PDA

View Full Version : How do you name your campaign settings?



akma
2010-12-18, 03:53 PM
Question in title. Do you have any method?

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-12-18, 06:13 PM
I try to find a couple of words that hints or tells the player group the sort of thing they'll experience. I tend to avoid fantastic names, and I try to include a sort of feel for the style.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-18, 06:44 PM
A ratio of at least 1.5 to one of hypens, apostrophes, and umlaut-accented characters to normal letters. At least, that seems to be the rule from what I've observed.:smallsmile:

ScionoftheVoid
2010-12-18, 08:04 PM
Usually I find a name for what the world looks like.

My current campaign is on the Plateau, for example, which is basically a giant, floating version of the Wyrmberg (Discworld series, if you haven't read any, start) with a bunch of moons to slingshot the water that falls off the edge onto the top again.

I have a setting in the back of my mind called the Ringroad, which is basically two connected rings around largely-dead planets. Another is [something ridiculous with too many letters from the end of the alphabet], the Great One, a giant crab with a world on its back, scuttling through existence pinching things to add to the world (ever wonder where Abberations come from? Crab. Magical beings in general? Crab. Orcs and Elves? It has a shell and pincers, guess). I'd have to get out my Biology book to remember the other ideas I had (so very easy, I have lots of time to doodle).

Pink
2010-12-18, 08:14 PM
Rip a name I like off of some source my player's don't know. :smallbiggrin:

Dienekes
2010-12-18, 11:40 PM
When I was a wee little boy still with delusions of grandeur and skill, I set about making a map that would be where my amazing genre defining piece of fantasy literature would take place.

Young me made a huge map filled with multiple continents set in a world called Gandia, and each continent had multiple kingdoms and sections, and so on and so forth.

Of course the actual story never went anywhere but I still have that map. So far every one of my fantasy settings has just been different locations on that map, and I title them as such. It irks me that wee little boy Dienekes was better at naming things than I am now.

Cealocanth
2010-12-18, 11:47 PM
I named my current setting based directly off what the ancient people would call it. In my case, those that survived the Great Disaster survived because they were underground. Those that live on the surface are the races that remained patient while a millennium passed for the world to become life supporting again. The rest formed the Underdark and evolved to life underground.

I named the setting for what the hopeful races of the Underdark would call the fantastic world of the surface while they waited for the millennium to pass. I called it Azura (with a little help from my friends at the playground) to resemble the beautiful blue planet that awaited them.

Knaight
2010-12-18, 11:57 PM
It really depends. On a good day, the names are either really obvious or come easily (Atlantis 2.0 as the name of a space opera campaign taking place on a space station with an advanced species), others simply go completely unnamed until a good name comes up, others get a working title that gets completely replaced.

As for hyphens and apostrophes, I usually avoid them. There are exceptions (Mod-Bots for a game featuring highly modular robots), but they are very few. More typical names include Glyphs, Shallow Graves (undead focused), Archipelago, and the aforementioned Atlantis 2.0

Fiery Diamond
2010-12-19, 12:31 AM
I had one called Menagerie. The setting was basically a large island/tiny continent and a smaller island nearby filled with various nations which included animals in their names: the Bear Kingdom (dwarves), the Lion Empire (humans plus), the Eagle Republic(elves), the Badger Alliance(gnomes/halflings), and the Shark Kingdom(humans). It was also called Menagerie because my players were a rather eclectic bunch.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 12:32 AM
Pun on the original name? The E6 Egypt campaign I am working on is called Exdodus :P

Godskook
2010-12-19, 12:44 AM
My current RL campaign is called Scars of the Beast by myself and "It's morphin time" by my players.:smallfrown:

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 12:46 AM
My current RL campaign is called Scars of the Beast by myself and "It's morphin time" by my players.:smallfrown:

You have no idea how happy you just made me! :smallsmile:

Drakevarg
2010-12-19, 01:01 AM
Usually I just figure out something that is something of a central facet of the setting, and name it after that. Like "Rifts."

Alternatively, I just name it after the primary landmass. Such as "Isle of Artres."

Godskook
2010-12-19, 01:06 AM
You have no idea how happy you just made me! :smallsmile:

Care to explain?

Hanuman
2010-12-19, 01:08 AM
My campaign is named Aurin, because that was the prime god no one really knows about.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-19, 01:08 AM
Care to explain?

Well in the first place its a Power Rangers reference, which always makes me smile, but more importantly it shows that they have a connection to the actual setting. If they didn't connect to the setting they wouldn't have a nickname, and maybe not even a name for it at all.

To me it shows they feel that the setting is something unique, which I think is great.

Zeta Kai
2010-12-19, 01:28 AM
We put our setting's name up for a vote. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177072) :smallwink:

DaragosKitsune
2010-12-19, 01:44 AM
Setting or Universe?

If you mean setting, I look at my overall story plans (including my backup plans) and ask myself: What in the 9 Hells is this about? Then I summarize that into one phrase.

Universe? One of two ways. I either say random amalgamations of sound until something sounds cool, or I use a thesaurus or translator to make an appropriate name. German phrases make awesome fantasy town names.

J.Gellert
2010-12-19, 06:54 AM
Rare or created word that only means something within the context of the setting; that way it will always come up first when people google about it.

Obviously...!

Fhaolan
2010-12-19, 01:24 PM
I don't, which has caused issues in the past. The players usually refer to them as 'Allan's Homebrew' or something similar. If they're in multiple games with me they usually get broken out by genre 'the Sci-Fi one', 'the Fantasy one', etc.

Basically, nobody *in* the setting has a name for the setting, so it doesn't come up during play. In the same way that if somehow dimensional travellers showed up here:

"Where are we?"
"Duvall."
"No, not the town, the setting?"
"Rural?"
"No, what do you call this Universe?"
"The Universe."
"You're not helpful."
"Yup."

Emmerask
2010-12-19, 01:34 PM
Question in title. Do you have any method?

After the main continent or the world it takes place in :smalltongue:
now you could ask how I name those...
After the campaign setting of course :smallsmile:

Fiery Diamond
2010-12-19, 01:41 PM
I don't, which has caused issues in the past. The players usually refer to them as 'Allan's Homebrew' or something similar. If they're in multiple games with me they usually get broken out by genre 'the Sci-Fi one', 'the Fantasy one', etc.

Basically, nobody *in* the setting has a name for the setting, so it doesn't come up during play. In the same way that if somehow dimensional travellers showed up here:

"Where are we?"
"Duvall."
"No, not the town, the setting?"
"Rural?"
"No, what do you call this Universe?"
"The Universe."
"You're not helpful."
"Yup."

I'd tell them "Earth," and then clarify that that's really the name of the planet, but that since we only live on and around the planet that it's all that matters. Then I'd want to go travel with them to whatever universe they came from.

Lifeson
2010-12-19, 02:52 PM
I'm running a Heavy Mithril-style campaign, like where Queen Fredrika and Dionysus and Sid Vicious and other such rock/metal/punk forces are tangible and real.

So, being a prog rock fan, either "Nightmare Cinema" or "Dream Theater" would be legit names. Being lighter in tone, I decided "The Dream Theater" would suffice.

ALOR
2010-12-19, 03:30 PM
My setting was based of a miniaturized version of my backyard so i named it Draykcab. There are two other continents called Draytnorf and Drayedis as well.
:smallbiggrin:

Keinnicht
2010-12-19, 03:40 PM
Right now I'm working on remembering that not everything has to have an exotic fantasy gibberish name. Thus, I've been working on naming things just "Shield Town" or "Mountainhold."


My setting was based of a miniaturized version of my backyard so i named it Draykcab. There are two other continents called Draytnorf and Drayedis as well.
:smallbiggrin:

...Wow, that's genius. Did anyone figure it out?

Drakevarg
2010-12-19, 03:43 PM
Right now I'm working on remembering that not everything has to have an exotic fantasy gibberish name. Thus, I've been working on naming things just "Shield Town" or "Mountainhold."

I do pretty much this to name all my locations these days. The only difference is I then feed it into Google Translate using the appropriate substitute language I arbitrarily picked for that nation/culture/whatever.

Vemynal
2010-12-19, 04:01 PM
For my campaign world I never assigned the world a name, people had names for cities, countries, etc but not a name for the world. Having a name for a world implies that there is knowledge of matter outside of our world which the people in my campaign world did not.

In fact it was going to be the focus point of a whole campaign that the PC's discover the true name and nature of the world they existed on.

Sadly the campaign never ended up happening as I'm moving away for school and will have no time over the next 2.5 years to even hold a campaign =(

never came up with a name

ALOR
2010-12-19, 04:02 PM
...Wow, that's genius. Did anyone figure it out?

I eventually told them.

gkathellar
2010-12-19, 04:33 PM
I like to use real languages, personally. I particularly like Welsh and Arabic for sounding excellent, unfamiliar and hard to place.

My current setting is called the Mantle. I don't know why, it just occurred to me one day and stuck. As far as in-setting is concerned, the major gods and other "informed beings" call it the Mantle for some big secret reason, and the less wise are just copying them. Nations are named in Welsh, gods are mostly named in Arabic, and cities are named in English in the South and Welsh in the North. The trio of languages play a big role in the setting.

I like simple names - if it's a made-up word, it's usually monosyllabic and ends with a consonant sound. In setting, said name is usually the word for "World" or "Earth" in some language or another.

Some settings I don't name at all - people within just call them "the world," and I don't have to worry about it.

Lord_Gareth
2010-12-19, 04:37 PM
I tend to stick to understatements and ironic naming; I'm running a campaign set in a horrific death world that is known as "The Cradle". This is a world where the water is actively trying to kill you, and that's just the (theoretically) safest thing on-planet trying to do so.

akma
2010-12-19, 04:54 PM
My current RL campaign is called Scars of the Beast by myself and "It's morphin time" by my players.:smallfrown:

Why scars of the beast?


I named my current setting based directly off what the ancient people would call it.

I think that`s the usual excuse for putting random names for settings, like sdifjskdf.


A ratio of at least 1.5 to one of hypens, apostrophes, and umlaut-accented characters to normal letters. At least, that seems to be the rule from what I've observed.:smallsmile:

So basically, something that isn`t realy readable?
Why would people do that?


My setting was based of a miniaturized version of my backyard so i named it Draykcab. There are two other continents called Draytnorf and Drayedis as well.
:smallbiggrin:

It took me a moment to figure it out.



Of course the actual story never went anywhere but I still have that map. So far every one of my fantasy settings has just been different locations on that map, and I title them as such. It irks me that wee little boy Dienekes was better at naming things than I am now.

It`s much harder to think a name is bad after you got used to it.


For my campaign world I never assigned the world a name

Names are good for orginizational issues.


I like to use real languages, personally. I particularly like Welsh and Arabic for sounding excellent, unfamiliar and hard to place.

Foriegn leanguages tend to sound better to those who aren`t their native speakers, so they`re great for naming. And some words just sound better in certain leanguages.
I thought about trying to look up Aramaic words.

Godskook
2010-12-19, 06:50 PM
Why scars of the beast?

Cause the setting's single largest Material Plane power is the Tarrasque, and 100 years ago, he was imprisoned by a large task force of mid-high level NPCs in an epic showdown, which required rituals to reduce his power first.

First thing he did when they set the outer walls of his prison in place was utterly scorch the land within, a patch nearly 100 miles wide, reduced to rock and ash.

Notable setting points:

1.Dragons are not very long lived, as they're the primary designated prey of the Tarrasque, and he hunted them quite well. Thing is, he only ever hunted adults, which allowed for a cicada-like breeding cycle to form, where dragons would live to breedable age, bury eggs, and then die running from the Tarrasque. As smart as they are, draconic tradition was one of almost non-interference with lesser races. They simple couldn't afford a "high-profile" and risk producing enemies. Now, they're realizing that the Tarrasque is 'late', and are beginning to grow older, and break their survivalist traditions in favor of their instincts of greed.

2.The Scar, a 1000-mile wide stretch of land in which nothing has lived for a 100 years, except a handful of troll-type things and 1 or 2 chaos cults.

3.Kintarra, a city at the Scar's center, which is the only exception the Scar's otherwise devoid landscape. Kintarra houses many of the heroes who defeated the Tarrasque, and while some spend their time ensuring the beast never escapes again, others work to establish a force of power in case there are other creatures that need taking down "for the good of the world". Their alignments, methods, and motivations are as varied as the grains of sand, but they're all agreed on one thing: The Tarrasque needs to stay imprisoned. They subsist partially on meat cut from the beast, and about 30 years after they subdued him, they began noticing, first with the short-lived such as goblins, that long-life was a happy side-effect of their diet, among other things.

Outside the Scar, think low-level D&D fantasy: Potions are an expensive but nearly necessary, since most people are either commoners or low-level NPCs.

In Kintarra, think Eberron, probably. Artificers are a new and upcoming profession, magitech is being explored more fully, and a full 2k of the <10k population is level 8 or better. However, they're 'grasp' of their own advances and privilege is poor, and the politics are stagnant, so they're a long way from going Tippy outside of Kintarra, despite being almost there within. At present, one sect is developing a Kintarran army, with magiengineered grunts(dragonborn warforged totemist/barbarians).

Gomar
2010-12-19, 08:09 PM
I create odd consonant clusters, and also add apostrophes in neat-o places.

DaragosKitsune
2010-12-20, 01:22 AM
except a handful of troll-type things

They subsist partially on meat cut from the beast, and about 30 years after they subdued him, they began noticing, first with the short-lived such as goblins, that long-life was a happy side-effect of their diet, among other things.


...
You are running a Tarrasque-blooded campaign,
I remember the homebrew for that.

Godskook
2010-12-20, 01:36 AM
...
You are running a Tarrasque-blooded campaign,
I remember the homebrew for that.

:smallconfused:

Only homebrew I churned out lately was the Tarrasque himself.

I'm curious if that's what you're referring to or if its something else.

akma
2010-12-20, 07:13 AM
Only homebrew I churned out lately was the Tarrasque himself.

I'm curious if that's what you're referring to or if its something else.

I saw 2-3 threads raising the idea of a culture that captured that Tarrasque and live off his remains, while keeping him imprisoned and alive.

Solophoenix
2010-12-20, 12:18 PM
I find that taking real world place names and just spelling them backwards can produce some pretty good sounding names. I've had a campaign where the players started out on the island of Aciamaj in the Naebbirac region. Naturally, all of the other islands in the region were named using the same scheme. The players never noticed.

I also have a Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, cookie for that reference.

n00b killa
2010-12-20, 12:21 PM
My clasic universe was called The Wurld (that's a translation from the Spanish name, my native language, "El Mondu").

My current universe is called "Nexus", becouse it is a mixture of several other universes (not that the pcs know that).

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-20, 03:33 PM
Name my campaign settings? Hell, I name all my campaigns just to keep them straight :smallcool:

World-naming can be difficult, though. I usually try to pick something short but thematic. Often the name for the world is derived from the name of the campaign it's in; I'm a serial worldbuilder, y'see :smallbiggrin:

My current D&D4 campaign, for example, is called "Gold & Glory" since it was designed to be a sandbox along classic D&D lines: the PCs are all members of an Adveturing Company out to make their way in the world. Wealth and fame are two of the major foci for the campaign and the world is tweaked with those ends in mind.

Another one I'm proud of is the "Miami Vampire" game. This was a oWoD Vampire game set in a fictionalized Miami which incorporated themes and tropes from Miami Vice and its ilk. Sadly, that is one setting I never revisted :smallfrown:

Godskook
2010-12-20, 05:06 PM
I saw 2-3 threads raising the idea of a culture that captured that Tarrasque and live off his remains, while keeping him imprisoned and alive.

That's probably where I stoleborrowed the idea from.