On Place-Names

I've always struggled naming places in campaign worlds. This sometimes happens when I'm a player - I've had DMs have us make up locations for our character backgrounds, which they then incorporate into the geography of their campaign world (or they ignore them and we assume that they're off the map/too obscure to warrant inclusion, and that's fine too). I can rattle off a serviceable backstory easily enough, especially since background has never been all that important in our games. What matters is what happens at the table, after all. But coming up with a place for my character to be from can leave me paralyzed for minutes on end.

But however bad that can be, it's way worse when I'm DMing and I try to create stuff out of whole cloth. I originally used the Nentir Vale map for 4E, keeping the locations but freely reinterpreting them for the purposes of my own campaign. But as time went on and the lore for the setting grew, I got more and more paranoid about contradicting something established.

But you can just ignore the established lore, say the straw-man voices in my head. Maybe you can, I reply. I can't. Not easily, and not without needless hand-wringing.

I don't have this problem with naming characters. Names can be recycled. I can name my evil wizard Arthur, it doesn't matter that, in another  universe, there's a legendary king named Arthur, it's just a name.

But places have names that are supposed to be unique. Sure there's fifty Springfields, but I can't have my players climbing Mount-Everest-No-Not-The-Real-One. But anytime I try to come up with a sufficiently "fantasy"-ish name I feel like I sound ridiculous. I can't send my players to the Lost Caverns of Mimsy-shriftenbibble. Other fantasy works can have nonsense-word names without issue, but I can't hack it.

The reason I bring this up now, incidentally, is because I was sitting on a train platform in New Jersey, thinking about how many place-names in the U.S. (particularly the east coast) are recycled. If they're not named after people, they just stuck "New" before some town from England for which they presumably felt homesick (or, possibly, wanted to thumb their nose at). I thought, it must have been nice to have a whole country's worth of place-names all ready to go when you discover a whole new continent steal someone else's land and put a country on it.

But then I remembered my summer in London, and how I will never stop thinking "Cockfosters" is effing hilarious. If I came up with that on my own for a D&D campaign I'd never hear the end of it, but it exists in real life and I guess everyone in London manages to keep a straight face about it.

Anyway, my solution for the place-name problem is usually to just use descriptive English words, possibly mashed together: "The Stone Hills." "The Grey Mountains." "Bluestone Hollow." "Greenbridge Village." But I worry that that's getting old--how many "[Color] Mountains" does your average fantasy world need anyway? So how do you handle place-names in your campaign? English words? String syllables together and hope for the best? Create entire fictitious languages?

Let’s Build a World: The Empire of Dragons – Mythology

Io and the Artificer

Listen, hatchling, to another tale of the making of the world. This one is whispered by the Not-Dragons, in their cities and around the campfires. They hide it from us, from Dragonkind. That is why you must learn it, because stories have power.

Long, long ago, Io made the world and made Dragons to rule over it. You know this already, yes. What you do not know is that, in this first age of the world, there were only the Dragons that Io made with Io’s own breath. They did not die, and no new Dragons were born of them. Nor did they fight, for all Dragons knew without question which portion of the world was theirs, knew who was greater and lesser than them.

The world was beautiful, and Io loved it. But it was unchanging, and Io grew dissatisfied. So Io created the animals, creatures of change. They would create new animals and then grow old and die and their offspring would grow and create and age and die in their turn. So change came into the world, and Io saw the way the animals lived out their short lives, and the world was beautiful, and Io loved it.

But Io wanted more. All Dragons, even Io, want more. Remember that it is good to want more, but remember also that this can destroy us.

So Io created new creatures. He made them small and weak, and he gave them no names. We call them Not-Dragons. They made many names for themselves later, but that is another story.

The Dragons said to Io (for in those days Io lived among us undisguised), what is the purpose of these creatures? They are too weak to serve us.

And Io said This is their Purpose.  And with those words Io breathed over the creatures, and gave them souls. They were weaker than Dragons, yes, and duller, and their lives were short while ours are endless. But the Not-Dragons had souls, and so they began to change themselves. They created weapons and clothes, and stole magic from the air, the water, and the land. And they became like Dragons themselves. The Dragons called out to Io, demanded that Io set the world right and destroy these abominations. But Io said nothing. He merely waited, and watched.

It came to be that the greatest of the humans, a mighty emperor we now call the Artificer, believed he could challenge even great Io. So the Artificer created a pair of wings, and stole the best magic from the air, the water, and the land, and he flew up, up, up, beyond the moon and stars into the endless darkness beyond, higher than anyone, Dragon or Not-Dragon, has flown before or since. At last, he came to the crystal sphere that separates this world from Io’s palace (for as you know, all worlds are but glittering jewels in Io’s trove)—and he gathered his magic and broke through the wall.

Now, of course, this Not-Dragon was no match for Io. The god devoured the Artificer whole. But remember that all you eat becomes part of you. Remember, too, that all Dragons are part of Io. So when Io consumed the Not-Dragon, Io changed, and all the Dragons changed.

This is why, they say, Dragons warred against each other, why they mate and bear young, and why, now, they can die.

And this is why, they say, Io is now in two parts. The forms and the names would come later, in another story. For now it is enough that Io consumed the Artificer, and the Dragons were changed, and the god was divided.

This is why we do not eat the Not-Dragons. This is why, sometimes, Not-Dragons can become Dragons—because of Io and the Artificer.

Is it true, you ask? But this does not matter. Look into the eyes of a Not-Dragon. They have created names for themselves, they have made weapons, they have stolen magic from the air, the water, the land. You can see the story burning inside them like the white light of Io’s breath. That is the power of this story, and that is why you must know it.

After that the Dragons were scattered and divided, and the Not-Dragons ruled while the Dragons cowered and hid. We do not speak much of the age of Not-Dragons. There are some still alive who remember that time. Find one of them and ask nicely, hatchling, if you wish to know what happened next. Or perhaps I will tell you that story. But not tonight.