"Jack folks have some questions about the languages you're choosing for the book."
"What about 'em."
"It's a fantasy setting right?"
"Meh."
"What does 'Meh' mean?"
"It means you'll have to wait and see."
"Okay...then why not use fantasy languages?"
"Because I like learning languages and if this thing blows up I want people to learn actual languages instead of some shit a white dude made up."
"Okay? Then why the specific languages?"
"Because they are tied to where I came from, people I know, they reflect the resilience of people who's cultures 'history' tried to erase."
"Players are saying the languages you've revealed so far are...am I getting this right?
Tagalog
Cantonese
and Dine? What is that?
"Dine` is the language of the Navajo nation."
"And you're using that for a people that live in tree towns?"
"Yeah."
"Wait? What? I thought they're from the Southwest, aren't you from the the Kansas/Oklahoma area? Neither of those places have anything with living in trees."
"As you said, it's a fantasy book and if fans, role players, cosplayers, want to play the characters they can learn the languages keeping them alive, then if they really want to learn the languages they can find the living people to teach them and learn their history through the stories."
"And the trees thing?"
"Like you said, it's a 'fantasy' novel'"
"So it's not a fantasy story?"
"...."
"Why won't you say."
"Because no ones' gone into the Temple yet."
"The temple?"
"Yeah. I've ran this scenario in five...six...different campaigns so far and either because the parties decided to go different directions, didn't survive the initial encounters because of hubris, or got bored building out their backgrounds the haven't cleared the temple yet."
"Why would they get board building out their backgrounds."
" 'cause some people just want to roll dice and kill monsters and that's not what the game is about."
"But there are monsters, like Minotaur and giant scorpions? Sounds kind a Greek ?"
"Yeah."
"But it's not a fantasy story and they speak languages from places completely removed from one another in a place that has high technology alongside high fantasy"
"...."
"You're not as clever as you think you know."
"I know, but doesn't mean I have to make it easy."
"So you didn't stop running the game then?"
"As long as the players show up during the scheduled hours I'll run the game."
"What about the new players. They don't like starting at 1st level when there's already level 5 characters running around."
"Do the background work and they can level up. Same as the other players."
"What does the background work have to do with leveling up in the game?"
"Because the ending is already written, it's just a matter of getting there and I want to know what they want their characters are going to be in the 'final battle'. The foundations for those skills, abilities, and what not are established in the background so that during the story it feels more like they 'knew' how to do these things but they never had to do it under pressure before. That's where the leveling comes form. Like coal being compressed into a diamond."
"But you've been ignoring people that have showed up when you're sitting in the worlds on game nights."
"...."
"Aren't you looking for more players?"
"They haven't answered the question."
"What question?"
"...."
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like I smell bad."
"Catch me during officer hours and ask again."
"Wait where are you going?"
"To work."