Languages
The spoken and written tongues of every civilization and creature.
Common Languages
Common
The trade tongue of humanity and the default lingua franca of most civilized realms. Nearly every adventurer, merchant, and scholar speaks it.
Draconic
The ancient tongue of dragons, thought to be one of the oldest languages in the multiverse. Its script is used by scholars and arcanists to record powerful magic.
Elvish
A fluid, musical tongue filled with subtle inflections and intricate grammar. Rich in poetry and lore, it is the language of elves and their kin.
Giant
The brusque, thundering speech of giants and their lesser kin such as ogres and trolls. Its runes are carved deep into stone and ice.
Gnomish
A brisk, technical language full of clever wordplay and inventive terminology, favored by gnome tinkerers and illusionists.
Goblin
The harsh, barking tongue of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears. Spoken across countless warrens and war camps throughout the underdark and wildlands.
Halfling
A warm, homely language rich with idioms about food, family, and the comforts of the hearth. Rarely written outside of halfling communities.
Sign Language
A silent tongue of hand gestures and subtle movements, essential to scouts, thieves, and any who must speak without making a sound.
Dwarvish
A hard, consonant-heavy speech forged in the deep halls of the mountains. Its angular runes endure on stone tablets for untold centuries.
Orc
A guttural, forceful tongue shouted across the battlefields and frontier clans. Its written form borrows the angular runes of the dwarves.
Rare Languages
Abyssal
The vile tongue of demons, born in the chaotic planes of the Abyss. Its very utterance is said to unsettle mortal minds.
Thieves’ Cant
A secret mix of slang, coded phrases, and hidden signs used by rogues and criminal underworlds to pass messages unseen among common folk.
Celestial
The resonant, harmonic speech of angels and other celestials. Its flowing script shines upon sacred texts and divine pacts.
Undercommon
The trade tongue of the Underdark, spoken by drow, duergar, svirfneblin, and other denizens of the deep. A grim, utilitarian blend of surface tongues and subterranean dialects.
Druidic
The secret language of druids, known only to initiates of the Old Faith. Using it in the presence of non-druids is a grave breach of sacred trust.
Infernal
The rigid, lawful tongue of devils, used to bind contracts and pacts in the Nine Hells. Each word carries the weight of immutable law.
Primordial
The elemental tongue spoken by genies, elementals, and natives of the Inner Planes. It includes four dialects — Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran — mutually intelligible as a single language.
Deep Speech
The alien, unsettling language of aboleths, mind flayers, beholders, and other aberrations from the Far Realm. It has no script of its own.
Sylvan
The lilting, melodic speech of the Feywild — spoken by fey creatures such as dryads, satyrs, and pixies. Its cadence mirrors the rhythms of the wild places.