With a Mouth Full of Mud
Connects to: 25.07, 29.14.14, 29.14.49 and 30.12.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Master Mason of the Honorable Society of Engineers is Baron Harenghast (briefly mentioned in 30.12), after all the leader of most every Shuttered institution is a member of the high nobility. However, the Baron’s subordinates are not displaying the awe and respect that his lineage deserves but are instead rather annoyed at his plans to cut funding for the Crack-Finders, divert work crew to shoring up the foundations of his own tower and selling the sacred steel band of the Society to “honorary engineers.”
Luckily for the chiefs of the Society’s sub-departments, Baron Harenghast is incapable of speaking the Mud Tongue of the common people of the City and instead only speaks the High Tongue of the nobility. The same is true for many of the very richest and youngest of the nobility. This has allowed the chiefs to creatively “translate” his orders to make sure that the day when the City of Shuttered Windows finally sinks into the mud is not today.
Meanwhile, Baron Harenghast is pleased that most of his subordinates cannot speak the High Tongue. All legal instruction in sorcery in the Shuttered City is carried out in the High Tongue and while most every noble is capable of producing at least a few cantrips, the common people cannot even understand the names of the Thousand Spells and One. Also, while anyone with enough money can buy their way into the nobility, it is impossible to participate in the councils of state without being fluent in the High Tongue which can take years of constant study.
But the Mud Tongue is not without its own merits. Outside of the City it has another name: the Common Tongue.
Connections:
- Deep in the Gnomish Quarter (29.14.14) there is an illegal academy where High Tongue verb declensions are spoken of in whispers lest unkind ears hear them.
- Occasionally the mockingbird (25.07) can be heard calling out spell formulae in the High Tongue.
Hooks:
- What other institutions run Shuttered?
- What are the Thousand Spells and One?
- Why does Count Seutorian’s balloon look like Baron Harenghast’s mother (30.12)?
- Why is the language school illegal? Who is allowed to learn the High Tongue? How can you enforce that?