Pyramid Pick: Forgotten English

Pyramid Pick

Forgotten English

Published by Quill

Written by Jeffrey Kacirk

240 pages, $11.00

The devil, they tell me, is in the details.

If so, then he isn't in any of the roleplaying games that I've read. I've just finished Forgotten English by Jeffrey Kacirk and it's made me realize how inadequate most roleplaying backgrounds are.

For example, in the eighteenth century unscrupulous traders would sometimes administer to a horse a suppository made of raw ginger in order to hide lameness of the hind legs. In extreme cases they might use a live eel! Not only that, but this was a common enough occurrence that it had its own verb: to feague.

So when was the last time your players bought a horse? And what happened - they flipped to the shopping list section of the rule book and handed over the cash. Voila! One horse. Simple and painless, yes. As much fun as a ginger suppository? Perhaps I'll let you answer that.

Forgotten English is a curious collection of antiquated words, most of them now long out of use (but more than a handful still readily identifiable). No, it's not a roleplaying supplement; it's an ordinary book brimming with arcane source material for any historical or fantasy game.

If Forgotten English were merely a list of strange words and their definitions, it would be pretty good. Take, for instance, bytesheip, fotadl, dilligrout, or farctate. These are words to savor, to enjoy. These are words to put in the mouths of peasants and other . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: March 3, 2000

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