Hello there! I'm also craving for some more activity here. I'm running Forbidden Lands for the first time next week!
Yeah, I agree that mixing up groups and turn them into motley crews can make them more interesting. I'll leave that to my players, but looking forward to hear what they are coming up with!
Beasts are a different story. As opposed to your preferences, I personally like my fantasy worlds to be as less Walt Disney-like as possible, and mallards are definitely something I would not enjoy. 😀
I'm also not a fan of magical communication in this case, I'd say I'm going with the different head/ throat physiology for Wolfkin to make them able to speak with a degree of verisimilitude. And I'll probably add the more feral wolfkin, who will be mostly hostile and unable/ unwilling to speak!
Thanks! Yes, I thought about it, and that's definitely something I'm willing to do. The art in the book doesn't really match it, but I can always assume that there are Wolfkin that are more feral than others.
Wolfkin
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.