McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

New names for old races.

(1/3) > >>

Nickeris86:
I am currently working on a sword and sorcery novel in which there are three dominate races. These races were each created by one of the three Daughters of Creation who are the leaders of this worlds pantheon. Each goddess represents an aspect of existence, Life, Death and the Passage of Time between these two.

The race created by the goddess of Life are hardy, strong, and extremely passionate.They have dark skin and light colored eyes and tusks. Essentially they are Orc's who live in the dessert, think of Native African tribes with small tusks.

The race created by the goddess of Death are cold, noble and predatory. Pale skinned and dark eyed with slightly pointed ears. They are essentially vampiric elves.

The goddess of Time created humans.

These races are not inherently good or evil and they don't all pay homage to their patron goddess either.

What I am having difficulty with is creating an original name for these races (not humans). I don't want to call them Orcs or Vampires because that's not what they are, just what they are bassed on.

Any ideas.

Apocrypha:
Do the names have to be in English?  Do they only have one "name" for each race?

The way I see it is that they could have several names.  One in the language that the Humans would use, for simplistic sake we can call that English.  Then they could have one name for themselves in their own language and then a third name in the native tongue of the other race.

For example, say we just use your basic terms:

Human tongue - Orc
Orc tongue - Hu'chi Bu'chi - Loosely translated means "Life's Children"
Vampire Elf tongue - Sa La My - Loosely translated means "Primative" (now I'm not saying they view each other as hostile, but you never know)

Human tongue - Human
Orc tongue - Snu'chi Bu'chi - translated means "Time's Children"
Vampire Elf tongue - Pa Stra Mee - translated means "Weaklings"

Human tongue - Vampire Elf
Orc tongue - Smoo'chi Bu'chi - translated means "Death's Children"
Vampire Elf tongue - Bo Lo Nee - translated "Lords of All"

Just my spin on things as I would love to help.  Just wondering what you've been thinking of so far.  And don't forget that you can create your own words out of fake languages you want to make up yourself.  Tolkien did that.

Snowleopard:
Have you named the Goddesses?  If so, I would think that the races ought to take their names from their creator's name.  Or, at least, it's a suggestion.

gypsymaria:
Apocrypha:  Just had to chime in because your example names cracked me up so hard.   :D

Another suggestion might be to mine some lesser-known mythologies.  Look up Slavic, African, Native American, South Asian... lots of cultures have fairy tales and mythological creatures.  Maybe you can find a word that clicks for you that fits the races well enough, tweak the spelling a bit or whatever.  Fantasy authors do this all the time.  :)

Franziska:
Good suggestion, gypsymaria. For example a noted fantasy author, Tanith Lee, adapts names from lesser deities oe even well known historica characters  to her ends. Example: the litttle known assyrian goddess Asakira becomes the goddess Anakyre, the Roman Emperor Caesar becomes the warrior king Keshar, the corrupted princess Salome becomes the sorceress Zilumi and so on...

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page