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      Wind in the Flowers: Re-inventing a Game

    Naming Conventions

*R. Sean Borgstrom*

March 6, 2002

The principal characters of *Nobilis* come from all over the world. A

fair number of the secondary characters come from outside the world

entirely. The first edition had an unfortunate bias towards American and

made-up names, which didn't properly reflect the setting's

cosmopolitanism. Fortunately, the new edition has roughly twice the

wordcount, which gave me plenty of space to redress this error.

My primary resource for most of this was the Onomastikon

<http://web.archive.org/web/19990429014413/http://www.fairacre.demon.co.uk/>;

secondary resources included Gustav Davidson's excellent *A Dictionary

of Angels* and the even more amazing Saul M. Olyan's *A Thousand

Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient

Judaism*. I didn't get to actually use that last book much, but that

/will/ change. It was very pleasant to sort through thousands of angel

descriptions with traditional names when adding new angels or fallen

angels to the game.

In addition, I associate a sense of awe with the names and descriptions

of classical angelology; I also drew on M. Davidson's book when I wished

to discuss celestial phenomena, such as the things the Creator bound to

make Creation. (For reference, these were Azbogah, the Radiance that

Destroys the Unrighteous, in whose heart the Creator planted the tree of

worlds; N'mosnikttiel, the Fire that Swallows Worlds, raw material for

the creation of the angels; and Narsinha, the Lightning that Dances on

the Surface of the Abyss, reshaped to create the wall around Creation.)

Some specific setting features required careful thought as to their

names. Ananda, discussed in a previous column <wind31jan02.html>,

appeared as a concept long before he had a name. We needed something

that would properly express the idea of "hope for the world". Bruce and

I wrestled with this for some time before finding something properly

suited to a conceptually key bright spot in the setting.

Ultimately, we raided Madeline L'Engle, who probably raided Hindu names,

for "that joy in existence without which the universe would fall apart

and collapse". Alternatives---naming him in ways that reflected simpler

joy, or beauty, or the darker side of his nature---didn't suffice to

capture what that name can: that beauty is vital in this world.

Similarly, the name of the divine entity embodying the Third Age (the

current Age of the World) needed to say something fundamental about the

setting. Here, I had more room for subtlety, as the Imperatrix of the

Third Age is not a major character in the setting; I named her Attaris

Ebrôt Appêka, in part for Attaris, the angel of winter. These are the

closing days of the *Nobilis* world; either it will end entirely, or a

new Spring will rise.

*Nobilis* has vast numbers of sample characters, which gave me a fairly

free hand doing some basic diversification. Augusta Valentina, Bran

Gainor, Cornelia Jansdr, Dyemma Insakovs, Fayola Osiagobare, Halland

Geirr and Ienari Namika-in are some of the new sample characters;

Nephele Nikolaidhis and Helissent de Reymes appear in the sample

campaign; Jori Hullis, Kip Narekatski, and Rannen Yedidyah are quoted as

"authors" of various related fictional texts. A large number of Indian

names (including a few Hindu gods and demons) appear in a frame story

running through the book.

Looking this over in retrospect, Chinese and Islamic names and probably

a few others are underrepresented in the text; I should work on

balancing that in the supplements. In any event, the basic design

principle was very straightforward: try to scatter the new characters

over a variety of nationalities, so that the game doesn't feel

landlocked in America (or even England!)

The most thoroughly foreign characters in *Nobilis* are the Excrucians,

who rode into our reality from the Lands Beyond Creation. To name them

properly, I needed a strong, regular naming convention with a distinctly

alien flavor. Simply foreign names would not suffice. Establishing

foreign names as alien, regardless of which nationality I chose, would

undermine the basic concept that the Nobilis come from all over the

world; that, in their context, European, African, Asian, and all other

modern names are pretty much "local".

If I were Tolkien, of course, the solution would be simple: invent a

logically coherent language without direct derivation from any human

tongue, and name the Excrucians in that. Failing to mysteriously turn

into Tolkien when I twisted my power ring, I instead turned to history.

The ancient world has some extremely cool names, some of which I have

swiped for other uses---Idri-mi, Texcoyo, and Nabushezibanni among

them---but the best-fitting names came primarily from medieval times.

I'm not 100% certain why, but my theory is that the really ancient names

have their own baggage. Even though I wouldn't recognize Nabushezibanni

as a Hittite name offhand, it has associations of that whole

Babylonian-region ancient world thing going on. Similarly, even if you

don't guess that Texcoyo's an Aztec name, it probably evokes some

ancient American tribal associations.

Maybe that's just me.

In any event, medieval Europe actually has some very interesting names

that don't fall into the typical fantasy mold. The very first name to

come out of this search was Genseric---a Vandal name, technically. I'm

not that fond of characters without surnames; it feels incomplete to me,

and somewhat like the characters are trying to be media stars. So I

stole a last name from another barbarian tribe, the Dacii; thus,

Genseric Dace.

I rather liked the result, but soon enough I had to make more Excrucian

names. Here, I ran into a problem: I had nine more Vandal names, all

male, most of which sounded more or less like Genseric, and only a

handful of other barbarian tribes from the right era. (Sueves, Avars,

Alans, and Rugians.) I was not immediately thrilled with the names

Gailamir Sueve, Gunderic Avar, Gaiseric Alan, and Hilderic Rugian.

This forced a branching out into other names from medieval Europe:

Orderic, a Frankish name; Raginhart, Germanic; Euphrasia and Marozia,

Byzantine; Teja, Gothic; Scelto, Italian; and so forth. A few were

atypical, if they sounded right; Phasael mery-Harumaph, for example, is

assembled from a Palestinian first name, an Egyptian name-element, and

the game term Harumaph, originally found in a web angelological reference.

Finding last names was generally difficult at this stage of history. I

had originally hoped to branch out from the basic concept used for

Genseric Dace---whose surname was historically tribal rather than

personal---and build most last names out of appropriate regions or

social groups. Thus, Orderic Neustry, name drawn from Neustria.

Ultimately, for lack of appropriately cool region names, I was forced to

scrounge, using other first names from the period as surnames in order

to build functional antagonist names such as Teja Heimerich, Euphrasia

Savinot, and Raginhart Tribunas.

All this, of course, reflects ultimately back on the setting. It subtly

influenced me, writing new material on the Excrucians, to know that they

take their bynames from Creation. It also affected my writing to know

that they disdain modern appellations and sift history for names

instead. I'm not wholly certain of the implications, but it changes the

way I feel about them in my head; and such effects spread throughout the

game.

R. Sean

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 Topics 	Author  	Date 	Latest Reply

 James and the Small Caps

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=81&t=81> (2) new 	Kibo 

08-20-2002 16:29  	02-10-2003 01:23 new

 Art <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=77&t=77> (1) new 	Lxndr 

04-26-2002 07:36  	04-26-2002 07:36 new

 The Original Nobilis Club

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=76&t=76> (3) new 	Bret Gillan 

04-17-2002 11:28  	03-17-2003 17:48 new

 Questions & Thoughts

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=64&t=64> (3) new 	Pyske 

03-20-2002 18:31  	05-01-2003 13:03 new

 Noble Buddhism?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=61&t=61> (9) new 	Tlaloc 

03-20-2002 12:17  	12-10-2004 01:20 new

 Noble Suicide <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=58&t=58> (9) new

Eric Christian Berg  	03-20-2002 07:43  	01-18-2005 16:27 new

 Art Notes <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=54&t=54> (4) new 	R.

Sean Borgstrom  	03-14-2002 16:31  	03-21-2002 03:44 new

 Ack...you just lost my sale

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=45&t=45> (10) new 	SteveD 

03-14-2002 04:06  	03-15-2002 06:29 new

 Onomastikon working URL

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=36&t=36> (4) new 	Jorge

Hernández  	03-06-2002 12:51  	08-20-2002 16:10 new

 Why do angels change names ?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=33&t=33> (10) new 	philippe

tromeur  	03-06-2002 10:13  	12-10-2004 01:34 new

 R. Sean, some examples?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=32&t=32> (3) new 	Arref 

03-05-2002 08:17  	03-13-2002 20:28 new

 Sounds great, BUT...

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=28&t=28> (2) new 	Kane 

02-27-2002 16:43  	02-27-2002 17:30 new

 Sort of backwards?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=21&t=21> (8) new 	Eric Finley 

02-20-2002 14:25  	02-28-2002 09:35 new

 Programmer nature slips out!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=20&t=20> (2) new 	Sean

McCarthy  	02-20-2002 13:18  	02-21-2002 10:30 new

 Object Lesson Damage

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=15&t=15> (1) new 	Darren

Miguez  	02-13-2002 12:45  	02-13-2002 12:45 new

 How about this?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=12&t=12> (2) new 	Kristian

Lund  	02-13-2002 11:30  	02-14-2002 01:17 new

 Now, this was strange!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=9&t=9> (7) new 	access.denied 

02-13-2002 07:44  	02-16-2002 21:44 new

 Briefs on the other two?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=5&t=5> (5) new 	Eric Finley 

01-31-2002 18:39  	02-13-2002 10:36 new

 Forum now works <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=4&t=4> (1) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-31-2002 17:36  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

 limited series <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=1&t=1> (2) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-21-2002 17:41  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

    * Editing, Development, and Production

      </news+reviews/columns/wind27mar02.html>

      March 27, 2002

    * Affiliations </news+reviews/columns/wind20mar02.html>

      March 20, 2002

    * How to be a Hollyhock God </news+reviews/columns/wind13mar02.html>

      March 13, 2002

    * Naming Conventions </news+reviews/columns/wind06mar02.html>

      March 6, 2002

    * Art Notes </news+reviews/columns/wind27feb02.html>

      February 27, 2002

    * Dynamic Nobilis </news+reviews/columns/wind20feb02.html>

      February 20, 2002

    * Systems Change </news+reviews/columns/wind13feb02.html>

      February 13, 2002

    * Treachery </news+reviews/columns/wind06feb02.html>

      February 6, 2002

    * The Emperor to Come </news+reviews/columns/wind31jan02.html>

      January 31, 2002

    * The Changing of the Guard </news+reviews/columns/wind21jan02.html>

      January 21, 2002 

      Other columns </news+reviews/columns.html> at RPGnet

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