Worldbuilding

The Knock.

I had been writing for Shadowborne Games for months when in early 2019, my son and I went for two weeks of vacation in Japan. We were all across the country, from the biggest cites to tiny sleepy volcano side villages. My son had taken about a year of Japanese, and we were told most people there spoke a functional amount of English.

This was a lie.

The language and culture shock when we were not with a group of English speakers was stunning. We were the aliens, totally lost in a place where no one could understand us and we couldn’t even read.

In the world of Oathsworn, there are different places that have different feels. Each city has its own distinct essence and drive as do the various bits of the Deepwood itself and the different things that inhabit the Deepwood. But the world of the Deepwood is churning, constantly changing and growing. While many people will live, grow and die and never set foot Outwall, there’s often reasons to travel from place to place. Trade. Job offer. Family. Wanderlust. The need to breath air that does not smell like other people. This makes the paths of many different cultures and races cross.

Nobles have their books and scribes and teachers, but the common folk cannot afford such luxuries. And when the common folk of several different cultures come in contact with each other, they need to communicate.

In Japan, my son and I found Google Translate a necessity. We could point the phone at a sign or package and read it in English. You may find this hard to believe, but a Free Company does NOT have smartphones as their standard load out. Maybe that’s a stretch goal, I don’t know.

The Ursus are bears. Yes, great sentient bears, but have you ever tried to talk to a bear? The problem is their lip and throat structure doesn’t even resemble what a human has. So, while different races of human can emulate other human languages, Han Solo does not speak to Chewbacca in Shyriiwook. Human parts can’t so it. Some Ursus can manage a few words in the human languages.

Then we get to the sentient vegetal A’Dendri. They don’t even have mouths. Heck, they grow their own weaponry and clothing from their own bodies. And they communicate by a spore based hive language that we cannot even remotely attempt. Smells and psychic impressions are used to get their point across.  Between multiple A’Dendri, this is an astoundingly efficient form of electro chemical information processing. But when some hairy mammal gets thrown in the mix, well, we’re not even talking a language by the same definition of the word.

But there are A’Dendri districts in some human cities. Ursus tend to want to be constantly on their own and on the move, so while the big furry beasts may resupply and spend a few nights resting, they don’t really take to permanent residence with the less hairy races.

So, let’s say you’re a human. I know, that might be a bit of a stretch, but I’m going to assume you’re a human. And you need to buy twillwax. A very specific mix of herbs and quite possibly A’Dendri based substances, which when spread on wood polishes and hardens it and makes it water resistant. Quite useful for utensils, tools and buildings. But it really needs to be purchased from a trader who is going to overcharge you, or straight from a A’Dendri.

There is a binding feature between Ursus, Human, Avi and A’Dendri - basic humanoid shape and roughly similar hands. OK, for the Ursus they are paws, and us humans tend to have more fingers than A’Dendri, but there is a rough commonality which can be used as a guideline for a universal sign language.

The Knock is centuries old. It’s a percussive language that has physical and audible components that can be roughly created by each of the major races. Yes, Ursus tend to speak it more broadly and louder, and A’Dendri have a bit of an accent due to the nature of their fingers, but it is a shared root form of communication that was developed for trade purposes.

A’Dendri have many different textures on their body, and our bear friends tend to wear heavy plating for armor. Humans are soft. Human merchants who specialize in cross-race trading, which happens to be highly profitable, will often wear a Talkboard on the back of their left arm. It’s an ornamental hollow wooden plank which allows more sound from some of the tapping and scraping noises required for speaking in The Knock.

Position of the hand is extremely important, the palm usually indicating what we would refer to as the subject of a sentence. If talking about oneself, you palm faces you at the start of a sentence. About the being you are speaking to, you face the palm to them.  Various wrist angles and height relative to the speaker’s chest indicate values like They, Us, We, Them. A curl of the fingers indicates either familiarity or distance. Spread fingers indicates someone or something far or unknown to you. Then the form of percussive action taken with the hand is usually the verb.

Some phrases have their original direct translation lost. Rapping your left shoulder with the knuckles of your right fist three times is a standard greeting, but there is great debate as to whether it means something like “I am here to trade” or “How are you”. What is agreed is that the symbol stems from showing that your weapon hand is empty and you are not drawing one from over your back, you are simply there to talk.

A simple hit to the chest is the verb “To Be”.  “I AM” would be the fairly intuitive slap to your own chest, the palm indicted you, the slap “be”. Numbers are coded taps on the back of the opposite forearm. Simply four quick taps, often slurred into a tap from one of each of four fingers, like drumming fingers on a table top, is Four.  Five is a flicking motion with the side of the hand on the forearm towards the elbow, ten is a flick away towards the wrist. Five is not five taps to allow for the races with less literal digits.

Position held in front of the body is for emphasis, as well as literal “More” and “Less”.

Two traders speaking knock will bargain, negotiate and auction, often in incredibly fast sequences of numbers tapped against their arm. If a palm is to the other individual and your hands are held neck high, you essentially say “You are too high”. You’re asking a lower price, which you would tap on your forearm.

This simple and tiny vocabulary would be enough to at least get a price for an item. There are thousands of words in The Knock, but most people know enough to tap out a few numbers. Two hands brought sharply together, palm down, thumbs tucked is the generic sign for “Item” and a pronoun used once whatever you are talking about has been defined, so you don’t need to keep signing and tapping the original word, until someone issues the sign three times rapidly, indicating that that meaning is being erased and they want to talk about something else. If you don’t know an item’s word, you point at it, declare the sign for “Item” and negotiate price from there.

It is considered horribly bad form to touch the person you are speaking to, or an object you are speaking of while communicating in The Knock. This is looked on like spitting into someone’s face while speaking. If you see several beings communicating in The Knock and one taps the other, you are probably witnessing the start of a brawl.

Members of a Free Company are more likely to use The Knock to discuss what they have seen scouting, rapid plans for changes in tactic, and other information that needs to be understood by any members of the team with different modes of communication. Combat Knock, as it is sometimes called, usually changes to a silent pointing for the taps, so others cannot literally hear their plans.

However, if you start hearing a strange clicking and scraping from the trees that doesn’t quite match the flow of the wind, you are probably listening to an A’Dendri calling something out to someone else, probably non-A’Dendri, or they would use their spore speak.

A skilled Fableman is often fluent in The Knock, so that their tales can translate. Fablemen tend to make the language exaggerated and expressive, so when they use it, it appears more to be a form of tribal slapping and dancing, able to be understood at the back of a crowd. They can use this to comedic effect, changing the tapping words into bits of songs as they work. This has also been picked up in certain children’s games, where certain phrases equate to what would be tongue twisters and they challenge each other to say them faster and faster.

Please also note that attempting to ask the price of a sandwich at your local deli using The Knock will not result in a proper reply.