I'm thinking of creating a RP setting/story where language is a key factor. There are two humanoid races inhabiting this world; the 'Kryans' or Ice people inhabiting the tundric forests and icy snowfields to the north and the 'Pyrans' or fire people inhabiting the volcanic beaches and valleys to the south. The Kryans live in glacial castles and fortresses and have a love of knowledge, music, and art and they have the power to manipulate ice and snow. The Pyrans live in obsidian castles and fortresses and have a love of fighting, strength, and sports and have the power to manipulate fire. These two people have a profound hatred and disgust for one another and their respective ways of life.

Khaldu is the son of a Kryan woman and a Pyran man, a half-breed and the only one of his kind. Because of his parents' love affair, the two were viewed as traitors to their own kind and sentenced to death before Khaldu's own eyes at the young age of six. The two races exchanged their respective traitor over to the other for punishment; the Kryans impaled Khaldu's father by throwing him into a pit of frozen stalagmites, and the Pyrans burned his mother by throwing her into a lake of molten rock. He grew up an orphan in a life of exile, rejected by everyone; stealing, wandering the deserts of the wastelands between north and south, and as he grew older, so did his hatred and malice for the people of the world grow ever stronger. Possessing the traits of both races, strength and wisdom, and their powers as well, fire manipulation and ice manipulation, he was powerful enough on his own. But he needed an army of loyal subjects to lead against the world that rejected him. He turned to the shadows letting it corrupt and turn his mind. He became manipulative and took to the outcasts of the societies built by the two races: the Kryans who proved too brutish and too violent to be accepted by their families, and the Pyrans who proved too weak and too docile and were lucky enough to escape execution. He gained their support and turned them into his minions; mixing their mind with the shadows and mixing their hearts with one another to create an the ultimate army of a superior mixed race and mindless servants. With this, he would destroy the world and take vengeance.

You're probably wondering, how does language play into this? Well, the two races each speak their own language; the Language of Ice and the Language of Fire. So if you're playing a Kryan, you have to post any dialogue from your character in the language of ice, and if you're playing a Pyran, you have post any dialogue from your character in the language of fire. This will work by using a cypher with the English alphabet with some very simple and minute grammatical changes. This will make it interesting when you have a Kryan and a Pyran meeting face to face, and will make the role of an 'interpreter class' very important, and any misunderstandings that ensue because of a bad interpretation or miscommunication would make for some very interesting circumstances.

Here's an example of the Kryan language:
"Asruov i-dhocsiodu eg-allu, onh adhavu lever shethuoh." (I speak the language of ice, and I like to read books.)

And here's and example of the Pyran language:
"Dzhruoz du toseogu a-pizhu, o tsay tizu du ya zhuong baazdzh." (I speak the language of fire, and I do not like to read books.)

So the RPers would be able to choose between being a Pyran or Kryan; you would choose from a list of classes/jobs/skills, maybe some backstory, etc. I'm not entirely sure yet on these details. But the RP would take place during the rise of Khaldu's army: you could be faced with trying to convince other's of the imminent threat that destroyed your village but no one believes you; maybe you're trying to find a way to get the two races to cooperate so they can join forces; maybe you come face to face with Khaldu and end up siding with him becoming a loyal officer to lead a horde of his minions on your own people; or maybe you're simply a knight who loyally serves his King and Queen... the possibilities are endless.

Some extra stuff about the world; the two races are governed by monarchs, a King and Queen; most people in the world are monolingual and interpreters/bilinguals are very rare (so only a few players can be interpreters); Khaldu, of course, is bilingual; and yeah... Not sure what more to add for the moment! XD

Let me know if you like this idea and if I should expand on it! I don't have much experience RPing, so any advice you have to offer or possible improvements you can think of would also be greatly appreciated!

Hi Lamaeron, this is a new thing on this site lol. Most people don't say hi on these forums, but I'm going to make an effort.

I'm Gareth, as far as this site goes and its nice to meet you Lamaeron.

Clash of Fire and Ice is good. I like it.

Mostly because its not the plethora of random powers most fantasy roleplays seem to have.

That said, the language thing is very interesting to me.

Its super original as I've not read/heard someone use a totally different language in a story. I mean to say that this language is not even close to english.

Can you tell me what you mean by "cypher with the english alphabet"? :)

I don't have a clue what a cypher is and I don't think that google could explain it for me.

Well, it's nice to meet you @Gareth, and thank you for saying hi! :)

Okay, this might be a tiny bit complicated, but bare with me.
By cypher, I mean replacing the letters of English words with new letters so it no longer looks like English, but the key is to do it in a way so it still looks like a humanly-pronounceable and authentic language, and then maybe tweak the grammar a bit to make give it a little linguistic charm.

For example, below is the English-to-Kryan cypher; you always cypher the digraphs first.
ng → cs
ch → hw
ck → v
gh → / (simply deleted)
ph → g
rh → th
sh → b
ti → b
th → m
wh → w
zh → t
ci → ll
wr → th
qu → f
a → o
b → l
c → ll
d → h
e → u
f → g
g → d
h → pf
i → a
j → c
k → v
l → dh
m → lh
n → n
o → e
p → r
q → f
r → th
s → p
t → sh
u → i
v → s
w → w
x → ñ
y → y
z → t

Then you apply the extra language rules:
- Double vowels or double consonants get reduced to one ("book" → "leev" → "lev")
- Always cypher nouns in their singular form; the plural is formed by adding -r (if it ends with a vowel) or -er (if it ends with a consonant) to the end of the noun after it's passed through the cypher. ("books" → "book" → "lev" → "lever")
- Remove all articles ('the', 'a', and 'an') from the sentence and replace 'the' with 'i-' after it has passed through the cypher. ("the book" → "book" → "lev" → "i-lev")
- If there's a subject personal pronoun (I, you, he, etc.), attach it to the front of the main verb. ("I read the book" → "Iread book" → "athuoh i-lev")
- If there's a personal pronoun as the direct object of a verb (me, you, him, etc.), place it in front of the main verb. ("I see you" → "you Isee" → "Yei apu.")
- Adjectives are placed after nouns. ("the red book" → "book red" → "i-lev thuh")
- Words that end in consonant clusters take on the vowel '-u' after being ciphered to ease pronunciation. ("learn" → "dhuothn" → "dhuothnu"; "shirt" → "bathsh" → "bathshu")
- For possession, you always use the word "of" and it is attached to the word that follows it with a hyphen. If the following word begins with a consonant, then you remove the "f" making it "o-". If the following word is "the", then the "f" remains but there is no hyphen. Otherwise, you use "of-". Then you pass it through the cypher. ("The dog's book." → "The book of the dog." → "The book ofthe-dog." → "I lev egi-hed.")
- For the infinitive form of a verb "to + verb", "to" is attached to the beginning. ("to read" → "toread" → "shethuoh")
- Infinitives, when combined with a helping verb are usually placed after the object. ("I want to read a book." → "Iwant bok toread." → "Awonshu lev shethuoh.")
- And, finally, yes/no questions (questions that begin with 'do' or 'does') are ciphered as statements and simply a question mark indicates that it's a question. ("Did you read the book?" → "Youread book?" → "Yeithuoh i-lev?"
- Everything else can just be ciphered normally. (I might have to tweak some things later on, though; this is the draft I have now.)

So the example in my first post would be cyphered like this:
"I speak the language of ice, and I like to read books."
→ "Ispeak (i)-language of-ice, and Ilike bok(er) toread."
→ "Asruov i-dhocsiodu eg-allu, onh adhavu lever shethuoh."

Only Kryan players will be allowed to use the Kryan cypher, and only Pyran players will be allowed to use the Pyran cypher; unless they're an interpreters, in which case they will have access to both. If the cypherment of dialogue becomes too tedious, maybe I can make a computer program to do it for the players XD But it would be really cool if the players ended up using the cyphers so much that writing dialogue in the languages became second nature for them.

I hope this clarified some things! Don't hesitate to ask any other questions you might have :)

Hey, @Lamaeron , Gareth here again. I've been going through your explanation and it is very well done.

I say this because its helping me learn cyphers and english both at the same time. Amazing! :O!

Due to 'my time constraints or life as we know it', (nothing on your end don't worry.) I'm going to have to finish learning from your explanation tomorrow.

I know they are excuses and I apologize.

Also I do have a family reunion with my aunty who I haven't seen in a while and a bunch of my mom's side, thus I'll be offline until tomorrow.

So I'm just keeping the communication going.

^ That's what's up! ^__^

So, @Lamaeron I finished learning from your post explaining the cypher.

Btw its me Gareth once again.

Anyway you didn't post since I last posted, so I hope everythings okay.

Also I do have a question, how many people are you looking for before you can start this roleplay?

@Gareth Hey, it's fine; life always comes first, right? :) I've been caught up in life as well, so sorry about that! XD I meant to reply sooner, but I didn't get the chance. I'm working on all kinds of projects and I'm in the process of applying to gradschool, so I'm doing my best to manage my time ^^;;

Anyways, I'm glad you like the cypher and that I was able to explain it well enough to be understood!

As for the number of people, I was hoping to get a somewhat large group involved, but, at the very least, I guess we could start with a small group of 3~4 players to test it out. Hopefully more people will show up and be interested! :)

I'm back @Lamaeron, and I'd like to continue on from where we left off at the number of people playing.

(Also as a sidenote: Wow you are busy and I hope everything goes well for you.)

If you like 3-4 as a beginning point, I'm cool with that or a larger group. Either way. Its your project and I'm just here to partake and help if its ok with you.

I do have a suggestion that may allow more people to see this thread.

If you are cool with making a new OOC thread in the casual section.

It would mean writing up a plot with some detail to it and creating a character skeleton for people to audition for a place as a Kryan or Pyran.
(or whatever other roles players can play as, its your decision.)

I think the casual section tells people "Hey, this story has some depth to it and requires a good writing ability as well. This might make it interesting for me to join."

Also I think more people look at Out of Character threads than they do interest checks, in particular the general interest checks.

@LamaeronAre you still around?