PC 'Titles' and nicknames

[MarkusWolfe]

First, before I scare you off with my own story, this thread is a place to share any interesting 'titles' you've seen a PC pick up. This can include official titles and stuff, but for the most part I imagine it's going to be nicknames.

I, for example, was up last night with the Nerd Club in a character generation meeting. One guy was working on a human Paladin, and wanted to use a Tower Shield. I suggested that somewhere down the line he pick up a lance to use on with his Mount and Tower Shield. This quickly led to his character being dubbed 'The Holy Jouster'.

Mind you, I'm sitting there trying to come up with titles, not anything big, just something kobolds and goblins can scream in fear as they flee from me when I gain some notoriety, for my CG human Barbarian. I'd only been able to come up with some less than original stuff (The Slayer of the Vile, The Executioner of the Heinous, The Bane of the Wicked, The Thunderous Brute, The Thunderous Beast and The Thunderous One) and I was a bit jealous that he came up with a title so naturally. C'est la vie.

But enough about me; what's your stories?

[Talon Sky]

Two of my players in my most recent campaign picked up nicknames/titles at the end from the public. The dog-hegoneki (spelling, I know, we just called them Nekos) Samurai picked up the title "War-fang" from the rest of his dog-man tribe.

The dwarf in the party became known as Valnar the Unlucky, because his player had a penchant for rolling 1's.

[comicshorse]

I'm playing a Pit fighter and Minstrel in Warhammer. The guy is a supreme egoist and tells stories of his own exploits ( often involving the rest of the group in minor rolls). He is Vincennzi and always introduces himself as 'Vincennzi the- Valorous/Victorious/Vulpine/Violent/Voluptary/etc depending on the situation.
To make matters more confusing the Elf in our group annoyed at the stories and his role as supporting player in them has started telling comedy stories of the great idiot Vinncenzi the Vacant. Also a Slannesh cult has started spreading stories of the great and decadent hero Vincennzi the Vainglorious. Not to mention of course the Minstrels who are just making up stories of their own based on the various Vincennzi's

[MarkusWolfe]

I'm playing a Pit fighter and Minstrel in Warhammer. The guy is a supreme egoist and tells stories of his own exploits ( often involving the rest of the group in minor rolls). He is Vincennzi and always introduces himself as 'Vincennzi the- Valorous/Victorious/Vulpine/Violent/Voluptary/etc depending on the situation.
To make matters more confusing the Elf in our group annoyed at the stories and his role as supporting player in them has started telling comedy stories of the great idiot Vinncenzi the Vacant. Also a Slannesh cult has started spreading stories of the great and decadent hero Vincennzi the Vainglorious. Not to mention of course the Minstrels who are just making up stories of their own based on the various Vincennzi's

That's more or less how folk heroes happen.

[gdiddy]

Titles are fantastic way of awarding players. They are fantastically immersive. If everyone who meets your character knows their kenning, they can feel special without being given a single xp.

Titles must be pithy. Ideally, they're also iambic or spondaic. If the first syllable of one word is the same as the last, or a complimentary syllable, people are going to use it more often.

The Holy Jouster is iambic, but breaks down as an example because Holy and Jouster both take a lot of effort to say. People are lazy. Tongues, doubly so.

Awesome titles for a man who fights with a tower shield:

The Tower of (Town he's From)

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Pro-tip: He should care about where he's from. So should everyone he meets. This town or village or city produces great warriors with cool nicknames.

[Name] Chargebreaker

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Pro-tip: I admit, when someone earns a name like Chargebreaker, they're probably going to get Hold the Line as a free feat, or else a morale bonus to AC against charges.

The High-Shield

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Pro-tip: "High", "Great", "Seven", and "Thrice" are great filler syllables.

[MarkusWolfe]

Well, we were also considering giving him the title of 'The Holy Lancer'... is that iambic enough? Alternatively, we could keep Holy Jouster because the amount of effort it takes shows their awe of him...

[gdiddy]

I think the word "holy" in the problem.

A cooler construction might be kenning-style: (Name) [The] Godlance

"The" is optional.

[Scarey Nerd]

I actually gave my Changeling Rogue this name myself, as an example of his extreme vanity: "The Shifting Plague".

It might be an inappropriate name for the nutcase that he is, but I don't know...

[Jastermereel]

One of my players, running as a Goliath Barbarian (and a diplomat for her people) had "Marmot Herder" as an honorific thanks to her player's willingness to stick with the first result from Races of Stone's Goliath name table. It's been something of an embarrassment for the character, but we've retroactively justified it noting that trying to work with the diplomats of the smaller hairier squishier races (at least, when compared with Goliaths) is like trying to herd marmots. This doesn't make it any less embarrassing for the character though.

She should just be glad she's not herding cats. As any commoner can tell you, they're mighty dangerous beasts.

[TheThan]

I had a halfing rogue named Aaron “the goblin slayer” Dingleberry for exactly that reason. He had a talent for insta-gibing goblins from concealment (sneak attack for the win). Goblins from near and afar trembled at the sound of my name.

[ScionoftheVoid]

Whenever I play my character names are shortened to a single syllable that is easy to spell. For example, Nighmar "the Alleycat" became Nee. Having my half-elf dedicated to the genocide of one of his parent races often referred to as "Nee" did not help his temper. Nor did losing his arm before gaining training with his brand new magic scythe. It was all shiny and everything.

[true_shinken]

Two of my players in my most recent campaign picked up nicknames/titles at the end from the public. The dog-hegoneki (spelling, I know, we just called them Nekos) Samurai picked up the title "War-fang" from the rest of his dog-man tribe.

Considering neko means cat and it's actually spelled hengeyokai, that's funny as hell.

[Grynning]

this reminds me of a story - in a 3.5 epic game of many years ago, we had a Sorcerer who took the title of "Gael the Repentant" for killing a bunch of good guys with friendly fire (mostly by accident)...

until our party's rogue did something much worse (also by accident), at which time the Sorcerer officially changed his name to "Gael the Not-quite-so-bad-by-comparison."

[Fayd]

I got the title "One-Eye" at the end of my second session ever. I got hit by a lucky crit.

My current character? I have a self-given title that is important and ... hasn't come to light yet.

[big teej]

I've a few
the following contains my favorite

Cog - human barbarian
nicknames/titles
magebane/magekiller/magesmoosher/any variation thereof - I killed a wizard..... by tripping and falling on him..... and hitting him with my head
skulltaker - yep, you guessed it, post mortum decapitations

[TurtleKing]

I as the player have a nicname among the group I play with. My DM has the prinny race statted out. First session I died twice becoming a prinny, and now I am known as Prinny. The funnier part about that is it is meant to be a little bit insulting; the prinny I played became awesome, and had the party become deities at level five becaus of the prinny.

[WarKitty]

We did have one character that was referred to as "The Stupid Dwarf." For the entire campaign. In front of him.

[senrath]

My Gnome Sorcerer is called "Mustard" by the rest of the group. This is because he apparently looks like the last gnome that was in the group (the player of which left before I joined) whose name kept being mispronounced into "Mayonnaise."

[Katana_Geldar]

We nicknamed the cleric in my Tomb of Horrors group "Bones" as that's what the character ends up doing. The guy who plays the character (subbing for someone else by the way, long story) does do McCoy impressions.

[Marnath]

Warforged fighter 10/Warforged Juggernaut 5 Named Haakuulerthaan. That's Goblin for "Genocide." No one besides goblins actually called him that, they just called him Scythe. Which is funny because he used a Greatsword.

[MarkusWolfe]

Nice.......mine's a headhunter too, but I think I'll stick with 'The Thunderous Brute'. I'm looking into some necklaces which increase my size category (Torc of continual Enlarge Person? Surprisingly cheap. Torc of Continual Righteous Might? Not so cheap.) and 'The Thunderous Brute' creates exactly the sort of image I'm looking for: A big hairy man the size of an ogre who just cleaves through all your evil minions, breaks down your door and bullrushes you out the window (living in a tower doesn't seem like a good idea anymore, does it now Mr. Evil Wizard?)

[valadil]

Don't overdo the titles too much. I had a bard whose schtick was to gain a new title every session. By level 17 the other PCs threw rocks at him whenever he introduced himself to anyone, so he went all emo and had the party slain.

[the humanity]

I have many characters with titles or nicknames.

I had Verum "the Smiler" Seil, Former Guildmaster.
there was Bear. just Bear.
and I'm making a nezumi gladiator whose stage name was 'Mousetrap'.

[Drascin]

A few of my players have acquired nicknames.

My old group got the collective nickname of "The Butcherers of the Sword Coast", for that incident with dropping a flying island into the sea and causing a tsunami that leveled a good part of aforementioned Sword Coast (long story).

Then there was Trotsky "Stone Hard" the Half-Giant (for headbutting his way out of a stone prison while repeating "Trotsky be harder than stone!"), or "Multiple" Tim (a wizard who seemed to have a fetish for Mirror Image), or my own Nayaire "the God-less" (for being an acerbic nay-theist in a world where gods didn't have much trouble lightningbolting you - and surviving)...

[One Step Two]

I introduced my character as a mercenary with no name. Partly because I had no idea what to name them at the time. I wanted to be mysterious, and only described their appearance, mentioning a cool spider that was painted on my shield, and all of a sudden my character was called "The Spider." The GM ran with it, and made it like a rumour mill about what "The Spider" Could do. From stopping a burning building with nothing but a wet towel, to ruining the virtues of a dozen women in a single night! Which in itself was odd, because other than shrouding the mercanries identity, it was a woman under all that armour.

[Snake-Aes]

Lightning Weasel

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My character was an elf monk//ardent gestalt, and the dm let me take the prestige class "storm disciple". Eventually we were doing some covert spying/guerrilla warfare with the Black Alliance, and he died. Without a nearby priest and needing the character active, our druid tries and reincarnates, and he comes back as a dire weasel. All jokes aside, eventually the group engages in open combat with an entire warcamp (300~ warriors). Fearing being overwhelmed, my elf tells the group to retreat, that he will hold them back. Over 80 hobgoblins die in the hands of a huge weasel crackling with electricity in claws and fangs that just shouldn't be that sharp, quickly jumping from an enemy to the next. The rest of the camp fortifies and my elf flees to meet the rest of the group (400' per round running). Over the months in the campaign, the banner of the weasel coiling around a lightning bolt became a symbol of resistance against the Black Alliance.

[fortesama]

We tend to pick up titles for our PCs and they're kinda... odd. and also makes me want to throw some of my imported comics at whoever gave them due to copyright infringement. We had received things like say:

* The Searing Divine Flame for our sorcerer/incantatrix who had a thing for souped-up Orbs of Fire.
* Little Pandemonium for our gnome barbarian/frenzied berserker.
* Wonderful Shrine Maiden of Paradise for our female cleric... mine actually.
* Ordinary Black Magician for our wizard... mine again.
* Seven-coloured Pupeteer for our artificer

and many more.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

I tend to use names and nicknames from real world places and things. One example is my Pathfinder Gnome Warlock. His name is Garet Yasur; the names of 2 active volcanoes in the Ring of Fire. He *just happens* to have the Devil bloodline from Unearthed Arcana, and he *just happens* to have levels of Binder and Hellfire Warlock... I wonder how that happened...

Through the wonder of a Deck of Many Things, he has 2 duplicates of himself. Garet is CE . His opposite is LG with a Vow of Nonviolence and Poverty . His 3rd "brother" is an insane deviant . My goal is to help the insane one, and convert the good one.

[panaikhan]

I have a Warforged Juggernaut; with Jaws of Death, a weapon-familiar spiked tail, and can set things on fire by looking at them.
I named it 'Glitch', but by the time it got to it's current form, people were calling it 'Mechzilla'.

[Slots]

Raen the Oblivious:

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Human fighter with 8 Wisdom. The -1 he gets to spot and listen shouldn't be too bad, but my dice decided otherwise. It all started when our party was sleeping in an inn where a patron got kidnapped out a second story window. At three different points during the kidnapping and by three different party members the door to my fighter's room was banged on very loudly. He did not wake up until the whole ordeal was over when someone came into his room and physically woke him up.

It happened again while taking watch in the wilderness. Raen failed his spot listen checks until one of the other party members woke up screaming as a starved wolf was biting their legs. Needless to say they didn't put him on watch duty during the night anymore.

We came across depressions in the ground and my character decided to walk into one. The party had the chase down the Ankheg that was now carrying off my fighter. Later that day we found a puddle of ooze that needed a good poking. Raen ended up in the middle of some sort of slime (dont remember which). Lucky for him he had enough time to get air and enough con to last until the party killed the thing. They don't let him poke things anymore either unless it is actively trying to kill the party. (This is more a side effect of low wisdom than bad rolls)

To top it all off, the only listen check he ever passed was the hear a harpy's song. Sadly my party wasn't able to stop Raen from walking off a cliff due to the enticing song. At least he landed on a ledge close enough to keep him alive (rolled a D% to see if he hit the bottom of the 200+ ft cliff or landed on a ledge somewhere).

Every listen/spot roll this character has had ended up being below 5 except for the one to hear the harpy.