Dear 4e, Please Stop with the Horrible Portmanteaus!

[I'm A Banana]

If the plane is called the Shadowfell, and it has an Underdark, what do you call it to differentiate it from the NORMAL Underdark? So when you say it, you know you're talking about the Shadowfell's Underdark?

Why does the shadowfell need an underdark?

Wasn't 4e trying to do away with pointless symmetry in the planes?

And even if it was necessary for some reason, why not consult a thesaurus or a dictionary or the wikipedia page that has a list of underworlds sorted by mythos and do some vowel/constant swaps?

I think it's also worth pointing out that "Shadowfell" is a fairly strong portmanteux, IMO. "Feywild" a little less so, but only a little.

PS:

Spoiler

The Shadowfell IMC tends to be the very deep underdark, toward the deep center of the earth, deeper than the deepest drow city, a land of the dead and dying not unlike Sheol or Hel or Hades or Xibalba.

And my Feywild tends to actually be places where arcane magic flows into the world, along ley lines, in deep wilderness where sentient beings rarely tread.

But I'm in favor of the planes all being part of The World, usually, in my campaigns.

 

[Allister]

1. It's not IP protection. Well, not soley since it actually would be better to use an entirely made up word.

2. Those names like Spuzzure (I can't even spell it much less pronounce it) are HORRIBLE. When I have trouble remembering how to spell a name and pronounce it?

3. M:TG uses "place" + smashed word.

4. I agree with others that "scientific" names actually make no sense in the context of the people living and fighting in the universe. As mentioned, you see a bow wielding demon firing shots of pure desruction at you, you're NOT going to be calling it "Arcanlothzerra" but "Doomarrow" demon.

 

[Turtlejay]

Uh.... what? Where do you think super-dominant Anglican surnames like Baker, Smith, and Miller come from? My own surname may mean something in Gaelic rather than something in English, but that's because it's not an English name.

I think you're missing his point, but I'm not sure.

This discussion has gotten interesting. Good examples like Blackmoor show that portmanteaus don't have to suck. . .that same name could be Darkswamp be pretty lame. Conversely, made up names like Illithid and pretty much all of the names from the Cthulhu are great, but it is easy to screw up a made up name and make it sound like something Eric's Grandma doesn't wanna hear about.

The thing is, it is not edition specific, genre specific, or even hobby specific. Sure, 4e has had some stinkers, but most of the names in the Nentir Vale pass muster with me. And really, this whole subject is even more subjective than most, since it comes down to whether a name *sounds* good to you. Hard to quantify that.

Jay

 

[Xris Robin]

Ok, so... where is the line?

Personally, I draw the line at Fightbrain.

 

[Rechan]

Why does the shadowfell need an underdark?

It "Needs" an Underdark like D&D "needs" an underdark or even a plane of the dead. It Doesn't "Need" it, but they wanted it?

And it would have been REALLY ODD if 'Hey this is the SHadowfell. And in the ground is XIBALBA". That just doesn't track.

At least the portmeox names are consistent with one another. Maybe "Common" is just the language of Adjective|Noun Noun|Adjectives.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Hard to quantify that.

It can be hard to quantify it well, true. There are ways to quantify it. For better or worse, one way to quantify how the names sound to people (not just an individual) is to measure sales. Of course, that has a ton of other variables involved too. Another way is to count the number of threads like this. Going further, you could count the number of threads like this and compare them to similar threads for other games and editions. But yeah, hard to quantify well.

My own opinion is that portmanteaus can be good or bad. I think the overall use of language in 4e is awful, and the poor use of portmanteaus is just partandparcel of that.

 

[Rechan]

It can be hard to quantify it well, true. There are ways to quantify it. For better or worse, one way to quantify how the names sound to people (not just an individual) is to measure sales. Of course, that has a ton of other variables involved too. Another way is to count the number of threads like this. Going further, you could count the number of threads like this and compare them to similar threads for other games and editions. But yeah, hard to quantify well.

Other editions? You mean the ones that were here before there were the internet?

Here's a really simple experiment: Start a thread and ask "So what words are better?" Get a bunch of suggestions, and then put a poll asking "Which do you like the most?"

This has been done twice - with the Warlord and the Wilden. Both times, the warlord and the wilden were the winners because no one could agree which ones were worse and which better!

 

[nightwyrm]

4. I agree with others that "scientific" names actually make no sense in the context of the people living and fighting in the universe. As mentioned, you see a bow wielding demon firing shots of pure desruction at you, you're NOT going to be calling it "Arcanlothzerra" but "Doomarrow" demon.

Actually, scientific names of organisms are almost always either descriptive or named after somebody. They make perfect sense if you speak latin.

Tyrannosaurus rex means "tyrant lizard king".
Triceratops means "three-horned face"

If I see an arrow shooting demon called "Arcanlothzerra", I better find an in-game language where "arcanloth" means arrow shooting and "zerra" means demon.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And it would have been REALLY ODD if 'Hey this is the SHadowfell. And in the ground is XIBALBA". That just doesn't track.

Makes me cringe a lot less than "shadowdark" does.

They also could've said "This is the Shadowfell. When you go underground, it is still called the Shadowfell. When you fly in the sky, it is still the Shadowfell. If you go into a town, it is still the Shadowfell. It's all the Shadowfell."

There's truckload of decent alternatives to "Shadowdark." "WE HAD TO CALL IT THAT!" is not a very viable defense. It's really false. They didn't have to call it that. They didn't have to call the Shadowfell the Shadowfell, either. I'm not getting paid to come up with names. They are. It ain't my job. It is theirs. And by many estimations, they haven't done that great of a job with it.

I, for one, think they can do better (without using too much bizarre fantasy nomenclature, either).

 

[Allister]

I think you're missing his point, but I'm not sure.

This discussion has gotten interesting. Good examples like Blackmoor show that portmanteaus don't have to suck. . .Jay

Um, say what?

The only reason Blackmoor doesn't "suck" is because it has the grandfather clause a.k.a "it's old".