Unearthed Arcana: Cleric, Druid, Wizard Options

In another new Unearthed Arcana (these things are coming out fast right now!) the cleric receives a new Divine Domain option: the Twilight Domain; the druid gains a new Druid Circle option: the Circle of Wildfire; and the wizard gains a new Arcane Tradition feature: Onomancy, the magic of true names.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Heh, I never claimed it was the CORRECT pronounciation, just that it was A pronounciation. As long as you can say it outloud it's not that hard.

Unless you have carefully deveped language rules for your setting all "made up" names should be 100% phonetic.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Unless you have carefully deveped language rules for your setting all "made up" names should be 100% phonetic.

I would hate that, tbh.

Also, phonetic from whose perspective? I don’t know about you, but my group isn’t all from the same place, and don’t have all the same linguistic assumptions.

But either way, I’d rather have pronunciation guides than have Orcish names and Forest Gnome names look the same.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would hate that, tbh.

Also, phonetic from whose perspective?

The person creating the character, obviously. They should start from what the name sounds like, then decide how to write it down.

That's why the random name generators on the internet suck - they spew out a random collection of letters with no guide to pronunciation. They might have made sense to the person who wrote the code, but who knows what their linguistic background was?

But either way, I’d rather have pronunciation guides than have Orcish names and Forest Gnome names look the same.

In which case you need to do the groundwork and decide on some linguistic rules for orcish and gnomish (or steel from real world languages). Otherwise they will end up looking the same - like a random jumble of consonants.

 

[Ravenbrook]

Most fantasy names are pretty atrocious. Tolkien came up with many great ones, but, then again, he was a linguist.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The person creating the character, obviously. They should start from what the name sounds like, then decide how to write it down.

That's why the random name generators on the internet suck - they spew out a random collection of letters with no guide to pronunciation. They might have made sense to the person who wrote the code, but who knows what their linguistic background was?



In which case you need to do the groundwork and decide on some linguistic rules for orcish and gnomish (or steel from real world languages). Otherwise they will end up looking the same - like a random jumble of consonants.

Nah. I’m perfectly capable of making names in a particular style without doing any particular legwork to analyze the linguistics of made up languages.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

THERE's MORE

Fighter, Rogue, Ranger!

Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Parmandur]

THERE's MORE

Fighter, Rogue, Ranger!

Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

dnd.wizards.com

Feel that all of these options don't fit standard D&D tropes, still...very wild.

 

[Azzy]

I would hate that, tbh.

Also, phonetic from whose perspective? I don’t know about you, but my group isn’t all from the same place, and don’t have all the same linguistic assumptions.

Create a basic pronunciation guide, and spell all your fantasy word using that. Even with a single pronunciation guide, you can make names and words of different culture different (much as Arabic and Mandarin would still sound different even using a single phonetic guide (say, like the IPA) to Romanize them. This is what I've done with my sci-fi setting (and consequently use it for everything else)

 

[gyor]

Bringing this thread back on topic the one note I had is that they should include Gods of Love/Lust on their suggested Gods list for Twilight Domain, it seems thematic, twilight can be romantic and it fits with the light/darkness themes and thr protective themes and so on.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

THERE's MORE

Fighter, Rogue, Ranger!

Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

dnd.wizards.com

I really like that Fighter.

I also like the Rogue and Ranger conceptually, but not the execution so much.

Which is a bummer, because it seems to be the case that if they don’t get it right the first time, and it isn’t a high demand item, it just isn’t gonna happen.

A swarm Ranger is a really dope idea though.

The rogue is really cool, but the SA ability is just...weird. Like, let me make my SA damage Necrotic, or something. Nothing about that concept makes me want to make a death beam attack.

Also, I’m never stoked about a teleport that come online after about level 6. Level 17 is just...meh.

Let me become a ghost at level 3, skip the whole death beam thing altogether, and I’ll be stoked.