The Oligarchy of Mavet Rav - It's Hebrew!

Yair

Yair

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Am I really the first to post about the new Wizards article? http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080416a

Nice, but I would never be able to use it without giggling. "Mavet Rav" means "Lots of Death" in Hebrew. Imagine coming to the city Death-A-Lot....

Other Hebrew in the work:
"Haim" means living,
"Almetim" means undead (literally),
"Adon Nadiv" means generous-lord,
"Doker Believ", very close to "Doker Balev" meaning stabber-in-the-heart,
"Ben Gufot", meaning son-of-carparcaces,
"Naval Afel", meaning nefarious-villain,
"Kosem Ragil", meaning ordinary-wizard,
"Khoker Boker", meaning cowboy-investigator,
"Yom Balman", the first name means day,
"Rosh Kaatan", literally small-head, meaning someone who doesn't take initiative,
"Gibor Gadol", means great-hero,
"Yodekh Kola", suspiciously like "Yodeah Kol", meaning all-knowing.

Lots of other things that sound like people's names, distorted words, and so on in there too. Pratically every name is a distortion of some Hebrew.
 

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I've used a lot of Hebrew and Yiddish words for names of places and people in my homebrew. But then again, I have also used Latin, Spanish, Dutch, German, Old English Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Finnish. :D
 
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el-remmen said:
I've used a lot of Hebrew and Yiddish words for names of places and people in my homebrew. But then again, I have also used Latin, Spanish, Dutch, German, Old English Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Finnish. :D
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Yep yep yep. If there's a language none of my players speak, I'll raid it like a Vandal on a Roman holiday.

Cheers, -- N
 

I'd also like to mention the usefulness of Ainu, very unlikely to game with somebody who speaks Ainu so it's a safe language to pillage. Unless you have anybody who speaks Basque, the two languages are disturbingly similar considering how far they're seperated.
 



freyar said:
Mostly edition- or even system-neutral, but the few stats are 3.5. IMO, one of the better e-Dragon pieces.
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Yes, I found some of the ideas very nice. He presents a believable take on necropolitics that I haven't considered before.

For my own games I use many Latin, Chinese, or similarly exotic names.... but when designing a name in Hebrew (which I do when others in the game don't know Hebrew), I try to make the name make sense in Hebrew too. I won't call someone "Kosen Ragil" (meaning an-ordinary-wizard), although I might call him "Kesem Lachadrav", meaning magic many-spell but also sounding sorta right for someone's name.
 

The article was very interesting, and presented a nice, and working LE society.

And then, the names are also very interesting. Maybe now I get why some people try to use German words to describe monsters and creatures. If you don't even have an inkling what they could mean, they really don't sound that bad. ;)
 

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Maybe now I get why some people try to use German words to describe monsters and creatures. If you don't even have an inkling what they could mean, they really don't sound that bad. ;)
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Better yet: when the DM even vaguely understands what they mean, they're easier to remember. :)

Cheers, -- N
 

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