Yes, I think I agree Donald. The 'Orlanthi all' does not fit this
particular situation. Not even the player characters can read in
Heroquest, as opposed to the multi-lingual, multi-literate
characters of Runequest!
Regards
Rob
> In message <d7q2rm+6uap_at_e...> "Rob" writes:
>
> >Come on Jane, the society is not illiterate, its just that most
> >people (85%) can't read or write.
>
> That's usually what's meant by an "illiterate society". Not that
> they don't have reading and writing but that it's a specialism
> which only a minority can perform. I'm not sure where the 15%
> figure for literate individuals comes from either, Lhankor Mhy
> is only one of the many cults who make up the 15% minority and
> it's the only cult where literacy is required. So I'd put the
> figure at below 5% including all the people who've learnt just
> enough to write their own name and read some basic words.
>
> >The ones that can, do it for a
> >living, and generally are very, very good at it.
>
> You can make a reasonable living as a scribe in an illiterate
> society without being particularly good. An average clan will
> rarely have anyone with a decent written vocabulary and what's
> more I suspect the commonest written language in 1620's Sartar
> will be New Pelorian. Simply because there will be more stuff
> written in that language than anything else and the clans will
> have grown to distrust Lunar official's translations of official
> documents. Lunar missionaries will also be the most common
> source of such learning.
>
> --
> Donald Oddy
> http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/