Three Name Generators

So, I ended up going to the trouble of making three Name Generators. The first is based on Irish names, the second on Welsh names, and the third on Germanic names. Enjoy.

The Gygax 75 Challenge Part 6

When detailing the Town for the Gygax 75 Challenge, Otus suggests by starting with the equipment list. With it, various locals can be intuited: “a smith for arms and armor, a stable for mounts, etc.”

I haven’t really looked at Moldvay’s equipment list in a long time. I am normally playing a clone due to the fact that having one or more physical rulebooks at the table is both satisfying and useful and my physical copy of Basic D&D is rather fragile. So I was rather shocked that there is a glaring omission from his list: there isn’t anything there having to do with travel. There are no horses, no other types of animals, and no vehicles whether land or water. I guess this stems from the fact that I actually never played with Moldvay’s rules back in the day. When I did play Basic, it was with Holmes and his list has a mule, four types of horses and two each for land and water vehicles.

So, strictly speaking, if I am staying within Moldvay as much as I possibly can (and I have only violated this limitation twice in this whole process: once to grab the pterodactyl from Cook and once to grab a 3rd-level magic-user spell for a treasuries my dungeon), I really only have two shops in town: the place that sells armor and weapons, and the place that sells everything else.

At this point, Otus suggests using a name generator. I don’t disagree; however, I do have a piece of advice. In order to give a campaign a sense of place and culture, it is useful to assign real world naming conventions to different cultures in the game world. For example, one of the coolest non-gaming books I own that I use almost exclusively for gaming is The Celtic Book of Names by D. J. Conway.  It lists names from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Each list of names could represent a different culture in my world. In order to give a fantasy flair to these lists, a random name table can be easily generated by choosing first and second syllables from each list of names. For example:

First Syllable (Irish)

1. Aed-
2. Bra-
3. Cal-
4. Con-
5. Dub-
6. Fin-
7. Mac-
8. Shan-
9. Tor-
10. Uil-

Second Syllable (Male/Irish)

1. -ach
2. -aed
3. -an
4. -art
5. -bre
6. -ger
7. -ghus
8. -lain
9. -lum
10. -thi

Second Syllable (Female/Irish)

1. -ait
2. -cla
3. -dre
4. -eal
5. -een
6. -ind
7. -is
8. -ith
9. -na
10. -ri

With a ‘3’ and a ‘5’ I get Calbre (male) or Caleen (female) and with a ‘9’ and a ‘2’ I get Toraed (male) or Torcla (female). A repeated letter here or there to make it look better is up to you. This exercise will result in names that sound slightly familiar, seem to be related, and yet are far enough outside the real world to fit in a fantasy setting. Of course, these lists can be expanded well beyond just ten entries. I limited myself for brevity’s sake.

My two stores can thus be called: Calleen’s General Store and Toraed’s Armory.

I know that I will eventually need to give my players access to Cook’s list of land and water vehicles, so I need to have a place for them. The randomly generated map I used for my town offers an intriguing solution to the problem. Outside the walls of Darkport are two small communities. In the north, there is Newsteps and opposite is South Ward. Given the harsh conditions of the immediate area (arctic), population growth isn’t a satisfying answer to explain why these two communities exist.

A far more satisfying answer is economic necessity. Vehicles and animals of burden are not allowed inside the walls of Darkport. Thus, all economic activity that relates to those items found on Cook’s equipment list would have to exist outside of Darkport. Thus, Newsteps and South Ward come about to cater to this economic need.

Saintly Saturday: 40 Martyrs of Sebastia

Technically, today’s feast was celebrated yesterday because of a rare confluence of events. March 9th is the Feast of the 40 Martyrs of Sebastia; however, today is also the Saturday of the Souls — a penitential day remembering all the dead throughout the ages that trumps any celebration of a saint’s feast. Due to the fact the the 40 martyrs are so beloved, their feast gets moved so that they can be properly celebrated, even though are still remembered today (welcome to the wonderfully complex world of the Orthodox liturgical calendar).

The 40 were soldiers in the Roman army serving in the east. They declared themselves to be Christian when St. Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity legal; however, the persecutions continued in some parts of the empire.

The martyrs were arrested, stripped of their military rank and their clothes, and cast into a frozen lake. A temporary bath house with warmed water was built on shore in order to tempt them. During the night, a soldier named Aglaius was tasked with guarding the forty and receiving any who would deny Christ. He was given a vision of angels bestowing crowns to 39 of the 40. The one without a crown gave up the contest and denied Christ. Seeing this, Aglaius professed himself a Christian and voluntarily climbed into the frozen lake so that their number stayed at 40.

The next morning, nearly dead from the cold, they were thrown into a fire and burned to death. Given my recent rumination on names, I think it appropriate to list all forty:

1. Acacius
2. Aetius
3. Aglaius
4. Alexander
5. Angus
6. Athanasius
7. Candidus
8. Chudion
9. Claudius
10. Cyril
11. Cyrion
12. Dometian
13. Domnus
14. Ecdicius
15. Elias
16. Eunoicus
17. Eutyches
18. Eutychius
19. Flavius
20. Gaius
21. Gorgonius
22. Helianus
23. Heraclius
24. Hesychius
25. John
26. Lysimachus
27. Meliton
28. Nicholas
29. Philoctemon
30. Priscus
31. Sacerdon
32. Severian
33. Sisinius
34. Smaragdus
35. Theodulus
36. Theophilus
37. Valens
38. Valerius
39. Vivianus
40. Xanthias

There is an interesting account of the recovery of the relics of the 40 martyrs in the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen. He claims to be an eye witness to some of the events, which started with a vision granted the Empress Pulcheria by St. Thyrsus. This led to an investigation which eventually led to the discovery of the relics.

This invites a meditation upon the concept of the treasure map, because the vision received by Empress Pulcheria could very well be interpreted as a kind of treasure map and the relics were certainly considered to be a great treasure. 

I have given out a great number of treasure maps in my day, even a few that did not look like a traditional map (an icosahedron with clues to various means of finding said treasure, for example), but I have never had much success with having my players actually use these maps (even those meticulously prepared to be really cool props at the table). The only time something of this nature actually ever panned out to having the players actually find a treasure was with a similar situation to that of empress Pulcheria.

For my players, at least, the key to get them to engage such things is a kind of interactivity. A conversation with a saint offers a far more enticing adventure seed than a piece of parchment with an ‘X’ on it. Thus, at my table, the concept of treasure map really needs to be removed from its classical form and be re-interpreted.

Besides a vision of a saint, here are a few ideas for transforming the treasure map into something my players might actually be interested in:

• A clockwork automaton that, when asked the proper questions, reveals the location of treasure.
• A sphinx, whose “treasure” is actually information.
• A puzzle that leads to more puzzles (and possibly various parts of a broken magical artifact).
• A familiar of a dead wizard, that somehow managed to survive that death (which could be a very cool mystery unto itself).
• An intelligent sword that seeks out the remains of its proper owner.

What have been some of your most successful uses of the treasure map concept?

Averoigne Name Generator

I have to admit, this post is mostly for me. The most difficult thing that I do as both a player and a referee is names. Regardless of the game, the most difficult part of character creation for me is naming the character. A majority of the NPCs in my campaigns are actually named by players, not me.

Thus, one of my favorite resources when it comes to campaign worlds is a list of names. What follows is a list of names found in Averoigne; however, I have endeavored to make this list even more useful than it already is for me.

There are two lists, one for male names and the other for female names. Each list has 100 names, therefore I can simply roll a d100 to come up with the name of an NPC. In addition, the first 50 names in each list are Averni names and the second 50 are Salian names.

Thus, with one roll I not only have a name for an NPC, but a general background and a general disposition towards the PCs depending upon their background and the organizations they belong to.

Of course, if I specifically need an Averni name, I can simply subtract 50 from the roll if it is 51+ and do the opposite if I need a Salian name. Also note that since all Dwarves, Elves, Half-elves and Halflings are born of human parents, these tables cover names for them as well.

Male Names

1. Ailin
2. Ascon
3. Braddon
4. Brian
5. Callan
6. Colum
7. Donal
8. Doolish
9. Edern
10. Eoin
11. Ferghus
12. Finlo
13. Garmon
14. Gilbrid
15. Herve
16. Hugh
17. Illiam
18. Ionhar
19. Jago
20. Jowan
21. Kerron
22. Kitto
23. Lonan
24. Lucan
25. Manus
26. Mudach
27. Nele
28. Nevan
29. Ogma
30. Oran
31. Patric
32. Peddyr
33. Quillon
34. Quin
35. Rigard
36. Robart
37. Sedric
38. Sorely
39. Thaddy
40. Torin
41. Ullick
42. Urmen
43. Vaddon
44. Vaughn
45. Wilmot
46. Withell
47. Yann
48. Yestin
49. Zephan
50. Zethar
51. Alberic
52. Anskar
53. Arnulf
54. Berno
55. Brice
56. Cheldric
57. Clodomir
58. Clovis
59. Cyr
60. Dalfin
61. Dreux
62. Drogo
63. Ebbo
64. Emmeran
65. Fardulf
66. Folmar
67. Gerold
68. Giso
69. Grimbald
70. Gunthar
71. Hilduin
72. Hincmar
73. Hunald
74. Imbert
75. Leodegar
76. Lothar
77. Mauger
78. Merovech
79. Nithard
80. Notker
81. Odo
82. Odulf
83. Orderic
84. Panteleon
85. Pepin
86. Radigis
87. Rothad
88. Sergius
89. Sigebert
90. Suidger
91. Taurin
92. Thankmar
93. Theodulf
94. Theodoric
95. Vigor
96. Vulmar
97. Walaric
98. Wibert
99. Wulfram
100. Zwentibold

Female Names

1. Aine
2. Alma
3. Binne
4. Blair
5. Breena
6. Cahan
7. Creidne
8. Davan
9. Dymphna
10. Eilis
11. Ena
12. Finola
13. Flidais
14. Gemma
15. Gweneth
16. Hilda
17. Honorah
18. Ina
19. Isleen
20. Jileen
21. Juliane
22. Keelie
23. Kinnat
24. Mabh
25. Morgan
26. Myrna
27. Nia
28. Nola
29. Oona
30. Ornice
31. Payton
32. Philomena
33. Renny
34. Rowena
35. Sine
36. Sorcha
37. Sybil
38. Tara
39. Troya
40. Tuiren
41. Uli
42. Ursula
43. Vevina
44. Vivienne
45. Whiltiera
46. Withypol
47. Yseult
48. Yvon
49. Zaira
50. Zinna
51. Adallinda
52. Adaltrude
53. Adelheid
54. Alpaida
55. Alpais
56. Ansgard
57. Aubirge
58. Audofleda
59. Basina
60. Berenga
61. Bertha
62. Bertrada
63. Clothild
64. Eadgithu
65. Emma
66. Engelberga
67. Ermengard
68. Ermentrudis
69. Fara
70. Fastrada
71. Foy
72. Genofeva
73. Gersvinda
74. Gisela
75. Gudula
76. Gudule
77. Gundrada
78. Herleva
79. Hildegard
80. Hildegund
81. Hiltrude
82. Hodierna
83. Ingeltrude
84. Joveta
85. Liutgarde
86. Madelgarde
87. Mechtild
88. Moschia
89. Oda
90. Ogiva
91. Radogund
92. Rosamund
93. Rothaide
94. Rotrude
95. Rotrudis
96. Ruothilde
97. Theodelinda
98. Theoderada
99. Theutberga
100. Waldrada