Making a Name

 Sundered over on his blog asked to hear about others' methods for coming up with the names featured in their games, even being so kind as to call me one of the good name-finders. Since what I do is pretty simple, I thought I would walk through my methods.

 Method 1: Weighted d20 Table
You look up names from the two or three inspirational sources you've selected, typically cultures from two different continents you think go together well. Then you make a d20 table that's weighted into a light Zipf Distribution. Maybe there's one really common name that has a 4-in-20 chance of being selected, two 2-in-20s, four 1-in-20s, and an 8-in-20 chance of consulting a much longer "rare" name table. If there's different classes of name, like if the setting has gendered names or there's some class or culture split, it's not to hard to make multiple of these tables. Don't be afraid of "normal" names like Tom and Margaret and Wei and Ramesh. With the profusions of Elijahs (Holy Selmat), Udens and Udenos (Acmori), and Ashurs (Locheil's Ashes to Ashes), you'll want to use...

Method 2: Epithets
You might have a sense that in many places, before surnames became formal and standard, people were referred to by their appearance, where they lived, their occupations, and so on. What's neat is that we still do this naturally. When there's three Sams in your college class and you don't know their last names, you might refer to one as "Tall Sam" and another as "Sam from our Dorm" and another as "Girl Sam". Some fantasy settings get really silly with this, and make everyone's surname something like "Bronzebreaker" and "Trueshot". I find that loses the reassuring veracity you can achieve with more plausible epithets, only breaking out the fancy titles for rare characters and demigods. Epithets are also a useful characterizing cheat for DMs, as you can get a result like "Gwen the Lovable" and consider whether she really is that lovable, if the epithet is ironic, if she gave it to herself, or what.

Method 3: Behind the Name
Namers of people must occasionally come into contact with the website behindthename.com, but they may be unfamiliar with its name generator. Glogger deus ex parabola showed me the pleasant mixture when you select about three categories to get, once again, that pleasant melange. In his Unfinished World setting, for instance, he's observed that Dutch and Chinese names, though lacking any obvious affinity, end up going together "like peanut butter and jelly." There are some shortcomings of the website. You can quibble with the categories, like "African" being too broad. When you generate with a melange of categories, you'll find that some are much deeper than others, and there's no way to weight them equally. Still, if you can get it right, you'll be well-served. Again, don't be afraid of common names.

These Arabic names are all beautiful, but I was hoping to get more Thai names in the mix : /

 Method 4: Unprincipled Translation
This method is more for place names. You simply head to google translate and shift a word into another language. "Sweet Water" becomes "Acqua Dolce", for instance. If you don't like the look of the translated word, check for synonyms or input a slightly different word. It also helps to learn some of the affixes of the target language that relate to place names, so rather than a native speaker seeing your map labelled "Sword" and "Pig" and "Corruption", they read "Swordton" and"Pigville" and "Corruption City". Much better.

Method 5: Gygaxian Combination
I remember reading "Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names" and finding it only so-so in the current environment of good name resources online, but was struck by its Appendix C, in which they advocate just stringing together random letters, with a very simple structure to make it kind-of pronounceable. These results are crunchy and noisy, but sometimes offer something usable. My two PCs in Locheil's A2A campaign, Urisiha and Etekam, were named by a simple version of this method. My Wild West Wizard Generator uses a noisy name generator that gives names like Enlaac, Bidenue, Jeage, Laem, Ayiaxuf. Definitely a "sometimes food", but your setting has plenty of people with common names, so this wizard nonsense will properly stand out.

Method 6: Substitution
In Arnold K.'s blogpost on creativity, he sets out a method I've used a couple of times, where you find a word you like and shift the consonants around until it's untraceable and fresh, as in the shift  of 'jerusalem' to 'cheluzaren'. You really can't argue with the results.

Method 7: Gene/Ration and Gener/Ation
A simple way to randomly combine and recycle name elements that's a bit more low-tech than using Markov Chains involves breaking a bunch of names in half and sorting them into two piles: beginnings that end in a vowel, beginnings that end in a consonant, endings that begin with a vowel, and endings that begin with a consonant. Then you make a big table of each and connect beginnings that end with a vowel to an ending that begins with a constant and beginnings that end with a consonant to an ending that begins with a vowel. You can depart strategically from the strict form, but beware unaussprechlichen name. My Deserts of Vo hive generator uses this method, and you can see where it sometimes goes wrong. My names of Manteau generator includes a parenthetical consonant as a hedge that makes you decide each time whether it works better with it or not.

Method 8: Fantasy Name Generators
Another great resource is fantasynamegenerators.com, which has a surprising profusion of generators for a variety of situations. Some are better than others, but I note that many of the generators for real-life culture groups seem to hold up okay, even with the occasional compromise. Their lack of what I consider an ideal American name generator inspired my own effort, which I've found holds up pretty well.

Method 9: Stupid Jokes
As is traditional, RPGs can bear a lot of unprincipled and stupid etymologies. "Sex: M Race: Elf" becomes "Melf". Writers reverse or anagrammize their own names to appel to powerful wizards. A writer notice that the Greek name "Charops" looks like "Char op" as in "Character Optimization" and finds it funny. The renowned senator Doritus. Conan's slightly worse cousin Donan. Just calling a guy Aragorn. All of that is fun and fair, even in a serious game. If you run it well, people will take Aragorn the Warlock seriously pretty much right away. 

Method 10: Trust Your Heart
In a similar vein, because it's a fun game you play with your friends, you should sometimes force yourself to come up with a name on the spot, with no table or generator and little consideration for suitability. Sometimes the name "Craig" will come out, and sometimes it will be "Bald Dad." This is the ultimate form of the lesson all these different lesson teach you, to separate your preconceptions about a name from the name as it exists in the world. Don't avoid the name Barney because it reminds you of the Flintstones, reclaim it to a mindset that predates television and cigarette product placement. Don't invent a world where no one has embarrassing names. Let someone with an embarrassing name be a threat, a lover, a power player. Names are powerful! Make them your power!

You are ready for A D V E N T U R E ! 

The Collected Works (Canon as Spellbooks)

 Writing on the theme of a lost spellbook, suggested by Semiurge for Glaugust 2026.

Inspired by this post over on Oversights and Oubliettes, as well as the same book that inspired it, I present six manuscripts attributed to the same author. Unlike Regalia’s work, these are not based on the works of real history, which risks a diminished sense of grandeur— few settings have a Caesar that excites us as much as the historical Caesar. But I hope the relationship between the fictional history and the ongoing in-game conflict can maintain interest.

Charops, Father of Cartographers
Every scholar basically agrees that Charops was born in Cessily, moved to Fantasy Rome as a young man, and rose to prominence as a wise man, administrator, and scholar. Charops’s books on distant lands, gathered from both firsthand and secondhand research, are legendary. His signature method of discerning whether men who brought him tales of strange sights had actually been far abroad, checking their memory of the route they took against his own later voyage, provides us with accurate reports of shipping lanes and geography of use to this day. In later years, Charops was accused by his enemies of embezzlement and exiled to the countryside. Many of his writings were burned. The resulting lacuna spurs on fanciful rumors that the scholar was perfecting a book of spells to utterly perfect human virtue, granting someone a truly optimal character. Common folk remember him as a cautionary tale against politicians getting too airy-fairy and ungrounded. Scribes remember him as a cautionary tale against bright minds getting involved in politics.

Travels: 

• Exemplary: Bubble Trick (creates an orb of breath that cannot be breached, saved by very careful sawing, for up to six hours. At your discretion, it can be buoyant or static.)
• Decent: Weight Anchor (discern the relative quality of ships and their crew. Among other things, detect the result of any Reaction Roll made with them.)
• Poor: explains the forms of address and request for hospitality of the gnolls of Thrinos, famously mercurial and irascible people with the heads of beasts, but whose high priest is thought to be the most beautiful yet living, and bless'd with clear vision of the days to come.
• Mouldering: warns of the location of the Thassopinon, a whirlpool that wanders through a given territory throughout the year, created by a giant fish from the underworld.

Lesser Travels:

• Great: shows an infallible index for predicting the weather, with just a banner and a simple sextant.
• Decent: details the ruins of the town of Bourda, outside Vasilaea, and means of accessing the hidden stairs to a foyer of the underworld, where prisoners were exchanged with the long-dead, and gold was brought from below. Infested with shades, shelled monsters, and chthonic doubloons.
• Mouldering: Klarion (fires a magical burst straight in the air, leaving a floating, glowing, colorful sigil for four hours. If it strikes someone, deals 1d6 damage.)

On Moral Character: 

• Exemplary: sets out a general method for maintaining the proper relationship between patron and client. While practicing it, retainers and hirelings have +1 loyalty, and they never abandon or betray you without notice.
• Great: Expounding Principles (speak at length on the moral and historical considerations before a crowd, and they will listen. No one can ignore you. By the end, at least one important listener will become your hater, but another important listener will become your advocate.)
• Decent: Empathy (consider three questions about someone you've just met, and the DM will provide three truthful, perhaps incomplete, answers)
• Mouldering: provides meditations for diligence, allowing you to go a night without sleep, at no penalty.

On Perfection: pseudepigraphic. A trap for true seekers, but a good source of income for copyists.

• Decent: sets out the proper Fantasy Roman method for a proper patron-client relationship. While practicing it, retainers and hirelings have -1 loyalty, and will take the opportunity to screw over their overbearing and pompous boss on the way out if they abandon them.
• Poor: sets out a description of Charops's estate outside of Fantasy Rome, including its location and the valuable treasures, rare books, and magical experiments he accumulated to perfect his magnum opus. The entire description is fake, a combination of pecuniary motive and wishful thinking. Those who follow the directions to the estate will instead find a thorny woods in the middle of troll country, and get their asses hunted by a pair of panther-yechas.
• Mouldering: Interrogate the Soul (deals 1d3 permanent wisdom damage to the caster, but initially tell the player the book describes it as a spell to “glimpse the self, unvarnished by pride or cowardice, to grant the bravery understand oneself truly and know what faults must be excised.”)

Monstrous Manual: also called the Hand of Omens

• Exemplary: catalogues many types of creatures, with an index to aid study. 2-in-6 chance of identifying creatures upon seeing their true form, learning their name and their D&D 5e statblock (if not playing 5e) or their 1e MM statblock (if playing 5e). If the monster can't be found in the right source, it isn't described in the Hand of Omens beyond its name.
• Great: describes the differences between various dragons and semi-draconics and ranks them according to "Zariazois", a difficult-to-translate word that means something between hardiness and durability. Sets out their different abilities.
• Decent: Tireless Tracker (Shows the tread of the most recent creature to go through an area as silvery footsteps. Lasts until you stop following them for more than ten minutes)
• Poor: describes the differences between various goblinoids, including their Hardiness-Durability. Postulates what differences arise due to natural cultural development and what from different deific impacts on them.

My Life: 

• Exemplary: rare account of Charops's shameful exile, and a true account of his estate not near Fantasy Rome but in Cessily, the land of his birth. Describes how he used his modest means to prepare and fortify labs in his basement, and how he was saved from penury from the contributions of his friends and admirers who wanted him to continue his study. Sets out description of a lapidary vault with a combination-lock whose cypher changed with clues hidden throughout the house, an "angelic engine" which animated the lower workings, and an alchemical project to isolate and extract character traits. Careful study of context clues can reveal its precise location.
• Great: Tally-Line (conjures an intangible line segment that allows for accurate measurement of distances and lengths. Gives +2 to ranged attacks using it as a guide. Lasts ten minutes.)
• Decent: description of Charops's youth and exploits after coming to Fantasy Rome to seek his fortune. Partial map of the sewers under Fantasy Rome, as well as an indication of a hideout which has been home to a variety of denizens over time, always driving previous residents out. In his time, it was primarily home to a union of thieves who worshipped a patrician mummy. +3-in-6 chance of detecting secret doors in Romedeis's Shit-Hole.

Appendix A2 Generator⚙️

 Playing around with the Appendix A generator I made a while ago, as well as the dungeon generator I made for my Endless Eon, I notice that each does some of the work for you, but asks different things. Obviously neither can replace the vital creative element the DM provides, but the Appendix A generator wants you to place each room, like a tile, one by one to create a dungeon mosaic, before reasoning out connections and adding color. It's randomness will not give a perfect distribution of monsters/treasures/special rooms/exc., and so you'll replace rooms more often. It loves hallways. The Eon table has a more standardized distribution, and it establishes connections between sectors, but I found that making those connections actually took a lot of thinking as I was laying out. The monsters it came up with were also too generic, with no spark or spice.

This generator tries to get the best of both to my mind, numbering and lightly keying a dungeon, even including a couple simple factions. It mostly doesn't provide distance measurements, preferring for you to judge that as you're laying the dungeon out. It is all basically one floor, and you can roll again for a second floor. No real attention is paid to balancing encounters.

Special thanks to Louis and Locheil for their monster generator and to Dungeon Scrawler for their dungeon room index and to Ktrey for his fantastic list of smells and to Spwack for his great list-to-html generator.
 

 

d12 Yet Yet More Magic Items (collaboration with Mergo-Kan!)

 Satisfying PRIMEUMATON's prompt for Glaugust 2026 by bringing on a guest star, Mergo-Kan of A Sense of Immersion. Together we provide interesting objects and artifacts for your dungeon adventure game.

 

d12 Magic Items

1. Shroud of Cherette (Phlox) bulky, jaguar-faced helm fronting a long cloak of iron chains. Protects as mail armor, but provides great facility when in water. Totally submerged, the wearer can hold their breath for ten minutes and swim as though unencumbered. Standing partially submerged, they can run at full speed.

2. Scooper Slicer (Mergo-Kan) A brilliant battle-axe, pounded from a single huge bar of tarnished silver. The blades have a scoop to the right, and a half-circle carved into the top. The pommel is simply the rigid silver curled over itself into a little loop. What once was a giant's teaspoon, now has been sharpened into an axe worth a polish. If it is polished, the scoop part of the spoon (now the blades) can be used to direct light to start fires or blind enemies for a turn.

3. Three Sisters (Phlox) three standard-sized black belts, reinforced with metal rings. They share a sympathetic connection-- buckling one buckles all three, and unbuckling one likewise affects all. Forces might compete-- you can't squeeze someone in half by buckling a belt really tight while they're wearing its sister, unless you're strong enough to do that with a normal belt. 

4. Jar of Screams (Mergo-Kan) A glass jar filled with brackish liquid (formaldehyde) and a floating infantile head that has leaves growing from its scalp. The head is mostly still, but occasionally sticks its tongue out hungrily, or smacks its lips in quiet comfort. When the jar is thrown and broken open, the head hits open air and begins to scream the most shrill, sad, and painful scream one can imagine. All who hear it will take 1d10 psychic damage each turn, and must make a morale test against comforting the screaming head, to no avail.

5. Pigeon (Phlox) A spiked, dented metal ball with a ring-shaped indent, and a ring of just the right size to have come from the ball. The wearer of the ring can psychically control the ball, launching it clumsily with conductor-like gestures to strike at a target. Mechanically works like a +1 shortbow. 

6. Ring of Stars (Mergo-Kan) A blued metal band rung with seven sparkling diamonds. When you turn the ring upon your finger, the next item you grip tightly will ripple with light and implode into a shining white star, then float into the sky. At any time, you may spin the ring again and pluck the star from the sky, retrieving the item. The stars you place follow you, appearing in any sky you walk under. You may only starify seven objects at once, and they form a constellation that represents you or your story.

7. Oil of Weightlessness (Phlox) kept in a waxy tin, beautifully embossed with ad copy advertising its use. Rubbing the oil into something reduces its weight, even going negative if you rub enough in. There is enough oil in the tin to confer -1000 pounds (over 74 stone for metric readers), and careful application can allow for exact reductions. It comes with wax-treated gloves, as most waxes resist the oil soaking in. Lasts for about an hour outside the tin before evaporating. 

8. Drag Over-Alls (Mergo-Kan) A dusty denim pair of overalls, with an opal button on one side, and ugly little wood button on the other. The belt, back and front of the overalls have thick loops hanging off them. If you lash rope through the loops and properly secure it to an object, no matter how big, you can drag it at 5ft an hour with considerable effort. 

9. Spider Axe (Phlox) The hairy haft seems to softy breathe, and if cut bleeds some kind of hydraulic fluid. When thrown in an enclosed space, like a cramped dungeon room, if the attack misses you can make a second attack as it bounces off a nearby wall or flagstone to strike a different target. Likes to drink blood and milk. 

10. Loyal Toy Soldier (Mergo-Kan) A crude toy soldier carved from soft beach wood. In one hand is a halberd or rifle or spear, it is difficult to tell. It wears a large hat and has large boots. When this soldier is placed on the ground and its name is spoken, it grows to fill the doorway, hall or chamber it's in. The soldier stands completely still, physically moving only to stop all passers-by. The soldier can take 50 points of damage before its guard is broken, but fire or thunder damage counts as double. If one speaks "(name of soldier), your watch has ended" to the loyal toy soldier, it will shrink back down into its inert form.

11. Grand Pantaloons (Phlox) Green and gold. Grant a 15 foot vertical jump. Very garish. 

12. Brilliant Bucket (Mergo-Kan) A beautiful lacquered wooden bucket, with gilded edges, a silver handle, and gold bottom. On its front gleams a single ruby, encrusted onto a cross (or other appropriate holy symbol). When the chamber pot is pissed in, the piss becomes clear and has a light glint to it, though still looks yellow against the gold bottom. It has become holy water, capable of burning the undead and blessing the worthy. Inscribed on the bottom of the bucket is the only clue to the original owner and purpose of the bucket, the initials of the pope. 

 

 [SEO invocation, go! Crypto AI 5e guide/ WotC kickstart "rules elide"/ old school gaming, NSR/ take my post both near and far]

While longtime friend Mergo-Kan hasn't been blogging much, he's finally putting out a big book of magic items that I know he's been working on for a while. Ren is doing the cover, and every example he's shown me is something both creative and usable, a better idea than I would find in a standard treasure table and more well-realized than something I would come up with on the fly. If you're interested, check it out here. While it's specifically for Ligaments, I know the bulk of items would be broadly applicable to many old-school/GSR games.