Something that made me mad about the latest book.


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You mean like "macetail behemoth" and "spiketail behemoth"?

I'm glad they kept the real names.

Yup! I agree they should have changed the spiketail behemoth (they couldn't come up with something other than 'behemoth' - buy a thesaurus!) to something else but the macetail is just fine to me. The latin stuff has no place in my fantasy games and actually drags people out of immersion, imo.
 

You're talking about one of the argument points in the Edition Wars that went on FREAKIN' FOREVER. :)

"It's a dumb name." "No, it's an awesome name." "Is not" "Is too!"


AAAARGH!

Me, immersion be darned, I still like the real or pop culture names because they are easier to hang a mental picture on. Stereotypes are bad in real life, but they're darned useful in literature and gaming.

For that matter, a brontosaurus doesn't even belong in the list, if you want to inject fact into the picture. :)
 

Yup! I agree they should have changed the spiketail behemoth (they couldn't come up with something other than 'behemoth' - buy a thesaurus!) to something else but the macetail is just fine to me. The latin stuff has no place in my fantasy games and actually drags people out of immersion, imo.

It does? How about succubus? That's from Latin. Behemoth comes from Hebrew, filtered through Latin as well.

Though, really, ankylosaur comes from Greek - like chimera, medusa. So what makes a word or name of a creature sufficiently immersive and another not?
 

It does? How about succubus? That's from Latin. Behemoth comes from Hebrew, filtered through Latin as well.

Though, really, ankylosaur comes from Greek - like chimera, medusa. So what makes a word or name of a creature sufficiently immersive and another not?

See succubus, chimera, medusa - those were names given to fantasy creatures by latin/greek/whatever writers and storytellers and sound like it. Tyranosaurus Rex sounds like it was named by a committee of scientists.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything - this is my opinion and experience speaking - no one elses'.
 

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