As the others said, I agree with the others.

Hulking magi-mutants frenzied by religon. Not bad. It's been done but that's not a problem. The thought of an entire month without sleep is horrifying, especially when combined with the thoughts of what kind of stimulents, magical, physical, and chemical, these Samites would have to employ to achieve that without killing the subject. Not bad at all.

I agree with the others. This has merit and the basic idea is a nifty one. However I would have liked a tad bit more information other than the short quoted text. Maybe have showed a detailed account of one such transition into a Chosen, perhaps the transformation of Grysh.

A very nice idea, with good flavor text, but can use some more detail. These Samahen definately need some explanation, and is the manner of creation of the Chosen truly magical, or something pseudo-scientific? And what were the wars these hulking brutes were used in?

The core idea is solid. I might've liked to see a bit more of their combat tactics, but I think the whole benefits from the brevity.

Only voted.

3/5

I agree with Chaos.

I think this managed to say a lot in very few words. The very last paragraph confused me, though. If they're worth the strength of a dozen men, why do so few survive their first battle?

Useful for any imaginary world.

I agree with Mystic on this, it gives a good idea that a common language would exsist. In my world I do not have a common language but I do have a Traders Common which is a very limited form of communication existing of approximately 200 to 300 words that can be used mainly for trade and little else. Similar to Chinese Pidgin English except a bit more limited.

Nice. Straightforward and useful to compare/contrast with game-world equivalents. And i learned a few new things.

 I do love these type of articles - there is just so much to language and this is a good resource for worldbuilding.

I will probably end up using the pidgins more than anything else, but I do like the idea of there not being just one 'common' language even if it can become a little bit unwieldy.

Very informative. While I've had a vague notion of what some of those terms meant, it is nice to have it spelled out for me with good examples that really make it easy to grasp.

Having Common in games has always been a useful device for sidestepping problems that could overly complicate things, but it's always seemed a little too generic. But looking at this, I can see how there could be a common language that is based around the dominant political power and give more flavor in the process.

Very interesting indeed.

I used to be a student of Linguistics (well, still am I suppose) and, whilst Ebonics is somewhat more of a dialect, it still holds up to the basic strictures you are trying to explain, so, well done!

Despite this linguistic background, however, I seldom thought about this sort of thing... I've used different langauges successfully in campaigns, but I've never really analysed what "Common" was. Damn my Anglocentric mind!

Thank you for writing such an article to get me thinking!

I actually didn't care for the prose, tone, or voice much. To me, the writing was very dry and reeks of an elderly history teacher droning on about an uninteresting subject. However, the subject was interesting and I felt compelled to finish reading it. I got the feeling of a lot of empty words, as if there wasn't a ton of eagerness and desire to impress an idea in the words. Almost as if it was just being written to convey knowledge. And while this isn't a style of writing I enjoy reading, I was impressed at the way it was delivered.

The overall content itself felt scarce, but was nonetheless intriguing. I like it, and I like it because I want to dislike it for its wording and presentation, which didn't appeal to me yet drew me in and immersed me irregardless.

Good work.