World Building Journal: Yet Unnamed Fantasy World #1
So, my last post was about how I "faked" world building in Blood Shadow: A Vera Shadow Mystery. I plan for this to be me documenting how I build this low fantasy world and where my influences are coming from. Let's get stuck in!
Alright, so I want this setting to have the feel of Dark Ages Europe (approximately 5th–10th century). This is coming from my love of the sagas (e.g. Beowulf), Norse mythology, and shows like "Vikings" and "The Last Kingdom". Because of this, I've decided to base the main area on Anglo-Saxon Britain, with Pictish/Gaelic/Welsh styled peoples to the north and west, and then having a Scandinavian analogue culture to the northeast. But because I want the main story to take place in the Anglo-Saxon region I'm going to start with that.
When I world build the most important thing for me is to get the names/naming traditions right. I could just use random name generators but for this I really want to give the names more meaning. The first thing I did was begin researching Old English words, name elements, and prefixes and suffixes. This will form the basis for my "language" and will allow there to be consistency across all the various names that will be needed.
Let's say I wanted to have a warrior monk sort of character, the archetypal "paladin." He's very devout and hunts down sinners. Once I have the basic idea of what his deal is, I'll turn to my root words and piece a name together.
Because he's a "holy" man I think I will include the word "god" meaning "good" or "god"; or "os" meaning "god". With that locked in I can start looking for another word for the second part of his name. There are many elements that could easily go with this kind of character, these are the ones I picked out: "cempa" for "champion" or "warrior"; "friþ" for peace; "giefu" for gift, and "mund" for protection.
With these selected elements I have a lot of options for an interesting name. I'll also want to modernise the spellings so my readers don't get confused. He could be named Oscemp (god's champion), Godfrith (Good Peace/God's Peace), Osgief (God's Gift), or Godmund (God's Protection). And with that I have created a unique character name that has meaning.
The same goes for town names. I've read so many fantasy stories that have names like "Winterfell", "Shadowdale", or "Waterdeep". I'm even guilty of this for my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. But for this, I want to have more Anglo-Saxon sounding names. So, let's say I wanted to have a town named "Hawkfield". Back I go into my element list to search for a "translation". I came up with the town of "Heofocfeld". Which uses the elements "heofoc" meaning "hawk" and "feld" meaning "field". Now that looks like a mess of a word that will certainly confuse my readers. Let's take out the "-oc" in heofoc, and shorten the name to Heoffeld. That is certainly a lot easier to sound out and read.
(Side Note: I noticed while doing my research into Old English names is that they are mostly two syllables long or function like compound words)
That's all I have for now!
Cheers,
Enkelli Arn Robertson
Alright, so I want this setting to have the feel of Dark Ages Europe (approximately 5th–10th century). This is coming from my love of the sagas (e.g. Beowulf), Norse mythology, and shows like "Vikings" and "The Last Kingdom". Because of this, I've decided to base the main area on Anglo-Saxon Britain, with Pictish/Gaelic/Welsh styled peoples to the north and west, and then having a Scandinavian analogue culture to the northeast. But because I want the main story to take place in the Anglo-Saxon region I'm going to start with that.
When I world build the most important thing for me is to get the names/naming traditions right. I could just use random name generators but for this I really want to give the names more meaning. The first thing I did was begin researching Old English words, name elements, and prefixes and suffixes. This will form the basis for my "language" and will allow there to be consistency across all the various names that will be needed.
Let's say I wanted to have a warrior monk sort of character, the archetypal "paladin." He's very devout and hunts down sinners. Once I have the basic idea of what his deal is, I'll turn to my root words and piece a name together.
Because he's a "holy" man I think I will include the word "god" meaning "good" or "god"; or "os" meaning "god". With that locked in I can start looking for another word for the second part of his name. There are many elements that could easily go with this kind of character, these are the ones I picked out: "cempa" for "champion" or "warrior"; "friþ" for peace; "giefu" for gift, and "mund" for protection.
With these selected elements I have a lot of options for an interesting name. I'll also want to modernise the spellings so my readers don't get confused. He could be named Oscemp (god's champion), Godfrith (Good Peace/God's Peace), Osgief (God's Gift), or Godmund (God's Protection). And with that I have created a unique character name that has meaning.
The same goes for town names. I've read so many fantasy stories that have names like "Winterfell", "Shadowdale", or "Waterdeep". I'm even guilty of this for my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. But for this, I want to have more Anglo-Saxon sounding names. So, let's say I wanted to have a town named "Hawkfield". Back I go into my element list to search for a "translation". I came up with the town of "Heofocfeld". Which uses the elements "heofoc" meaning "hawk" and "feld" meaning "field". Now that looks like a mess of a word that will certainly confuse my readers. Let's take out the "-oc" in heofoc, and shorten the name to Heoffeld. That is certainly a lot easier to sound out and read.
(Side Note: I noticed while doing my research into Old English names is that they are mostly two syllables long or function like compound words)
That's all I have for now!
Cheers,
Enkelli Arn Robertson
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