Creation Corner: Flavoring Up Thieves’ Cant

Stack o’ Dice

Creation Corner: It's so easy to let game mechanics feel, well, mechanical. But they don't have to be! D&D and other RPGs draw from rich sources, and if we know a little more about them, we can find ways to use the extra detail to enrich our games.

In this episode, we consider the 5e Rogue class feature of thieves' cant, and its shadowy origins as revealed through English literature from the 15 and 1600s. We'll look at how it was used, other specialized speech and writing designed to allow direct communication with others while in public, and then consider some ways to use these facets to drive rewarding roleplay at the table.

Here are links to the references and resources Rhett used in today's episode, in case you'd like to do some digging on your own:

Thieves' Cant

• Wikipedia article
• Mental Floss article
• Unbabel article
• Macmillan Dictionary blog post

Cockney Rhyming Slang

• Wikipedia article
• Guardian article

Hobo Symbols

• Popular Mechanics article
• Owlcation article

Ocean's Twelve excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j9qAhXfNAU

Contemporary books that share oodles of rogue flavoring:

• The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars: With a Vocabulary of Their Language, by Martin Luther
• The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine, by Samuel Rid
• Lanthorne and Candle-light, by Thomas Dekker
• The Belman of London, by Thomas Dekker
• A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursetors, by Thomas Harman
• The Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous, by Robert Copland
• The Black Book, by Thomas Middleton
• The Canting Academy, or, the Devil's Cabinet Opened, by Richard Head
• Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell, by Samuel Rid

So get out that shaker and let's start flavoring!

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Our spot for Battlebards uses music from Battlebards! We hope you like our use of:

• Capital City - Middlegate - Score Music by Shams Ahsan

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We didn't use any Creative Commons sound effects and music in this show, but we like to point to freesound.org, a fantastic resource for completely free sound effects.

We also used some excellent Battlebards sound effects. If you like what you hear, check them out at battlebards.com. If you sign up for a Prime account, be sure to use our special code, stack, and you'll get a 20% discount on your subscription.

Here are the sound effects we used in this episode:

• City Siege - Defending the Gates - Score Music, by Phil Archer
• BBEG Theme - God of Death - Score Music, by Christian Peitsch
• Downtime - Fantasy Ambience - Score Music, by Alexander Nakarada

And now, on with the show-- we're excited to tell a story with you.