>On to my actual question: Storm Tribe lists three Lhankor Mhy
>scripts, "cat scratching", "dog scratching" and "stone scratching".
>Anyone have any guidelines on assigning difficulties for these as far
>as Reading and Writing? Would you require separate skills for each of
>them? Subskills like the Combat skills have? The same skill but
>increasing difficulty?
I believe that apprentices begin with "chicken scratching" and go on from there....
OK, based on what's in Storm Tribe (p.126), "cat scratching" and "dog scratching" are similar systems one for the Heortlings and one for the Alakorings. They seem to be equivalent -- whether this is because they reproduce the same sounds with different symbols (roughly like katakana and hiragana in Japanese) or because pronunciation of the two language groups is different enough that scripts will be substantially different, I don't know. Anyway, they get used for "everyday" writing, not that there's that much of it in Sartar before the Lunars. I assume that difficulties in reading the material would come from the material -- it's age, the reader's familiarity with the subject, the writer's style and intent, etc. As most Lhankor Mhy worshippers will have either "cat scratching" or "dog scratching" at 17, I would say that 10-15 is not unreasonable for most unfamiliar materials (familiar or simple things should require no roll -- after all, the warriors don't need to roll to see if they sharpen their swords properly), with higher difficulties for obscure, fragmentary, or poorly (or obscurely) written items. Really, set the difficulty based on the needs of the story.
Whether "cat" readers can read "dog" or vice versa depends on how similar written and spoken Heortling and Alakoring are. Does anyone have any ideas?
"Stone scratching" seems like another kettle of fish. It has a different set of symbols and the Elasa Secrets, which seem necessary to decode it -- it mostly gets used for magical purposes, so maybe it should be part of the Mythology of Lhankor Mhy. I don't know what gets written in this script except hankor Mhy magical formula. Again, the difficulty should depend on what the characters want to do, what the Narrator wants tro happen, and how skilled everyone is.
Peter Larsen
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