentient creature observes your party in action and reports those observations to another non-human, sentient creature? Like it’s impossible that a group of gnolls on patrol sees the PC’s laying waste to a pack of goblins and then communicates to the ogres they are working with what they saw? Because my group is also playing STK and this is an exact thing that happened to us…
You seem to be under the absurd impression that only playable races communicate with other playable races, and that playable race involvement is required to pass information onto NPC’s.
Incidentally, for someone complaining about how no one is reading your posts well enough to understand you, you sure don’t seem to realize that Kotath and I are not the same person. How well could you possibly reading our posts?
Incidentally, for someone complaining about how no one is reading your posts well enough to understand you, you sure don’t seem to realize that Kotath and I are not the same person. How well could you possibly reading our posts?
Ha, you're right. I won't try and defend myself on that.
D.1: The issue remains, though. The more useful Find Familiar is (and keep in mind this thread is presenting it as so effective as to be some sort of major problem), the more likely it is encountered since the more people in the world would be using it.
This last point... +1000.
It's not that the enemies have to know about some specific tactic of the PCs and spread that around. If people who can use magic are at all common in a world, then everyone will know that animals aren't always as mundane as they appear. This goes for Druids in wildshape, and animal messenger, animal friendship and polymorph, and any number of other spells and features that can make use of mundane creatures to do a spellcaster's bidding.
Of course, knowing that animals might be the tool of an enemy is one thing. Being willing and able to deal with that is another. Some people won't bother. Some will take intermittent precautions, and some will be paranoid about it. Just like people IRL who have differing responses to the same risks.
D.1: The issue remains, though. The more useful Find Familiar is (and keep in mind this thread is presenting it as so effective as to be some sort of major problem), the more likely it is encountered since the more people in the world would be using it.
This last point... +1000.
It's not that the enemies have to know about some specific tactic of the PCs and spread that around. If people who can use magic are at all common in a world, then everyone will know that animals aren't always as mundane as they appear. This goes for Druids in wildshape, and animal messenger, animal friendship and polymorph, and any number of other spells and features that can make use of mundane creatures to do a spellcaster's bidding.
Of course, knowing that animals might be the tool of an enemy is one thing. Being willing and able to deal with that is another. Some people won't bother. Some will take intermittent precautions, and some will be paranoid about it. Just like people IRL who have differing responses to the same risks.
Yeah, it is a 1st level spell so not exactly exotic or rare. Will Joe farmer be aware of the spell? maybe, maybe not. Will an NPC caster know about it? Yes, more than likely. Would a group that has a caster in their ranks be aware of familiars, probably. Are they constantly on the look out for Familiars, depends, but if an animal is acting out of the ordinary, they are likely to take notice and possibly act on it.
Folks have killed black cats for being suspected familiars throughout history, and familiars aren’t even real. In a fantasy world where cats, rats, owls, roads ravens, etc are commonly known to REALLY be familiars? I’d suspect even (or especially?) poorly educated humanoids to often kill on sight, depending on local customs around magic.
No. Not exactly. My point in bringing up the barbarians was to counter the implicit claim by you that I don't understand the history of the term "barbarian" and am being judgemental about cultures that aren't my own. And if you're thinking, "that seems like a bit of a non sequitur," then yes, I agree. I'm not sure why you brought it up.
A. Well, the hill giants eat people. The fire giants enslave them. The cloud giants seemingly can't be bothered to involve themselves in the plot at all, and the stone giants are, by my estimation, not very well known by anyone. Thus, my point, which you keep dancing around by implying I'm just saying giants are stupid, is that no one in their right mind would go to a giant lair to tell them about adventurers.
B. What I'm telling you is that just because you and I know a lot about a story from long ago, that's no reason to believe that it was common knowledge among people at that time. And even if it was common knowledge, it's not the same kind of knowledge: it's literally a story. It's art. It's like knowing who Thor's father is in the MCU. (Oh look, it's Odin again.) Of course you're going to know about Odin -- it's fun to absorb information about Odin, you pay money to watch movies with him in them. Do you understand what I'm getting at, here? We have had so much time to beautify, distribute, and literally teach the story of Odin since its inception. The same cannot be said for the story of those adventurers that had a familiar. For the NPCs in the D&D world, it's been maybe a month since the story came into existence. Nobody's even made it fun yet, let alone put it into a curriculum for the nonexistent public education system.
C. I already addressed this in another post. I don't know why you're so dead set on portraying me as, like, an imperialist sympathizer or something.
D. Yeah, okay, sure. This isn't history though. In the example I gave, it's current events. And I think you recognize that I was using the word "Bard" as shorthand, given the context of everything else we've attempted to discuss so far, so this looks like an intentional dodge of the topic, and I don't appreciate it.
If you'd like to go back and engage with any of the things you edited out for having ignored for so long that they became clutter, maybe you will get a clearer understanding of my position.
I think I've had about enough of this conversation. If this seems rude, take solace in knowing it would've been far moreso if I'd kept going.
You honestly can’t imagine a situation in which a non-human, sentient creature observes your party in action and reports those observations to another non-human, sentient creature? Like it’s impossible that a group of gnolls on patrol sees the PC’s laying waste to a pack of goblins and then communicates to the ogres they are working with what they saw? Because my group is also playing STK and this is an exact thing that happened to us…
You seem to be under the absurd impression that only playable races communicate with other playable races, and that playable race involvement is required to pass information onto NPC’s.
Incidentally, for someone complaining about how no one is reading your posts well enough to understand you, you sure don’t seem to realize that Kotath and I are not the same person. How well could you possibly reading our posts?
Also the tiers generally make it so you are more well known... At least according to the DMG.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/a-world-of-your-own#TiersofPlay
Ha, you're right. I won't try and defend myself on that.
This last point... +1000.
It's not that the enemies have to know about some specific tactic of the PCs and spread that around. If people who can use magic are at all common in a world, then everyone will know that animals aren't always as mundane as they appear. This goes for Druids in wildshape, and animal messenger, animal friendship and polymorph, and any number of other spells and features that can make use of mundane creatures to do a spellcaster's bidding.
Of course, knowing that animals might be the tool of an enemy is one thing. Being willing and able to deal with that is another. Some people won't bother. Some will take intermittent precautions, and some will be paranoid about it. Just like people IRL who have differing responses to the same risks.
Yeah, it is a 1st level spell so not exactly exotic or rare. Will Joe farmer be aware of the spell? maybe, maybe not. Will an NPC caster know about it? Yes, more than likely. Would a group that has a caster in their ranks be aware of familiars, probably. Are they constantly on the look out for Familiars, depends, but if an animal is acting out of the ordinary, they are likely to take notice and possibly act on it.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Folks have killed black cats for being suspected familiars throughout history, and familiars aren’t even real. In a fantasy world where cats, rats, owls, roads ravens, etc are commonly known to REALLY be familiars? I’d suspect even (or especially?) poorly educated humanoids to often kill on sight, depending on local customs around magic.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.