I've had a habit of looking around any new worlds I've genned, looking at names for places and how the land is here and there.
One thing I've noticed is the random-naming system for the game gets... weird. Trying to put logic behind it makes for amusing stories, though- thinking about who would actually name this forest "The Bacon of Running" ...and why.
Just recently, I've genned a world with a small haunted/terrifying shrubland next to a bay with a ridiculous number of streams and brooks with names that oddly connect to each other. I got to thinking about it, and I thought of how they might have been named.
perhaps, maybe, with a very hungry Cartographer and his band of protectors...
the following story probably never happened and is pure fiction based on the fact that I got a lot of weird names for streams in a terrifying zone I genned on a world recently.
Going south-east from the Jungle of Trusting, his journey along the bay of the Haunted, Terrifying locale took him across The Mean Hills, where he found his first stream; The Great Standards. Obviously the journey had just started, and things were going well. South he went, and found Stuntedwebs, another (yet separate) stream. I assume he ran into large spiders of some sort, which impeded his progress via webbing. Not halfway through the journey, he managed to somehow escape. Onward he marched, still southward, leading a group of dwarfs going more and more worried about their surroundings, stopping for a rest at yet another stream, which was bequeathed the name Visestunts when the wrestler nearly drowned trying to grapple a shambling horror into the murky waters! With more on the way, they fled east along the coast and found a book, where they had a great deal of trouble trying to eat their food whilst undead horrors attacked, earning the place the name The Lunch of Strife.
As the shambling forces grew in strength, the party had to scramble across the terrain just to survive, barely stopping at a stream named The Bite of Skirting, after one dwarf sacrificed itself to save the others, fighting even when the zombies and skeletons had torn off its limbs, and could only hold the tide back a little longer with what remained of his teeth.
The survivors felt cowardly, ashamed at fleeing and letting their friend die as they ate the last of their food supplies, and for it the stream they had rested beside was dubbed Authoredspurt the Undignified Angry Meal. Morale was down, and in a stroke of horrible bad luck, skeletal carp erupted from the water's edge, taking the lives of two dwarfs and injuring another before the handful of the living remnants set off southward in an attempt to escape this horrible, hostile landscape, their task nearly completed. But it was inevitable, and did not take long. The Cartographer, engraged, attacked his fellow dwarfs, taking them by surprise. He plowed through the axedwarf, taking from him his steel battleaxe, and charged the marksdwarf by the brook. Falling backwards, the marksdwarf fired only a few arrows at the cartographer before falling into the water and being taken by the ravenous skeleton-fish, only managing to lightly pepper the berserk dwarf's skin and mouth, knocking out a few teeth before being eaten by the hungry dwarf. Swinging at a second axedwarf, he managed to dismember an arm immediately, and quickly hacked him to pieces, taking a second axe, which he hurled at the only other surviving expedition member, the first axedwarf- as he was leaning against a tree. Flying through the air, the axe landed in his right arm, pinning him to the tree. Before he could pull it out or defend himself, the Cartographer, blind with endless fury, embedded the second axe into his left arm, and passed out from exhaustion and hunger as the axedwarf bled to death, pinned to the tree.
Hours later, the Cartographer awoke, to find all his friends and allies dead, and remembered the horrors he had wrought. He named the brook after his failures and mistakes. It became Spicyarrows the Whisker of Crucifixions. He saw living land to the south, and began a slow, lonely journey back to the mountainhomes, surviving off what wildlife he could find and weeping himself to sleep each night. Returning, he handed in the updated map and expedition report to his superior, resigned, and went to his quarters, and did not leave to eat or drink. On the third day, he cast himself into the lava moat when he could no longer stand himself.
Author
Topic: Who names these places? (Read 664 times)