Dear WotC - You suck at names.

[The Little Raven]

I suggest the Nameless Land and the Green Realm, personally.

Neither of those give the impression of a wild, faerie realm, therefore they're not very good names, IMHO.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I direct your attention to a tiny sampling of Magic place names:

Keld
Llanowar
Mercadia
Phyrexia
Ravnica
Sarpadia
Shiv
Thran
Urborg
Yavimaya

I suppose Phyrexia (with the ambiguous 'y') and Llanowar (with the opening 'll') might be troublesome for some players, but most of them are easy to pronounce and distinctive, and WotC has been churning them out on a regular basis for over a decade.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

So, let me get this straight...

Regular world = points of light

Feywild = no lights

Shadowfell = lights burned out

 

[Shieldhaven]

Personally, I'm really pissed off that not everyone has exactly the same tastes in fantasy, science fiction, or ice cream. Once you all realize that you're absolutely stuck with whatever I like and you come to like it also, the world will be a better place.

...what?

I'm in the camp that likes Feywild and Shadowfell. I also like Shadowdale, but something happened in the last three years or so of FR development in which their name generators went totally pear-shaped and unpronounceable. Blumphgirgrim Umberbloundle or something. And I have no idea if there are any good ideas in Greyhawk, because I've been so utterly turned off by most of the names I've heard.

Fortunately, I've discovered the civ advance of Literacy and wrote my own campaign setting, with names that I like. Nations have names like Tanllwyr, Aetheland, and Eisenmark. (The first is only pronounceable for people who know a smattering of Welsh. This is by design, because I am a bastardloser.)

Haven

 

[Lackhand]

Green Realm does to me, but perhaps only to me.

Clearly a reason why I'm not a paid D&D developer!

Feywild does say "I'm a wild place where fey live" to me, of course, but I don't like the blatancy of it. Or rather, I'd like it if there were a name that did the same thing, but without being a portmanteau of what it's presenting.

Corellon's Realm? Eladrel? The Wilds? The Green? True Forest? Greensward? Feywood?

What I object to is that it doesn't look like a noun to me, a place, so much as a condition.
He gets +4 strength, +4 dexterity, because he's Feywild.

You know?

 

[Lorthanoth]

@Lackhand - Ithaca is gorges, as the t-shirts say.

Back to your usual programming... I'm ambivalent towards the names. I always thought Underdark was a bit sucky, TBH.

 

[lkj]

I like Shadowfell well enough. And I like Feywild well enough IF it's pronounced Fey'willed' rather than Fey Wild.

Don't know why. Just do.

AD

 

[kiznit]

I don't think people should be allowed to mock fantasy names unless they also explain what they think are good fantasy names, so that the mocking can continue...

 

[jgbrowning]

I don't think people should be allowed to mock fantasy names unless they also explain what they think are good fantasy names, so that the mocking can continue...

Bob is a good fantasy name. Best of all, it can be Gygaxed as Bob as well.

joe b.

 

[Wormwood]

Total agreement. Pronounceable, fittingly descriptive, and memorable.

Add 'evocative' and you've nailed it for me.

The 4e names are a little more interesting than such gems as "prime material", "positive energy" and "border ethereal"