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Duke Malagigi
2008-01-23, 01:01 AM
I'm working on making my own campaign setting. In this setting all cultures and languages are at least in part based off of real world ones. Sadly I have a hard time thinking up country and language names and that's where you come. I'd also like racial names that elves, dwarves and so on would call themselves. Thank you.

Name of Country: Tir Saoirse (pronounced SER-sha) (Free Land or Land of Freedom)
Predominate race: high elves
Predominate alignment: Chaotic Good (73%)
Religion: A combination of Celtic religion and angelology. Sacrifices take the form of cattle and other livestock.
Culture: Celtic but highly advanced. Elves use arcane magic as a form of technology. Elves are also highly religious but not fanatical. These are generalizations of course, individual elves may differ.
Real life language: Irish Gaelic

Name of Country: Felsen Haupt
Predominate race: dwarven
Predominate alignment: Lawful Good (56%)
Religion: Part warrior cult, part ancestor worship and part angelic. There is however a diabolical cult similar in nature to the Thule Society.
Culture: Pre World War I Prussia but with stronger Nordic elements and a berserker ethos.
Real life language: German

Name of Country: the Weiße Gebirgsrepublik
Predominate race: gnomes
Predominate alignment: Neutral Good with Lawful tendencies (64%)
Religion: Celestial in nature. Divided into peacefully coexisting Catholic and Protestant-like sects.
Culture: Like Switzerland from the late 18th to early 19th centuries.
Real life languages: German, French and Italian

Name of Country:
Predominate race: halflings
Predominate alignment: Lawful Good (62%)
Religion: Mostly nature worship but with a celestial subtext.
Culture: Pastoral and rather laid back. Borderline pacifistic but willing to defend themselves. Sadly, the halflings are right between the Royaume Vert, Felsen Haupt and the orcs. Ouch.
Real life language: Belgian

Name of Country:
Predominate race: human
Predominate alignment: Lawful Good (45%)
Religion: Angelic in nature. Hierarchy like the Roman Catholic Church.
Culture: Similar to 18th to 19th Century Spain but more religiously tolerant.
Real life language: Spanish

Name of Country:
Predominate race: goblin
Predominate alignment: Lawful Neutral (65%)
Religion: Highly Calvinist in nature. They tend to have a strong belief in predestination.
Culture: 17th Century England under the Protectorate.
Real life language: English

Name of Country:
Predominate race: orcs
Predominate alignment: Lawful Evil (73%)
Religion: Celtic in nature as well as diabolical and warmongering.
Culture: A mix of Celtic culture, including visual arts, druidic rites and music with Spartan domestic and military practices. They also practice Soviet style espionage, assassination and sabotage. Part of the reason behind their raids is to kidnap and indoctrinate the children of other races.
Real life languages: A combination of Irish Gaelic and Ancient Greek.

Take not that neither the elves are inherently Good, nor are the orcs inherently Evil. The elves have their own share of ruthless bastards just as the orcs have their few decent people.

Bellmaethorion
2008-01-23, 03:27 AM
Well, there is a few things you can do to make up names more "easily"

Name places after important people.
Who was the first ruler of these lands?
Who saved it from some threat?
Or who has such a big ego that they would name the place after themselves?

Though this of course means you'd have to have names of people, which might be just as difficult.

What you can also do, is look at a map(or heck, google earth) of the real world, get a name from there and change it a bit.
For example, the Belgian halflings:
there's a province/region called the "Vlaamse Gewest"
Vlaams(Flemish) can be worked with...
you change some letters...
Vlaams - Waens
Waenia

And you have a location name.:smallbiggrin:
And if that feels like cheating, you can always just look at the place and see what kind of names there are

though, seeing as how you asked for some names...
human-spanish - Hemero (pronounced Him-airoh)
goblin-english - Cuppatea?:smallwink: Corqui (Korkwi)
Gaelic/Greek orcs - Forfaed (fourfaid)

Racial names... elves, if still at least a bit haughty, would see themselves as better, higher, brighter.
Therefor, I'd say something like Ilinia, it sounds bright.

Dwarves, stone, they originate mainly from Germanic and Norse mythology, norse for "stone"... doesn't work, swedish however, gives me "kärna"
continueing with swedish, a search for "people" gives me "folk"
Kärnfolket. pronounce it germanny(with attention to the umlaut) and it might work.

Belgian halflings... Being dutch myself, this just seems bound to be a very silly place, but... name.
Getting back to Waenia, I'd think that they named the place after themselves.
The Waener.

Orcs, Gael-Greek, a search on both Gaelic and Greek dictionary sites gives me Paidhub

Goblins - english based, searching old english...
níetan

Leaves the gnomes, I believe?
Die Barbegais, from barbegazi, gnome-like creatures in, amongst other countries, french folklore.

And with that, I think I covered everything.
Hope it's helpful:smallbiggrin:

Duke Malagigi
2008-01-23, 07:33 PM
Thank you Bellmaethorion, that's all I need right now.