I’m taking a bit of a break this week, so I’m just gong to focus on one small thing, and walk you through my process. It should be fairly short.
Naming the World
This is one of the more difficult things for me to name, sometimes, because the name of the world is going to remain relevant in most any story told about it. This name will speak to the nature of the world, will, in itself, bring up thoughts and ideas. Lets look at a few examples:
NIRN/MUNDUS: In The Elder Scrolls franchise, the name of the continent most widely used is Tamriel, but the world is named Nirn, and Mundus is (I think, the lore is pretty convoluted) the name of the physical plane. As a name, Mundus is effective because it actually does mean “world” in Latin and Portugese. It brings up concepts of old alchemy and mysticism, and classic modern fantasy nostalgia, referencing the real world, but…apart. Nirn is simple, has echoes of Narnia, maybe, but is reflected in the setting. In skyrim you can commonly find a weed called Nirnroot with some unusual properties.
AETHERIA: As another example of fantasy established in the 80s (and thus a similar vibe I’m going for) This has been used in many things. I recalled it from its being the name of the world in She-Ra, but it is not uncommon in other fantasy franchises as well. It is latin, referencing air, and the sky. It, too, is used in Elder Scrolls to refer to the realm of the Gods.
AZEROTH: The world setting from World of Warcraft. It has a lot of the epic history I am inspired by, but the name, rather than being taken from an earthly linguistic inspiration, seems more like it was inspired by HP Lovecraft’s elder bring Azathoth.
HYRULE: From the Zelda series of video-games. It is another classic fantasy, and has covered many ages and eras while remaining consistent. In the case of that name, it almost seems derived from a phrase, “High Rule” but it works as it’s own concept fairly well, and that possibility doesn’t interfere with the well established legacy.
NARNIA: I could be wrong, but this one doesn’t seem derived from anything in particular, besides sounding like the anme of a country. It’s a point in favor of just making something up, but knowing the way those old classic fantasy authors worked, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t more to it.
TAMRIEL: Jumping back to Tamriel, because it also seems like one just invented and not as clearly derived. Still, it uses the phonemes and follows the practice of the way kingdoms and countries are named in the real world, which is important.
WESTEROS and ESSOS: Another name from Game of Thrones that seems almost meant to sound like a latin-derived term, but a step apart. Of course, Essos is the name of the world, which is more what I’m looking for. It has the simplicity that such a term needs to sound primeval and fundamental.
Then let’s look at what the world in FERGUS needs to be. It is not earth, It is far and very distant both in space and time from the earth that we know. It was named by hyper-advanced humans who were trying to escape conflict and violence. A name like Paradise, Eden, Sanctuary, Haven, Sanctum, are all pretty obvious, even cliche choices for a new world, so even if it rather fits, I want to avoid those.
So keeping in mind those other names I admire from other settings, and what names I like but don’t quite work, I’m going to start digging through a Thesaurus.
Eden/Paradise: Arcadia, Utopia, Zion
Haven/Sanctum/Sanctuary: Asylum, Anchorage, Covert, Felicity
Nothing standing out to me. lets try some other words.
Beginning: Alpha, Origin, Genesis, Basis, Ancestor, Blood
Blood: Cruor
That is interesting. Cruor means, specifically, clotting blood, or the part of blood which forms the clot. It’s a bit gross, but I think of many mythical genesis stories that incorporate observable phenomena. Magical beings being born from the spilled blood of divine beings is pretty common in greek myth for example. It is entirely feasible that some culture could see the world, the oceans as the spilled blood of a divine being the land being the cruor that formed. It is also not a widely known word (in my experience, anyway) so it can have that meaning subtly derived from real language.
This doesn’t necessarily fit with the origin story I gave last week, but then again, that origin story is the ACTUAL origin, not the mythical origin that the people living in the world at the time of storytelling would now, so they’ll be coming up with their own story. I don’t know if I want to use Cruor yet, but it is a strong contender and may resolve into the name to use., depending on how those cultures develop.
As a bonus, the gory meaning can help with the bloody history, and the horror-based inspirations for the setting.
If I end up using Cruor for the name of the world, I’ll not only have to justify it in terms of the mythology, but also determine if that is what the original advanced human settlers called it, and why, if they did, in a way that doesn’t seem forced and overly convenient or coincidental. Maybe they called it something that has devolved into the term and concept of Cruor, but if that matches the blood-based lore, that also is pretty overly convenient.
Alright, so I think it is best if the original settlers did call the world Cruor, rather than something that changed into it over time. So perhaps they had some kind of ceremonial spilling of blood. Nothing too gory, but like, if every one of the original settlers put a drop of their blood into the ground, by way of claiming the planet as their home. Perhaps that story itself could have been corrupted over the centuries, changed and reinterpreted, and filtered through ages of forgotten history, until it becomes the story of the gods forming the land from their own blood in a similar but much more mythically relevant ceremony.
Now the last step before I hesitantly finalize this as a name I want to use, is I’m going to do some searches and see if anything else is commonly using the term, and how they are using it, and what they might be representing.
Initial searches suggest a spaceship from EVE Online for a group called the Blood Raiders, a character and armor set from Runescape, a red wine, and an abundance of random deviantart character drawings. So, certainly, I’m not the first person to think it up and use it, but there is nothing stand-out and a wide enough variety, that MY using the term isn’t going to look too analogous to anything already existing.
Recycling Old Ideas
Lastly, I also want to look at other world-names I’ve used in the past. These were original works of mine, but are not in anything that I’m currently planning on publishing or using.
Bozarkus: I love the weirdness of this one, and it seems t have a lot of personality. I’m just not sure I want to completely write-off the stories that happened there by recycling the name into something so different.
Eos: My last fantasy setting was called Age of Eos, but I threw it out with the intent of recycling most of it. Eos is probably not a name I want to lose. It is derived from Greek, for Dawn, and it offers that older-than-time feeling of ancient eras.
I am fairly certain I want to use Eos for the world, but I have come to like Cruor as well. perhaps that will be a continent? We’ll see. At this stage, I’m mostly gathering ideas, puzzle pieces I can plug into various places as needed later on.
CONCLUSION
As I said, a short post (comparatively), and a bit late, but I think it has been a good piece of progress. While you’re here, you might also take a look at my Galleries page and check out my brand new Wasteland Bears! They are an art project I’ve been doing for a few years now, mutilating teddy-bears into post-apocalyptic artifacts.
I’ll see you next time!
—Charles