If you were to rename the Warforged for a neutral setting, what would you name them? (thread 1/3)

[Gray Blackhelm]

Personally, I think "Soul Bound" would make a good Neutral name for the Race. "Soul Forged" or other similar place names would make good names, as well.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Gearforged (borrowed from Kobold Press).

This works well if you are going the kobold press route of making them steampunk robots, but not at all if you are keeping their Eberron nature as sentient golems of wood, stone, and metal, with absolutely no mechanical parts or anything else robotic in the normal sense whatsoever.

The best term will depend on how close or far they will be from Eberron’s ‘Forged, what purpose they serve in the world and in the metanarrative, and what their origins are.

Golemites is a workable generic term that feels like a thing normal people might call something (always my goal, rather than finding something that sounds cool)
Variants of that could include Golemid, Golemen (pronounced goal-men or Goal-a-men, or even Golem-en, etc), Golemide, or even Golians. Just calling them “golem” or construct could be seen as demeaning, like calling a Dragonborn “lizard” or “reptile”.

In the right world, Titans, Tanks, or any other term for “big tough thing” could work.

One way to avoid awkwardness of “cool” names is to translate your cool name (preferably badly) into another language that fits the culture that created them. Take things like “soul forged” and run them through google translate until you like something, then butcher it until you love it and it’s a new unique word.

A nice lazy solution is to just call them “Forged”, but Forgeborn isn’t bad, either.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You probably weren't looking for it, but most of these are due to the English and their rhyming games. Those not due to English are the fault of the French invading the English.

Richard is obviously straightforward, Dick working two angles of fun there. Peg as short for Margaret is Margaret > Maggie > Meg > Peg. The middle bits there are questionable as to which came first -- it's possible Meg showed up and became Meggie/Maggie. Regardless, at some point there were enough people swapping the M for a P for it to stick. If you really want to have a fun one, "Daisy" was also a very common nickname for Margaret. That's because the French word for daisy is marguerite, which sounds similar.

Jack is more fun, and has to do with the French invasion of England. Johannes was the root name, which was adulterated to Jehan and Jan. The Middle English loved the suffix -kin, so Jehan and Jan became Jankin. The French nasal pronunciation, picked up by the English at the time, smeared this into Jahnkin when shortened to Jackin and then Jack becomes apparent. Reportedly, this has nothing at all to do with the Francophile Jacques with is James in English.

Ned and Nan as short for Edward and Anne are also from Middle English, which used "min" instead of my, so when speaking of your little Ed and Anne, you said 'min Eddie' and 'min Anne'. A few short centuries later and the N had left my and moved to the names.

Ah, the things you pick up married to an English major with a love of the history of the language. I knew the ones about Dick, Bob, Jack (suprisingly) and the Ned/Nan added N's, but that also meant I knew were to go about Peg. The Daisy bit was completely unknown to me before I looked into it.

Aren’t Hank/Henry also roundabout versions of John?

I remember there being a ogbrothers video in which one of John or Hank Green explained to the other one that they basically had the same name.

 

[Sunseeker]

Aren’t Hank/Henry also roundabout versions of John?

I remember there being a ogbrothers video in which one of John or Hank Green explained to the other one that they basically had the same name.

No, it's Germanic, from Heimirich.

 

[Seramus]

If I was looking for a setting neutral name?

Golem.

 

[Zardnaar]

This works well if you are going the kobold press route of making them steampunk robots, but not at all if you are keeping their Eberron nature as sentient golems of wood, stone, and metal, with absolutely no mechanical parts or anything else robotic in the normal sense whatsoever.

The best term will depend on how close or far they will be from Eberron’s ‘Forged, what purpose they serve in the world and in the metanarrative, and what their origins are.

Golemites is a workable generic term that feels like a thing normal people might call something (always my goal, rather than finding something that sounds cool)
Variants of that could include Golemid, Golemen (pronounced goal-men or Goal-a-men, or even Golem-en, etc), Golemide, or even Golians. Just calling them “golem” or construct could be seen as demeaning, like calling a Dragonborn “lizard” or “reptile”.

In the right world, Titans, Tanks, or any other term for “big tough thing” could work.

One way to avoid awkwardness of “cool” names is to translate your cool name (preferably badly) into another language that fits the culture that created them. Take things like “soul forged” and run them through google translate until you like something, then butcher it until you love it and it’s a new unique word.

A nice lazy solution is to just call them “Forged”, but Forgeborn isn’t bad, either.

I had Crystalborn for psionic crystal ones.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

I personally lean towards Automata/Automaton.

For a while I was working on a homebrew setting with a similar race and a steampunk aesthetic. The race were called 'Works' with a sort of double meaning. First because they were created for specific jobs to do work, and secondly because the sub races were Clockworks, built for light shop work and powered by a self winding spring, and Steamworks, built for heavy lifting and hauling or other high strength jobs, powered by steam generated by a small decanter of endless water and a metal block enchanted to always be red hot.

I really need to finish that up one of these days...

 

[Draegn]

Programs who look to the great hero Tron to save them from the evil overlord known as Master Control.

 

[MarkB]

Programs who look to the great hero Tron to save them from the evil overlord known as Master Control.

Would that be Dungeon Master Control?