Dear WotC - You suck at names.

[Reaper Steve]

Okay... how many wraiths does it take to change a light bulb?

One wraith to hold the bulb, and a cleric to turn it.

Awesome...one of the better pieces of D&D humor evar!

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

One wraith to hold the bulb, and a cleric to turn it.

Yay... a cookie for you! *sigged exchange*


*Some renaming possibilities, with tongue firmly in cheek*:

Feywild (icky!)
Aboria
Agraria
Feralia
Anti-Arcadia
Paraforestia
Fantasyland or Faeriland
The Rustic Realm
The Feral Lands or Savage Lands
The Boonies
The Great Shrublands


Shadowfell (kinda like this one)
Deadlands or Shadowlands (too obvious?)
Mortifarum
The Grim
The Veiled Realm
Avaracadavrous
Umbragium
Penumbria
Anti-alivelands

 

[Abstraction]

I can definitely get behind this initiative.

Actually, they could borrow the Magic the Gathering creative team for about six hours; they seem to have a limitless supply of awesome names that manage to sound both fantastic and believable.

I have just three words for you: Apes of Rath

 

[Gundark]

How about take your actual name, turn it backwards, and then tweak any letters that don't quite work? Is that a good way to generate names?

Oboh the terrible!!!

 

[Kunimatyu]

Can you?

I'd go with Shadowland/Shadowlands instead of Shadowfell, it doesn't have that weird noun-adjective pairing that just sounds wrong. Also, the idea of a shadowland has been around for a long time and is easy for people to get a feel for.

For "Feywild", I'd really like to just say "Otherworld" (since it pretty much is the Celtic otherworld), or perhaps "Wilds" or "Wild Reaches".

I think the reason I dislike those two names so much (as opposed to Elemental Tempest or Astral Sea, which sound fine), is because they've got a noun as the first part and an adjective as the second, which makes the whole word sound like an adjective.

 

[Kaodi]

... The Greenveil?

 

[Remathilis]

I don't mind the names. They are generic enough to rename whatever you like.

That said, its no dumber than some of the other D&D names floating around, and a heck of a lot more pronounceable.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

I actually think that "Shadowfell" is fine. It's evocative enough.

There's something about the particular way that the portmanteau is employed in "Feywild", however, that makes it sound modern and bland.

I have a similar reaction. All of these new names are fine except for Feywild. I'll just call it Faerie.

I also like they way "plane" isn't the standard descriptor for almost everything. Astal Sea, Elemental Tempest, Shadowfell rather than Astral Plane, Elemental Planes, Plane of Shadow...we get it Gary. They're planes, aren't they?

 

[Zurai]

I'd go with Shadowland/Shadowlands instead of Shadowfell, it doesn't have that weird noun-adjective pairing that just sounds wrong. Also, the idea of a shadowland has been around for a long time and is easy for people to get a feel for.

The Shadowlands has a conflict with an officially licensed D&D property though (the world Oriental Adventures is set in has a signifigant plot based around "the Shadowlands").

It's also VERY generic.

 

[Kunimatyu]

The Shadowlands has a conflict with an officially licensed D&D property though (the world Oriental Adventures is set in has a signifigant plot based around "the Shadowlands").

It's also VERY generic.

I'm aware, though L5R isn't an official D&D property anymore, they went back to the old d10 system.

And yeah, it's generic -- that's the entire point. In my homebrew, I'd call my shadowland "Carcosa" and have it be one immense twisted city, but that's not really the way to go for 4e. The "Shadowland(s)" fits the bill nicely.