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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5101459" data-attributes="member: 2067">&quot;Owlbear&quot; certainly counts as a dumb portmanteux. It's not solely a 4e problem. But we've seen an explosion in 4e. And 4e has the ability to change, whereas 1e doesn't anymore. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> &quot;Owlbear&quot; (which is also a pretty goofy monster) is prosiac by now. I think the current frontrunner for dumb portmanteux is &quot;Shadowdark.&quot;Why yes, Throg. Shadow! Dark!Oh, that's a place?The argument against unpronounceable fantasy names is a good one, but the alternative to &quot;owlbear&quot; isn't &quot;ixixachitl.&quot; That's a false dichotomy. There's a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE gap within this that can be exploited. I'm lead to believe several D&amp;D designers have creative writing or English degrees. They should be able to do better than either of those.I'm not entirely sure it's just an IP thing, either. I would think inventing a new word would be better able to secure the IP rights to the concept than a purely descriptive combo-word. Though I am lead to believe that they are aware of the problem. The Underdark book didn't have very many new wallbangers (though it did inhereit a few). This might be something they're trying to watch out for, now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5101459, member: 2067"] "Owlbear" certainly counts as a dumb portmanteux. It's not solely a 4e problem. But we've seen an explosion in 4e. And 4e has the ability to change, whereas 1e doesn't anymore. ;) "Owlbear" (which is also a pretty goofy monster) is prosiac by now. I think the current frontrunner for dumb portmanteux is "Shadowdark." Why yes, Throg. Shadow! Dark! Oh, that's a place? The argument against unpronounceable fantasy names is a good one, but the alternative to "owlbear" isn't "ixixachitl." That's a false dichotomy. There's a [B]HUUUUUUUUUUUGE[/B] gap within this that can be exploited. I'm lead to believe several D&D designers have creative writing or English degrees. They should be able to do better than either of those. I'm not entirely sure it's just an IP thing, either. I would think inventing a new word would be better able to secure the IP rights to the concept than a purely descriptive combo-word. Though I am lead to believe that they are aware of the problem. The [I]Underdark[/I] book didn't have very many new wallbangers (though it did inhereit a few). This might be something they're trying to watch out for, now. [/QUOTE]

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