A Predicament of Subtlety

[Neon Knight]

Essentially, here is my problem:

Being a fan of Dynasty Warriors and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in general, I have the urge to slip in occasional references to these works in my games.

In this particular instance, I have decided to name a historical despot in my setting after Dong Zhuo, the petty and tyrannical warlord. I have been unable to devise a clever way to corrupt or conceal the name Dong Zhuo, so as to make it subtle rather than blatant.

Any ideas?

[Nohwl]

pronounce it wrong?

[ColonelFuster]

Well, Dong is kind of a funny name to begin with. How about switchin' it up? Zhon Duog. From my experience DMing, it makes a world of difference when you add an accent. Like, maybe I would over-emphasize the "zh", and add a grace note constanant at the end of the g, making it, ZH!-on duog(e).

[TheDarkOne]

Wang Zou maybe?

[JeminiZero]

Make an Anagram?

Dong Zhuo = Zod Gunho?

[bosssmiley]

Pinyin: Dong Zhuo
Wade-Giles: Tung Cho

Problem solved :smallwink:

♪ La la la-la-la, la la la-la-la ♪
/"The Egg Word" theme tune (link (http://www.televisiontunes.com/F_Word_-_Full_Version_(The).html))

Oh god no! It's by the cretins who did that execrable brainworm of a choon "You're Gooooooooorgeeeeeeooooouuuuussssss". Now I feel quite soiled.

[Paragon Badger]

Essentially, here is my problem:

Being a fan of Dynasty Warriors and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in general, I have the urge to slip in occasional references to these works in my games.

In this particular instance, I have decided to name a historical despot in my setting after Dong Zhuo, the petty and tyrannical warlord. I have been unable to devise a clever way to corrupt or conceal the name Dong Zhuo, so as to make it subtle rather than blatant.

Any ideas?

Dong Zhuo (董卓) also had a style name, 'Zhongyin' (仲穎) you can take into account.

The Chinese language (http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php) is rife with puns and/or multiple meanings. You can simply take 'Dong' and 'Zhuo', search them up in that link, and make wordplay out of their meaning. :smalltongue:

From just now; his name means '(Dong); supervise; to direct; director' and '(Zhuo); outstanding'

and his style means '(Zhong) middle brother; go between, mediator; surname' and '(Yin) rice tassel; sharp point; clever'

If your setting isn't asian in nature, you could simply find those words in the native language (Latin rootwords work well in european fantasy setting) that fit and derive the name from those. Like, using his style name, find the latin words for Brother and Sharp- then derive something cool-sounding from them, as JK Rowling did.

[nweismuller]

Vis-a-vis the 'translating into European', maybe something like Archimagnus would work? 'Archi-' being 'ruler' or 'director', and 'magnus' of course being 'great'.