D&D General Which D&D Words and Things are Post 1608?

[Cadence]

D20

D12 and D8?

But, yes, a D20 is very modern.

I mean, the name is...

 

[Aldarc]

Door Knobs: invented 1878

 

[Faolyn]

D20

D12 and D8?

But, yes, a D20 is very modern.

Romans Used 20-Sided Dice Two Millennia Before D&D

Many of us geeks take great pride in the ability to recite the history of role-playing games based on the 20-sided die, but what about the history of the die itself? Apparently it predates the original Dungeons and Dragons by almost two millenia. Christie’s, auctioneer to the rich and famous...

www.wired.com

 

[Cadence]

Some that make it
Invisibility 1561
Fabricate 1598


Some that miss it...
Lock picker (or lock pick) 1613
Piton (for climbing) 1898 in Engish. Similar earlier in other languages.
Cleric (as a noun) 1623 - clerical as an adjective was late 1500s.
Expert as an adjective goes to the 1300, expert as a noun is only 1825.
Subclass in any suage is 1720
Acid in the chemical sense 1649
Prestidigitation 1841
Clairvoyance 1847
Gaseuous 1783
Hypnotic 1625 (1500s in french)
Resilient 1644
Disintegrate 1794

 

[Azzy]

Should I bring up obsolesced D&D terms like Infravision and Ultravision? I was so glad when D&D dropped them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

All of Eberron is ca. 1920.

Well that isn’t true.

Telegraphs begin in 1816, and Eberron has no telephone equivalent.

Trains are 1825

Nearly every nation having an absolute monarch while democracy has begun to gain some traction as a serious idea is very early modern, more 1700’s than 1900’s.

Really it’s only airships and the noir vibes that are 1920’s. Everything else is 1800’s or earlier.

Ya know, like melee weapons being the default weapon set, the total lack of an actual firearm equivalent, no cars (some similar things for hauling stuff), and random stuff we still don’t have like resurrection, and personal flying vehicles (even if only in Sharn).

I'm pretty sure that "libram" was invented by Gygax. Maybe "dweomer" too.

@EzekielRaiden did a great job describing the origin of libram, and touched on Dweomer, but I’d like to point out that Dweomer is not even a term that Gygax saved from dying all on his own, as it is a term used in The Lord of The Rings.

Saruman is referred to as “Dweomer-wise” in The Two Towers, by the Rohirrim.

IIRC Gandalf uses a Dweomer to slow down the balrog during the flight through Moria.

In an appendix I think, the Witch-King of Angmar is referred to as a Dweomerlak.

It’s a deep cut, but LoTR is where I know the word from, not from D&D .

 

[MGibster]

Trains are 1825

I would have thought trains would have dated back even further. Not for rail of course, but for something like having multiple teams of animals pulling wagons from one location to another like a camel train.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I would have thought trains would have dated back even further.

From Wikipedia:

Trains are an evolution of wheeled wagons running on stone wagonways, the earliest of which were built by Babylon circa 2,200 BCE. Starting in the 1500s, wagonways were introduced to haul material from mines; from the 1790s, stronger iron rails were introduced.

 

[dave2008]

never mind

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would have thought trains would have dated back even further. Not for rail of course, but for something like having multiple teams of animals pulling wagons from one location to another like a camel train.

I suppose I should have said locomotive