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Silus
2013-04-16, 02:35 PM
So I'm in the process of crafting a campaign for Pathfinder and I've hit a snag with naming stuff, so I was wondering, how do you Playgrounders come up with names for things (cities, worlds, campaign titles)?

My deal: Can't think of a proper name for this campaign (Carrion Crown, Legacy of Fire, etc), or a name for the world.

1. The world1. The world

The world will be a homebrewed world with the following attributes:
-Low Fantasy: No mythical monsters or creatures (fey, outsiders, abberations, dragons, etc).
-High/Low magic: High arcane, Low Divine (Divine casters are allowed, they’re just less prominent than arcane casters (Druids are far more common than clerics though)
-Medium technology: The overall tech level is around the Industrial period (steam and coal power being “things”)

1A. World summery (spoiler free)

The world (thus unnamed at this time) is planarly locked via a planar barrier. That is the first major thing you should know. Access to the other planes of existence is restricted up to the Divine level so that even Gods cannot interact with the world. This barrier has been up for as long as anyone can remember and no records remain of how or why it was put up. In addition to keeping malevolent and mischievous outsiders from causing trouble, the barrier also restricts the powers of the Gods to be little more than observers at best. This restriction has caused the practice of divine magic to decrease in favor of arcane or druidic magics.

Due to the lack of planar shenanigans and the lack of, say, dragons, society and technology has been allowed to advance as per “normal”. The dwarves constantly pioneer new types of engines to run their cities, the drow in their underground cities perform amoral experiments to further the research of biology and a crude form of genetics, and gnomes blur the boundaries between what is technology and what is magic. There is however a noticeable divide between technology and magic, with whole nations being devoted to one practice or another. The northern reaches of the world, which become saturated with magical radiation the closer one gets to the northern pole, is dominated by more magic-leaning nations for example.

2. Plot summery (spoiler free)
The planar barrier that shields the world from the unspeakable terrors of the “outside” has stood for longer than anyone can remember. Without it, your world would not be where it is now. But strange things are beginning to happen around the world. Talk of the dead rising and devouring people, only for the freshly dead to rise and attack others. Of nightmares walking the streets of cities, leaving twisted, mutilated corpses in their wake and driving people insane. Of the lines of reality beginning to blur and people claiming to have seen creatures that should by all rights not exist. And at the center of it all, a mysterious robed figure in desert garb. Nobody knows what his agenda is, but most that have seen his work can agree, it’s not good.

I was thinking of the name "Dreams and Steam" for the campaign, but that seems a little...meh.

Slipperychicken
2013-04-16, 04:16 PM
Horrors from the Great Beyond.

Apocalypse.

Judgement Day.

When Worlds Collide.

Strange War.

Rhynn
2013-04-16, 07:34 PM
Why does the campaign need a name? If you need to title something (a website, etc.) for it, call it something descriptive. "The Waterdeep/Undermountain Campaign," "The Sword & Saucer Dark Sun Campaign," "The Kaldor Succession Campaign," etc.

The same goes for worlds, really. People inside the world are probably just going to call it "the world," or something like "the Earth." More likely they'd only have specific names for specific regions ("the North," "the Southern Marches," continent names in their languages, etc.), and rarely even have need for a name for their world (in the absence of others to speak of!).

A good tradition is to name your campaign, and by extension your world (for DM/player use) after an important location in the world - a dungeon or city central to the campaign, for instance. This is how Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Ravenloft were named. Naming it after a central goal or major feature of the campaign works, too (Dragonlance).

If you really need an in-world name for the world, just make up a word that goes along with one of your naming schemes - you've presumably successfully named individual locations.

There's also some obvious naming schemes: A/The X of Y (The Dark Heart of Ukruul, Knights of Legend, A Princess of Mars, etc.), anything to do with Swords (Swords Against Death, Swords of Athanor, etc.).

And then there's just stringing slightly unusual words together... like the OSR's Dwimmermount and Middenmurk megadungeons (which are also the names for the campaigns).

The most important consideration is what feel and tone you want to invoke. "Swords of Athanor" says "Howardian/Leiberian sword & sorcery," "Middenmurk" says "weird stuff (possibly scatological!)" ...

My suggestion: Planebreak.

And lastly: it's a pretty common problem that any name you come up with will sound cheesy to you. Can't be helped, except by time (maybe). You'll get used to the name and it won't sound cheesy anymore.

Thinker
2013-04-17, 12:29 PM
Call it Barrier.

Gemini Lupus
2013-04-18, 06:40 PM
To come up with names for things, I tend to do what all great teachers do. Steal. Indiscriminately. Oh, that's a cool name for a city from Game of Thrones. *Yoink* I really like that old, Gaelic name for Britain. *Mine* Mythopoeia? That's a cool term. It means "Mythmaking?" That sounds like a fitting name for my setting. My friends all know that I'm a thief and since nothing I do is going to be published, I don't even worry about it. Now sometimes, I disguise some of my more blatant thievery, but they can usually tell what the source material is. Anywho, them's my two coppers.

*Disclaimer: I am a teacher and historian and in no way endorse plagiarism of any sort. Always credit your sources!

Silus
2013-04-19, 08:10 AM
To come up with names for things, I tend to do what all great teachers do. Steal. Indiscriminately. Oh, that's a cool name for a city from Game of Thrones. *Yoink* I really like that old, Gaelic name for Britain. *Mine* Mythopoeia? That's a cool term. It means "Mythmaking?" That sounds like a fitting name for my setting. My friends all know that I'm a thief and since nothing I do is going to be published, I don't even worry about it. Now sometimes, I disguise some of my more blatant thievery, but they can usually tell what the source material is. Anywho, them's my two coppers.

*Disclaimer: I am a teacher and historian and in no way endorse plagiarism of any sort. Always credit your sources!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please research.
-Tom Lehrer, "Lobachevsky"