Felmyr Place Names (WIP)

[Weery]

Thanks so much Aeshnidae

It sounds like you're using the same approach to me by using similar real world names to evoke an understanding of some basics in the viewer (or player in your own case). I think it's a real effective method if done well and with some subtlety. And when you have these assumptions in place you can then begin to break them down for your own ends.

I remember Robin Hobb doing this type of thing in her writing but for a map maker it might be something so simple as including an unexplained location to make the reader curious. For example, in my Grimmsmouth map I have indicated in a forest, a small location called a nightmare clearing and provided no explanation. Not the biggest deal, but it still serves to break down the illusion I'm creating of a normal industrialising city.

I love your Ehalia map! I had to google Essos as the similarities didn't jump out at me. Maybe the south eastern corners are similar but little else I reckon. I'm delighted to learn of your recommendation of Tomi Adeyemi as well because I routinely try to read outside of my regular pattern and this seems like an ideal chance! I've enjoyed George Eliot, Tara Westover and Cormac McCarthy as a result of this approach. But I've also had to endure Virginia Woolf, Jeffrey Archer and Margaret Atwood

Your use of Hungarian presents its own opportunity for naming as well. That's how I view my own closeness to Irish. Hopefully it will help make things more authentic, even if it is only to say Happy Birthday

Thanks again for commenting and reading!

[aeshnidae]

I remember Robin Hobb doing this type of thing in her writing but for a map maker it might be something so simple as including an unexplained location to make the reader curious. For example, in my Grimmsmouth map I have indicated in a forest, a small location called a nightmare clearing and provided no explanation. Not the biggest deal, but it still serves to break down the illusion I'm creating of a normal industrialising city.
!

My players would run straight towards something called nightmare clearing. I very much like the concept of introducing something to pique the readers'/players' interest. Dragonlance (my cornerstone fantasy series) had Darken Wood. And in real life, as I drive towards my favorite beach town, I pass a place called Slaughter Beach. All of the other towns have benign names like Farmington, Jefferson, Riverview...and then there's Slaughter Beach. It always strikes me and I wondered about it for years. (Google educated me. It's either named after William Slaughter or it's the place of a massacre of the indigenous residents. No one is sure which option is correct.) I will definitely think about doing something, just a little thing, out of the ordinary when I make my next game map.

I'm very glad that you liked my Ehalia map and book recommendation. Here's to good reading! And for your next birthday: Boldog Születésnapot!

[Weery]

My players would run straight towards something called nightmare clearing. I very much like the concept of introducing something to pique the readers'/players' interest. Dragonlance (my cornerstone fantasy series) had Darken Wood. And in real life, as I drive towards my favorite beach town, I pass a place called Slaughter Beach. All of the other towns have benign names like Farmington, Jefferson, Riverview...and then there's Slaughter Beach.

There's definitely something that pulls you in to a place like Slaughter Beach or a nightmare clearing. Where I grew up there was an abandoned old house named Grouse Lodge alone in a wild orchard down the fields. We were always sneaking down there. The name struck fear into me for years.

Until I learned that a grouse is actually a portly bird and not the terrifying monster I imagined it to be