• Relares, TOL's Special Language
• Combo Attacks
• TOL Announced

Historical Usage

Relares is an ancient language, but as far as scholars have learned, it was not used like modern languages. It seems its primary use was as a naming language. The few Relares writings that have been deciphered serve as records of major events or declarations from important people.

Rules

Relares is written using ideographs. Each character carries a basic idea and pronunciation. From that base, different meanings are derived by adding a letter to the ends of the characters. This final letter is only used when speaking, so it can be difficult to determine a character's meaning just from a Relares inscription.

Researchers have determined three letters which change the meaning of the characters.

• S - physical object (noun)
• L - condition or state (adjective)
• N - action (verb)

For example, take the symbol for fire -- "ke".

• Ke-s: fire, flame (physical objects associated with "fire")
• Ke-l: hot, red (conditions associated with "fire")
• Ke-n: to burn something, to be on fire (actions associated with "fire")

Characters can be combined to form new words. The name of the language, Relares, breaks down as follows:
Re-l: secret
Are-s: writing

Pronounciation

Pronunciation of Relares is simple, with each character having one sound. There are no silent letters, and vowels are pronounced much like they would be in Spanish.

• a like in "father"
• e like in "get"
• i like the "ee" in "feet"
• o like in "or"
• u like in "super"

Some consonants have irregular pronunciations:

• "Cy" makes the sound "sh", so "Cyel" sounds like "shell".
• "X" is always pronounced like "z", so "XelHes" sounds like "zelhes".

Special Characters

Two characters carry special meaning when used before another character.

The character for "nature" (We) can make the following character plural or can add a feeling of "greatness" to the following character. Writing this character before the character for person (Ne) creates the meaning of a "great person" (WelNes).

The character for "hole" (Xe) creates the opposite of the following character. For example, writing this character before the character for "curse" (He) creates the word for the opposite of curse--a blessing (XelHes).

Modern Usage

While Relares itself is no longer used, modern speech uses many words derived from the language. However, scholars have noted a change in the pronunciations of some words through time, a fact that could explain why most people don't realize Relares' influence.

When the second character begins with a consonant, the pronunciation of the preceding letter has changed as follows:

• S -> sa
• L -> ri
• N -> na

Thus, the Relares word WelTes, or "natural springs", has become Werites in modern speech.

There seems to be no change in words whose second character begins with a vowel, like the word "Relares", or in people's names.

Symbol	Sound	Base	-S	-L	-N
Letters
	are	written record, monument	a record, letters, writing	ancient, recorded	to write a record of something
	be	rim	rim, counter for days	giant, slow	to rotate, to wait
	cye	shield	armament, armor	strengthened, on a ship's port side	to equip, to arm
	de	gravestone	death, final	fatal, deadly, final, black	to kill, to end
	ere	fingernail, claw	fingernail, magic & special abilities	related to magic	to use magic
	fe	ocean	water, ocean	blue, holy, of the ocean	to pray
	ge	anvil	metal, tool	hard, golden, made of metal	to turn into a machine, to make move
	he	curse	curse, corpse	cursed, wicked	to curse
	ire	ice	ice, snow	cold, white	to set, to stop
	je	cut	weapon	sharp, on a ship's starboard	to cut, to divide
	ke	fire	fire, flame	red, hot	to burn, to be on fire
	lye	hit	hit, tail	old, on a ship's stern	to hit
	me	star	star, affirmation	shining, silver, upper	to shine
	ne	person	person	human-like	to think
	ore	earth	stone, wall, land	distant	to move, to migrate
	pe	explosion	explosion	violent, fierce	to destroy
	qe	flight	wing, wind, air, sky	lightweight	to fly, to jump
	re	box	box, treasure chest	secret, hidden	to hide, to put away
	se	crown	king, leader	great, high	to control, to rule
	te	gateway	birth, beginning, source	of a beginning	to begin, to pass through
	ure	egg	life, animal	young, lively	to recover
	ve	lightning	lightning, paralysis, numbness	yellow, electric	to turn on electricity, to paralyze
	we	nature	plant, nature, one thousand	many, green	to include, to add, to grow
	xe	hole	hole, down, descendant, negation	lower, underground, missing	to drop, to dig
	ye	hold, capture	capture, hand	stable	to hold, to catch, to restrain
	ze	pierce, stab	an animal's horn	new, on a ship's bow	to pierce, to stab, to push
Numbers
	zis	0
	wis	1
	dis	2
	tis	3
	vis	4
	fis	5
	his	6
	pis	7
	mis	8
	nis	9
Punctuation
	arin	, (comma)
	erin	. (period)
	orin	!
	urin	?
	bin	(
	sin	)