Talk:Background (Hyrule Supplement)

What and why are "Black Divinity'" and "Gold Divinity"? - Guy 00:04, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

They appear to have been added by Special:Contributions/2001:67C:2628:647:10:0:0:F7 on the 14th of June, 2023. To my understanding, its a variation of celestial used by worshipers of Good-aligned Gods and Evil-aligned gods respectively. I think the only appearance of these specific languages is for the Cultist background, the Weapon Spirit race, and the Demon Scion subclass (which still needs balancing imo).

Other than those 3 sources, I don't know of any other way to get the Divinity languages. They appear to exist just so you can talk to Hylia or Gannon, respectively. --Woahluigi (talk) 09:13, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

Why? Where did they come from in lore? There seems to be no basis or justification for adding these languages, no people who cultivated their dialect, no canonical basis, etc. One presumably already "can" speak to Hylia and ganondorf in commonly understood languages, anyway. Unless there's something I don't know about I advocate for their removal so strongly that I'm actually posting on dandwiki about Hyrule stuff again (horrid).

(I would guess the "demon scion" is yet another haphazard addition by Lycanskull, which if true says everything I need to know regarding its balance.)

Btw, it's been almost 40 years, you can stop calling him "Gannon." :^) - Guy 11:12, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

I do not know of, nor can I find, any reference to a "Divinity" language in the official Legend of Zelda franchise. Replacing them would be fairly easy, as references to Gold Divinity can become Ancient, and references to Black Divinity can become Stal or Blin.

I'll be honest, I was surprised to see you on this campaign setting again. But you are correct, these languages have strong reasons to be removed, seeing as they're made up and redundant. --Woahluigi (talk) 12:44, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

(I like the flavor of Demon Scions, but they're over-tuned in that they just have one too many benefits at most levels. That and certain vestiges are questionable. I'll be adjusting them soon.)

Additionally, what's the difference between Old Common and Ancient? Are they literally just an old version of common, and an even older version of common? --Woahluigi (talk) 15:08, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

I made Ancient based primarily on a language in The Wind Waker spoken by long-lived gods like Jabun and Valoo. (In reality it was just English with a different script, but in-universe it was treated like a version of the common language so outdated that Link could not initially understand it. This language was referred to as Ancient Hylian by some sources.)

I did not make Old Common and have no idea what its justification is, but I would guess your theory about its intention is correct. To me it doesn't seem as jarring as the "Divinity" languages, but still, I don't see a reason to retain it either.

If the language was named Mudoran it'd at least have some canonical basis (being named after the Book of Mudora from A Link to the Past, which was used to translate an old desert script into something Link could read). That was a language I previously considered, but at the time I felt like I couldn't bring up enough use cases to justify mentioning it. In hindsight one of the relatively made-up racial languages could have been called Mudoran instead. - Guy 16:45, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

I think Gold Divinity, Black Divinity, and Old Common should all be removed. However, removing them all at once means there's only 5 exotic languages, and the structure of the languages chart makes me think there should be 6 languages (to correspond to a d6). Adding in Mudoran would be a solution to fix this (albeit minor) issue. It could be the language of high magic, used most commonly on magic items and by particularly ancient or powerful spellcasters. Just an idea, it could be used for something else or be another language entirely. --Woahluigi (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2024 (MDT)

I'm unsure why there's necessarily a distinction for exotic languages in this setting now.

I'm also unsure why Deku is considered exotic, when it's the racial language of a "common" race. Thematically Minish, Twilit, Zonai, and Subrosian to me make the most sense to be "exotic" as they belong to places or peoples normally inaccessible to common folk. That would meet your criteria for a d4. Ancient could make sense as exotic I guess but I personally see it as akin to Latin. - Guy 04:11, 19 October 2024 (MDT)

I do agree that Deku can fit into the common languages, and in order to bump it up to a d12, I decided to add in the Tokay language to the list, which was mentioned on the Race page but not this one.

However, I also thought of having the main split between languages not being Common and Exotic, but Modern and Antique. While Subrosian is still spoken today, I think its old enough to fit as an antique language. The main reason why I did this is because it appears to be a more useful distinction than the old system. --Woahluigi (talk) 14:41, 19 October 2024 (MDT)