>I still like the idea of racial languages, and think if you
>make it look like random gibberish to anyone not of the race
>listening, it would fix this and allow for races to
>communicate.

I somewhat dislike the idea of having racial languages added. I think that racial languages could easily become an excuse for characters to run around whacking people, and then just claiming not to know the common tongue. Think about how much people complain about being killed by someone who only says "me smash" and then think about whether adding racial languages will create a segment of characters who just never respond at all to anyone not of their own race, as a way of avoiding roleplaying. Not to say that all roles where the character doesn't know the common tongue have to be bad, just that I think there potential exists for this problem. I agree with you that racial languages really do add a lot of atmosphere, I'm just worried that it could backfire and become an excuse to avoid contact rather than to enhance a character's racial identity.

>Even go beyond the orc village, but add relics to each
>town...then you could have town wars and alliances. Now THAT
>would be fun.

It would... I think a small thing like this might be nice, but it shouldn't have too much effect. Not all players want to be involved in great political schemes, and if it becomes neccesary to care a lot about what your race's politics are doing, then some roles can get the shaft. Notably druids tend to be hermits, and thus forcing them to leave the woods to recover the elven relic from the orc camp isn't something they should be forced to do just for playing the class.

I completely agree that another major off-axis conflict would be great. By off-axis I mean not good/evil. There's magic/notmagic, and sometimes magic/nature but the big conflict is between good and evil. Which is fine, but as someone pointed out in some forum message I read, the existance of opposite alignments in a cabal can add some interesting roleplay elements to it.

-Valkenar the Newbie, Long-Winded Inquisitor, Poster of Uninformed Commentary.