597 – “You haven’t lived until you’ve read Shakespeare in its original Klingon”

I realized something earlier today: Jaine is loaded with magic. She has the following:

The Verdant Mantle, which allows her to talk to animals and keeps her young (among other things);
Shondella’s Blessing of Connection, which allows her to understand any language (for the rules wonks out there, she has the Tongues spell cast on her along with a Permanence spell);
and not one but TWO Bags of Holding (those pouches on her belt), where she keeps most of the party’s gear.

I don’t think Jaine needs any more magic items for a while. If this were a real D&D game, I’d be accused of being a Monty Haul DM! 🙂 Yeesh!

The Patreon page will be going back up in a couple of weeks, as I need to retool and relaunch it, hopefully this time with a video and simplified tiers of patronage and rewards.

Take care,

~Rob

5 Comments

She can now transcribe any book into another language. She now has a much sought after skill scholars, adventurers, wizards and spy agencies will pay large sums of gold and goods for. No wonder she’s laughing with glee.

Two things. One, did you know there was a further gag in the Shakespeare in the original Klingon? I actually don’t know the canon that well, but my understanding is that Klingon does not have a
“to be” verb, not as such, hence, the concept that Hamlet in Klingon… (and this is based on real world to. Russian, I believe is one example).

Two, it’s been so long since I looked at D&D (have not followed since before 4th ed. Does Tongues allow being able to read? I’m assuming so, but have to ask.

Oooh, third thing that came to me at the last minute. What if “Connection” is not so clear. It’s connection to the party AND their gifts? So Dhur can now read, but Jaine, who could already read, can now read anything?! My mind may be beyond the silver gate now.

Yakumo: I was just thinking that myself. I’ve been caught out in the past when it turned out that Tongues does not apply to written language, only spoken. You need Comp Lang for that (in 3.5, anyway).

On the whole, they may not actually be that monty-haulish. It’s the rare campaign where eternal youth actually comes up. Most parties will invest in an extradimensional space or two for carrying things (Jayne just happens to be carrying them). Otherwise, what Jaine has is all communication-related, so that’s more of a story element than making her more powerful.

Becky’s stuff is probably more Monty-Haul-ish than anything Jaine’s shown. An intelligent artifact weapon and a pet that can eat anything are much more classic Monty Haul. On the other hand, as depicted, they can be problems as much as advantages, so they can probably be regarded as story elements too.

There’s also the question, when bringing mechanics into it, of what level they are – what’s Monty Haul-ish for a low-level party can be commonplace for a higher-level one.

I don’t think a few minor artifacts really counts as “Monty Haul”, considering their current, likely level. They’re comfortable with plane hopping, and weren’t too worried about dealing with the denizens there. Hell, the entire story started because Jaine wanted to be the biographer of a legend…in this case, Duhr. So they started off pretty high level to begin with, so I’d say the magic level is appropriate.

As for Tongues, whether it would work on books depends on the version used, and (mostly) the disposition of the DM making the call. The AD&D version of Tongues read: “This spell enables the cleric to speak the language of any creature inside the spell area, whether it is a racial tongue or an alignment language.” – That’s pretty cut and dried…spoken language. However, d20 Tongues is worded a bit differently: “This spell grants the creature touched the ability to speak and understand the language of any intelligent creature, whether it is a racial tongue or a regional dialect.” – an argument could be made that Myrkish is the language of an intelligent creature, and thus Jaine is able to “understand” it, as well as speak it. Thus, when she sees it written, she can understand.

Of course, there’s no way I’d let MY players get away with something like that, but I’m a mean DM…. >:-D

Looking forward to the Patreon relaunch. I want to be an Archmage again. 🙂

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MeatShield by Rob Chambers

Bi-Weekly D&D-style Fantasy Hijinks!

597 – “You haven’t lived until you’ve read Shakespeare in its original Klingon”