9th Age Renaming all our units for 9th Age (see first post)

Croxigator sounds fine, looks fine and reminds me of the old name and is still IMO far enough away from the original name - the only resemblance being "oxi" and the pronounciation of the first half of the word.

 

Pip Hamilton on the 9th age board have given some really good and well thought suggesions. Give it a look guys:

http://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php?thread/162-reptilians-of-the-ancients/&postID=1142#post1142

 

From Pip Hamilton on the 9th age:

Part 1

Alright, here we go!

Before I start suggesting names I want to talk a bit about the principles behind naming. As I see it there's two kinds of lizardman name:

• The names the lizardmen call themselves. Obviously here we have special character names like Tetto'ekko taken straight from the lizardman language, but also words like "Oldblood" and "Scar-veteran" that clearly refer to concepts from the lizardman culture.
• The names given to lizardmen (or lizardman beasties) by Old Worlder humans.
  • Here we have all the pseudo-dinosaur names like Stegadon, Carnosaur, Terradon etc., which are using faux-latin or greek terms (in-universe there is a Latin-esque language called Classical which is the language of scholars). Scholarly explorers would give the weird creatures they encounter this kind of name.
  • We also have more colloquial names like "skink". These names presumably come from commoners who encounter these types of lizardmen more frequently, and name them after things they are familiar with. So you get "skink", "salamander" etc.

GW has always been a bit inconsistent with this, but in particular the later additions to the army are awful. "Razordon", "Ripperdactyl" - english prefix, greek suffix. There's no in-universe explanation for a name like that, it's just a five-year-old's attempt at inventing a cool dinosaur.

So, what I'm going to attempt to do is lay out two parallel threads - names the lizardmen would call themselves, and names that humans would call them. Then we can pick and choose how consistent we want to be and which names sound best for the unit entries.

The lizardman languages (High and Low Saurian) are meant to be very hard for humans to use - (A) because they are exotic (like the Central American languages were to the conquistadors) and (B) because they're used by creatures with a different kind of mouth (no cheeks, no prehensile lips, snakey/froggy tongue). So instead of lots of weird consonants and hissing I'll translate the concepts of my proposed lizardman names into English. Hope that makes sense; if not the examples should make it clear.

The principles behind each method are:

• Lizardman names: The lizardmen respect their own culture, so don't give each other derogatory or slang names. They are caste-based so their names for other types of lizardman will centre around the roles those lizardmen play in society. Their names for animals and monsters will be common-usage words, because their culture sees these animals as ordinary.
• Human names: Humans will use a mix of colloquial english terms (e.g. "skink") and high-falutin' Classical terms (e.g. "Stegadon") depending on who is doing the cataloguing - scholars and educated explorers, or sailors and mercenaries. The latter will probably get their names in first when it comes to the common breeds of lizardman that have the most contact with humans; the former will dominate when it comes to exotic creatures that have infrequent exposure to human culture.

That's a lot of text so I'm going to leave this as an intro post before I start listing suggestions. One thing more, though: here is a list of names I think we can use unchanged

Part 2



Notes:

• Slann are an exception to all the rules I laid out. They taught language to the elves and dwarfs, so they will feature in the mythology of all Old World races, even if buried very deep and known to few. The name they give themselves will also presumably have been passed down in some distorted form. I went with "Cueyatl" because it means "Frog" in Nahuatl, which is nice and simple. It sounds like a noise a big frog could make; it also sounds similar to "Coatl" which gives it a nice fantastical bent and allows for the humans to have mixed up their terms. The mythological Coatl might be a misrepresentation of the magical powers of the Slann Cueyatl. Another Central-American-sounding name would do just as well though.
• For skinks, I've gone with their most distinctive characteristic, which is their crests. Crests are supposedly status markers in the lore so clearly have social significance to the lizardmen. Their social role is also a bit too complicated to sum up in one word. For their human name, I've stuck with "skink"; I don't think it's protectable on IP grounds and it's good to stick with what people know. If I'm wrong you could easily switch Skink for an equivalent like "Newt", "Anole", "Gecko" or just "Lizard"!
  • I've switched "Priest" for "Shaman" in the human designation to imply colonial contempt for the "primitives".
  • I've also switched Chameleon Skinks to be just Chameleons as that's two different kinds of real lizard in the previous name! Most people just called the Chameleons anyway.
• Saurus are more infrequently encountered and probably leave few survivors when they are, so this justifies an academic name. That's mainly so we can cleave fairly close to the original with "Saurian". For the lizardman name, War-Spawned has a nice sound to it and succinctly sums up their role.
  • For the command ranks, I've gone with Pinktaco's suggestions for the lizardman names (Saurus ageing/immortality being something more embedded in lizardman culture than human knowledge) and with simple descriptions for the human names, again implying that humans see lizardmen as primitive (the fools!).
• With the Kroxigor, I've suggested a few human names. Not sold on any of them yet. The common name is fairly self-explanatory; that's how most humans would encounter kroxigor, exploding up out of the water to ruin their day. For the academic names, two possibilities: literally "crocodile man", or the implication that Imperial scholars think Kroxigor are the top Saurus. I quite like the idea behind this one - that they got their hands on a specimen and assumed that because it was the biggest it was in charge - but the name doesn't quite have the right ring to me.

Less explanation needed here I hope. Not wedded to all these names, just tried to come up with something for everything on the list. If people want to add more I'll try to keep the table up to date with all suggestions that fit the scheme.

Substitute the names of Old Ones with the new names we'll have to come up with for them too.

My suggestions for the army name would be that we either focus on the fact that they're lizards or the fact that they're the "progenitor race".

So case (A):
Reptilians
Saurians
Reptile Kingdoms
Saurian Legions/Cohorts
Cold-Blooded Ones
or just plain old LIZARDMEN as I don't think those words are protected. Separate or hyphenate to taste. Lizard People or Lizardfolk also work.

Case (B):
Legions of the First
Children of the Creators
Primeval Guardians

 

There you go

 

Are the L-O suggestions being considered? Is anyone from 9th age asking for our input or are they just doing what they're doing?

Forgive me if this is already answered, I've been out for a bit.

 

No clue. They did take in a lot of our suggestions for the AB changes though.

I'm guessing that it'll be the job for the new AB teams they're putting together next week.

 

I'm updating the list of names with all suggestions from here and the 9th age forum.