I executed the following code in my debug window:
Code:
test={}
test["Khazäd"]="abc"
for k,v in pairs(test) do
Turbine.Shell.WriteLine("k:"..tostring(k).." v:"..tostring(v))
end
which yielded the correct result:
k:Khazäd v:abc
Which means that just using a special character in a key does not actually cause the conversion. It is more likely that you are saving the table and experiencing the save/load conversion bug, or using the key in one of the Turbine controls known to have bugs handling special characters, such as the Shortcut constructor. How exactly are you using the table? Could you post some code that generates the bug in question?
EDIT: Since I had never tried using any special characters in a key before, I set up a couple simple tests to verify that the Vindar patch properly handles special characters in keys as well as values when saving/loading and it passed the tests just fine.