Sound of "Keep on the Shadowfell"

[tomBitonti]

Does anyone else think that "Keep on the Shadowfell" has a lousy sound to it? I'm trying to figure out what exactly is wrong, and the best I get is that the stress on "Sha" is too strong. I much prefer the sound of "Shadowfell Keep". "Keep on the Borderlands" works for me, too. Are there any poetry / language folks out there that can explain this better?

 

[Kunimatyu]

It's because "fell" is an adjective or verb, so "Shadowfell" doesn't sound like a noun.

I'm honestly surprised WotC doesn't have a name team they can't lock in a room for a week and come up with non-wonky names. Surely they could borrow the MtG guys?

 

[Cadfan]

Fell is also a noun.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It sounds fine.

It just reminds me of "Keep Off The Grass" signs. But I suppose "Keep On The Borderlands" had the same problem, and Keep On The Shadowfell is something of an homage, at least title-wise, to that venerable module, so I can forgive the inherited weirdness.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

It's probably because Shadowfell isn't a real word. It sounds fake. And since half of it, "fell" is at best archaic, it doesn't really have much meaning as a compound word either.

"Shadowfell Keep" sounds better because it makes Shadowfell sound like a proper noun, a name, which isn't as jarring. But when we hear "Keep on the..." we expect it to end with a noun denoting place, and "shadowfell" doesn't sound like one.

 

[rounser]

I don't see anything wrong with this one. Sounds like something from a homebrew. Shadowfell, next to Mistmoor, maybe.

 

[Plane Sailing]

And since half of it, "fell" is at best archaic, it doesn't really have much meaning as a compound word either.

Hey! It's not archaic in my country!

 

[Nebulous]

Sounds fine. Only thing i would do different is call it "Shadowfell Keep." Although that probably doesn't accurately describe it.

 

[Rechan]

Given that there's several Metamagic feats called Fell (Whatever), Fell is an adjective that's popped up before.

It's fine.

 

[Rechan]

Sounds fine. Only thing i would do different is call it "Shadowfell Keep." Although that probably doesn't accurately describe it.

From what we've been told, it's that the Keep is sitting on a dormant portal to the Shadowfell, and a cleric of Orcus wants to open the portal back up.

To put it another way, if you have a castle that's on a faultline for an earthquake, that everyone has pretty much forgotten about since there hasn't been an earthquake in centuries, you don't exactly call the castle "Faultline Castle", right?

So I think it's appropriate to call it 'ON THE'. If it was a shadowfell keep, there'd be little reason for the cleric to do his voodoo.