Re: Re: Literacy in the West?

From: Mike Holmes <mike_c_holmes_at_...>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:11:24 -0800 (PST)


Peter, the section on adepts mentions other options as well. Notably scholars (I have an Adept/Scholar character in play right now). Wizard is an occupation, and not the only one that Adepts can take, no matter how common.  

I think that the idea is that, typically, an Adept will belong to some occupation that involves being able to write (note that Petty Noble also works fine). But it does leave some questions. Like how does an apprentice become an Wizard ever if he can't read? I mean, apparently they pick it up somewhere along the way.  

There's another option, however - it could be that learning a Grimoire entails limited reading ability. This is historical, some people didn't learn to read per se, they learned a text. Meaning they didn't have the skills to recognize words and sentence structure so much as remembering that a particular sentence in the book in question reads a certain way. Practically this is memorizing the book in question, with the book only acting as a mnemonic aid.  

I'm thinking that for some Liturgists, this is quite likely the case. I believe that they historically simply memorized their passages more often than actually read them. Again, the scripture acts as a mnemonic. (Do clergymen get reading?) If you use this, then this probably does mean that you can use your best Grimoire skill at -10 to read other texts or something ("Ah, yes, that's the phrase, 'Oh my god.'")  

So this could be the case with grimoires for some characters who might be otherwise illiterate. I mean, common, uncommon, the Adept keyword should account for other occupations than wizard.  

The other option is simply to say that the school that your character learned from taught reading unlike the others listed (an odd academy perhaps). Or take it as one of your ten abilities, explaining that the character learned to read while at the academy taking extra courses (which the others were taking to become Wizards). That is, if you feel that they have to be able to read, then require that the character get reading from somewhere. Doesn't have to be a keyword.  

Mike



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