Huh?! 13 Ways to Role-play Illiteracy

So your character is illiterate. A barbarian I’ll bet. What does that mean? How does it change the way you play? Well, here are thirteen fun ways to role-play your illiterate character.

1. Decide on a few letters that your character knows and devise wrong names for them, like “squiggle,” or “chicken foot.” Pretend to read any words you see that start with those letters as some random word that begins with that sound.
2. Write notes to other party members using crude pictures for each word. Develop your own language over time.
3. Use pages from old books to clean your sword.
4. Carry around learned tomes from the high university and pretend to read them by the campfire each night — upside down. See who notices.
5. Espouse an over the top hatred for ‘high brows,’ ‘sages,’ ‘universitwits,’ ‘do-nothing-say-alls,’ ‘better-than-thous,’ and all educated persons. Threaten them in taverns. Batter scribes, and anyone who reads in front of you.
6. Fawn grotesquely on anyone who shows the least bit of education and literacy. Squeeze your hat and call him “guv’nor.” Bat your eyes and flip your hair, “Oh really? Wow, I didn’t know that…” Constantly refer to how you cannot read. The moment the literate character asks you for anything or references your illiteracy — burst into tears.
7. Avoid touching anything that has writing on it, or looking directly at the writing. You are not worthy.
8. Claim to be literate in your tribal language and look down on others for using ignorant Common Rush to read the magic writing on every tomb wall or sarcophagus you encounter. Snootily tell your less-educated companions what the mysterious writing means, as if you have actually translated it from the ancient writing of your great people.
9. Though highly intelligent, things tend to get mixed up in your head. You have trouble putting things in order and you sometimes spay spoonerisms.
10. Actually, you can read, but, Shhh! Don’t tell anyone! Or they’ll make you take notes for the party journal.
11. Ask other party members or NPCs to read you stories before bed.
12. Organize your party caster’s scrolls into categories of Extra Soft, Soft, and Too Rough.
13. Hire an NPC to follow you around, and read and write for you. Have him record everything everyone says. Nickname him, “Scribbles.”