A natural linguist has a talent for picking up new languages quickly and easily, and then forgetting/dropping them when they are no longer needed.
In game terms, this talent allows the natural linguist can pick up 1 rank of a new language per 2 hours of constant, uninterrupted study (with books or someone who speaks the language, even if there is no common language between the natural linguist and the person they are learning from). The natural linguist does not need to spend EXP on the languages and they should not be added to the character sheet as skills but instead added in the notes sections to delineate the languages known from this talent. For example, a natural linguist who is rank 3 (total of 6 ranks in languages) in this talent might note that he currently knows the language Aerdi at rank 2 and Midani at rank 4. It is expected that, at some point when a language learned with this talent is no longer needed, he will forget the language and learn something new.
The natural linguist cannot have more ranks in any language than two times their rank with this talent. Thus, if the character is rank 3 with this talent, they could know one language at rank 6 or one language at rank 4 and another at rank 2 or any combination that adds up to 6.
A character with this talent can learn Linguist skill at base cost even if they would normally have a multiple higher than 1. They can also learn languages at base cost.
While intelligence (INT) limits the number of languages that can be known, languages known by means of this talent do not count towards that total.
Maximum languages known, as limited by the character's INT stat, is increased by 1 per 4 ranks, or fraction thereof, of this talent (i.e., +1 language at ranks 1-4, +2 languages at ranks 5 to 8, etc.). |