The path of interpreting language
Attributes: The Translator acts as the linguistic conduit, the bottleneck between you and vast amounts of forgotten lore. Words are his tools. Languages are his lifeblood.
In centuries past, the great words of literature, science and philosophy were largely written in inaccessible languages: Latin, Greek and Arabic. The path to wisdom and knowledge required mastery of one or more of these languages as a “price of admission”. The Translator, however, bridged the linguistic barrier, making these works accessible.
As nations grew, linguistic differences produced barriers to diplomacy, communication and trade. Here too the translator plied his trade.
However, the years have not been kind on the translator. In the era of babelfish.org and “international languages”, the path of the Translator has lost much of its power. Many claim that this path is ripe for a new interpretation to bring it into the post-modern era. Want to be God, anyone?
Taboo: The Translator translates, he doesn’t compose. Writing a novel, a love letter or even a grocery list weakens your link to the Archetype. Of course, you could make a list of the German names for each of the items you want from the grocery store.
The Translator doesn’t decode. Any attempt to encrypt writing (with even so simple as Pig Latin) makes the writing immune to translation.
Also, the translator must start at the beginning of a translation and can’t leave a translation half done. He can’t translate the only last chapter of a mystery novel. If he wants to translate a section out of an encyclopaedia, he must start at page one of the volume and do the whole volume (but he doesn’t need to do the whole set.) Once he translates the portion that he is interested in he can pause, but the longer it is left unfinished the more he weakens his connection to the archetype.
Finally, the Translator never uses of Esperanto (written or spoken) and never translates anything into Esperanto (but oddly translating from it is okay…)
Symbols: Symbols of the Translator include the two-language dictionary (English/French, German/Latin, etc.), the Rosetta Stone and the library. If someone manages to reinvent the archetype, then the computer will probably be added as well.
Suspected Avatars in History: Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and translator of the Book of Mormon is generally believed to have channelled the Translator, as well as John Wycliff and William Tyndale.
Channels:
1%-50%: Translators are good with languages, really good. Every experience point spent to increase a language skill raises the ability by 3 rather than one. This channel cannot aid raising language skills above the level of the translator’s Avatar: Translator skill. Note: This assumes UA2 skill advancement, if playing 1st ed, each point spent counts triple.
51%-70%: At this level, the Translator may translate any writing, even if he doesn’t know the language. This channel works fine for dead and lost languages as well as languages the Translator simply hasn’t picked up yet.
Use of this channel takes 1 day per page translated.
71%-90%: At this level, whenever the Translator speaks, whoever hears him perceives that he is speaking in their native tongue. If a Translator were to address the UN General Assembly, then he could be perceived in hundreds of languages at once.
Also at this level, the Translator is able to understand all spoken languages. Remember all those languages that you picked up with the first channel? They’re all (mostly) redundant.
91%+: At this level, the Translator can translate any writing into another language, even if he doesn’t have the original or even if the original no longer exists. The Translator must know, with 100% confidence, that the original exists or did exist, for this to work. Want Alex Abel’s September journal in Japanese? How about the Naked Goddess’s grade 10 history essay in Klingon?
Use of this channel takes 3 days per page translated.