Alternate term to 'crusade'. Any ideas?

[Salbazier]

Anyone have ideas for a term to replace/substitute for 'crusade'? Something that doesn't invoke specific religious symbol? Like in the Dragon Age, they have 'Exalted March'. 'Holy war' is obvious but it doesn't feel fitting.

If it is necessary to know, the specific context is a militaristic kingdom that was founded to provide military power to fight something like invasion of dark force or such. Sometimes this require launching a full campaign to some foreign lands every several decades. If you've read The Way of Kings, its kinda like the role of Alethala said to play in the ancient days of Roshar.

[Joe the Rat]

"Campaign" and "Expedition" are fitting for an outbound military excursion. Quest and Conquest could work. If all else fails, just cal it "War".

I wouldn't say that "Crusade" is necessarily religiously themed. You can talk of crusades based on ideals - or against particular agencies. Crusading journalists, caped crusader - the theme is driven and principled. The Crux part has been glossed over if not outright ignored in common parlance.

[HuskyBoi]

I think you've actually already used the ideal word: Campaign.

Invasion is very militaristic and implies actual war is imminent. An offensive, a push, a expedition, a movement, an operation, or a drive are all words you could play around with.

[Blightedmarsh]

Annexation
Occupation
Decimation
Retaliation

[Jacob.Tyr]

Clearing an area of a dark force? How about purge?

[Slipperychicken]

Combat Operations.

Planar Defense Mission.

Planar Defense Operations.

Peacekeeping Mission.

Intervention.

[avr]

Calling the banners

Going a-viking

Protection

But really, Expedition or Campaign as mentioned above probably fits best.

[Kitten Champion]

If you want to be slightly more cryptic about it,

The Cleansing
The Purification
The Scouring
The Restoration
The Clearing
The Rekindling
The Sanctification
The Revivification

Cleansing/Purifying synonyms work as euphemisms for genocide.

You could also use something even more round-a-bout - like say,

The Path of Light
The Enlightened Host
The Trials
The Surge
The Struggle

Lionizing the crusaders without giving mention to what exactly they're doing.

[tbok1992]

How about "That Thing Where We Stabbbity Stab Stab The Darkness Until It Bleeds Like A Stuck Piggy." Hey, it's original :smallamused:

[Slipperychicken]

How about "That Thing Where We Stabbbity Stab Stab The Darkness Until It Bleeds Like A Stuck Piggy." Hey, it's original :smallamused:

That was funny. You win everything.

[paladinofshojo]

If you want to maintain the religious overtone within it...go with pilgrimage....if you want to maintain the military overtone within it.....go with pilgrimage of war..... or pilgrimage of faith..... or if you want to sound cynical and mocking you can call it pilgrimage of blood.....

[Salbazier]

"Campaign" and "Expedition" are fitting for an outbound military excursion. Quest and Conquest could work. If all else fails, just cal it "War".

I wouldn't say that "Crusade" is necessarily religiously themed. You can talk of crusades based on ideals - or against particular agencies. Crusading journalists, caped crusader - the theme is driven and principled. The Crux part has been glossed over if not outright ignored in common parlance.

I know. Still, maybe it is because of my religiosity, maybe because the book in which I first read about crusade and its etymology are one my favorite book that the etymology stuck so much, my mind just have problem dissociating the word with its original religious root. That's why I'm looking for words/phrase that can convey similiar meaning -the driven and principled thing- without such root.


I think you've actually already used the ideal word: Campaign.

Invasion is very militaristic and implies actual war is imminent. An offensive, a push, a expedition, a movement, an operation, or a drive are all words you could play around with.

Though I agree that Campaign or Expedition best fit the action itself those terms doesn't carry the 'fighting for ideal' or 'important duty' meaning.

Maybe I would just append grand/sacred/something to campaign/defense/one of those terms and call it a day.


If you want to maintain the religious overtone within it...go with pilgrimage....if you want to maintain the military overtone within it.....go with pilgrimage of war..... or pilgrimage of faith..... or if you want to sound cynical and mocking you can call it pilgrimage of blood.....

Hmm, 'pilgrimage' is also possible. It carries meaning of travel/journey and would implies that the battlefield is an important place. The meaning would be slightly altered but that is not a strange thing when making up terms.


By the way, looking for synonyms for crusade let me to this word: salient.


Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, people. :smallsmile:

[Ashtagon]

Though I agree that Campaign or Expedition best fit the action itself those terms doesn't carry the 'fighting for ideal' or 'important duty' meaning.

Only because of the D&D abusage of the term campaign. It's actually the standard jargon term for a series of battles.

top hits for "famous military campaigns"
http://listverse.com/2010/06/21/top-10-greatest-military-campaigns/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_campaign
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=106068

[Kyberwulf]

Go with JiHad.

[Salbazier]

Only because of the D&D abusage of the term campaign. It's actually the standard jargon term for a series of battles.

top hits for "famous military campaigns"
http://listverse.com/2010/06/21/top-10-greatest-military-campaigns/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_campaign
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=106068

My previous comment has nothing to do with D&D usage of the term. I play strategy games waaay before I ever heard of D&D so I know what it means (before that I thought the term was specific to politics).


Go with JiHad.

Perhaps I should have said 'not invoking/associated with real-world religion' instead of 'not invoking specific religious symbol' in my first post. Also, it is not English.

[Spiryt]

"Conquista"?

Obviously not exactly English either, but doesn't refer to any particular religion or ideology, and can refer to all kinds of struggle over territory between different cultures.

[Kyberwulf]

Then my friend, your going to have to make up a word. Ever other word is associated with something.

[Kalirren]

Perhaps I should have said 'not invoking/associated with real-world religion' instead of 'not invoking specific religious symbol' in my first post. Also, it is not English.

Plainly, there are very few multisyllabic words in English that are of English origin. Almost everything's a loanword from somewhere. Thanks to 9/11/2001, "jihad" has solidly made it into American English. We now say "jihadists" instead of "mujahideen".


If it is necessary to know, the specific context is a militaristic kingdom that was founded to provide military power to fight something like invasion of dark force or such.

Maybe it would help to further elaborate the origin of the custom. "Crusade" comes from the Pope calling upon his faithful to take up the cross, as you know. Your situation sounds like the religious angle ultimately takes a back seat to something a lot more feudal - like it's part of an obligation of a vassal to contribute to their lord's retinue of soldiers. Linguistically it might look more like a tax than a holy war.

The Old Duty? the Holy Conscription?

[Togath]

Perhaps I should have said 'not invoking/associated with real-world religion' instead of 'not invoking specific religious symbol' in my first post. Also, it is not English.

You realize the term just means the same as the real word meaning of campaign?

[Kalirren]

Togath, jihad doesn't mean "campaign". It translates most closely to "struggle" in English.

Teaching about Islam to someone who claims to be from Indonesia is probably unnecessary. Indonesia is majority Muslim.

[Water_Bear]

Maybe we're looking at this wrong; rather than naming the conflict, why not the region?

If the Kingdom is designed to hold back a demonic force, then calling it something like a Military Frontier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Frontier) or nonesmanneslond (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_man%27s_land) (Middle English makes everything sound fancier) gets the point across pretty well. Even something like calling it a Mark or a Limes can get the idea that it's a militarized border region.

After all, these guys are playing Defense more than Offense right? Crusades are all about conquering new lands for a faith; holding old lands is a different proposition.

[Emperor Tippy]

Life redistribution encouragement. A good alternative to Crusade.

[JusticeZero]

You also have words like "The Burden" (which was used for activities even a century ago).
But if we knew more about the doctrine of the holy that was directing the war in question, more colorful ideas might come to mind.

[Salbazier]

Wow, lots of insightful post.


Plainly, there are very few multisyllabic words in English that are of English origin. Almost everything's a loanword from somewhere. Thanks to 9/11/2001, "jihad" has solidly made it into American English. We now say "jihadists" instead of "mujahideen".

It did? I don't realize that. I retract that statement then.



Maybe it would help to further elaborate the origin of the custom. "Crusade" comes from the Pope calling upon his faithful to take up the cross, as you know. Your situation sounds like the religious angle ultimately takes a back seat to something a lot more feudal - like it's part of an obligation of a vassal to contribute to their lord's retinue of soldiers. Linguistically it might look more like a tax than a holy war.

The Old Duty? the Holy Conscription?


Maybe we're looking at this wrong; rather than naming the conflict, why not the region?

If the Kingdom is designed to hold back a demonic force, then calling it something like a Military Frontier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Frontier) or nonesmanneslond (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_man%27s_land) (Middle English makes everything sound fancier) gets the point across pretty well. Even something like calling it a Mark or a Limes can get the idea that it's a militarized border region.

After all, these guys are playing Defense more than Offense right? Crusades are all about conquering new lands for a faith; holding old lands is a different proposition.


You also have words like "The Burden" (which was used for activities even a century ago).
But if we knew more about the doctrine of the holy that was directing the war in question, more colorful ideas might come to mind.

Oh, wow those are quite make sense. Those terms are quite good idea too.

Okay, more detailed description. The early history - which I still haven't fully sketched yet is still in flux right now - is taking a bit of inspiration from Magic the gathering Urza's saga. A adventuring mage of high power got involved in a fight against malignant godlike entity and its armies and ended up losing precious family and friends. The entity was driven back at the cost of untold number of lives lives. However, the entity would be back eventually - with others even more dangerous potentially coming.

Said mage then hole up in a no man's land and begin amassing power. Recruting people or even outright making them, creating weapons, researching new magical discipline ect, ect. The idea was that by founding a nation, he is making a source of formidable army that can last for a long time and always ready to stand up against these doomsday-level threats when they appear.

The nations's culture is quite militaristic/martial as a result and they hold up the philosophy that they have this duty to defend the world against major threats like this. Now that I think of it does have some similarities to feudal obligation in that they have to go and fight and when ordered to. But, I'm thinking that it the idea has to be held quite deeply by the people themselves. Paying tax isn't exactly a good enough motivation to fight armies of eldritch beings.

The nation have a rather isolationist policy to avoid influencing other nations too much (since they are a superpower relative to most other nations) and to minimalize power stuggle over things like land or trade routes with other nations. That is not to say that they don't have such problems internally but at least in their view reducing external conflicts would reduce total problems. Plus, it is unbecoming for alleged defenders of the world to dominate it.

If a major threat appears however, they will fully mobilize and send armies to fight it at whenever the threat show up. I was originally looking for a word to describe to this action when they fully commit and launch a war.

Does that give a better picture?


You realize the term just means the same as the real word meaning of campaign?

Togath, jihad doesn't mean "campaign". It translates most closely to "struggle" in English.

Teaching about Islam to someone who claims to be from Indonesia is probably unnecessary. Indonesia is majority Muslim.

Yup. In Arabic it is usable for any kind of struggle, military or peaceful, religious or not. Of course the most popular use - even here - is for the war context. But, just like what Joe said above in regard to crusader, it is actually applicable to a lot of things. Still, the idea here is that I'm trying to take a distance from RL religions.

[Erasmas]

I think you should name it "__________'s Calling"; and just insert the name of your ancient wizard that fought the evil so long ago.

Or even just "The Calling".

[tbok1992]

How about "The March of the Doomed Godkillers"? Because, if the entity is godlike as you say, most people are going to die to it, but they must go for the slim chance of slaying the thing.

[A Tad Insane]

Shindig?
But in all seriousness, blessed conquest sounds really cool in my opinion

[Jeff the Green]

I wouldn't say that "Crusade" is necessarily religiously themed. You can talk of crusades based on ideals - or against particular agencies. Crusading journalists, caped crusader - the theme is driven and principled. The Crux part has been glossed over if not outright ignored in common parlance.

It depends, really. As a cultural thing, most secularists try to avoid using the word "crusade" to mean anything other than the medieval campaigns by European monarchs to take/retake Jerusalem because it's indelibly marked as an example of how religion screws things up. Among many religious people, it's avoided because it's an example of religion not living up to its ideals. Many people especially avoid using "crusade" as in a positive sense because it's hard to draw anything positive out of a campaign that saw child soldiers, taking time off a war to pillage your allies, and multiple instances of genocide.

Back on topic, I like "noble" as an adjective for this. Presumably the leaders of this campaign and their soldiers know that there's not only a very good reason for their wars but also a very real chance of them not coming back. That's something they would view as noble. So maybe The Noble March? The Noble Way, the Noble Campaign, the Noble Road?

I second the idea of calling the country a Mark or a March.

[Salbazier]

I think you should name it "__________'s Calling"; and just insert the name of your ancient wizard that fought the evil so long ago.

Or even just "The Calling".

Asheron's Call? :smalltongue: But, that's also a good idea.



Back on topic, I like "noble" as an adjective for this. Presumably the leaders of this campaign and their soldiers know that there's not only a very good reason for their wars but also a very real chance of them not coming back. That's something they would view as noble. So maybe The Noble March? The Noble Way, the Noble Campaign, the Noble Road?

I second the idea of calling the country a Mark or a March.

That seems most fitting. Bonus point since there's a clash of meaning with noble as a social clash. But this means I just have to rework their system a bit. I already intended for them to have slightly different conception of nobles and nobility anyway.

I'm leaning toward The Mandate to refer to the doctrine/philosophy/obligation, The Calling or War Call for the process of alert and mobilization, and Noble March for the campaign itself.

[Wardog]

I was originally going to suggest "pilgrimage", or a varient of that. That was, after all, what the early Crusades were referred at the time.

But havign seen the background, that doesn't seem appropriate any more. The Crusades could have been considered pilgrimages because the participants were travelling to a sacred place - for some, which for many may have been as important a motivation as fighting the people they met there.

In this case, though, there doesn't seem to be any holy destination (the opposite, in fact), and (as far as I can tell) they are not going with intention of occupying/settling/dying in there. (Especially if they end up invading Hell/the Dungeon Dimensions/etc).

Is there a religious aspect to these wars, and to the nation that fights them? (For that matter, is it a "real" nation, or is it more like a holy order/secret society/etc that controls substantial territory?) If so, you could use the same naming concept as "Crusade" - i.e. chose a symbol for this Order and derive the name for the wars from that.

Otherwise, something along the lines of (The)(Sacred/Holy/Great)(War/Struggle/Duty/Campaign/March/Calling) would probably be most appropriate.

[Lord Vukodlak]

How about The Divine Enterprise


I wouldn't say that "Crusade" is necessarily religiously themed.

The issue is that Crusade invokes thoughts of The Crusades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades). He's talking about specific events not general events.

[Ashtagon]

How about The Divine Enterprise


Is that the one where Kirk meets his maker?

[Slipperychicken]

Is that the one where Kirk meets his maker?

It's what would happen if the Federation worshipped the Q continuum as their patron gods.