Alignment Languages are Socially Repulsive

In my last post on languages in AD&D, I teased that alignment languages were a topic worthy of their own post. Was I right? Let's find out.

It's fitting, for context, to start with original D&D to understand the intended function of alignment languages:

Here we see that alignment languages are treated much the same as other languages in terms of their function as a tool of communication, except that creatures who do not speak a particular alignment language will nonetheless "recognize a hostile one and attack". This I take to mean that if you speak Law to a creature aligned with Chaos, the creature will not understand you, but will recognize the language and recognize you as an enemy. If you instead speak Neutrality to the same creature, it will neither understand nor attack (and may not even recognize the language at all).

Now let's switch over to AD&D (specifically the PHB, in the section on CHARACTER LANGUAGES), where, in keeping with that edition's extremely thorough list of languages (and many other things), the number of alignment languages has exploded to nine:

There are two things to come back to here - the parenthetical about The Assassin and the fact that a character who changes alignment no longer knows the language of their previous alignment. For now, we'll leave these be.

Continuing on in that same section of the PHB, we have one of the more interesting tidbits:

"Open alignment speech will be frowned upon as a serious breach of social etiquette." Huh. That's kind of similar to the OD&D thing where a creature attacks if you speak a "hostile" alignment language in its presence, except here that specific rule of thumb is made a lot more general. Any open alignment speech, regardless of the audience, is a breach of social etiquette. Why is that?

Later in the PHB, in the section on THE ADVENTURE, the use of alignment languages is described as "socially repulsive":

Furthermore, "questions about rank, profession, god and alignment are perilous". In my post on henchmen, I mentioned that, during the recruitment process, "direct questions about alignment and religion are usually taken poorly" or "amiss". Interesting.

First, let's try to grasp what alignment languages actually are. Here we will move on to the AD&D DMG:

There's a lot here, but the most important part - the actual definition of alignment language in AD&D - is highlighted, namely that they are sets of "signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos". Well, that makes sense. 

But...speaking alignment language openly is "socially repulsive" and "a serious breach of social etiquette." This same paragraph says that "alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public" and "are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed." How then, if it is so taboo to speak openly, is alignment language meant to be used to inform others of "fellowship and common ethos"?

It is worth noting that Gygax compares alignment language to Thieves' Cant (more on that later), Latin (as used by the Catholic Church), and the languages of secret organizations and societies. These example languages include "recognition signs" and "recognition phrases" and are used "as a common recognition and communication base". Basically, you use alignment language to identify people who are of the same faction as you. So why is the use of alignment language so taboo unless you're already certain of the recipient's alignment?

Gygax goes on to clarify that "alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues". The next paragraph expands on this:

Again, alignment language is identified as a means to recognize like-aligned creatures. Again, Gygax says that the language is used "to discuss the precepts of the alignment in detail" and that all other communications in the language will be rudimentary at best. You can discuss the ethos of Lawful Good with a dwarf, but you can't use the language to plan a counteroffensive against the orcs.

Here too Thieves' Cant (and Druidic) come up. It's interesting that these are lumped in with alignment languages. This is because they are "specialty tongues" which, like alignment languages, are used exclusively to discuss those topics which are within their sphere of interest - crime and nature-y stuff, respectively. Presumably, like alignment language, it is considered rude to speak them openly, but they can be used to recognize members of their respective factions. Also presumably, if a druid converts to some non-Neutral deity or a thief forsakes skullduggery, they would likewise somehow suddenly lose the ability to communicate in those tongues.

The next paragraph describes the consequences of open alignment speak more thoroughly:

As in OD&D, a creature which is hostile to the alignment which is spoken will recognize the speaker as an enemy (although, unlike in OD&D, they will not necessarily immediately attack). However, even creatures of the same alignment will refuse to associate with the speaker out of embarrassment, because speaking the language openly is "unmannerly, rude, boorish, and stupid."

The final paragraph in the section clarifies the situation in which alignment language is to be used:

The discussion about which creatures can actually speak their corresponding alignment language is not particularly germane to this post. Suffice it to say that a creature of a given alignment can only speak its alignment language if its Monster Manual entry explicitly says that it can. Thus, just as blink dogs do not speak Lawful Good, neither do animals speak Neutral, nor do undead speak Chaotic Evil.

What picture is being painted by all this information? Alignment language is a set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which allow creatures of the same alignment to discuss the concepts pertaining to that alignment and little else. It is used as a tool of recognition, but never publicly, and only after communication has been established between the two parties. 

One does not simply walk into a tavern and ask in the language of demons, "Anyone else Chaotic Evil?" Rather, you scope out the place first, recognize the Evil High Priest in the dark corner bearing the subtle indicators of a follower of Orcus, pull up a chair and introduce yourself, and, when you're absolutely certain that no one else can overhear, offer them a Sign of some sort. You might discuss the latest schism in the faith presented by the anti-pope's recent declaration, but you wouldn't use that language to negotiate the cost of a raise dead spell or to recruit the priest as a henchman.

Think of alignment language as ideological jargon. If you're well-versed in Marxist political philosophy (Lawful Good), you can probably carry out a conversation with someone similarly educated at a party, but a third person who is not fluent may have a hard time following along. Even that same well-versed person might be put off if you launch right into theory without introducing yourself first. If you start loudly talking about it to anyone and everyone who will listen, you will put people off. Someone who otherwise agrees with your ideology may nonetheless be hesitant to associate with you out of embarrassment. If you do it at Thanksgiving with your conservative family, they will probably become hostile towards you.

But it's not exactly a 1:1 comparison, because you can only speak an alignment language if you are of that alignment. You can't speak it by merely being familiar with its ideas, and you lose the ability to speak it if your alignment changes. But in real life, a fascist can learn Marxist buzzwords, and a Marxist can become a fascist and still speak the language of Marx.

Or can they? Speaking alignment language is basically a means of determining if someone is truly of a given alignment. It's a test. The fascist might be fluent in Marxism, but if you have a long enough conversation with them, you'll probably figure out that they don't really believe it, or perhaps don't understand it. They don't embody it. They're not a true Marxist. They're a fascist.

Perhaps you are Lawful Good, trying to pass yourself off as a follower of Orcus to learn what the Evil High Priest is up to. Since you're both Chaotic Evil, the priest switches to speaking in that tongue. He's not speaking an unintelligible Black Speech - he's talking (maybe in what we would call the common tongue) in a ideological jargony way about eating babies and having sex with zombies (or whatever it is they do). You're familiar with the ideas of Chaos and Evil so you're like "Yeah, haha, I love doing that stuff too", but you can't really hang in the conversation for long. The priest will know you're not what you're pretending to be. He's testing you to see if you know the Signs.

In that sense, alignment language makes a lot of sense to me. It's off-putting to most people, but when employed with tact, it can be used to identify your true allies and reveal hidden enemies. This is maybe best represented when we dig into the assassin (I said we would get back to it), specifically the assassin's ability to learn alignment languages other than their own:

High level assassins are the only ones capable of speaking the language of an alignment to which they don't belong (including Druidic and Thieves' Cant, which are again lumped in with alignment languages), and thus the only ones able to pass themselves off as belonging to an alignment other than their own when tested in this way. Since assassins are the masters of disguise and subterfuge, this makes a lot of sense. They're kind of like the COINTELPRO/CHAOS agents of AD&D - the rats who will infiltrate your movement, give your plans away to your enemies, and kill your ideological paragons. And just like those agents in real life, their alignment can only be Evil.

How you feel about alignment language will of course be dependent on how you feel about alignment. It is a famously difficult concept to grasp. Is alignment a cosmic faction of which your character is a part? Is it a set of ideological guiding principles which influence their behavior? Is it their religious beliefs? Is it simply the distillation of who they are? Is it what they do? Is it their position on a graph?

It's kind of all those things! From the DMG:

Here alignment is described broadly as an "ethos of thinking". It does not "dictate religious persuasion", but "religious beliefs will dictate alignment". For NPCs, alignment determines behavior, but for PCs, behavior determines alignment. Alignment not only defines/is defined by behavior and religious beliefs, but also groups creatures basically into factions which are (usually) friendly, unfriendly, or neutral based on their alignments' relation to one another, similar to OD&D, where alignment is simply a "stance" the character takes:

All of this, of course, you're somehow supposed to graph:

I'm not graphing shit, Gary!

Fortunately, despite providing definitions and examples for each of the nine alignments, Gygax gives us permission (not that we need it) to decide for ourselves what exactly is Lawful, Chaotic, Good, or Evil:

So yes, you can simply ignore that one forum post where Gygax says it's Lawful Good to kill orc babies or whatever. Or not. It's your game.

Even after you're done grappling with alignment, you may still struggle with alignment language. Why does the Lawful Good paladin who kills an orc baby and becomes a Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil fighter suddenly lose the ability to speak of the Lawful Good ethos with his former contemporaries? Can the truly Lawful Good somehow recognize that the fallen paladin no longer truly believes that killing children is wrong? This is exactly what AD&D suggests.

And why is the Lawful Good paladin unable to converse in the tongue of Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good? Can the paladin not at least discuss the precepts of Law and Good, if not those of Neutrality? If we view alignment language as less a full language and more a set of codes for recognizing what someone actually embodies - which is again what Gygax suggests - then I would argue that the Lawful Good paladin can converse with a Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good creature in the language of those beliefs which they have in common. The two would simply come to recognize that they do not fully agree with one another and thus are not of the same alignment (although not necessarily enemies).

To simplify this, and because I don't like the nine alignment languages, I would reduce the number to five - Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality. Most creatures can converse in two of these languages, True Neutral creatures being the exception (not sure how I feel about this - should there be an Order-Neutral language and a Moral-Neutral language?). Lawful Good creatures can converse with Lawful Evil creatures about the ideology of Law, or with Chaotic Good creatures about Goodness.

I see no reason why a character shouldn't also be able to speak in the language of a former alignment. The Lawful Neutral fighter who was once a paladin still knows the language of Good, but actual Lawful Good creatures would recognize him as not being truly Lawful Good. If you conceive of alignment language as something bestowed upon the character by some higher power - which is kinda sorta what AD&D suggests - then this probably seems wrong, but it preserves the originally intended gameplay function of alignment language while reducing cognitive dissonance in the fiction.

If there's a serious drawback to the use of alignment language, it's that deception is much more difficult. You might be able to convince the Evil High Priest that you too are Chaotic Evil, but if he is wise enough to test you to see if you know the correct phrases (and he is a high level cleric, so he is likely wise), you have no hope of tricking him (unless you're an assassin, in which case you are Evil by necessity, if not Chaotic, although this is treating the example too literally). This reduces player agency, as subterfuge is suddenly off the table.

Then again, detect evil/good and know alignment are spells in AD&D, and they are available at low levels, so this kind of deception is tricky anyway (the availability of those spells also makes this use of alignment language somewhat redundant, but then again not every creature is a spellcasting cleric). I would err on the side of allowing characters to bluff proficiency in alignment languages, rather than treating them as a totally binary detection system. 

Just as I allow characters to more or less "get by" in languages with which they're not proficient, I imagine a Good character would have some familiarity with the beliefs of Evil and might know some of the correct phrases. This would work well with a skill-based system (to determine how well the character passes as the desired alignment), or in an old school system you could adjudicate it using reaction rolls.

Another option is to forego alignment language entirely as presented in AD&D - that is, as a language an intelligent creature automatically knows by nature of their alignment. Instead, the languages of Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality are simply additional languages characters can learn. Gandalf is not Evil, but he knows the language of Mordor all the same. This is similar to how modern editions of D&D handle it. There are no languages named Law or Chaos, Good or Evil, but there is Celestial, Infernal, and Abyssal - languages generally spoken by creatures of a particular alignment but which anyone can learn.

Hopefully I've demonstrated an interesting use case for alignment language and have shed some light on the way in which it was originally conceived. Like alignment itself, I feel that alignment language has gotten a bad reputation as a weird AD&D thing and has been doomed to be the butt of jokes made by people who learn about it from memes and never really try to understand what its purpose originally was. I've come to find that alignment language is actually quite interesting, and my gears are churning trying to figure out how I'd use it in my games.

Speak with Monsters: The Languages of AD&D and the Adventurous Linguist

Language is a hot topic in D&D. You can refer back to my post from early last year, which also serves as a sort of bibliography of the many talking points surrounding the subject. I do think I came up with a rather clever solution to many of the perceived issues with languages in D&D, but it depends on both a more modern, skill-based system as well as a relatively "tight" list of just a few thematic languages, some of which are connected by common scripts.

A tight list of just a few thematic languages is not, however, what you find in AD&D. Let's take a look.

What first got me started on this subject was the random language determination table in the section of the DMG on non-player characters:

There are a lot of languages in AD&D! This is not 5e, where brownies, centaurs, and dryads all speak Sylvan, bugbears, goblins, and hobgoblins all speak Goblin, and dragons, kobolds, and lizard folk all speak Draconic. Tons of monsters - even individual dragon, giant, and naga types - have their own unique languages.

And the random language determination table doesn't even tell the whole story. There is, of course, the "common tongue", spoken by humans and others "in close contact with people":

Then there are the nine alignment languages:

I have a lot to say about alignment languages, but it's such a juicy topic that I'd rather save it for its own post.

Finally, there are the languages tied to classes, namely the language of druids and the Thieves' Cant:

Except that still isn't all of the languages! Entry 86-00 on the random language determination table has the following footnote:

What's this? Unlisted creature languages? Like what?

Well, if you happen to go looking for information about the secret language of druids, you will learn that druids learn the languages of woodland creatures beginning at 3rd level and every level thereafter:

Most of these appear on the random language determination table, but not treantish, so we can add that as another language (faun does not appear either - you have to either check the Monster Manual or use your knowledge of folklore to figure out that faun is just another name for satyr, whose language is already on the random language determination table).

Let's look at the Monster Manual to see which otherwise unlisted creatures have their own languages:

• Beholders
• Blink dogs (They "have a fairly complex language consisting of barks, yaps, whines, and growls.")
• Djinn (Efreet, on the other hand, do not have their own language, but can communicate with any intelligent creature using limited telepathy.)
• Dragon turtles
• Giant eagles
• Giant lynxes
• Giant owls
• Harpies
• Hippocampi
• Ice toads
• Invisible stalkers
• Ixitxachitl (Their Monster Manual entry makes no mention of a language, but sahuagin can apparently speak it.)
• Ki-rin
• Locathah (Their Monster Manual entry makes no mention of a language, but 50% of mermen and all tritons speak it.)
• Lycanthropes (each type has its own language)
• Mermen
• Mimics
• Mind flayers (who also speak "several other weird tongues - purportedly those of terrible races of things which dwell in regions of the subterranean world far deeper than mankind has ever witnessed")
• Otyughs
• Perytons
• Sahuagin
• Sphinxes
• Triton
• Umber hulks
• Unicorns
• Winter wolves
• Worgs

There is also the matter of mundane plants and animals. Spells like speak with animals and speak with plants suggest that communication with these creatures is possible only via magic. However, couatl can speak "most serpent and avian languages". Dryads can speak with plants. Wood elves speak the languages of "certain woods animals". Gnomes can speak with burrowing mammals. Hobgoblins can speak the "rudimentary tongue" of carnivorous apes. Weretigers can speak with cats. 

These are not phrased as magical or spell-like abilities. The dryad's ability to speak with plants is not italicized as if it were the same as the spell. While many of these are magical monsters, the hobgoblin's ability to speak to carnivorous apes does not strike me as magical, but rather as a consequence of the mutual relationship between the two. 

Do all animals and plants in the AD&D world speak their own languages? Do you need to be one of these creature types to talk to them, or else use magic, or are these languages anyone can learn? Do giant eagles, lynxes, and owls speak regular-sized eagle, lynx, and owl? Can you enlist a sage who speaks bird?

These unlisted creature languages raise additional questions. Are those included in the random language determination table simply those which are most common? Does that suggest something about the utility of speaking those languages in the setting? 

Demihuman, humanoid, and fairy creature languages (those of creatures which people might reasonably interact with somewhat frequently) all make sense for a linguist NPC to know. Many of the unlisted creatures are oddballs or those found in the depths of a dungeon or the ocean, suggesting little opportunity to learn their tongues, but plenty of strange and rare creatures find their way onto the main table anyway. I'm not sure how much rhyme or reason there is.

What's with all these languages, anyway? Doesn't a big list of languages simply exacerbate D&D's oft-discoursed language issue?

And yes, it does. But there are ways to get around it. I was surprised to find that demihuman player characters speak a lot of languages. See here:

What surprised me is that, if my interpretation is correct, all player characters of these races know how to speak all of these languages by default. Before I read the text closely, my ideas about starting languages for player characters were certainly informed by 2e, in which the languages listed were simply the initial languages the player could choose for their character to know at the beginning of play (depending on the number of languages they could learn, as determined by Intelligence). 1e is much more generous when it comes to initial known languages.

Half-orc characters can speak three languages, dwarf characters can speak seven, gnomes and halflings can speak eight, and, as usual, elves and half-elves reign supreme - they can speak nine languages. Clearly, demihumans are the diplomats of adventuring parties! Humans, by comparison, are totally uncultured brutes. 

One interesting thing to point out is that demihumans speak the languages of both demihumans and humanoids. Elves speak gnome, halfling, and the language of mankind, but also goblin, hobgoblin, orcish, and gnoll - languages of "Evil" races with which they are typically at odds. Gnomes hate kobolds and goblins enough to add +1 to hit when engaging them in combat, but also speak their language. This could be merely so they can hurl insults during battle, but in that case, surely only a few crude words are needed, not fluency.

On the other hand, goblins and kobolds do not speak gnome. Elves can speak the language of gnolls and hobgoblins, but gnolls and hobgoblins don't speak the language of elves. Dwarves speak orcish, but orcs don't speak dwarvish. That's not to say that the humanoids are not themselves linguists - gnolls speak troll and "often (60%)" orcish and/or hobgoblin, goblins speak kobold, orcish, and hobgoblin, hobgoblins speak goblin, orcish, and carnivorous ape, kobolds "usually (75%)" speak goblin and orcish, and the majority of orcs speak goblin, hobgoblin, and ogre.

This design choice makes sense if you assume the point of view of a bioessentialist colonialist - the "civilized" demihumans are more intelligent and have a greater capacity for linguistics than the "monstrous" humanoids. According to the Monster Manual, all demihumans are very intelligent or highly intelligent, and all humanoids are of low to average intelligence. I'm obviously not the first to point out that this is problematic.

You could also interpret it through the lens of alignment. The demihuman races are Good, and it is Good to try to understand your neighbors' perspective and attempt to communicate with them - for example, to negotiate peace or establish trade. The humanoid races are Evil, so they may be more likely to learn the languages only of their prospective allies (or the enemies of their enemies), so as to better plot against their foes. That might not work for you either, depending on your feelings about prescribing morality to entire races of people, but I do prefer it to the former explanation. It feels more like mythic fantasy than fantasy racism.

Moving on from...all that, let's assume a hypothetical scenario in which the player characters' party consists of at least one character from each of the demihuman races. Here is that same random language determination table, with the languages in which the party is able to communicate highlighted:

That's a good chunk of the most frequently spoken languages checked off the list!

Let's push the unlikely hypothetical scenario a bit further and assume that a human or half-elf in the group is a druid. As previously mentioned, druids learn the language of a woodland creature at 3rd level, then learn another every level thereafter. A 13th level archdruid can eventually add the following languages to the party's repertoire:

Then there is, of course, the opportunity for player characters to learn additional languages. This is determined by Intelligence:

There are additional limits imposed (and bonus languages granted) by race. Dwarves, gnomes, and half-orcs can learn at most two additional languages, regardless of Intelligence. Half-elves and halflings can learn an additional language for each point of Intelligence above 16 (i.e., 2 additional languages at Intelligence 18, so 9 additional languages total), while elves can learn an additional language for each point of Intelligence above 15 (3 additional languages at Intelligence 18 for a total of 10 additional languages).

To learn a new language, the player character must spend time with someone (broadly speaking - it can be any creature) that speaks the language:

This is then taken to its logical conclusion - capture monsters and force them to teach you their language!:

Maybe something to do with your subdued dragon before you auction it off? Perhaps you can force your giant beaver slaves to teach you the language of water-dwelling mammals?

It might make sense while traveling with a party of adventurers - each of which knows their own assortment of languages - to pick up some of what they know. However, you're better off learning languages which are unknown to the rest of the party, thus expanding the linguistic capabilities of the party as a whole. D&D is, after all, a team sport (something that Redditors who spend their time comparing the damage output of different 5e builds - and laboriously bemoaning the inequity - could stand to learn).

Still, even if you have a party of 18 Intelligence demihumans with a pet druid and thief, it seems unlikely that one party could ever learn every one of these hyper-specific languages. 

"Isn't that what alignment languages are for?" you might ask, and the answer is NO! Alignment languages are a totally different thing! There's some baggage there. Again, a topic for another time.

There are yet a handful of solutions to the language problem remaining. At 1st-level, magic-users can cast comprehend languages (rangers can do it at 9th level, and illusionists can do it at 14th level):

I did not realize the caster has to touch the creature which is speaking. Better not to try this with the angry manticore! This also does not impart the ability to speak the creature's language, so communication is more or less one way. Useful for determining intent and acquiring information, at least.

Also at 1st level, druids can speak with animals (clerics and monks can do it at 3rd level, rangers can do it at 8th level, and paladins can do it at 11th level):

Note that this also functions almost like a charm spell. It prevents animals from attacking and allows the caster to be on amicable terms with them. Are giant animals "basically normal, non-fantastic creatures"? What about carnivorous apes? Dinosaurs?

At 5th level, magic-users can cast tongues (clerics can do it at 7th level, and paladins can do it at 15th level):

This unlocks communication with all speaking creatures, but only briefly, and in a small area - a 60-yard circle outdoors and a 60-foot circle indoors. 60 feet is within striking distance in a dungeon environment, and 180 feet in the wilderness is not all that much when speaking to a band of 150 orcs or a gang of teenaged dragons. The spell only lasts 10 minutes, so whatever you have to say, say it quick.

At 6th level, druids can speak with plants (clerics can do it at 7th level, monks at 8th level, and paladins at 15th level):

Like speak with animals, it's almost like a pseudo-charm spell, as it sounds like the caster can basically command the plants as well.

At 11th level, clerics can speak with monsters:

This is similar to tongues, but it can affect more monsters at a time (but only one type of monster per casting of the spell), and will last a bit longer (just one minute longer at 11th level, but up to twice as long at 20th level).

Interestingly, while clerics get the most spells which allow them to talk to things, it is the magic-user who, at 16th level, might make the effects of a comprehend languages or tongues spell permanent (upon themselves only) using permanency (at the cost of 1 point of Constitution per effect):

Thus, with a permanent tongues spell cast upon themselves, the magic-user can become the party's foremost diplomat. Hopefully, they have a high Charisma.

Consider also the value of a telepathic psionic:

Or the rare bard, who picks up an additional 15 languages (without needing to study them) throughout their career:

(This in addition to having several levels of druid and the bonus languages which come with them, since bards in 1e are weird.)

There are magic items to consider as well, such as the helm of comprehending languages and reading magic:

Or you could luck out with an exceptionally intelligent magic sword:

If my calculations are correct, .000176% of magic swords can speak their alignment language plus 10 additional languages. That would be a very useful sword indeed!

So yeah. There are a lot of languages in AD&D - so many in fact that they cannot all fit on the big table which lists all the languages an NPC might speak. The people who reside in the AD&D world, however - from the most intelligent elf to the most dimwitted gnoll - are linguists. Everyone speaks at least two languages, every demihuman and many humanoids speak several, and even a human player character of below average intelligence can pick up a new one, given access and time - from something as commonplace as halfling to the strange language of mind flayers. Any NPC who has reason to know an additional language has a 1% chance of speaking the obscure tongue of the lammasu. 

At the same time, the sheer number of languages poses a considerable challenge. Even the most fluent of player character parties cannot hope to speak the language of every creature they meet. For this, there are spells and magic items, but even these are limited. Spells require forethought and preparation, allow for only brief conversations, and put the caster within arms reach of potential enemies. Magic items are few and far between, and talking swords rarer still. 

It is a far cry from modern versions of the game, where two characters in the same adventuring party might begin at 1st level each speaking the language of demons, and where the tongues spell lasts a full hour and has a range as long as the volume of the speaker's voice. AD&D expects player characters to sacrifice precious spell slots in case they will want to speak to some odd creature encountered by chance, enlist sages to tutor them in linguistics, and capture monsters to learn their languages. It is costly and sometimes dangerous to speak with monsters.

Is it good game design? Is it fun? One criticism of languages in D&D is that players may have no idea which languages are most useful to know until the campaign has started and they've already made their selections. Because the number of languages known is often limited, and languages can't simply be forgotten to make way for new ones, this cannot be remedied. The proliferation of specific languages for every type of monster only exacerbates this issue.

The more important criticism of languages in D&D is one of player agency. If a monster speaks a language the player characters do not know, and they do not have the right spell prepared or the right magic item, they cannot hope to speak to it. If they can't hope to speak to it, they can't negotiate with it. They can't learn anything from it. If they're lucky, they can ignore it. If they're not, they can only fight it. They don't have a choice.

As my previous post on the subject hopefully made clear, I'm in favor of a simultaneously more lenient but restrained approach. I don't much like the one hundred specific languages of AD&D and its hyperintelligent elves who can speak nineteen of them, but I also don't particularly care for modern D&D's handful of languages which can be spoken trivially easily by even the party's dumbest character, given the right proficiencies. 

I like a D&D world where everything talks - even the plants and animals - and does so in its own bespoke language. I also like adventurous linguists. I don't want them to be perfectly fluent in six languages, but I do think it's reasonable that adventurers would know the occasional word here or there which would allow them to more or less get by in conversations with a variety of odd creatures. They would probably know the mind flayer word for "brains" and the sphinx word for "riddle".

Let the player characters have a few languages they're comfortable in, and the chance to pick up a word or two in those they're not. Give them the choice to at least try to talk to whatever, even if they don't "know" its language, and the choice to invest more in those languages which seem particularly important.

And remember that if they are able to talk to that creature, dealing with it should still always be expensive and irritating.

The Monster Economy of AD&D

AD&D's most endangered creature.

We all know that larger towns and cities will usually have a market for dragons. That is, it is generally understood that adventurers will occasionally drag a cowardly battered and chained dragon into town, and when they do, there will be wealthy people there ready to bid for the privilege of making the dragon their slave. If you're using a table to determine what's going on in the town or city when your player characters arrive there, you probably already have "dragon auction" on the list, right?

Well get ready, because there is a lot more to AD&D's monster economy than just simple dragon slavery. I thought it would be fun to go through the Monster Manual and find all of the critters that can be enslaved, skinned, robbed of their eggs, or butchered for parts. That's fun, right?

Our first example is not particularly exciting, and not a "monster", per se, but nonetheless offers a bit of opportunity to the enterprising adventurer/trapper. The badger (or giant badger) can be skinned, and its pelt sold for 10-30 gold pieces:

Badgers can be found in dungeons in groups of up to 8. The payout for a successful badger encounter could be anywhere from 10 to 240 gold pieces. It's not much, but every bit counts. 

My next example might seem like more of the same, but there's more than meets the eye when it comes to the giant beaver:

Giant beavers are considerably more intelligent than badgers. They engage in trade, and will agree to construct a dam if offered valuables. Cute! It's like a Disney movie.

Of course, they can be killed and skinned for 500 to 2,000 gold pieces per hide, and their children (if under 8 hit points) can be subdued and sold as slaves for 100 to 200 gold pieces each. There will be 10-40 adults, which will yield 5,000 to 80,000 gold for their pelts alone! There will be an equal number of kits, with about 4 to 18 (44%) small enough to turn into slaves, which is another 400 to 3,600 gold! The kits that are too old to make good slaves are either killed alongside their parents or orphaned and left to starve.

Fire beetle glands can be harvested to shed light in a 10' radius for 1 to 6 days after being removed:

These are "highly prized by miners and adventurers", although we're not told for how much they can be sold. Still, we can imagine that they are considerably more valuable than a simple torch and that they are probably sold in settlements near dungeons (where they are found in the 1st level in groups of 1 to 4).

Blink dog lairs have a 50% chance of containing 3-12 pups which can be captured and sold for 1,000 to 2,000 gold pieces each:

That's 3,000 to 24,000 gold if you get lucky, and all you have to do is slaughter 4-16 Lawful Good intelligent dogs and stuff their puppies into a sack (and, I guess, somehow prevent them from "blinking" away).

Dwarven craftsmen can fashion a bulette's armor plates into +1 to +3 shields:

It's unclear how the exact bonus is to be determined, how much it would cost to have the shield made for you, or how much the dwarves might pay for the materials. I'll return to this a bit later.

The entry on giant eagles is a bit confusing, but I think it means that there is a 50% chance of each nest containing young or eggs (if the initial roll is positive, a subsequent roll is made, with a 50/50 chance of young or eggs being present):

While the entry uses the vague language "they can be tamed" (presumably referring to both young and eggs) only eggs sell for 500 to 800 gold pieces each, leading me to conclude that actually only those newly hatched from eggs can be tamed, and the young already hatched in the nest are worthless. So steal the eggs, but like those giant beaver kits too large to be enslaved, either kill the young in the nest or leave them to die once the adults are slain.

Since giant eagles appear in groups of 1-20, there is one nest per 2 eagles, and 1-4 young/eggs per nest (0 to 40 young/eggs in a lair), knocking over a giant eagle lair can net you anywhere from 0 to 32,000 gold pieces!

Elephant tusks can be sold for 100 to 600 gold pieces:

With each elephant having two tusks, and 1 to 20 or 1 to 12 elephants being encountered in a group, slaying a herd of elephants may yield 200 to 24,000 gold pieces! The tusks are heavy, though - the cheapest weighs 25 pounds, and the most valuable weighs 150 pounds.

Unlike giant eagles, griffon fledglings and eggs are valuable commodities. In fact, the fledglings are more valuable than the eggs:

This suggests, to me, that griffon eggs are difficult to hatch, so it's better to allow the griffon adults to do the work of hatching the eggs and then steal the young fledglings from them. With 2 to 12 griffons per group and 1 or 2 eggs or young per pair of griffons (anywhere from 0 to 12 eggs or young), raiding a griffon lair can yield up to 60,000 gold pieces!

Like griffons, hippogriff eggs and fledglings can be sold as well, and the fledglings are once again more valuable:

Hippogriffs appear in groups of 2 to 16, so a lair might contain as many as 16 eggs or fledglings - up to 48,000 gold pieces!

Fire lizard eggs sell f or 5,000 gold each:

If you happen to find a lair containing 4 eggs, that's 20,000 gold pieces.

Mammoth tusks are 50% more valuable than elephant tusks (150 to 900 gold pieces each - a group of 12 such creatures could yield up to 21,600 gold pieces) but also weigh 50% more (37.5 pounds to 225 pounds), while mastodon tusks are valued the same as elephants':

"Their" here refers to mastodons.

Like giant beavers, giant otters can be skinned for their pelts:

A group of 5 giant otters can yield up to 20,000 gold pieces in value.

Returning again to the matter of eggs and hatchlings, those of the giant owl can be sold as well, and the hatchlings are again more valuable:

A nest can contain up to 3 hatchlings, which will yield 6,000 gold pieces.

Owlbear eggs and young can also be sold:

Again, the young owlbears are more valuable than the eggs. A lair with 6 young yields 30,000 gold pieces. As with the giant beavers, some young will be too large to tame - again these must be either orphaned or killed along with their parents.

Pegasus eggs and young can be sold as well, and again the young are more valuable:

A full group of 10 pegasi might have 10 young, which can be captured and sold for a total of 50,000 gold.

Giant weasel pelts sell for 1,000 to 6,000 gold pieces:

A full group of 8 weasels yields 48,000 gold.

Whales produce ambergris, which can be sold for up to 20,000 gold. Their carcasses can also be sold for up to 3,600 gold:

Groups of up to 8 can appear at once, so this could be 160,000 or 28,800 gold, if somehow you manage to encounter 8 sick whales or can tow 8 whale carcasses into port. Good luck with that!

Winter wolf pelts can be sold for 5,000 gold:

A group of 8 winter wolves would yield 40,000 gold.

These are all of the examples made straightforward by the Monster Manual. Things like wild dogs, horses, and ponies can be captured and trained, and prices for these creatures are provided in the Player's Handbook:

But what of the more "exotic" animals? Elephants "can be trained to carry equipment and/or men", and wolf cubs "can be trained as war dogs or hunting beasts", but no attempt is made to put a value on those animals (a trained wolf would be more valuable than a dog, I would think). In addition to wolves, dwarves can tame brown bears. Gnolls can tame hyenas. Gnomes tame badgers and wolverines. Hobgoblins keep carnivorous apes (my personal favorite monster-pet pairing).

And what of other "fantastic" beasts? Elven maidens might ride unicorns. Wood elves tame giant lynxes. Hill giants keep dire wolves and giant lizards. Storm giants keep rocs. Giant goats "have been tamed to serve as steeds". Hell hounds "are favored as watchdogs by monsters and fire giants". Hippocampi, giant sea horses, and sea lions can "be trained to serve as steeds" or "for use in guarding and hunting".

Presumably the domestication of these animals and monsters is solely the purview of the the peoples and monsters explicitly mentioned, but that doesn't necessarily stop the player characters from profiting from those relationships. Can they sell wolf and bear cubs to dwarves? Giant lizard and roc eggs to hill and storm giants? Hell hound pups to fire giants? How much would those creatures be willing to pay for these commodities? 

All of this killing and skinning and theft and enslavement of young animals and monsters probably sounds pretty Evil - and that's because it basically is. I'm of the opinion that the poaching of animals in the real world (represented here by the killing of badgers for their pelts or elephants for their tusks) is Evil, but if you dig a little deeper into what's going on in AD&D, it's even worse!

Giant beavers are intelligent and engage in trade! Blink dogs are Lawful Good! Giant eagles, while Neutral in alignment, "ignore any good creatures but attack evil creatures" and are of average (i.e., human) intelligence! Giant otters are semi-intelligent and are characterized by their love of play! Giant owls are very intelligent and "sometimes befriend other creatures"! Pegasi are Chaotic Good, "serve only good characters" and "always serve unto death"!

I'm sure the locals who have to deal with bulettes, griffons, owlbears, and winter wolves don't much mind those particular creatures being hunted to extinction, but the majority of these creatures, when not purely animal in intelligence and habits, have a distinct inclination towards Good! 

And I kind of like it. There's something about giving players monetary incentive to be Evil (or at least morally unscrupulous) that's appealing to me. Being Good is hard. It should be. It should be easier (or at least more profitable) to be Evil. Players can write "Good" on their character sheet all they want, but they have to actually do Good for that to mean anything. And for doing Good to actually mean something, it has to be a choice. For doing Good to be a choice, the players must also have the choice to do Evil.

If they spend the whole game doing little quests for the dirt farmers of the local thorp out of the Goodness of their hearts with little wealth to show for it, they may start rethinking what they wrote on their character sheet once they hear that their (Evil) rivals just earned 80,000 gold from skinning giant beavers and selling their children into slavery. Maybe it just reaffirms their commitment to Goodness, and the existence of such Evil in the world instead serves to distinguish them from those sorts, and they vow to put an end to such injustices at any cost. But the (potential for) Evil deeds must exist to create that contrast.

You might have players who choose to play Evil characters, and that's okay too! A campaign of poaching monsters and selling their children into slavery is definitely not for everyone, so you might restrict these options, but I personally enjoy portraying a fantasy world in all its ugliness. If there are giant beavers nearby, the village may be negotiating with them to construct a dam, while simultaneously, outlaw poachers may be conspiring to prey upon them. The pegasi nesting nearby may be valuable allies to Good characters, but if there's a Chaotic Evil wizard in the area, they're likely to desire the creatures' eggs for nefarious purposes, and are willing to pay good money for them. The players get to choose how to engage with those dynamics one way or the other.

It's not all skinning and stealing babies, though. The section in the DMG on the fabrication of potions describes the need for a "special ingredient", which should be of "high or greater" difficulty to obtain:

The list of suggested special ingredients suggests that most of these will come from monsters:

We can still detect a hint of Evil in this list: human thalamus glands, dragon and giant brains (presumably an Evil act to seek these out if the dragon or giant in question is Good), pegasus hearts, and more. For the most part though, the aspiring alchemist will be collecting their ingredients from Evil or adversarial monsters which adventurers will likely battle in the normal course of their escapades: shapechangers, mind flayers, trolls, elementals, undead, beholders, and the like. Unlike the bits I highlighted from the Monster Manual - which is very much concerned with animals and animal-like monsters - the list includes very few animal parts.

These are all suggestions, so the DM can use this list exactly as is or come up with their own special ingredients for potions. Gygax also provides a rule of thumb for determining the cost "to concoct the basic formula - with rare herbs and spices and even more exotic ingredients", which is equivalent to the potion's experience point value:

We see in the magic item tables towards the end of the DMG that a potion's gold piece sale value is greater than its experience point value:

Thus we have two different potion costs - the cost to buy one, and the cost to make one yourself. The increased sale value includes the cost of labor and the seller's profit margin. I assume that the cost to create a potion includes the cost of buying ingredients (including the "special" ingredient harvested from a monster) as well as keeping one's laboratory properly stocked with the more mundane requirements essential to its upkeep. 

So what, then, is the value of the special ingredient? If the player character party consists solely of beefy fighters who have no means of creating potions themselves, but they just got back from a raid on a mind flayer lair and have a barrel of pickled illithid brains (always bring a barrel of pickling liquid), how much can they sell those for?

Unfortunately, the DMG doesn't offer any guidance. My inclination is to look at the percentage markup from the potion's experience point value to its gold piece sale value and instead subtract that percentage from the experience point value. A potion of ESP costs 500 gold to create and sells for 850 - a 70% markup. Thus, a mind flayer brain sells for about 150 gold...maybe? I'm not going to pretend to be a economics guy, but that fairly sounds reasonable to me.

Returning to the example of the bulette, whose armor plates can be fashioned by a dwarven craftsman into a magic shield, a shield +1 has an experience point value of 250 and a gold piece sale value of 2,500. A shield +2 is 500/5,000, and a shield +3 is 800/8,000.

Using the above rule of thumb, you could sell a dwarven craftsman bulette plates for 25, 50, or 80 gold, depending on the quality of the plates. Seems a bit low. Is my rationale off? Someone who is good at economics sound off in the comments.

Just after the section on potions, in the section on the manufacture of scrolls, we learn that each spell transcribed on a scroll requires "a fresh, virgin quill" which "must be from a creature of strange or magical nature":

Gygax goes on to explain that "special quills cannot normally be purchased":

This seems a bit odd to me. As with my previous example of the party of fighters with a barrel full of mind flayer brains they cannot use, surely there will be adventurers slaying all manner of magical feathered monsters. Even if the party includes a magic-user, surely that magic-user will not have need of every single feather plucked from every single griffon. So, why can't they sell them? And inversely, why couldn't they also buy them? How much would they sell for? There isn't much to go off of.

We also learn that the ink used to scribe spells onto scrolls and into spell books is concocted from the ink of a giant squid or giant octopus, plus "blood, powdered gems, herbal and spice infusions" and "draughts concocted from parts of monsters" (emphasis mine):

The example suggests that a unique formula should be devised for each and every spell (or protection scroll) to be scribed. This one includes basilisk eye, cockatrice feathers, and venom from a medusa's snakes. The ink "is compounded only by the inscriber", suggesting it cannot be purchased (perhaps concocting the ink is part of the magical process, so the inscriber must have a part in it). But how much does it cost to compound it? And in turn, how much can you sell those monster parts for?

The only real indication we have as to how much this ink should cost comes from the magic-user spell write which, confusingly, suggests that you can purchase the ink...maybe:

This is a specific use case, so it may not apply more broadly to ink used in scribing spells generally, but I don't see why not. Keep in mind 200 is only the minimum, and as this is a 1st level spell used to scribe spells of at least 2nd level, we might say the gold piece sale value of ink is 100 gold per level of the spell, which is consistent with the rule of thumb used in subsequent editions of the game. 

This makes sense, as if the ink needed to scribe each spell has its own unique formula, some inks would presumably be more difficult to concoct than others. Wouldn't an ink containing dragon's blood be more expensive than one containing only rat blood? Most likely, higher-level spells require rarer ingredients in their ink, which justifies the increased cost.

Here's the footnote beneath the scrolls table in the DMG:

You get 100 experience points per level of spell you scribe onto a scroll, and you can sell the scroll for three times that amount. I would venture to guess that it then costs 100 gold per spell level to concoct the ink yourself, which means concocting the ink for a 2nd level spell would cost 200 gold...which is how much the write spell says the ink sells for. Hmmm...

Perhaps the rule of thumb for potions (cost to fabricate equals experience point value) is unique to potions, and some other equation is at work in the case of other magic items. In the section on fabrication of other magic items, Gygax describes a wizard spending 5,000 gold pieces to craft a ring of spell storing:

However, the magic item tables indicate that the experience point value of a ring of spell storing is 2,500 gold:

As is often the case in AD&D, Gygax seems to want the DM to arrive at a ruling according to individual taste, rather than providing a broader rule of thumb from which to extrapolate. This is fine, but as someone who values AD&D (and the DMG in particular) for its exacting specificity in many areas, it does frustrate me when Gygax is less clear in others.

This is all without getting into material components of spells! Augury requires dragon bones (it's a 2nd level spell, so I imagine the cleric is buying these somewhere, rather than slaying dragons at 3rd level). Scare requires a bit of bone from an undead skeleton, zombie, ghoul, ghast, or mummy. Clairvoyance requires a pinch of powdered pineal gland from a human or humanoid creature. Rary's mnemonic enhancer requires either black dragon's blood or giant slug digestive juice. How much does that stuff cost?

I got a bit into the weeds there, but the point is this - monsters are valuable. They are a part of the world the player characters inhabit, and they are exploited for resources much like animals in our own world, and then some. Their pelts are valuable. Their young are valuable. Their eyes and hearts and brains and feathers and blood are valuable. 

While the Monster Manual's accounting for the value of every pelt, egg, fledgling, tusk, and what have you may seem laborious to some, in my opinion it doesn't go far enough. The DMG suggests that player characters - and the world as a whole - has a much greater use for monsters than just skinning them and selling their pelts.

I don't want to know just how much I can sell the griffon's babies for - I want to know how much a wizard will pay for its feathers. Can I make something with its eyes or talons? How much can I sell those for? Can I take the ankheg's shell and make it into armor? Can I harvest the acid from its guts? How much will someone pay for a suit of red dragon scale mail? 

Just as this is important information for players, it also helps the DM's worldbuilding at a gameable level. I'd be remiss not to mention that in OD&D, castles may be garrisoned by all manner of monsters, as well as Heroes riding griffons, hippogriffs, and rocs:

Clearly they are coming from somewhere! 

If there are valuable monsters nearby, someone in the nearby settlement or stronghold will be looking to exploit them. Just as there will be Evil trappers preying upon the giant beavers and wizards scheming to obtain pegasus eggs, the lord of the castle might be struggling to tame griffon mounts for their riders, the alchemist will pay good money for basilisk eyes, and someone is probably looking to buy a barrel full of slug slime. And of course, there will be the occasional dragon auction. 

The typical market found in an AD&D town or city is a lot more fantastical than you might imagine, and all of those fantastic elements invite engagement by the players. Will they join in on the poaching or plot to put an end to it? Will they make their fortune as slime merchants? Will they infiltrate the Evil High Priest's temple stronghold and attempt to free the gold dragon he just purchased at the auction? The possibilities are much greater when monsters are worth more than just XP.