viewtopic.php?f=15&t=31347
I just wanted to voice my support for this, most specifically the part about adding a plural to priestess into Xanalress. For years when I played a priestess I would use [yathrin] when I wanted to say priestesses because a plural for it did not exist. Adding something small like that would be a huge QoL in my opinion.
Small Additions to Xanalress
Moderators: Active Admins, Forum Moderators, Active DMs
Re: Small Additions to Xanalress
Thank you for the support. I am glad you liked the proposal!
There are quite a few minor additions or improvements to the cipher which will be very helpful. Aluve' being more accessible and priestesses having its plural were the two ones that came to prominence. But there can be many others.
Rothe is currently ciphered as zaanirva, which has no occurrence in the lore sources. But as things stand, rothe as a word in player speech is so common that it probably deserves to be ciphered directly as "rothe". There is not a real word to identify the animal in fact.
Against, is ciphered as "qua'len", but in truth, the dictionaries online report it as "qua'laen", so it probably should be fixed.
More in general, however, I think that the cipher relies too much on the translator from Eilistraee.com (http://www.eilistraee.com/chosen/language.php) and too little on the words that come from good sourcebooks, as those listed, with respective sources, on Forgotten Realms wiki: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drow_dictionary
I believe the latter source should have preference, to avoid stuff like this:
All trust is fool: jal khaless zhah wael
Except that since the verb "to trust" is ciphered as "khal" on the Eilistraee dictionary, our cipher renders it as "jal khal zhah bwael".
Now if that dictionary had the same sources of the words listed on the wiki glossary, I would not be that bothered, but the fact is that "khal" does not have strong sources in the lore, and the result is that the proverb, a famous quote, is always altered due to this.
Ergo, I would think it is better to change the cipher for trust into khaless, it's not that in Xanalress you talk much about trusting things anyway. But not only that, there is a lore source that lists also the following proverb:
khaless nau uss mzild taga dosstan: trust no one more than yourself
And here "khaless" acts as a verb in fact. So another good reason to change it in my opinion.
The fact is that the Eilistraee.com dictionary is one where random people can add entries to it, so they should be respected but also not seen at the same level as official lore sources. I believe the whole aluve' thing stems from this in fact. Aluve' is the common drow goodbye form, the other two are not attested as strongly. Hell, it even appears in one of drow Matron voicesets for the goodbye vocal emote.
There are many more minor things that I could keep adding. Another, that I just noticed is that Lolth is encoded as Lolth, and it's fine, but also Lloth, a variant name, is encoded as Lolth, and that is not fine, as it is a real variant within the language and the cipher should just render it as Lloth.
There are quite a few minor additions or improvements to the cipher which will be very helpful. Aluve' being more accessible and priestesses having its plural were the two ones that came to prominence. But there can be many others.
Rothe is currently ciphered as zaanirva, which has no occurrence in the lore sources. But as things stand, rothe as a word in player speech is so common that it probably deserves to be ciphered directly as "rothe". There is not a real word to identify the animal in fact.
Against, is ciphered as "qua'len", but in truth, the dictionaries online report it as "qua'laen", so it probably should be fixed.
More in general, however, I think that the cipher relies too much on the translator from Eilistraee.com (http://www.eilistraee.com/chosen/language.php) and too little on the words that come from good sourcebooks, as those listed, with respective sources, on Forgotten Realms wiki: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drow_dictionary
I believe the latter source should have preference, to avoid stuff like this:
All trust is fool: jal khaless zhah wael
Except that since the verb "to trust" is ciphered as "khal" on the Eilistraee dictionary, our cipher renders it as "jal khal zhah bwael".
Now if that dictionary had the same sources of the words listed on the wiki glossary, I would not be that bothered, but the fact is that "khal" does not have strong sources in the lore, and the result is that the proverb, a famous quote, is always altered due to this.
Ergo, I would think it is better to change the cipher for trust into khaless, it's not that in Xanalress you talk much about trusting things anyway. But not only that, there is a lore source that lists also the following proverb:
khaless nau uss mzild taga dosstan: trust no one more than yourself
And here "khaless" acts as a verb in fact. So another good reason to change it in my opinion.
The fact is that the Eilistraee.com dictionary is one where random people can add entries to it, so they should be respected but also not seen at the same level as official lore sources. I believe the whole aluve' thing stems from this in fact. Aluve' is the common drow goodbye form, the other two are not attested as strongly. Hell, it even appears in one of drow Matron voicesets for the goodbye vocal emote.
There are many more minor things that I could keep adding. Another, that I just noticed is that Lolth is encoded as Lolth, and it's fine, but also Lloth, a variant name, is encoded as Lolth, and that is not fine, as it is a real variant within the language and the cipher should just render it as Lloth.
Re: Small Additions to Xanalress
I’m fairly certain that slave translates into rothe in Xanalress, but the word rothe itself should just stay as rothe when translated.
Re: Small Additions to Xanalress
Yep, slave is ciphered as rothe. It's rothe, when used to mean the animal, that is translated as letter salad.