Need help naming skills!

[doctorbadwolf]

OK, I have been building my game, Quest for Chevar, for the last few years, and building the world/telling stories in it since I was a little kid and I wrote a story for a school project about two brothers drawn into reluctant conflict with eachother for the soul of a kingdom.


See the bottom of the post for a basic explanation of what Quest for Chevar is all about.

The problem: I've rather a few skills that I can't come up with a good name for. I know how they work, and have terrible working names for them, but I can't come up with anything that doesn't make me want to set the book on fire when I read it.

help?







In Quest for Chevar, players take on the roles of explorers, adventurers, champions of the gods, "rangers" who protect the people, scholars, and various others, and explore the Hidden Worlds. Players can choose from many different races, taken from myth and legend, and a few new inventions. Anything from Humans, to Puca and Goblins, to spirits of the forest, to Watchers (seelayable angelic characters), to were-folk. (and alfar and dwarves and gnomes and even halflings, although they are none of them what you'd expect from playing dnd or reading LoTR)

The conflict of the setting is that the Hidden Folk, magic, and the crossroads between worlds have long had a much depleted presence in our world, but that is changing.
Someone has trapped or kills many of the guardians of the worlds, tricked or imprisoned many of the gods, and driven out many magical beings, and it turns out many of those beings were/held seals on the ancient prisons keeping unimaginable horrors from leaving their prisons in the void realm of Ginnungagap.
Now, all the worlds are under threat, as demons and worse than demons find their way through to crossroads, and the presence of magic builds in places long dormant. Central to those crossroads, where one of the Great Seals rests, is Chevar. A world similar to Earth, but with a stronger connection of the other worlds and the magic than connects them. As ancient horrors reappear and seek to find other worlds to eat, one thing becomes clear. All worlds are under threat, but Chevar is the front line. And it needs heroes.

So, it's a bit Supernatural/X-Files/Buffy meets DnD meets Doctor Strange, I guess. You play people who know magic is real. Often, a session is like a "monster of the week" episode of one of those shows, complete with the need for research in order to stand a chance of solving the conflict. Unlike Supernatural, though, the "monsters" are often the people who need saving, and the humans are just as often the real monsters.
Other times, it's more like an episode of the Librarians meets Indiana Jones. The bad guys have/want a powerful thing, get it first.

And all roads, all mysteries, all threats, eventually lead to Chevar.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Skills: Every skill is either a Broad Skill or a Specialty Skill. Spec Skills live inside Broad Skills.

So:

Broad Skill: Acrobatics has the specialty skills:
Aerobatics
Parkour
Tumble (I thought perhaps Dodge, but I think Tumble works better because it also makes sense as the skill used to tumble out of an opponent's reach, around them, etc)

Acrobatics covers all of the specialty skills, but the way skill ranks work makes it desireable to put ranks into those specialty skills your want to, well, specialize in.

Aerobatics covers controlling flight, as well as aerial acrobatics, obviously. Dick Grayson would be specialized in this skill, but still quite good at the other two.

Parkour, primarily covers clearing obstacles at speed, quickly getting into small spaces without slowing, etc. Most rooftop running super heroes do a lot of this. youtube search "freerunning", or play Assassin's Creed to get a feel for this skill.

Tumble, covers the skills you see in Olympic floor gymnatistics, as well as Acrobatic defense.

Ranks in Acrobatics add to the character's ranks in Aerobatics, Parkour, or Tumble, when making a check with those skills. The system doesn't use ability scores in the way dnd does, so how good you are at Tumbling is a simple matter of your ranks in Acrobatics and Tumble. Instead, ASs create a resource pool you can draw from for a variety of things, from rerolling a flubbed check, to activating special abilities, to upgrading a success with a bit of extra effort.


So, I think that should be plenty of info for anyone to grok what a given skill should vaguely do, and help us discuss names, if anyone ends up being interested.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

OK, here's a list of the skills which have crap names, and a basic idea of what they do.

oh and if it wasn't clear, if you need to do a specialty thing, and have no ranks in it, you default to any ranks you have in the broad skill. also the broad skills usually have some super simple "ribbon" stuff that is always just a broad skill use, and ranks in a skill also equate to knowledge level regarding that skill and closely associated things, rather than having knowledge skills.

Alchemy: Specs are Elixers, Sigils, and Transmutation. Not happy with "Elixers". Want something that evokes magical chemistry, other than the broad skill name.

Althetics: has CLimb, Swim, and...Jump/Run? Not so much a naming issue, I guess. Maybe running faster just needs to be a use of the broad skill?

Con: Lying skill. Spec skills are Deception, Disguise, and Obfuscate. Willing to rename Con or Deception or both.

Electromancy: I'm fine with Conductivity and Lightning, but Control Device is...a lame name. It does what it says on the tin, though.

Hydromancy. Is Aquamancy better? idk. Specs are Biomancy (healing skill, basically), Water Breathing, and Weather. Biomancy is fine, but the other two are terrible names. Just the worst. Water Breathing needs to evoke being able to live in water, echolocate like animals with sonar, etc, not just breath in water. Weather...I mean, I feel like there is a name for weather magic, and I just can't find it/think of it.

Influence. Fine broad skill name. Specs are Persuasion, Negotiation, and Suave-faire. The last one I'm not sure of. Negotiation could change to Haggle to make it more clear why it isn't also persuasion, but then it loses the flavor of deal making of the sort a diplomat does, to some extent.

Investigate: Has Research, Deduction, and Gather Information. I'd love a shorter name for Gather Info, and Research is a terribly broad name, and also a broad part of the game. Id rather something that evokes being skilled at figuring out how to find information, if that makes sense. Make a check with this skill when you need to figure out what books to read at the library, or how to navigate the archives, etc, as well as how to use indexes and to quickly find information and cross reference things in a book, website, etc,

Enchantment: Ive no names for the specs. I want a glyph (temp enchantment, ward, etc) making skill, a skill for making a permanent enchantment into a distinct item, and a skill for manipulating existing magical effects, fields, glyphs, etc.

Nature Magic: Healing, Herbalism, Plant-Growth. all terrible names. Especially "Healing". How exquisitely boring. Especially since Sacrumancy also has a "Healing" skill. I'd be willing to ditch the idea of Nature magic having a healing skill outside of Herbology, but I haven't thought of a good skill idea to add in it's place.

Necromancy: This one is changing from standard dnd necromancy, to the magic of life and death. So, Command Dead stays. Use for speaking to the dead, commanding them back to their rest, animating them, etc. Need a skill for draining life, and another for restoring it, I think. Unless you've ideas for a better arrangement of three Necromancy specializations.

Pyromancy: Combustion, Convection, and a blank one. (things have changed in the last couple months, used to have Pyromancy inside Electromancy) I want something mystical here, or something to do with shaping fire and/or light.

Sacrumancy: Healing, Bless, Rebuke. Do what you'd expect. Holy magic (sacrum=holy or sacred). I'd be willing to ditch Healing if we can come up with a good replacement. Sanctify seems like it would be a function of Bless. Rebuke is both a defense skill against supernatural attacks/effects, and something you can use to "turn undead" and the like. Right now the different healing skills work differently, so I'm also fine with keeping them in. They just need different names. also, Sacrumancy, Sacromancy, or Sacramancy?

Shadow Magic: Has Obtenebrate, Vitiate, and Sombramancy. Obtenebrate is for making yourself into a shadow being, which has defense, speed, and stealth benefits, and passing through objects. Vitiate sucks the will and energy from stuff. It's the entropy skill, basically. Sombramancy (good broad skill name?) covers making things of shadow, shaping shadow, etc.

Shamanism: Communion, Ghost Walk, Healing. bleh. I love using this skill set, but I hate the names. Communion is talking to spirits and gaining their wisdom, Ghost Walk includes taking spirit form and taking on spirits aspects, like a totem warrior. Healing is self explanatory, but focuses on ailments of the spirit, and should probably also be a defensive skill.

Sonic Magic: not the hedgehog. but, hedgehog wizards, right? ahem, anyway, includes Sonic Blast, Resonance, and Voice Casting. Sonic Blast is just creating waves of sound at things. Resonance involves manipulating vibrations in objects, creatures, etc for various effects, including disrupting enemy casters, helping allies concentrate, echolocation, and some stuff that involves crystals and frequencies that would take a paragraph to explain. Voice Casting involves throwing sounds, creating "ghost sounds", speaking over distance, etc.

Unarmed: Striking, Grappling, Throws. Mostly I don't dig "Throws". but basically a skill for redirecting momentum, throwing opponents, etc.

and that's about it. The weapon skills may get shuffled around soon, so I'm not worried about them RN, but just in case:

One-Handed: Blades, Bludgeons, Axes.
Two-Handed: see above
Thrown: Blades, Axes, Slings (includes atlatl, so not a great name)
Pole-arms: Blades, Axes, Whip (flexible reach weapons, includes chains, ball and chain, etc may get moved to it's own skill)
Bows: Hand-Bow, Crossbow, Manual Bow. I often call it longbow, but it includes a range of bow sizes, so I don't like that.
Firearms: Sidearms, Rifles, Shotguns
Heavy Arms: Mounted Guns, Launchers, Artillery
Defense Weapons: Hand Shield, Arm Shield, Parrying Weapon. Hand and Arm shield refers to whether the shield is simply held with a handle, or strapped to the arm.