Nomenclature

When I design a new game setting, I like it to have a reasonably consistent nomenclature.* I may well be the only one of us who cares about stuff like this, and that's fine, but I'm just not satisfied with a setting that I've created unless I make sure there's internal consistency in how people and places are named. (In fact, probably 90% of the retconning I've done over the years, in The Druid Cycle in particular, has been to "fix" names that didn't quite work.)

Most often my game setting nomenclature takes the form of proper nouns derived from everyday words in other languages. The names in Torchlight, for instance, are entirely from Anglo-Saxon (Old English). The Druid Cycle is a mix of language traditions: Ancient Greek and Latin (Troya Nova), Welsh and Irish (Teyrnas and Annuvin), medieval Italian and German (Southern Principalities), ancient Egyptian (Tadjeser), etc.

The upcoming Shattered Realm revamp will be based on obscure or antiquated English words. Again, because this is a shared world intended for multiple gamemasters, I don't want to burden everyone with a bunch of weird names that they may not want to use. The archaic words I've chosen have a nice fantastical ring to them, but they're generic enough to remain in keeping with my design goals for the campaign setting. I don't want to reveal too much at the moment, but I can say that one of the major NPC heroes is named Caitiff, after one of my all-time favorite English words of yesteryear. Look it up!


* - Dagnabbit! "Nomenclature" is a word with a very specific and idiosyncratic meaning in Front Porch lore, and yet I somehow failed to include it in "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," which is filled with many such tidbits to amuse long-time Porch players. I apologize, especially to Scott, for this egregious omission!