...or you can call me Mord...

[Tewligan]

I've noticed in multiple products from multiple d20 publishers that everyone's second-favorite superwizard, Mordenkainen, often has his name shortened to Mord. In NPC spell lists, it's always "Mord's Disjunction" or "Mord's Mighty Meatloaf." Why is this? Bigby and Otiluke are referenced by their proper names. Are these writers friends with Mordenkainen, and therefore using an affectionate nickname? Or, more sinister, is it bad luck to write out his full name? I've gotta know, so make with the answers, publishers!

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Simple really.

Nobody wants to type out the whole name a dozen times in a paragraph.

-F

 

[333 Dave]

Check the SRD. Bigby's Crushing hand, Mord's Disjunction. I suppose WotC thought Mordenkienen was too important to have his name be Open Content.

 

[Ranger REG]

Wizards trademarked Mordenkainen(tm). As someone said earlier, they believe this name and character is too valuable a commodity, like Luke Skywalker(tm) is valuable to GL and Lucasfilm Ltd.

And in case, you're wondering, you cannot copyright name but you can trademark them if you can show their uniqueness. In both above cases, the name must be associated to a specific figure with description.