Changing Your Name

[Meierme176]

I was wondering if there was a way to change your name in D&D 3.5 so that people using trap the soul don't know what your real name is.

[AvatarVecna]

I was wondering if there was a way to change your name in D&D 3.5 so that people using trap the soul don't know what your real name is.

It's called "not letting people know your real name". Having some kind of fake name, and having defenses against divinations, helps with this a lot; it's actually something that can be done with the "Vecna-Blooded" template, which not only makes you immune to divinations, but erases knowledge of you from...everywhere, IIRC. Gives you a clean slate to work with, although I imagine there's still ways around it, because magic is bull****.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm going to have to go with the 'never give out your real name in the first place' idea. I don't know if you can change your name (Or in the case of foundlings, slaves, and abandoned children what even qualifies as the name to begin with).

[Jormengand]

Even in modern society, changing your name is almost as simple as start using a different name; in a D&D one I suspect it's actually that simple. Change your true name using the Ritual of Renaming from Tome of Magic only if you're really paranoid.

[Extra Anchovies]

It's called "not letting people know your real name". Having some kind of fake name, and having defenses against divinations, helps with this a lot.

But at what point do we draw the line between [your name] and [the name that people know you by]? If you tell everyone you meet that your name is Tim but you think of yourself as being named Sam, which is the "real" name? The one that you, in your head, have decided is your "real" name, or the one that literally everyone else knows you by?

I suppose a generally useful delineation would be that your real name is the first name that both you and someone else knew you by, but that doesn't allow for characters' real names to change if they decide to pick a new name (or are given on) after some significant life event. Thoughts?

[Honest Tiefling]

I suppose a generally useful delineation would be that your real name is the first name that both you and someone else knew you by, but that doesn't allow for characters' real names to change if they decide to pick a new name (or are given on) after some significant life event. Thoughts?

Foundlings, slaves, and abadoned children...Do they just..Make something up and try to convince people to use that name instead of the one given? If you view yourself as Sam, but your masters insist on Gorbablax, and no one uses Sam, which is the real name? I assume the one you have, but it might not match the criteria presented.

I would just try to handwave it as the name the CASTER can think of, not the victim. Basically, the caster just needs a name to tell the magic who they are trying to find more then anything else. Sure, it gives a bit of power to casters because it is harder to block divinations, but it also means spying on someone and getting an alias actually has some dang meaning. This approach would probably be best if scrying and other effects are hard to get ahold of, even for casters.

[Darth Ultron]

This is on the list of things you just need to ignore. your name is your name, it is simple and anyone can find out what it is and cast the spell on you.

To go beyond that, you will need tons of lawyer like house rules and it can get a bit silly.

Like say you tell everyone your name is Joe, well, ok, then your name is Joe. You can't say your ''real'' name is Fred. Your Joe to everyone.

But if you want some rules that fit, this is the perfect spell to use a Truename. The idea is simple enough: everyone has a true magic name and they can't change it....and that is the name that needs to be known for ''named'' spells.

[Âmesang]

Alternatively, have a third party handle everything intended for you, inspecting it for any suspicious labels. :smalltongue: Isn't that what hirelings henchmen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodwick) are for?

[Fizban]

Who picks your name and how long it sticks depends on the story of each individual. Most people receive a name from their parents, and that is their name until they decide to change it. In some societies you pick your own name once you reach a certain age, and a given society might have forms to follow for changing your name. How hard it is to change your name depends on how hard you think it is, similar to what sort of laws you instinctively consider laws (weather or not you uphold them).

Most of this is obviated by the fact that someone wishing to hide their name doesn't need to change it. As long as you never say "I am X," or "My name is X," there is no question that you've decided on a new name. Instead you always open with "Call me X," or some variant, indicating what you'll respond to without claiming it as a name. If someone tries to use that against you with a spell, well unfortunately it seems they were mistaken. Note that if someone asks "Are you X?" you shouldn't respond to that with any real affirmative: anyone directly asking if that's your name must be rebuffed with "some call me that" or somesuch. It all gets very melodramatic for anyone paying attention. You can also go by grandiose titles that no one could claim as unique.

So, you change your name by following whatever forms your character was raised to believe. If they had no such forms then in order to properly believe, the best method would be completely leaving their current life and starting a new one with a new name. The old name would lose effectiveness after the new life eclipsed the old, either in simple time spent for peaceful living or in levels worth of adventuring excitement. Yes, this clearly gives an advantage to cultures with naming rituals. The new name can then be hidden by killing everyone who knows it and answering only to obliquely referenced titles as above.

[Honest Tiefling]

Aw, you say that like giving advantages to societies with naming rituals is a bad thing! Either way, I like how you think, Fizban. So much so that YOINK! Going to steal it.

[Calen]

In the book Republic of Thieves the most powerful magic is employed by knowing the true name of the target. As such all the wizards have at least two names. They call the first a Red Name, this is what their parents called them and what they self-identify with. The other is a Gray Name, this is the one that they introduce themselves as and what others call them as.
So it is much like Fizban said, except that the the whole "call me this" part is cut out. As far as the world is concerned you are Blackhawk and you answer to that name, but you and your parents and siblings etc. know that you are Edric Flint.

The part that makes this all either totally moot or important is whether the magic of the world in question is based on the knowledge of the target or the knowledge of the caster/client. In DnD the spells are usually worded as about how well you know the target, regardless of what name they use. In other words it could be how the caster identifies you that is important. S/he could just be saying I Soul Trap the elf with the tattoo and the owl companion.

[Zaq]

I'm not likely to say anything that hasn't been touched on already here.

Basically, it's not really defined what, in the D&D universe, makes your name your name. In the parts of the real world that I am familiar with (I understand that this is not likely to be universal), there's usually some sort of concept of a "legal name," which can be changed by legal means, but that doesn't mean that the same concept translates to D&D. (Maybe in Eberron, but I doubt it would matter in a generic setting.) And even that matters mostly for, well, legal purposes—your legal documents (ID, contracts, court records, etc.) will show your legal name, but you might be commonly known (either to your close friends or simply to nearly everyone) by another name. (This can take many forms—someone being commonly called by their middle name, someone using a stage name or pen name, someone simply insisting on a different name without taking the legal steps because of cost or ideology or whatever, etc.)

Many D&D settings won't have an overarching government that cares what everyone's specific name is. The concept of an official ID (or, for that matter, of commonly needing an official ID) is likely to be foreign to most characters, though again, Eberron is an exception. What do we fall back on in that case? There isn't a single answer. Maybe it's just what everyone calls you, and if you can convince enough people to call you something different, then hey, that's your name now. Maybe there's some recordkeeping deity that's in charge of that sort of thing, and changing your name involves convincing that deity (and/or their mortal or immortal servants) to change things. Maybe any name that you personally recognize as your own will qualify—if your parents called you one thing, but everyone else knows you by a different name, a magic spell targeted around the name your parents called you might still affect you because you still feel a connection to it. The rules don't really say.

As I should know as well as anyone here, we do know that every creature with INT 3 or higher has a personal truename, but I don't think that's actually relevant to the discussion at hand. Almost no one knows their own personal truename, and while there is a RAW mechanism (the Ritual of Renaming) for changing one's personal truename, undergoing the Ritual of Renaming doesn't actually have any effect on what non-Truenamers call you (or, for that matter, on what most Truenamers will call you if they aren't uttering magically, or even if they are, since you don't usually need someone's personal truename to affect them with an utterance). While a GM could theoretically make a world where this is the case, I can't see any functioning organization insisting on using personal truenames on all of its documentation (okay, maybe something involving the modrons and/or the inevitables, but even then that's a stretch), just because it's incredibly difficult to find personal truenames of people. I just don't think it's relevant here.

In short, there's no universal answer, so it's really up to the GM. Maybe there's a legal way, maybe there's a practical way, maybe there's a religious way, maybe there's a magical way, or maybe there isn't really a way.

[daremetoidareyo]

Names are important. There is a reason some real world cultures name their child 3 times just to throw off evil spirits. I know a real person who chose a secret name for their son that she plans on going to the grave with as a part of some supernatural protection measure because she believes that jealous family members put an obeah curse on her for being half white.

Heck, Bruce Lee tried to avoid a family curse through tricky name shenanigans.

[Jay R]

Given the description of gnome naming practices in Races of Stone, are they less vulnerable to Trap the Soul?

[TheYell]

Your characters culture may embrace name changes over time. The man we buried as Chief Sitting Bull did not get that name until well into adulthood.
I think it depends on context. If you just want the world to call you something different, that is easier than dodging magical effects.