"...the ancient empire of the tieflings..." and Sword & Sorcery gaming

[Desdichado]

Don't you have some suffixes for "small" or "like" in portuguese ? -ling in english is can be translated with -lin in french (thanks to the frankish roots of this "word"), but -let or -lette could be used.

Ahem. That's not actually the meaning of the -ling/-ing suffix, at least in this context. It doesn't have anything to do with being small. It means being of. It's got a nice Anglo-Saxon pedigree, where it was -ingas. I.e., Wulfingas; the people of the wolf. Would be something like Wolfings or Wolflings in modern English.

Tolkien used it a lot too. Easterlings doesn't mean "itty bitty East" it means, people from the East. The Eorlingas are the people of Eorl, the Beornings are the people of Beorn, etc.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

In 3.5, the only reference I could find to Cambions has them statistically identical to half-fiends. So they are only once removed from the fiend level, whereas tieflings are supposed to be more than a couple generations removed, right?

That's been the traditional view - tieflings had a lot less fiend in them then Cambions (cambions in old days were specifically half-demon, and came in two varieties, based on how important the demon father was).

 

[Baby Samurai]

(cambions in old days were specifically half-demon, and came in two varieties, based on how important the demon father was).

Oh yeah, that's right, wasn’t there a "Marquis" or something?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Oh yeah, that's right, wasn’t there a "Marquis" or something?

That's the word I was looking for - I think there were common and Marquis Cambions.

 

[Mercule]

Please not! That sounds awful for Germans. Literally means "Devilling".

Like eggs! Yummy. I like my tieflings with a bit of mustard and paprika.

I don't think we know enough about the class features of martial classes in 4e to decide if they are one way or the other as far as flavor or mechanics.

Quite true. Also the reason I'm holding off on commentary. Bo9S has both European and wuxia sounding maneuvers. I think some of the Diamond Mind or Iron Heart maneuvers could definitely play into the pulpier end of the S&S feel of the game.

Wait a minute! There is an alternate pronunciation of paladin?!?

I used to game with a guy who said "puh-LAD-un". No number of dictionaries would sway him from his course.

 

[Desdichado]

What's wrong with deviling or "Little Devil" which would be a better English translation? You say that sounds like an absurd concept in German, but isn't that pretty much exactly what a tiefling is in the first place?

Not only that, you can abbreviate it to "Li'l Devil" and play that Cult song from Electric as their theme song.

 

[Mercule]

Whatever happened to cambion?

I'm still hoping for a marquis cambion template, so I'd rather not grab that word just yet.

However, internet sources indicate that the word derives from "trow", in turn from "draugr", both of which rhyme with "cow".

"Draugr" rhymes with "cow"? I know it's probably Gaelic, but that breaks my poor English-speaking brain.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Show me the etymology or there is no "incorrect"!

That is just not a valid point. A D&D Drow is not the thing it drew from mythology. The CREATOR of a thing names it, even if it pulls the spelling from an old book.

Col_Pladoh
06-11-02, 10:00 AM
When I discovered the "drow" listing in an old, unexpurgated dictionary, created the race for the D&D game system, I pronounced the name as to rhyme with cow. Ah, but what's in a name? So if someone prefers it to rhyme with crow, that's acceptible too--as in many words, there can be alternate pronunciations that are correct.

Dark elf? Noppers! That's something from Norse mythology, the dickalfar, and they ain't like drow at all

Gary

I'm more correct, but I apologize, you are not incorrect. I drop the h in herb. What country am in?

 

[Pozatronic]

Drow rhymes with Cow!

How now brown drow.

 

[Desdichado]

"Draugr" rhymes with "cow"? I know it's probably Gaelic, but that breaks my poor English-speaking brain.

Norse. And it doesn't literally rhyme with it, although it does have the same dipthong, at least.