Awakened Animals, Speech & Reincarnation

[Gizzard]

The mini-module on the WotC site contains an item which brought up a question. If you are thinking of playing this module, this is minor spoiler so stop reading. Did you stop? Good.

Anyway, the module contains an Amulet of Freedom of Speech which allows an Awakened animal to "verbally communicate despite lacking the physical ability to do so." But if you look at the spell Awaken, it says "An awakened tree or animal can speak one language..." I guess it depends on how you interpret the word "speak"; is a tree granted speech or simply understanding when it is awakened? Opinions? Personally, I am loathe to take a module as canon over the core books.

But thinking along this line make me wonder if someone Reincarnated as a non-humanoid (such as an eagle or a badger) gets speech as part of their Reincarnation or whether they are fated to "Tap once for yes, twice for no," for the rest of their lives. It would certainly put a damper on role-playing.

 

[FungiMuncher]

There are plenty of folklore and fictional stories about talking animals and plants. I wouldn't have a problem with the Awaken spell also granting the physical ability to speak (but the new creature should have a speech inflection - just to keep things interesting!)

The inclusion of the magic item just sounds like an accomodation for the author's interpretation of the spell. I guess you'll simply need to decide how it works in your universe, and keep or remove the item based on that.

As for Reincarnate, the answer could be different. But, I'd always do whatever encouraged more and better role-playing

 

[Pielorinho]

From the SRD's description of reincarnate:

A humanoid reincarnated into an animal body can speak the languages it formerly knew and is a magical beast.

As for the amulet, I could see it being useful in two cases:
1) It could let creatures speak even when they're shapeshifted into a form that cannot normally speak; or
2) It could allow normal animals to speak a certain language (although the speech of a dog might be along the lines of "Look! Look! Look! Happyhappyhappy meatbone!")

Not having looked at the module yet, I can't say whether it's useful (with an effect like these) or redundant.

Daniel