Whether your game is set in the distant future of the year 200X or the hundredth year of the Sword Age, sprinkling scenes with stupid made-up words is a fun way to create a sense of place and establish a cultic vocabulary for your playgroup.
d20 Slangs to Sling
- General-purpose swear. Kark! Frakking perfect. Abso-grinking-lutely flexible.
- Greeting/Farewell
- Good/Bad
- Person (derogatory)/Person (affectionate)
- Sex
- Alcohol or other drug of the commons/Being drunk
- Police or authority figures
- Money
- Attractive person
- To fight/To get badly hurt/To die
- Outsider
- Novice/Skilled
- Angry/Happy/Sad
- Savvy
- Child/Elder
- Exclamation of disbelief or contempt
- Miracle or good fortune
- Home or house
- Rich place/Poor place
- The specific body of slang itself.
Sometimes a fictional slang term can just be random sounds, but sometimes it works to just very insistently use an existing specific term. If everyone, from king to pauper, says "Ta" to end a conversation, it will feel right.
Don't forget you can do phrases. You're not stuck with single-word expressions.
Slang is often impolitic. Do a few rude expressions!
This is a good place to replace terms that feel unbiddenly contemporary. If "non-binary" is too Latin for you, the exercise should give you a good sense of what word fits better, and suddenly you're using this exercise to think about the societies of your setting and how they work. Sly!
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