Questions on Jalanit language(s) and heritage vs background

Hello! Another excited newbie here, loving all of the work you guys have done and very keen for opening :)

I have a couple of questions regarding Jalanjhur. I know from the Heritages page of the wiki that Jalanit is a presence level 2 heritage, so obviously we're not making characters -from- there. However, with all the references to sea trade routes between Zalawi and Jalanjhur, and the culture of mercantile exchange, I was wondering:

1. Is it intentional that there seem to be no Jalanit language(s) available at all? None are mentioned in the Languages page on the wiki, nor are any available in character generation (that I can see! I could be missing it if its name is very different, but I've tried to match the names with cultures of the languages available). If intentional, is this because it's OOCly protected as a presence-restricted origin, or is there an IC restriction of some kind, like they forbid outsiders to learn/they speak another language as their own/etc? (I only ask because other presence-restricted origin languages do seem to be implemented, so I wasn't sure if there was something different about this one. Not trying to be obnoxious, apologies if it's just that it hasn't been done yet!)

2. Is it frowned upon to include other places in one's background if they are presence-restricted? Such as, "Character spent some time travelling and stayed a year [or two, or five, or a few months, or whatever] in X at one point." Not having been raised there, by any stretch, but nonetheless exposure and time spent. I'm not trying to skirt rules here, I promise, just curious as to what the creators' thoughts are re: what level of involvement in a culture might count as a "heritage" or an "origin" so that I don't overstep boundaries unintentionally, since presence restrictions seem like a boundary on who should be representing a culture.

Thank you thank you!

Hello and welcome! Glad to hear you're excited about our opening in a few weeks :D

1. Is it intentional that there seem to be no Jalanit language(s) available at all?

No, this isn't intentional. The languages page on the wiki needs a little updating, so I'll make sure to to add Jalanit to it as soon as I get a chance. Jalanit would definitely be freely spoken wherever the Jalanit themselves are, and that certainly includes places in the Sirdabi Caliphate where trade with Jalanjhur is extensive. I hadn't thought much yet about characters of a non-Jalanjhur heritage/origin possibly wanting to have some ability in the language, but it makes sense and is very reasonable. So I'll see what we can do about that for your character.

2. Is it frowned upon to include other places in one's background if they are presence-restricted?

No, there's nothing wrong per se with including other places in your background, even if they're not available to you as an origin yet. You should just imagine that your character's knowledge of the place and its geography, culture, etc. are relatively superficial. There are some origins that should be pretty obscure, and that I would probably discourage a new player from tying their character into, but Jalanjhur isn't one of those places. Origins are presence-restricted for a few different reasons, and one of them is just making sure that players don't stumble unprepared into trying to play some of the more "challenging" origins -- ones with cultures that people are typically going to be less familiar with, unless they've played for a while and done some deeper dives into the wiki (or maybe even done a little research of their own on similar real-world cultures, where that's applicable). We've also tried to make Presence restrictions reflect the degree to which it would be common to find someone of a particular origin and heritage in our main RP hub of Omrazir. That said, creating a character with some basic familiarity with a place as close to the Sirdabi Caliphate and as interlinked with its commerce as Jalanjhur is would be fine. On the other hand -- I'm unlikely to get a full wiki page written up for Jalanjhur before alpha. So please, if there is anything in particular you would like to know on your character's behalf, just ask here and I'll reply as I'm able!

Hi, just wanted to add on something here and hopefully Mistsparrow will forgive me for the non-lore comment.   Thanks a lot for the bugs you've been reporting, and Jalanit has been added to the chargen options along with that recent language bug being fixed.

Mistsparrow, thank you, that totally makes sense about keeping cultural knowledge to a superficial level, and is pretty much exactly what I had been guessing the presence restrictions were aiming for, as far as some cultures being rarer and more of "the deep end of the pool" lorewise. Really appreciate the reply!

And pilgrim, thank you very much for that fix and implementation, you're amazingly fast :)

<3

Ack, here I go again with more things... should Salawi also be in as a learnable language? It's mentioned on the Salawi heritage page, which I only just went back and read again and noticed! ._.

Also re: Jalanjhur, I'm assuming it's roughly east or south-east of Idiri from what I can gather/see of the maps available, yes? Is it just off-map, or significantly further away? Just thinking in terms of how long a journey it would be by sea, etc - does it take days, weeks, or months to get there? (Just a very rough general range/estimate is all I'm after, really)

Apparently we're terrible at getting languages from lore into chargen (probably mostly my fault and not Pilgrim's!). Salawi should definitely be in there as well!

Re: sailing from Zalawi to Jalanjhur, it would take up to several weeks, depending on the weather conditions and the number of stops (and troubles) along the way. Jalanjhur is southeast of Zalawi across the Sea of Sala'ah, and the practice is to take advantage of seasonal winds in the winter to sail south from Zalawi, then southeast more or less straight across the Sala'ah. Typically a merchant will then spend a season or two in Jalanjhur, before sailing back in the summer or early fall. Rather than taking a direct route back to Zalawi, it's more common to sail northwest through the many island clusters that lie between Jalanjhur and Marzum, and then west back to Zalawi. A longer trip could also encompass Marzum/southeastern Rahoum (chiefly Suurmi) or even Pialang in Yalanbari. So the short version of a Zalawi-Jalanjhur trading round trip would take a year, while the long version might take two. Of course it's also possible to take shorter, more local trips around the islands, but for a straight trip to Jalanjhur a Salawi sailor is going to use the winter trade winds to get there and the summer ones to get back.

I don't think you're terrible, I think I just picked a really niche part of the world/lore to become obsessed fascinated with hahahaha

Thank you, that's perfect, hugely helpful!!

Salawi's been added to chargen now, and you should get it automatically if you're from Zalawi origins, but if that's the case then you might need to adjust your linguistics skill or origin in order to fix your automatic chargen language generation.

Aaand... that problem with Salawi should be fixed now too. >.> (There's another bug now with languages though which I'm working on fixing.)

Hopefully Last Edit: Now it should be actually fixed.