Given my linguistics background, I always disliked the fact that beast races/ creatures are capable of full speech. This is physiologically impossible, and it’s always broken immersion for me in fantasy games, where I still expect some form of verisimilitude.
However, I was delighted when I read about Orcs and their speech impediments, as well as Saurians having their own speech limitations with limited vowels and different consonants. Not to mention the “dragons can talk only in legends” bit, which I absolutely loved, given the unreliable narrator factor in Forbidden Lands.
In this vein, there’s something that bothers me, which is Wolfkin as a playable kin. At some point I can read that they communicate between one another through howls and such, but there’s an awkward omission on how they, as playable kin, would communicate with other kin. Not to mention that they despise other kin anyway.
So my first thought is to ban this kin from being payable at my table outright, unless all the party plays as Wolfkin.
Just wondering what is everybody’s opinion on this. Full disclaimer, I am still halfway through the GM’s handbook, so there may be some stuff I am missing.
Yeah, I get the comparison with disney movies, but that’s not the case. It can get goofy at times, you need a gritty/dangerous game to counterbalance. I played Dragonbane recently, playing a mallard that gets enraged easily is fun - until you fight demonic corruption & deadly manticores. I played a game decades ago where little 15cm faeries where on the table as playable characters. sounds disney, too, but I asure you - eyeballs are no tiny target in this case. The setting was also rather dark, but I can’t remember what it was called.
Bottom line - to each their own, I guess. You’re not missing out if you remove the wolfkin as playable characters or sentient society as a whole. Would be a different story with goblins and halflings, they will become important in a later campaign.