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View Full Version : DM Help Names Are Hard (or, It's Been 2 Years & I Still Haven't Named The Apocalypse Robots)



Arracor
2016-01-29, 05:42 PM
Now I should preface this by saying that a large part of my difficulties lies in my borderline perfectionist standards. Were I willing to 'settle' for something sub-par, I'd probably have a whole novel written by now, with 3/5 star reviews on Amazon or something. The other part of my difficulty is a frustrating lack of 'pure' creativity; my specialty lies not in wholly original creation, but rather in combining and retooling elements of existing ideas to the point of unrecognizability. My whole custom setting, the first time I ran it, was a typical 3.5 D&D fantasy mishmash with bits tossed in from other media and all the old names. (It got better.)

Ahem. So my biggest problem with revamping my setting is that I have to rename and/or rework everything, so that no trace of existing copywrite remains. This is at its most stressful when it comes to renaming something that had a perfectly fitting name before, like the aforementioned Apocalypse Robots. Because first-campaign me was a paragon of original content creation, my nemesis faction was a series of ancient death machines formed from a hodgepodge of Terminator's Skynet, Mass Effect's Reapers, Warhammer 40K's Necrons/Tyranids, and Magic's Phyrexia. I chose Phyrexis as the name for these things, based on its existing associations with my players, and linguistically, the highly threatening nature of the word itself. The phonetic elements are mostly inherently associated with 'bad', the name itself sounds like it could be some sort of infectious and highly lethal disease.

Obviously I can't use that.

So 2 years past, I began work on reworking my entire first setting into something I could rightfully call mine. Name aside, in the end the faction-formerly-known-as-Phyrexis became my own thing, with their own origins, operations, and storylines. I decided early on that, as with most things I name, I want their new name to fit a few qualifications. I want it to have an actual meaning, ideally in the one or several languages used to form the name from those in-setting who would have named them, either at their inception (strictly Latin,) or after they were revealed to be horrible apocalypse-bots (meaning any one/several of Latin, Greek, Swedish.) I want it to SOUND inherently threatening/bad/sinister, like how you see the word 'necrosis' and just know nothing good will come of it even before you look up the meaning. And most of all, I want it to fit the role of 'biggest, baddest thing in existence'. The kind of name that even a god of destruction would speak with some level of fear. This is the thing that would make the BBEG and the hero of destiny call truce while a trickle of pee leaks from their battle-worn trousers.

I still haven't managed it.

...

...I haven't even gotten 2 out of 3. And honestly, I don't really expect I'll ever crack this nut on my own. I don't necessarily think posting a thread about it will save the day either. So consider this 90% rant, and maybe 10% shot in the dark that somewhere, somehow, someone is carrying a nutcracker.

Scyrner
2016-01-29, 06:05 PM
Can you give any information about how these villains act? what they do? etc?

For example, a name that used a composite of the Greek -phagus would be rather far off if they, in no way, consumed anything.

Cealocanth
2016-01-29, 11:38 PM
Yes, naming can be difficult, even more so if you get attached to a name and then realize that you can't take it. It can be rough. It's way easier to pick a substandard name and improve it later than pick a fantastic name and have to pick something else.

As far as helping with your Phyrexis issue, it sounds like you want what is probably the hardest kind of name to make: a made up word that innately generates a feeling or an image in the reader's mind. I'll edit this post if I think of something that fits the bill.

If you don't find anything, it might befit you to pick one of the go-to names that SF writers use almost ubiquitously. Names like Consortium, Elysium, Syndicate, Enclave, etc. They are often words that have very little in the way of actual meaning, and can be twisted in all manner of ways to suit a writer's purpose. They are pretty much royalty free for that exact reason.

GorinichSerpant
2016-01-30, 12:16 AM
I'll try to make up some fake nasty, evil sounding words off the top of my head now.

Gratlin, Noxicious, Termalates, Regrosals, Vermilious, Lintrix, Contravlions, Darver, Rincint.

Out of these, Vermilious sounds like it has the most potential, but I'm not sure it's the sound your going for. Can you describe this faction's own "thing" is, as well as it's general themes and motifs? There are a lot of kinds of horrible evil to draw names from.

Rusvul
2016-01-30, 12:52 AM
Using Latin or Greek roots can (but doesn't always) come across as campy. Doctor Malin or Lady Sinestra aren't really clever or subtle in any capacity. It can work, but you have to be careful.

Another route is to think about how an individual would talk. Would they sound more like a Klingon or a Yuan-ti? Chances are, somewhere in between. Name them something that sounds like it would be part of their language. Or don't, I'm just offering advice. :P

GAAD
2016-01-30, 01:12 AM
If they're anything like the Borg/Cybermen...
How about Nos?

Or, if you don't want the Latinized version, Us.

If your stuck on a name, maybe THEY don't see the need for one. I've run a bunch of cybervillains who referred to themselves using pronouns only before. It fit the arrogant YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED RESISTANCE IS FUTILE EX-TERMINATE! society quite well.

TeChameleon
2016-01-30, 01:17 AM
I'll just... leave this here (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast)...

I'll check back in a few months to see if you've made it back out again >.>

D-naras
2016-01-30, 06:17 AM
I am greek so I can throw out scary greek words for you:

Olethros = Oblivion
Scary robot version: Olethrons

Theominia = Wrath of god
Scary robot version: Theominia

Welp, I run out fast of inspiration fast. :smalltongue:

Arracor
2016-01-30, 03:38 PM
Can you give any information about how these villains act? what they do? etc?

For example, a name that used a composite of the Greek -phagus would be rather far off if they, in no way, consumed anything.

I certainly can. Their origin is that they were created by a race of humanoid living machines called the Eminents, as a last-ditch effort to prevent the total annihilation of the universe at the hands of, essentially, the well of creation itself gone malevolently insane. The Eminents created an AI that was smarter than them and capable of nigh-infinite self-modification, and tasked it with defeating this threat. Over time, this great machine (pitiful stand-in title) was corrupted from constant exposure, and it came to a logical conclusion that if it could not defeat the well of creation (which, after all, is truly infinitely adaptable, and would eventually outpace the great machine's limits) then the only choice would be to cut it off from the rest of existence. To do so would, in fact, cause the wilting grey death of all matter, as while creation itself might have gone insane, it was still connected to everything in a sense, keeping the created matter intact. But the great machine wasn't tasked with saving the universe; merely stopping the existing threat.

To that end it broke and enslaved its creators, who had long since been eclipsed by it in potential. It captured and experimented on other forms of life in an attempt to expand its arsenal, turning them into twisted biomechanical tools. In the end, the forces of the great machine had settled into a largely insectoid appearance, deemed most efficient for its tasks. Great armored factories shaped like lumbering beetles wandered the Realms of creation, unleashing all manner of smaller horrors to capture subjects and destroy any resistance. The construction of a barrier demiplane shielding the Realms from the well of creation began, giving physical form to the deadline of living matter's existence; the moment the Seal was complete, the withering end would begin.

Eventually, with the Seal at about 95% completion, a desperate assault by the universe's remaining forces halted the great machines, and their battered hulks were cast into the rubble of the Realms already destroyed and buried beneath all the detritus of the ended war. The unfinished Seal was, nevertheless, complete enough to keep the greater threat manageable while still allowing those threads of creative force through to maintain existence. All knowledge of the great machines was buried with them, or otherwise secreted away, so that future generations would not learn of them and potentially repeat the Eminents' mistake, or seek to bring them back.

.....naturally, the opening act of the planned campaign involves one of these ancient, buried machines being accidentally revived. :belkar: My original approach was to attempt to name them as the Eminents would have, meaning something in Latin, with a meaning ranging anywhere from 'last hope' to 'terrible mistake' to 'oh **** we're in for it now!' It now seems more likely that the name in active use for them would be something the ones who fought it came up with, which would definitely mean something bad and probably with an element of hopelessness or finality to it, and which opens up language choice a bit more.

Lentrax
2016-01-30, 06:02 PM
Caelestes. It is a plural for Celestials or Gods, doesn't immediately imply gods at all, and opens the door for wider name choices for individuals based on Roman and agreed mythologies.

Alternative(And not as good):Nos Sine Magistri.(We Without Masters)

Logosloki
2016-01-30, 06:21 PM
You should keep the great machine. Robot apocalypses should always have a simplistic but monolithic name at the core of them. To that end why not give the robots a name that reflects that they act by the will of the great machine. I'd shy away from religious sounding names as the lovable killbots aren't trying to convert anyway. The originals were named eminents and i would say inevitables, except that is super played out for robots and end times fun times groups.

What are they made of? Do they have any shared but distinctive features? What do they eat? What do others say about them?

Scyrner
2016-01-31, 03:09 AM
Depending on the tone of the game, and how clever your players are, you might enjoy naming it "Irrumabor" which is essentially "I will have a phallus violently inserted into my face" because Latin has a verb for that (being what the creator named it when they realized what they had made, and the reaction that everyone else would have once they figured out that he's the one that made it).


If you're anything like I am, as a creator, things need multiple names: one which is what it was called by it's creators, one which refers to it now (or more, if many cultures have different languages) and one which it uses to refer to itself. I might have the modern culture just use "Great Machine" because that's all they know about it, the Latin name be what the Eminents called it, and then have it have some name for itself, something like "Princeps" or "Axiom".

Arracor
2016-01-31, 03:48 AM
If it were to refer to itself, it would simply use the name it were created with. It isn't actively malevolent/rebellious; its actions were entirely logically consistent. Enslaving its creator was merely a way to take control of a powerful asset; experimenting on other lifeforms was merely the creation of more specialized tools. That name is far less important, though; the core name here is the one it's given by those who learn to fear it.

References to divinity are probably something to avoid, since there are actual gods in existence and this machine has very little involvement with them. Inevitables is a definite no-no, being explicitly a machine race in D&D canon. Were I to abandon languages and go for a simplistic name, 'Endbringers' would work wonderfully... ...except that it's already a name in prominent use in a (loosely speaking) online book series called Worm. Speaking of which, go read that.

They're made of a loosely defined supermetal with incredible toughness and regenerative properties. They have largely insectoid features, with combat styles that tend to favor piercing and dismantling attacks up close and varied high power energy beams at range. Said supermetal also has converting properties, wherein it essentially 'infects' other metals and morphs them into more of itself. The technical answers to all of these things, btw, are 'nanites'. Their power source and methods of self-sustenance are a nebulous blank space at the moment, but if pressed it will probably involve nanites and conversion of various atmospheric elements, in such a way that almost any environment would be capable of keeping them powered. Their primary feature, after all, is adaptability.

Scyrner
2016-01-31, 05:29 AM
Momentary Off Topic regarding Worm:

So many good names used by that. It's amazing, but it's making my Super Hero setting....difficult...to populate.

Arracor
2016-01-31, 02:59 PM
Momentary Off Topic regarding Worm:

So many good names used by that. It's amazing, but it's making my Super Hero setting....difficult...to populate.

If you think it's bad for you, imagine being a newly triggered parahuman in that universe. God help you if you have any sort of elemental power..........

TeChameleon
2016-01-31, 07:47 PM
Well, for the Great Machines... Deus Est Machinae has a certain ring to it...

For the big bad beetleborgs... Ecitoninae (one of the larger subfamilies of Army Ants) could work, or maybe Télos Archí or Fine Initia, babelfish Greek/Latin for 'End of Beginning'... hrm. Omnicidae is kind of dog-Latin for 'Killers of Everything', or maybe Bene Venenum (Latin, 'Well-Poison'). Eh, something to think about, I guess.

EDIT- if you're feeling a little snarkier, Pedicabo Ego Curram would be babelfish Latin for '**** me, RUN!' :smalltongue:

Sam113097
2016-01-31, 11:53 PM
Hmm... Well, the Latin term for "great machine" is magna machina, but that seems too close to the English word for machine. What about Magnalith, meaning great stone, or Terrimens, a combination of terrorem (terror) and mens (mind)

D-naras
2016-02-02, 11:42 AM
Null Engines? Gears of Extinction?

Cealocanth
2016-02-02, 07:08 PM
Here's a crazy idea, but why not play off the insectoid theme and their centralized intelligence and call them HIVE. I understand if you don't want to make up an acronym, but 'The Hive' could work just as well. Sometimes simple names that can't possibly be patented or sued for work well.

Demidos
2016-02-08, 12:34 AM
Thinkers.

Autonomous Machines? Scary. Endlessly self-improving, powerful, SMART machines? Terrifying.

The word also summarizes both why they were useful and what the last of their masters were thinking.

If you really wanted Swedish or greek, you have:
Tänkare
Stochastés

TheYell
2016-02-11, 12:46 AM
Adflictione animi is in Ecclesiastes 4:6 and is translated as "chasing the wind". I think a direct translation is "Torment of the Soul." The Eminents were at first distressed to be eclipsed by their greatest achievement, and then utterly horrified to be consumed in a hopeless quest.

The great machine swarms were known in their day as Heretics, from the Greek haeresis or choice, for having chosen to devour the Universe in order to starve it to death. Since the machines were lost they are not referred to directly, that whole period of turmoil being known widely as Wyrd Flatt, the False Doom.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-02-11, 05:36 AM
Tromeroskatha

That's the best thing I can come up with in five minutes of using google translate (https://translate.google.com/#en/el/insect%0Aterrifying%0Aterrible%0Aaweful%0Aawesome% 0Abeetles%0Abugs).

I'm quite pleased with the result, it's only one or two syllables too long and it doesn't even sound as much like a dinosaur as I'd have expected.

I'm mostly trying to say that this is how I'd probably approach it. If you want the term to be rooted in Latin, (ancient?) Greek and/or Swedish you could just start collecting a list of words that you might be able to use as part of the word. Especially ones that show some promise. Of the ones on this small list I like "tromerós" because aside from apparently meaning terrible it also kind of suggests the English word tremors, generally a thing that freaks people out on a partly subconscious level. "Skathária" sounds like something you do not want to fight, almost like something from the Klingon homeworld. And "éntomo" also has a nice ring to it, even if the meaning, thanks to entomology, is a bit obvious.

Arracor
2016-02-23, 06:51 AM
Tromeroskatha

That's the best thing I can come up with in five minutes of using google translate (https://translate.google.com/#en/el/insect%0Aterrifying%0Aterrible%0Aaweful%0Aawesome% 0Abeetles%0Abugs).

I'm quite pleased with the result, it's only one or two syllables too long and it doesn't even sound as much like a dinosaur as I'd have expected.

I'm mostly trying to say that this is how I'd probably approach it. If you want the term to be rooted in Latin, (ancient?) Greek and/or Swedish you could just start collecting a list of words that you might be able to use as part of the word. Especially ones that show some promise. Of the ones on this small list I like "tromerós" because aside from apparently meaning terrible it also kind of suggests the English word tremors, generally a thing that freaks people out on a partly subconscious level. "Skathária" sounds like something you do not want to fight, almost like something from the Klingon homeworld. And "éntomo" also has a nice ring to it, even if the meaning, thanks to entomology, is a bit obvious.

Been a while since I've visited my own thread here, mostly due to a sudden outbreak of Internet Dysphoria. (...or, idiot roomie didn't pay her bills.) Anyway I quite like the way the word Skatharia sounds. It won't work as a title due to its root meaning, mind, but it could work its way into a name for that particular unit. Without going into ruinous, spoilery detail, the 'beetle' is merely the first unit reawakened, and not necessarily the core of the entire faction. I would, instead, merely consider the beetle constructs a tool used by the corrupted intelligence which actually carries the name.

It occurs to me that a slight modification of their original theme might be in order, to fall more in line with my ultimate naming goals. I've mentioned a leaning towards some sort of name evoking 'disease' imagery; what if, those who in their fear named this AI, viewed it as some sort of virus or infection working to wither and degrade creation? Something akin to late-stage cancer, or AIDS, or other slow but terminal killers?

GrayDeath
2016-02-23, 01:50 PM
Call it (the great Machine) Entropos.

For obvious reasons (Well as force of creation is its enemy, Disease/destructive themed) and many interpretations.

And its minions maybe Pandorans (just kidding ^^).

Arracor
2016-02-23, 03:20 PM
Call it (the great Machine) Entropos.

For obvious reasons (Well as force of creation is its enemy, Disease/destructive themed) and many interpretations.

And its minions maybe Pandorans (just kidding ^^).

The thought has occurred to me before, but that links back to my problem with being too close to existing canon. Atropus, the Majora's Mask apocalypse planet from 3.5's Elder Evils book, is well known with my playerbase.

GrayDeath
2016-02-27, 02:25 PM
Then dont shirk from it, use eventual misconceptions to your advantage!

At least thats what I tend to try when something alike happens to me (luckily most of my players do not read the same books...^^).

Talwar
2016-02-27, 08:30 PM
I certainly can. Their origin is that they were created by a race of humanoid living machines called the Eminents, as a last-ditch effort to prevent the total annihilation of the universe at the hands of, essentially, the well of creation itself gone malevolently insane.

Perhaps go with a name that was originally appropriate to their task, but is now quite ironic. Say, The Forlorn Hope.