Learning Low Speech

Burning Wheel First Reading
#1

Last session we successfully solved the murder of a Duke! So Morgan was given the right to copy a grimoire! And it contained the text of the spell Low Speech within the rantings of its creator! Perfect!

So I go to learn it! And… what’s the Ob for the First Reading?

it’s Ob Special, and a few things imply that stats are always Ob5 but it’s not a stat… I am thinking it’s maybe Ob5? Or no?

Since we’re rotating GM, the others want someone else to make a call than me, but don’t know the right answer.

#2

The obstacle for low speech is variable depending on who you’re trying to talk to, no? So you can run it two ways: by picking an obstacle from the list in the spell, or averaging all obstacles and taking that.

If you’re picking, you could agree that you’ll need to choose one obstacle for first reading and a different one for second reading. And then others for practicals.

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#3

Yeah, it’s variable, but I didn’t think in my first reading I’d be actually talking to something. But ok - thanks!

#4

I imagine the sorcerer sitting with the text, puzzling through it, mouthing the words, testing them on their cat.

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#5

I see the First Reading as the sorcerer forming a reality-opposing mental image of how the spell is possible (moving it from the soft belief of “of course magic can do anything” to the will-driven “I can make magic do this!”) which, in the case of Low Speech, would involve developing the certainty animals can talk.

Riffing off your direct question, I can see some joyous BITs in learning Low Speech without a tutor: who doesn’t love “The language of animals might be based on their lifestyle: I must observe a large predator closely in the wild”?

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#6

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