Name Generator: Morpheme+Word+Epithet

Who are these fellas and what are their names? Groupe de sorciers by Lucas Roussel

Millions of names!

Each name is made of three parts. A made-up morpheme, an English word and an epithet or honorific. The names are drawn from lists I wrote; there are 335 morphemes, 345 words and 311 epithets/honorifics. I use words rather than another set of immediately meaningless morphemes for a few reasons: 

• Words colour the name, if the name has ‘cruel’ in it, the name instantly gives a hint to the character (but sometimes it just gives an interesting sound) in a very pulpy way that should be embraced.  

• Words make the name a little quicker to read, the brain picks out the second word; so ‘Zhongcried’ is that much quicker to read and then physically pronounce than a random collection of phonemes like ‘Ibquneche’.

• Along with epithets, words add a touch more memorability to a name for your players. If you generate something alliterative or with some assonance, all the better!

Of course, not all characters should have a name that fits these conventions, though these  principles can be quite effective. If a name is generated and the 'epithet' is in brackets it is an honorific and should be read before the name, not after. For example 'Ozdog (Master)' should be read as Master Ozdog.

Thanks to Paper Elemental for their clever html generator generator which I used for this post and for the Archons March On blog whose many numerous generators inspired me to give it a go myself. 

Click Generate for your name:

Click for the raw lists

Dark/Pulp Dungeon Name Generator

By Esteban Maroto

 A run-of-the-mill table for inspiration or fun. Roll 1d20 for each column. 

D20	Word 1	Of The...	Word 2
1	Cave(s)	Spectral	Horror
2	Temple	Demon-(ic)	Lord
3	Tomb	Eternal	Eye
4	Palace	Pagan	Throne
5	Prison	Impossible	Crown
6	Sanctum	Bleeding	Cult
7	Manor	Crimson	Sign
8	Citadel	Cerulean	Curse
9	Tower	Astral	Entity
10	Fortress	Infernal	Machine
11	Lair	Cannibal	Creature
12	Keep	Creeping	Thing
13	Barrow	Alien	Frog/Snake/Ape/Insect/Spider
14	Chasm	Nameless	Army
15	Isle	Elder	Phantasm
16	Realm	Cursed	Overlord
17	Altar	Dreaming	Queen
18	Domain	Hideous	God
19	Maze	Voodoo	Pit
20	Hall	Undying	Mage

Quick Map Generation

PDF here:

I wanted to be able to generate a country in under 5 minutes so I made this. The method is very simple and (if I were ever so desperate) lets me have everything I would need to use the map at the table; geographic features, plot hooks, interesting locations and culture. The map generation can be scaled to your need, it is good for small regions to entire countries and can be made more detailed by rolling more dice. I have successfully used the method on a big piece of paper to make an entire landmass of bordering countries, big and small.  

The Backwoods

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I made this 'encounter' table quite naively on a whim during meetings when I should have been paying attention and making notes. I hope it's still useful!

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This encounter table takes inspiration from British folklore and was written to allow its use with any system. To help me write the table I have situated the encounters in a setting called the Backwoods, a wild and underpopulated province of a largely civilised country. The encounters should be enough to generate all you need in order to run a Backwoods adventure as the table was written with the sense that all the encounters are located within close proximity of one another and interact with each other. You should be able to draw stories out of the table, if not a narrative should emerge during play.

The lack of few direct encounters is very purposeful, it adds a sense of '''‘realism’''', creepiness and allows the players agency in whether or not to go looking for something that might ruin their lives.

The Backwoods are composed entirely of forest, so unless otherwise stated all action takes place in very heavily wooded, ancient countryside. It’s important the PC’s don’t leave the path. Terrible things happen in the woods.

The table can be used for settings equivalent to the early middle ages all the way through to the 18th century.

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The Backwoods encounter table

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