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+----- Thread: Khajiiti Literature and Dialogue conventions (/Thread-Khajiiti-Literature-and-Dialogue-conventions)
Khajiiti Literature and Dialogue conventions - Ja-Kha'jay - 08-29-2007
Was not sure where to put this as it sort of belongs on the Lit Dev and sort of in the Sound Dev. We can sort that out later.
Anyway, I just thought I should compile a small instruction manual for those who are writing dialogue for Khajiiti NPC's or books from a Khajiiti perspective.
First and foremost: Khajiit almost always refer to themselves in third person e.g. "Jobasha has heard of this book. Perhaps Jobasha has a copy..." This only game I've head a Khajiit refer to themselves as "I" is a few instances in Oblivion.
Khajiit refer to others as it, unless they are Khajiit also. For instance Ra'Virr of Balmora has often asked "What does it ask?" whilst i was perusing his wares.
Khajiit often use some sort of adjective before their own name if they fear repercussions from their actions. For instance "They would punish poor Jobasha if they knew" that he was in possession of an illegal book. They also can use a similar method to attempt to weasel out of something they would rather not do, like "You would ask this thing of humble Dro'Zhirr?"
The last quote also gives and example of aversion to parroting things back to the PC. Instead of saying "So you want me to go knock off some random dude and steal his gold" Dro'Zhirr would simply ask if you would really ask this of him, rather than doing the task yourself.
For Voice Actors: Male Khajiiti voices in Morrowind all sounded like they needed a glass of water, and a few of the rolled their Rs. For females, they always rolled their Rs and didn't sound very feline apart from that. The femal voices in Oblivion were much better, but the lack of rolling Rs left a bit to be desired. Again with the males, we should probably try for a more Morrowind style of speech, which i know hurts your throat like hell ( i know because I've tried to do a female version, which doesn't work too well.) The only advice I can offer for Khajiiti voice actors is to do it when you have tonsilitis or something else that makes you throat feel awful and record as many lines of dialogue that you can find need voicing. Perhaps we can compile a list of current lines for people to act when they are sick?
These are all i can think of at the moment, if i have missed anything important, then let me know and we can update