Unpopular opinion, undercommon and thieves cant should be the same language
Especially in settings like waterdeep where the Underdark is so intermingled with the criminal element that one of the city’s biggest crime bosses just has a well that leads to it in the middle of his public front bar.
The whole point of thieves cant is that it seems like ‘normal’ speech to outsiders, though. It just hides illicit meanings within, while sounding like very bland/innocent common (or whatever is used as the mask). Undercommon is immediately noticeable as foreign and pointed out.
Under common is the lingua franca of the Underdark a vast cave system. A trading pidgin of those that live there and any brave surface soul who trades there.
Theves cant is class ability a coded message telling rogues what nasty criminal things are to do. It’s there to make the roleplayers feel like a spy, con artist, or planning a heist.
Not everyone but certainly the population that’s so entwined with slavery assassinations and all manner of things that would be crimes on the surface that they had to create whole new factions of those groups just to line up with the “no evil races” philosophy
Unpopular opinion, undercommon and thieves cant should be the same language
Especially in settings like waterdeep where the Underdark is so intermingled with the criminal element that one of the city’s biggest crime bosses just has a well that leads to it in the middle of his public front bar.
The whole point of thieves cant is that it seems like ‘normal’ speech to outsiders, though. It just hides illicit meanings within, while sounding like very bland/innocent common (or whatever is used as the mask). Undercommon is immediately noticeable as foreign and pointed out.
Under common is the lingua franca of the Underdark a vast cave system. A trading pidgin of those that live there and any brave surface soul who trades there.
Theves cant is class ability a coded message telling rogues what nasty criminal things are to do. It’s there to make the roleplayers feel like a spy, con artist, or planning a heist.
Thieves cant could be a dialect of undercommon. After all, not everyone would know that cant, even if they know undercommon.
Not everyone but certainly the population that’s so entwined with slavery assassinations and all manner of things that would be crimes on the surface that they had to create whole new factions of those groups just to line up with the “no evil races” philosophy