I'm working on a Sword and Sorcery world for a potential future campaign.

I've been looking for both naming ideas for countries that aren't too unpronounceable just yet.  (That part is easy.)

I'm also looking for an alternate "monstrous" or inhuman race or two to place in the world. Apes are overdone, so are serpent folk. Despite me liking both as monstrous rulers of strange kingdoms.

However, I've been thinking of vulture-men, from an empire that fell from splendor due to its hubris, thus gluttonous scavengers that remain from the ancient gods-given curse.


Here is my rough map so far (it is layered and this is the compressed color layer, names are more visible on the "leather" version of the map.)

A quick scan of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_name_etymologies suggests that country names often (though not always) come from very simple, very explicit phrases in some people's native language. Often very practical, like "Land of the XXX", or some basic description of the local geography.

So make place names non-English. They don't really need to be meaningful; just browse some maps and you'll be easily able to come up with "Nordic-sounding" or "Egyptian-sounding" place names.

With this in mind and according to my subjective tastes, I personally think some of the already existing names on your map are a bit... well, pretentious, in a very common Tolkien-knockoff high fantasy kind of way. I mean, unless the southern Arctic area is literally full of gravesites, it's quite unlikely that the native people would name it "Tombs of Ice"; they'd just call it "Icy land" or "Cold place" or somesuch, maybe in some non-English language.
Same thing with "Kingdom of the Striking Serpent". I'm willing to buy that some huge dragon has lived there since before humans, but the first settlers still wouldn't call it "Land of the Striking Serpent" - "Land of the Serpent" is much more economical, and thus more natural.
"Unnamed Sea" - not believable. If nothing else, the people living on its shores would call it "The Sea" or "Our Sea" (c.f. Mare Nostrum), and then their language's equivalent phrase would become the international name.

Quote from: Silverlion;378901I'm working on a Sword and Sorcery world for a potential future campaign.
I've been looking for both naming ideas for countries that aren't too unpronounceable just yet.  (That part is easy.)

Once you decide on a "method" this should be easy.  I refer you back to a thread I started asking what methods or conventions people used for fantasy place names.  You posted there once or twice as well.  Hope someone there had a suggestion you like.

QuoteI'm also looking for an alternate "monstrous" or inhuman race or two to place in the world. Apes are overdone, so are serpent folk. Despite me liking both as monstrous rulers of strange kingdoms.

I am assuming here (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're talking about alternative, dominant races competitive with humans?  Is this in addition or as a replacement to traditional demihumans (elves, dwarfs, etc.)?  What role do you want them to play in your world?  I like your train of thought concerning vulture-like people as decadent/depraved scavengers.  If you proceed with that idea, I'd clip their wings.  Consider: Skeksis.

Quote from: Premier;378903maybe in some non-English language.
Same thing with "Kingdom of the Striking Serpent". I'm willing to buy that some huge dragon has lived there since before humans, but the first settlers still wouldn't call it "Land of the Striking Serpent" - "Land of the Serpent" is much more economical, and thus more natural.
"Unnamed Sea" - not believable. If nothing else, the people living on its shores would call it "The Sea" or "Our Sea" (c.f. Mare Nostrum), and then their language's equivalent phrase would become the international name.

Nice ideas, mostly the two are taken from their physical features (A common pattern in the real world.) The Striking Serpent is so named because of its peninsulas that look like a snake (Founded by pirates..)

 The Tombs of Ice because both lots of people died there--and ancient monolithic tombs frozen in the geography exist, described by a few half mad survivors who followed strange lights to the tombs.

Quote from: winkingbishop;378908Once you decide on a "method" this should be easy.  I refer you back to a thread I started asking what methods or conventions people used for fantasy place names.  You posted there once or twice as well.  Hope someone there had a suggestion you like.



I am assuming here (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're talking about alternative, dominant races competitive with humans?  Is this in addition or as a replacement to traditional demihumans (elves, dwarfs, etc.)?  What role do you want them to play in your world?  I like your train of thought concerning vulture-like people as decadent/depraved scavengers.  If you proceed with that idea, I'd clip their wings.  Consider: Skeksis.

Not really "dominant", more like vestiges of another time struggling to survive in the harsh world. Often corrupt or evil. Since pretty much that's the role of most non-humans in S&S stories.

Fantasy worlds need more bug people. A culture of giant, sentient insects *shudder*. Insects have a dizzying variety of fascinating, horrifying (imo) life cycles and social structures that can be extrapolated into fascinating, horrifying cultures.

Also, you don't have to have "elephant-people" but a matriarchal culture adapted from elephant social structures could be pretty interesting. I read this about elephants once; they travel in bands, and sometimes one band will try to steal the daughter elephants from another band. I don't know if it's really true or not, so I won't stand behind it if someone corrects me, but the idea of a culture where a kind of adoption-by-kidnapping is an accepted practice is pretty intriguing.

Quote from: Silverlion;378901However, I've been thinking of vulture-men, from an empire that fell from splendor due to its hubris, thus gluttonous scavengers that remain from the ancient gods-given curse.

Very like the Nagpa from Mystara/OD&D (Dragon #172). I guess every good idea has been done any number of times by now, though. With anthropomorphs, I guess some animals get done more often due to their believability so the trick may be to make plausible a race that usually isn't very. Or maybe it comes down to coolness.

Quote from: Silverlion;378940Nice ideas, mostly the two are taken from their physical features (A common pattern in the real world.) The Striking Serpent is so named because of its peninsulas that look like a snake (Founded by pirates..)

Yeah, but would primitive people with their early navigational and mapmaking skills notice that? Look at some early maps of real Earth; if you can't read the writing, there's a chance you can't even figure out what part of what continent it is, let alone such fineries as the exact shape of an archipelago. I mean, would you recognise the highly distinctive shape of Italy on this if I hadn't just told you it's on there? Or even knowing that, for that matter.

Quote from: Premier;378974if I hadn't just told you it's on there? Or even knowing that, for that matter.

You'd be surprised what map makers marking coastlines DO notice.

Quote from: two_fishes;378951Fantasy worlds need more bug people. A culture of giant, sentient insects *shudder*. Insects have a dizzying variety of fascinating, horrifying (imo) life cycles and social structures that can be extrapolated into fascinating, horrifying cultures.

That's what I have in one of my campaign worlds. A variety of bugs - flying, swimming burrowing - who are all working together in some unknowable way to reclaim their world from the soft-bodied folk. Individually, they seem to lack intelligence, but they have a formidable hive mind. Their harbinger is a rain of purple pods which float on the wind, and are the seeds of a poisonous vegetation. If these thickets are left unchecked, they become impassable to humans, and nurseries for the expansion of the insectoids.

Quote from: two_fishes;378951Fantasy worlds need more bug people. A culture of giant, sentient insects *shudder*. Insects have a dizzying variety of fascinating, horrifying (imo) life cycles and social structures that can be extrapolated into fascinating, horrifying cultures.

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect." -- Seth Brundle, The Fly

I usually name countries after real world cities that players aren't likely to have heard of before. If I'm making a country that is like France, I might name it Narbonne, or one based on Egypt "Abydos."

I have a hard time making up non-human societies... I might start off with batmen/frog men/guava women... but in the end I always seem to go with just making them strange human cultures.
That or I end up making the non-humans so alien that they would probably not be recognized as anything other than monstrous critters by the human groups.
Maybe I just have difficulty keeping the science fiction out of my fantasy...

Quote from: Cranewings;379017I usually name countries after real world cities that players aren't likely to have heard of before. If I'm making a country that is like France, I might name it Narbonne, or one based on Egypt "Abydos."

That's more or less what they did in the Mystara setting, and it works very well.


RPGpundit

Quote from: John Morrow;379015"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect." -- Seth Brundle, The Fly

Yeah I love that bit of dialogue between the two characters. Also, this:
"If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles."  --JBS Haldane