Halls of Mist: a thread of names

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'm going to need lots of names for uniques and artifacts when I remove the last Tolkien references from Halls of Mist.

I suspect that my own imagination is able to generate about 30% of names (this year), and after that the effort becomes forced and the names more bland. I've found that having any starting point, like a name, helps tremendously when trying to come up with a description and game mechanics.

If you'd like to help, please list flavourful (human-generated) names of people, items, and places in this thread! Just the name will do. If inspiration hits you (with your own names or someone else's), you may also offer a description.

Oh, and what's the name of the town? There may actually be several starting towns, at least one in Thornwild and one in Skultgard.

Here's the setting in four paragraphs as a starting point.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

My big idea right now is to create unique sons and daughters for the goddesses. They would leave you alone if you are blessed by their mother. It will probably take me a month to come up with good names... Suggestions are welcome.

The names of the goddesses are picked from actual history all over Europe -- they're minor goddesses that no-one remembers anymore.

               Beleth, the Queen of Hell (obsession)

Laverna, the Mistress                  Discordia, the Warrior
of the Underworld                      (conflict)
(secrets)

          Cyrridven, the Crone    Eostre, the Maiden of Spring
          (transformation)          (purity)

[Satyr]

The Roman Discordia is supposed to have thirteen children (from "hunger" to "manslaughter"...), so you could just pick a few of them: http://www.theoi.com/TreeHesiodRoman.html

[Starhawk]

I wouldn't say that no-one remembers Discordia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism

That said, I don't think you're going to offend any of them, heeheehee.

I'll bend my brain to this sometime soon and see if I can throw down some names for you. Do you want descriptions also? Are we just converting the existing uniques or creating entirely new ones? (i.e. is our analogue Smeagol going to have just a new name/description and the same suite of powers?)

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'll bend my brain to this sometime soon and see if I can throw down some names for you. Do you want descriptions also? Are we just converting the existing uniques or creating entirely new ones? (i.e. is our analogue Smeagol going to have just a new name/description and the same suite of powers?)

Names, description, powers, give me all you've got!

We're both converting and creating new ones. Interesting ones will keep their powers. I like Wormy, he's just getting a name change.

[fizzix]

My personal opinion is that having some linguistic theme towards names adds a lot of flavor. These can either be based off of human language characteristics or fictional (like Tolkien). To explain what I mean, "skultgard" has a Scandinavian sound, so you might want to pick Scandinavian sounding names for things that originated from there.

Alternatively, you can make your own pseudo-language groups. Tolkien's dwarves used a lot of harsh sounds like 'k', 'g', 'd', 't' and 'z'. On the other hand the elves used softer consonant sounds like 'm', 'n', 'l', 'r'. The dark tongue used a combination of the too and was also heavy on the 's' and 'sh' sounds. Something simple like this can help distinguish regions and give your own flavor.

Personally I think it's easy to base it off of existing languages, just mix and match names/cities from that language. Tolkien sort of did this basing off of Welsh for one of the Elvish tongues (forget which).

[Mikko Lehtinen]

My personal opinion is that having some linguistic theme towards names adds a lot of flavor. These can either be based off of human language characteristics or fictional (like Tolkien). To explain what I mean, "skultgard" has a Scandinavian sound, so you might want to pick Scandinavian sounding names for things that originated from there.

Yep, I built the word Skultgard from old norse words.

Old Norse might be the common language. We could use it as the basis for all persons and humanoids from Skultgard. Almost every character needs a byname like the Blacktooth or Fox-Beard. Here a list of real viking bynames.

I'd like the language of the ruling class be something a bit different, with some magical/diabolical/ancient words thrown in the mix. Especially the bynames should be like that but maybe given names too. Here's a very good source for magickal names.

Many of the humanoid races, like orcs and kobolds, are slaves to Skultgard humans. My orcs are lawful evil, a well-oiled part of the Skultgard war machine. I don't really want to use old norse names for giants for orcs because that might sound too Tolkienian. Maybe we should use lots of military ranks and warrior-style bynames in orc/kobold names?

Alternatively, you can make your own pseudo-language groups. Tolkien's dwarves used a lot of harsh sounds like 'k', 'g', 'd', 't' and 'z'. On the other hand the elves used softer consonant sounds like 'm', 'n', 'l', 'r'. The dark tongue used a combination of the too and was also heavy on the 's' and 'sh' sounds. Something simple like this can help distinguish regions and give your own flavor.

Rattikins and lizardmen (both from Thornwild) will have simple made-up languages like that. Eytan already made up some cool names for them.

Thornwild Faeries have Shakespearean names. We could extend that to human cultures also. Two good lists for names: #1 #2.

Hey, I found a cool Shakespearean insult generator! Let's use words from that for goblin names!

I don't know what to do with Ursa, Grippli, Felpurr, Vargr, and Kyrrus. There will only be one or two uniques from these player races so it's not a big problem.

The Realm of Aether. We already have Ancient Greek names (harpy queens, for example). I want some Naga uniques, and their names should probably be drawn from Indian mythology. But maybe we should skip Christianity and Judaism this time and pick our demon/angel names and cool monsters from Persian mythology? See wikipedia for Zurvanism and Mandaeism for some sources.

The Realm of Chaos would probably not have any real languages. Pick dragon names from the list of elements?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Thornwild is basically the Black Forest of fairytales. Shakespearean names would be a fairly good fit.

[buzzkill]

Since I nearly died to a harpy, I did a little digging in search of more flavor. Came across this in wiki.

In this form they were agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to Tartarus. They were vicious, cruel and violent. They lived on the islands of the Strophades. They were usually seen as the personifications of the destructive nature of wind. The harpies in this tradition, now thought of as three sisters instead of the original two, were: Aello ("storm swift"), Celaeno ("the dark") — also known as Podarge ("fleet-foot") — and Ocypete ("the swift wing").

For your consideration in case you'd like to liven up the harpies a bit. I've noticed that with harpies, the colorful naming prefixes contribute nothing more than a generic differentiation, so more specifically... the white harpy could just be "a harpy", the black harpy could be "a dark harpy" the red harpy could be a "a swift hapry"... I don't know how many more there are, if any, but you've also a few proper names there a unique or a quartet of such.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I think I'd like to strengthen the "mythic Skandinavia taken over by Nazi Alchemists" flavour of Skulgard.

First of all, Templars really sound like an upper class Skultgard secret society that rebels against the rulers. The class should be banned from all non-humans.

Orcs don't belong in mythic Skandinavia. Dwarves and Giants should take their place as the slave warrior species.

Ogres could take over the letter 'o'. They would be "elemental berserkers", an unpredictable part of the Skultgard army. Sometimes fighting for their masters, often rebelling. Jotuns could have the letter O: they would magical but stupid giants, the bigger versions of ogres. Ogre mage fits right in.

The origin of ogres and jotuns? The partly failed alchemical experiments of the Lords of Skultgard, trying to inject elemental power into dwarves, humans and giants, the same power that is commonly used as the power source of golems.

Dwarves are "persons". Giants, ogres, and jotuns are "humanoids".

I don't have problems with kobolds fighting alongside dwarves in Skultgard armies. I just have to decide what they look like in this world.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I checked the Wikipedia page for kobolds. Kobolds as "mine spirits" sounds like it would fit Skultgard flavour well (no linking, I'm writing on a phone). Of course these underground faeries (?) would commonly be recruited into the Skultgard army.

[jujuben]

Here's a thought for a few animal uniques: I've always associated talking critters with Kipling, especially the Just So Stories, and the Jungle Book.

Liking some of the norse Skultgard flavors quite a bit. Grendel and Grendel's Mother should totally be Troll/Jotun (depending on whether you go with old Norse or more modern Scandinavian legend as your mythos, they could be interchangeable) uniques. Not entirely whether getting rid of orcs entirely is good or overkill. Tolkien took the word from Beowulf, where it was used as a more general term, interchangeable with the words for "ogre" and "hell-devil," with word choice depending mainly on poetic meter.

What sort of direction are you thinking for chaos? Infernal a la Zangband/Warhammer 40K? Alien a la Lovecraft? Discordia's children seem like an interesting place to start, but they seem a bit too.... regimented for a properly chaotic chaos. Chaos neatly divided into nice orderly slices of responsibility, if you will.

Anyhow, enough rambling for tonight.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Not entirely whether getting rid of orcs entirely is good or overkill. Tolkien took the word from Beowulf, where it was used as a more general term, interchangeable with the words for "ogre" and "hell-devil," with word choice depending mainly on poetic meter.

I think it should work. Unfortunately the word 'orc' nowadays carries much more baggage than 'ogre'.

In Halls of Mist, an "ogre" would mean a dwarf, a giant, or a non-human war prisoner from Thornwild turned into a monster by alchemical means. (That's not so different from Tolkien orcs, really!)

The Lords of Skultgard never experiment on living humans (animating corpses is a different matter). They believe in human supremacy and their moral standards reflect that.

'o' would be a normal-sized ogre, 'O' a giant ogre. The standard ogres would be much like orcs and ogres in Angband. Bright colors like red and blue could be used for ogres with wild alchemical/elemental powers.

The most common Skultgard monsters:

Living, intelligent beings
p = person (humans of different social class, slave or low-class dwarves)
P = high level person
G = giant (some are coerced into the Skultgard army; others are "wild", human-eating brutes)
k = kobold ("mine spirits", actually faeries. Awakened by the empire's excessive and destructive mining into the depths of earth. Some are coerced into the Skultgard army, others are malicious for their own reasons. All kobolds are hurt by bright light.)

Transmogrified or animated monsters
o = ogre
O = giant ogre
A = Automaton (golem)
s = skeleton
z = zombie

I very much like how these reflect the Skultgard flavour. High-born human magicians, alchemists and animators at the top, everyone and everything else their slaves.

I could probably allow both Human and Dwarf Templars. Dwarves wouldn't be half-faeries anymore. I'm not sure whether Thornwild should have dwarves, too.

I'm not sure whether elemental giants and jotunns belong in Skultgard. They might be more at home in Chaos. Titan might be a better name for them than Jotunn.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Here's a thought for a few animal uniques: I've always associated talking critters with Kipling, especially the Just So Stories, and the Jungle Book.

Yeah, talking animals are very much Thornwild flavour. I'm reading the Grimm Brothers' fairytales at the moment for inspiration.

What sort of direction are you thinking for chaos? Infernal a la Zangband/Warhammer 40K? Alien a la Lovecraft?

It's Elemental Chaos plus weird natural mutations. Physical matter and forces in constant flux. All possible and impossible manifestions of life, evolution working overtime -- but the creatures of Chaos never have soul/psyche.

See Wikipedia for Chaoskampf. Dragons!

The Zephyr Hounds are typical Chaos denizens. Many Chaos creatures have an elemental flavour. All sorts of whirling forces and elementals belong there.

"Infernal" belongs in Aether. Aether is the Realm of ideas, dreams, myths, religion, demons, ghosts (including animated objects), prophecies, powerful undead personalities (all Skultgard undead are mindless).

Many Classical Greek or Indian monsters are common in Aether -- especially all kinds of half-human, half-animal creatures or combinations of different animals. Harpies, Nagas, Griffons, Owlbears, Centaurs, etc.

[Starhawk]

But 'ogre' carries just as much baggage with *band players. I think we are -- to a man -- avid fantasy gamers and fantasy readers. We have an image of an <O>gre. An itty bitty <o>gre doesn't fit that image.

Why reinvent the wheel? Just call 'em orcs and ogres, rewrite their descriptions to sound a little more Norse/Infernal/whatever, and change their uniques completely. That'll get your point across well enough.

(To be frank, just calling them "Brassclaw orcs" already had me thinking of something other than Tolkien. Roll with that.)