How far will your Druids go to keep their language secret?

[frankthedm]

How far will your Druids go to keep their language secret?

A druid also knows Druidic, a secret language known only to druids, which she learns upon becoming a 1st-level druid. Druidic is a free language for a druid; that is, she knows it in addition to her regular allotment of languages and it doesn’t take up a language slot. Druids are forbidden to teach this language to nondruids.
Druidic has its own alphabet.

A druid will lose thier powers should they teach the language.

Ex-Druids
A druid who ceases to revere nature, changes to a prohibited alignment, or teaches the Druidic language to a nondruid loses all spells and druid abilities (including her animal companion, but not including weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She cannot thereafter gain levels as a druid until she atones (see the atonement spell description).

What do your druids do when outsiders learn the language?

Mine, if the druid who taught wants Atonement the teacher needs to kill the learner and take proper steps to prevent raising from the dead, typicly by burning the learner in a wicker man and scattering the ashes. If other druids have to involve themselves to set matters right both guilty partys are going to roast.

 

[Pbartender]

Never thought about it... I don't think I've ever actually had a druid player character speak Druidic in game.

I was always a little surprised that Druidic didn't go the way of Theives' Cant and Alignment Languages during the advent of 3.0.

 

[Thanee]

Druidic is never used unless you are alone under druids.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Gez]

IMC, druidic is a cumbersome language. Not really a language, even, rather a sort of code. Letters, sounds/syllables and concepts are associated to trees (for a simplist example, a fir tree would be associated to the f letter, the frrr sound and the concept of fire -- I haven't bothered elaborating an actual alphabet). And of course, a tree means itself also. Our fir tree could symbolise fire, or just fir trees.

Then, someting "written" in Druidic is disguised. A ring of tree in a grove could actually be a sentence. A necklade of leaves and nutshells could be a message in Druidic.

There are several levels of Druidic. The alphabet one is used to transcribe any language -- usually sylvan or common, but it could as well be gnome or elven or aquan or infernal... The syllabic one is likewise used to transcribe phonetically any language, but by the very nature of the limited list of sounds available, is more suited to some (like sylvan) than to others (like celestial) that use different sounds.
The third level, the conceptual one, does not allow to make actual sentences, as it will just be a string of unarticulated ideas. Raw druidic isn't really a language, as it has no grammar. But it's sufficient to leave messages like "water/danger/dragon/aberrant", a druid would decipher it as meaning there's a dangerous, unnatural dragonlike creature in the nearby lake, for example.

So, how can one teach druidic to a non-druid? Well, by first teaching said non-druid how to recognize the different trees.

Given that, just among oaks, an oak (Quercus suber) is not the same as an oak (Quercus ilex), and that both are different from the oak (Quercus pedunculata), which is not to be confused with the oak (Quercus virginiana), it's a language that's kinda hard to learn for those who do not have a good score in Knowledge (Nature).

Then, one needs to know to learn how to differentiate between a natural occurence (several different trees is something natural in a forest, after all) and a message left by a druid. This is where Survival is still, in a way, Wilderness Lore, for it is indeed a lore.

Even subtler, ones needs to learn to guess the level of druidic which is used -- especially given that a given sentence in druidic may combine several levels. You'd have a message that would read like this, for example:

ram lion eagle K O R din W ant numerous game O F frr I N G frrr passage​

Read correctly, it says that the Hieracosphinx Kordhinn wants to be given an offering of game before he let people pass through his territory. Read incorrectly, it's gibberish.

What's my point?

Well, it is that, by teaching druidic to a non-druid, one is actually starting to teach said person how to be a druid.

 

[shilsen]

Druidic is never used unless you are alone under druids.

Bye
Thanee

Ah, but under how many druids are you? And isn't that a little grandma-unfriendly ?

 

[Crothian]

what does a druid do if he finds someone, a non druid, who knows the language but has no idea who taught the person?

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

what does a druid do if he finds someone, a non druid, who knows the language but has no idea who taught the person?

Transforms into an ostrich, and sticks his head in the sand.

 

[Steverooo]

Not far at all, Frank... Especially considering that any fool can change his alignment (if need be) and take a Druid level in order to learn it. Sheesh!

 

[Mercule]

No effort at all. Mainly because, IMC, anyone who believed the druids had their own language -- or were even vaguely any more of a unified body than, say, all fighters -- would probably be buying swampland from a CN druid, instead.

 

[HeavyG]

While I think that the existence of the druidic language is cool, I think that the whole "we will protect it with our lives" thing is kinda silly in a world with the Decipher Script skill and the Comprehend Languages spell. Nevermind Tongues.