In any case, this sense would require both manus and potentis to have a long vowel in their final syllables and that isn’t how they’re pronounced in the games.Ĭonjuration/Summoning. The fact that the syntax actually works is presumably just a coincidence. The sense ‘I prepare powerful hands’ is a bad fit for Abjuration spells, which are about dispelling magical effects or protecting against hostile spells. See above on interpreting this as a complete sentence. Here are some additional notes on each incantation.Ībjuration. Summoning a water elemental to fight the BBEG: a Conjuration/Summoning spell. It really is best to interpret all of them as a sequence of three separate ‘power words’. These don’t make much sense and they’re not good matches for their spell schools. The only ones that could possibly be construed as whole sentences are the incantations for Abjuration spells - something like ‘I prepare powerful hands’ (taking manus and potentis as accusative plural, rather than genitive singular as in the table above) - and for Necromancy - ‘I lack a life of death’ (taking vita as ablative). And the moral connotations of virtus seem a poor fit for Enchantment spells: perhaps it was perhaps intended as a translation of ‘glamour’ or something of the kind A better word to suggest magical energy would have been potestas or vis. Imperium, in the Evocation incantation, is probably intended to mean ‘power’, but really it means ‘authority, position of command’. Some of these look like they may be mistranslations of English words. The incantations are as follows: Spell schoolĪ doubtful man a beautiful man authority It’s better to see them as combinations of ‘power words’, to use D&D terminology: three independent magical utterances. They have no syntax, and they aren’t meaningful as sentences. There are also some additional files with voice only, without magical wooshing noises.Įach incantation consists of three words. The relevant files are in the game’s WAV directory: CHA-FM01.WAV to CHA_FM08.WAV and CHA_FP01.WAV to CHA_FP08.WAV (FM = ‘female mage’, FP = ‘female priest’) and CHA_MM01.WAV to CHA_MM08.WAV and CHA_MP01.WAV to CHA_MP08.WAV (‘male mage’, ‘male priest’). The incantations can be accessed directly and exported from the game with a tool called Near Infinity. In the video games, each school has its own incantation, with different voice actors depending on whether the spellcaster is male or female, wizard or cleric. The D&D rule system divides spells into eight ‘schools’ of magic. In another incantation, the first word isn’t a real Latin word.Ī nasty trap for some Frost Giants: a wizard in the process of casting Death Fog, a spell belonging to both the Alteration and Evocation schools. In one incantation the first word is omitted in some sound files, included in others. Some syllables are muffled by reverb or other sound effects. Alia ‘other things’ gets stressed randomly on the first syllable (correct) or the second syllable (wrong). Scio ‘I know’ comes out as either see-oh or ski-oh. Different voice actors pronounce words differently. The Latin is inconsistent and a bit sloppy.
Latin incantations in Baldur’s Gate II, Icewind Dale, and Icewind Dale II: YouTube.Attempts at transcription/translation: ‘ BelgarathMTH’, 2013 ‘ Magpie Randoms’, 2017.įirst, some links with the actual sounds: This is just a note to give some annotations. Unfortunately a shaky knowledge of Latin, on the part of both the voice actors and the fans, has led to uneven results. Neither does a new game shoehorned into the older series, Baldur’s Gate III (in early access since 2020).įans of the classic games have made attempts to decipher the incantations. Most other games from that period - Planescape: Torment (1998), Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001), Temple of elemental evil (2003), and more - have no spoken incantations at all. A re-release, Baldur’s Gate: enhanced edition (2012), switches to the Latin incantations of the 2000 sequel.
School of dragons videos series#
The original Baldur’s Gate (1998) and the Neverwinter nights series (2002, 2006) have spoken incantations, but with nonsense syllables, not in Latin. ( Baldur’s Gate II: enhanced edition, 2013) The traditional D&D response to aggression: a fireball in the face. But in these games, when characters cast spells, you hear the verbal component of the spell as an incantation in Latin. Ancient Romans didn’t accidentally set off fireballs every time they had a conversation.
Three games released in 2000 to 2002, widely regarded as classics of the genre, draw on the traditional pairing of magic and the Latin language: Baldur’s Gate II (2000), Icewind Dale (2000), and Icewind Dale II (2002). Video games based on the rules and world of Dungeons & dragons have been a staple for a long time.
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