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Author Topic: Creature Naming  (Read 2975 times)

LrZeph

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #15 on: September 24, 2009, 02:47:58 am »

Toady should replace Man with Folk.

Currently it's sexist.

Yeah, the race would be Ratfolk, individuals would be Rat Man and Rat Woman.

While I agree that sounds better, I feel strange referring to the creatures as [Animal] Man and [Animal] Woman, because of the extended Bat[Whatever] Family from various comics.
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Holy Mittens

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #16 on: September 24, 2009, 02:52:29 am »

I personally change the names of several of my *men, but that's because I turned them into full civs. Lizardmen became Saurids, for example. It's easy enough to come up with logical sounding names for the various animal men without resorting to trying to make scientific classifications for them, although what sounds good to one person will likely sound terrible to another (as I'm sure my reimagining of frogmen to Hylidans would probably cause some major eye rolls). So for right now, I think leaving them just "Lizardmen" in the raws, while pretty bland and uncreative, serves the purpose of both not sounding too dumb AND letting people who are playing immediately know what it's supposed to be.

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While I agree that sounds better, I feel strange referring to the creatures as [Animal] Man and [Animal] Woman, because of the extended Bat[Whatever] Family from various comics.

I actually changed the prefstring for the Batmen from whatever it was (their mystery?) to their detective skills. It still gives me giggle fits whenever I see a dwarf with that preference.

Vester

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #17 on: September 24, 2009, 03:43:46 am »

[PREFSTRING: paranoia and raspy voice]

Also, the first time I saw olmmen I laughed, because I was pretty sure that some players were wondering what the hell an olm was. It doesn't help that the olmman entry in the wiki just used to say "half man, half olm". Not that the current entry is any more descriptive.
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Dakk

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #18 on: September 24, 2009, 07:24:24 pm »

The current animal men thing is also realistic. I mean, if you, a member of a medieval society, suddenly met a creature that looks like a humanoid lizard, you'd most likely call them lizard men instead of homo saurus or something, and everyone back in your village would start calling them lizard men aswell. Latin may be used to designate species and races in the real world, but even then we don't call a dog by its scientifical definition, we just call it a dog.
If we met a race of humanoid dogs IRL, the newspapers would most likely call them dog men, or werewolves, causing everyone to use those names aswell. Personaly I'd call them furfags, skin them alive and burn their skinless carcasses, but thats just me.

I do agree it can get cheesy at times, everytime I fight a batman I tend to sneak around to avoid being hit by a spinning +bat boomerang+. But seriously now, in the first time I saw a batmen being killed by something in the distance while I walked around a chasm in adventurer mode, I saw:

The batman has bled to death.

I was like LOLWUT.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2009, 07:34:59 pm by Dakk »
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Bricks

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #19 on: September 24, 2009, 07:58:00 pm »

I like the sound of ____people, for some reason.  We always refer to them as the animal people anyway.
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Neonivek

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #20 on: September 24, 2009, 08:22:37 pm »

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you'd most likely call them lizard men instead of homo saurus or something

I don't even know if people who spoke Latin called us Homo Sapiens. I think that could be something scientists created later using Latin.
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Dakk

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #21 on: September 24, 2009, 08:24:34 pm »

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you'd most likely call them lizard men instead of homo saurus or something

I don't even know if people who spoke Latin called us Homo Sapiens. I think that could be something scientists created later using Latin.

Now I have a mental image of romans calling eachother homo on a daily basis.
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Little Pandemonium

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #22 on: September 24, 2009, 09:55:34 pm »

Like I said latin names are just an alternative example
But well, I guess I just have to edit them by myself then
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Dakk, you just made my siggy
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Now I have a mental image of romans calling eachother homo on a daily basis.

Atarlost

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #23 on: September 24, 2009, 09:56:36 pm »

Now I have a mental image of romans calling eachother homo on a daily basis.
More or less.  There are declensions or tenses or something involved, but that's the root used.  Just like some spanish speakers use hombre in normal conversation, and some english speakers routinely use man. 

The sapiens, of course, is a modern addition. 
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Vester

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Re: Creature Naming
« Reply #24 on: September 24, 2009, 11:06:36 pm »

They probably called each other by name, rank, or with the word "vir" (man"). Calling someone "homo" is like going up to someone and saying, "What's up, human?"
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"Land of song," said the warrior bard, "though all the world betray thee - one sword at least thy rights shall guard; one faithful harp shall praise thee."
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