this is an oddity i came across when helping a person make a character for an out of the abyss campaign, an hermit is supposed to have spent their entire background (or at least a large part of it) far away from people who might talk to them, not being exposed to any languages, and yet they gain one as one of their background proficiencies? They get more langauges from their background than chartalans and entertainers, both livings that require actively going out and interacting with people (less so if you are a gladiator or you travel a lot less than usual but still) and sailors who have spent their background exploring the world to some degree, going around various different ports and islands for various reasons, all three of these infinitely more likely to be exposed to different cultures and languages than some dipshit who spent the last 23 years of his life alone in a damm cave. Where did these languages come from? Like i understand that from a balance standpoint all backgrounds need two tools, one tool one language or two languages so that no background is any more powerful than any other and becuase of that it had to be this way since they choose the tools first and the rest second but like how do i motivate this from a lore standpoint? do i just talk about the language being some kind of pre- exile thing? do i just pick sylvian/ druidic/ primordial and say that the damm trees taught me to speak it?
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Hermits won't be 100% cut off from ALL interaction. They'll need to barter and trade, and since they don't really conform to a single community or culture, they likely picked up a lot of different dialects in dealing with different peoples (think Obi-wan conversing with Jawas or Sand People).
Hermits that live in nature could pick up some of those unusual languages that are spoken by creatures, such as Giant Elk or Grung. Maybe your hermit went to live in the remote mountains and learned to speak Yeti.
Compare this to charlatans and entertainers, who typically are very eloquent in one language, but might not ever need to speak a second language -- they just travel to the places that they know will understand their performances. Sailors, yeah they could have to learn more languages, but what more often happened historically was usage of a lingua franca in port cities so that everyone could converse in one tongue more easily ... and stands to reason in DND worlds that Common is the lingua franca.
Hernits, both historically and in D&D are not required to be totally isolated. Historically, hermits were largely members of religious orders, often living in communal groups, sometimes in monasteries, and very frequently spending time analyzing religious works, often translating them as well, and they were then dispersed by followers or send to other religious philosophers as part of regular correspondence. As for D&D, the hermit background description itself gives you some options: "You lived in seclusion — either in a sheltered community such as a monastery, or entirely alone" see how that gives you an option right away that isn't 'entirely alone'? One of the table options is "I was partaking of communal living in accordance with the dictates of a religious order." Another references working on literature or a manifesto.
Also, consider that this is from the PHB, so the first set of backgrounds. This background could easily be tweaked to be any scientist or researcher. If the sage background didn't jive with the kind of mad scientist you were going for, hermit was probably your best bet.
this is an oddity i came across when helping a person make a character for an out of the abyss campaign, an hermit is supposed to have spent their entire background (or at least a large part of it) far away from people who might talk to them, not being exposed to any languages, and yet they gain one as one of their background proficiencies? They get more langauges from their background than chartalans and entertainers, both livings that require actively going out and interacting with people (less so if you are a gladiator or you travel a lot less than usual but still) and sailors who have spent their background exploring the world to some degree, going around various different ports and islands for various reasons, all three of these infinitely more likely to be exposed to different cultures and languages than some dipshit who spent the last 23 years of his life alone in a damm cave. Where did these languages come from? Like i understand that from a balance standpoint all backgrounds need two tools, one tool one language or two languages so that no background is any more powerful than any other and becuase of that it had to be this way since they choose the tools first and the rest second but like how do i motivate this from a lore standpoint? do i just talk about the language being some kind of pre- exile thing? do i just pick sylvian/ druidic/ primordial and say that the damm trees taught me to speak it?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Nobody around to interrupt their linguistic studies.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I always imagined the hermits of the hermit background to have spent their isolation in study. So they learned a language related to their research.
Talking to yourself = regular level of hermit. Talking to yourself in celestial = champion hermit!
Two things that justify this for me:
Compare this to charlatans and entertainers, who typically are very eloquent in one language, but might not ever need to speak a second language -- they just travel to the places that they know will understand their performances. Sailors, yeah they could have to learn more languages, but what more often happened historically was usage of a lingua franca in port cities so that everyone could converse in one tongue more easily ... and stands to reason in DND worlds that Common is the lingua franca.
Hernits, both historically and in D&D are not required to be totally isolated. Historically, hermits were largely members of religious orders, often living in communal groups, sometimes in monasteries, and very frequently spending time analyzing religious works, often translating them as well, and they were then dispersed by followers or send to other religious philosophers as part of regular correspondence. As for D&D, the hermit background description itself gives you some options: "You lived in seclusion — either in a sheltered community such as a monastery, or entirely alone" see how that gives you an option right away that isn't 'entirely alone'? One of the table options is "I was partaking of communal living in accordance with the dictates of a religious order." Another references working on literature or a manifesto.
Also, consider that this is from the PHB, so the first set of backgrounds. This background could easily be tweaked to be any scientist or researcher. If the sage background didn't jive with the kind of mad scientist you were going for, hermit was probably your best bet.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep