by Ehlanna on Thu Nov 10, 2011 2:40 pm
That's the point ... they can, if they so want to! It's entirely likely that the majority of characters did not grow up within a stone's throw of Nanthalion. Thus they'd develop in a very, VERY rural environment. Quite possibly, unless there was a temple nearby only ever having HEARD of a book, let alone seen one or be able to read it!
Times were different, in this fantasy world so many years ago! Just to give you an idea of how different (this can be hard to do ...) try something that our lovely Kaytoo mentioned a while back. Go to a location you know well. Then remove ALL lighting (except star/moon-light, of course. If you can arrange those you need not bother with the rest of this ...). Dark, isn't it? I mean, really, truly, disorientatingly dark. Turn round a couple of times with your eyes closed and then open them again.
In medieval times this was the norm. When darkness fell the people came in from the fields. Living like this, learning skills by observation and direct, hands-on, tuition or apprenticeship does not need the ability to read or write.
So, yes, it is a bit of a bugger (a little niggle, just for Jinx!) to find that at creation you REALLY should have given your character a certain skill so that they could do all that super-cool stuff. But, life is like that! I wish I had done stuff a bit differently, paid more attention at school for some stuff, but that was then and I now know better and have, on my own time, made up some of the lacking.
You can do the same with your character, better in some ways as when you get to create a new character (if you do), then you can decide not to make the same 'mistake' - something I think most people would give much for!