#Inpalav

[aramis-dagaz]

Current Storyworlds/Campaign Settings

The Firmament: huge, sprawling fantasy space opera magepunk. Contains several subsettings.

- Inpalav: dragon-ruled theocratic aetherfaring republic, strong tradition of merchants, mercenaries, adventurers, and pirates as a result of the Contract War. As much legalpunk as it is magepunk due to one of the dragon-gods being a god of law with a functioning republic serving as her hoard.

- Verraxia: aetherfaring feudal society featuring knights in mecha armor. Wealth and prestige measured by ships and shipping routes than by land. Role of a Roman Catholic church pastiche played by a grand conclave of mages. A bit archaic, very romantic. Biggest export: bored minor nobility seeking wealth and glory because they are unlikely to find it at home.

- The Aetheric South: slow-burn apocalypse in progress in a lot of places, if not outright post-apocalyptic already. Beset by monsters created from the anxieties, despair, and callousness of sapient beings to others found in “advanced” civilization. Typical remedy is to drive them off and let them be someone else’s problem. An aetherscape of bright, glittering cities surrounded by a dark wasteland of death, despair, and unresolved social and psychological trauma. Few outside the region know of the latter. Setting for a campaign I’m developing that’s Dark Souls meets Acquisitions Incorporated, tentatively named Gear Souls.

Allershire: intended to be a classic generic sword-and-sorcery wizards-and-warriors medieval fantasy setting, ended up being a more 1970s/early 1980s-esque weird fantasy with the generic medieval fantasy built on the bones of an Ancient, Advanced Civilization. Actually, make that two Ancient, Advanced Civilizations, one being two factions of aliens fighting to gain control over the artifacts of an ancient race of titans with magic and technology beyond the ken of mere mortals, which may involve aeons-spanning time travel. Said aliens are actually from the Firmament described above. This was supposed to be a simple setting for my niece and nephew’s first D&D campaign. Ah, well.

Jade Coast: alternate fantasy version of 18th century Pacific Northwest, only lightly colonized by fantasy Qing dynasty China. Colonies isolated by massive Three Kingdoms-style dynastic collapse and civil war going on back home. Companion setting to Tempest Realms, the current wigpunk campaign I’m playing in. Originally supposed to be a quick, fun, generic Avatar: the Last Airbender-themed setting idea to test ideas for playing benders in D&D 5e. Oops.

[aramis-dagaz-imaginarium]

25% of the reason why I’ve been so quiet for the past week

The other 75% of the reason is making custom rules for a Pathfinder campaign I’m going to GM, mainly rules for guns that shoot spells.

The Firmament The Firmament is an endless void of silvery gray light.  Within this void are numerous motes of rock, dirt, and other substances upon which many nations and cultures build their civilizations.  Crisscrossing the Firmament are the Arcs, bands of intense energy that travelers use to voyage throughout the aether. In many ways, the Firmament is at the center of all of Existence, where multiple worlds and portals connect to.  As such, the Firmament teems with all manner of sapient species, and numerous cities and nations are melting pots of many different cultures and economies. Such travel and trade is reliant upon the Arcs, which form the pathways upon which ships travel from one place to another.  While it is possible for ships to voyage through the aether itself without the Arcs, such travel would take months, years, even centuries.  With the Arcs, these journeys take mere weeks at most, even though the exact path between any two given points won’t always be the same.  Navigating the Arcs is as much an art as it is a science. Resonances Matter may make up the physical body of the Firmament and everything in it, but Resonances are its very lifeblood and soul.  In its most simple form, a Resonance is simply an energy field, made up of heat, light, or other more exotic forms of energy.  At higher orders of energy, however, patterns begin to emerge.  As these patterns become more ordered and complex, Resonances stop merely existing and start actively interacting with its environment.  Some Resonances bond with matter, and at increasing levels of complexity, these Resonances become life, which in turn become minds, and finally, sapience. Therefore, sufficiently advanced Resonances are the spark of life.  In sapient creatures, many have referred to them as souls.  For those of immense power and consciousness, they are called gods. Like any pattern and energy field, Resonances can be observed, understood, and, more importantly, harnessed and controlled.  This is the basis of magic, which all sapient beings hold the potential of wielding, albeit some better than others.  Over the ages, mages have learned to control and manipulate existing Resonances, and even create new ones to serve various functions. In the Firmament, all living creatures, regardless of their physical composition, level of sapience or lack thereof, and magical power possess a Resonance that is their consciousness and very lifeforce.  Magic creates and manipulates Resonances, and sometimes is able to do so to a degree that it can create a Resonance of sufficient complexity to have an awareness of its own.  Resonances sometimes form spontaneously, especially in regions of powerful, uncontrolled forces or in the wake of gods, becoming aether ghosts or bonding with matter and forming elementals that are little more than wild animals.  Mages create Resonances that become autonomous spells, allowing them to perform rituals without their direct action or perform deeds that they would not be able to accomplish directly.  Some even go further and imbue these complex Resonances with vast arrays of heuristics, and even a bit of personality.  These constructed Resonances are bound to physical bodies, creating golems. And sometimes, whether they were artificially created or arose from the clash and churn of natural forces, these Resonances attain sapience themselves, and thus become their own being. Inpalav One of the many inhabited regions of the Firmament is Inpalav.  What sets Inpalav apart from many other places in the aether are the Asters, seven large structures of mysterious age and origin that slowly pulse with unknown yet powerful energies that give Inpalav heat and light.  This alone would make them the topic of study for many sages and scholars, but adding to the mystery is the fact that they are connected to massive chains trailing off into the void, giving them the appearance that they hanging from something, but whatever and wherever it is, it is far beyond the sight of anyone, mundane or magical.  If the gods know, they aren’t telling anyone.  Many expeditions have been made to discover the other end of these chains, but so far none were able to find out before being forced to turn back due to dwindling fuel and supplies. Below the Asters swirl the motes of Inpalav, upon which its inhabitants make their living.  The motes move in a circular pattern around an empty center below the centermost Aster, with “down” throughout the region generally being an undefined point far below them.  While this doesn’t affect anyone who happens to be traveling through the aether between the motes, it does make building structures on the underside of the motes more difficult, forcing the inhabitants to weather through the hazardous seasons of Dustfall and the Scouring. The primary polity of Inpalav is the Inpalavese Pact Republic, joining together most of the cities, regions, and societies into a single nation.  The Pact Republic’s capital is located in Telseranct, a city that completely occupies the hollow interior of its mote.  The Republic is nominally ruled by the Inpalavese Congress, whose members are selected by their regions’ citizens and pass the legislation that keep the government running.  However, the true power is wielded by a dragon known as Pethakharet the Kritarch, the supreme justice of the Republic.  Although she has explicitly stated that her role is to ensure that the laws of the Republic are obeyed and the rights of its citizens are preserved, only intervening when the laws passed by Congress impede on such rights and the founding principles of the Pact, the fact of the matter is that the Inpalavese Congress rarely enacts any legislation that hasn’t been reviewed and revised by the Kritarch, making her the true ruler of the Republic in all but name. As the political center and most populous city of the Republic, Telseranct is also its center of culture, trade, and magical and technological advancement.  Its citizens enjoy the highest standard of living, at least those who can afford it or haven’t fallen through the cracks.  The city also thrives on the energy trade, as the exterior of the mote is covered with biomechanical plants that convert the energy the Asters and Inpalav’s major Arc radiate into usable power for its shipyards and research universities.  Combined with the protection the city enjoys from the Dustfall and Scouring seasons due to being within the interior of the mote, Telseranct sometimes seems immune to the troubles the other motes face. Chalcauri is a rural mote that once fueled the economy of the entire region through the logging of the metallic trees that grow there, but changes in trade and industry elsewhere has pushed this region into the margins of Inpalavese society, turning it into an economic liability that most would prefer to ignore.  Farming, logging, and mining continue to be the mote’s primary economic activities, but they are a shadow of what they once were and are mostly continued out of stubbornness.  Most of the citizens living here feel neglected and abandoned, becoming increasingly disillusioned of the Pact that joins them to a seemingly uncaring Republic.  Only the continued protection of the Republic fleet guarding against the Sovereignties on the other side of the mote, a lawless wasteland choked with prolific krisweed and populated by outlaws and malcontents who preferred to live in a harsh wilderness than obey the laws of the Republic, are what keeps the citizens of Chalcauri from breaking ties entirely. Tithe Marghûlv is less a proper city and more a staging ground for adventurers, mercenaries, merchants, and others looking for quick coin in the Asterspire, a shattered conical mote that many believe used to be part of one of the Asters.  The very ground seems to support this theory, as there are many minerals and metals there that are found nowhere else in Inpalav or even elsewhere in the Firmament.  Before the Pact Republic was formed, the city of Tithe Marghûlv covered nearly the entirety of the Asterspire, rivaling Telseranct in size and influence, but a terrible war erupted, consuming the entire mote in violence, bloodshed, and devastating, alien magicks.  The conflict did not so much end as it simply died out, leaving behind terrible scars, desolate ruins and urban wastelands, horrifying monsters, and lingering, malignant magical energies.  Despite this, the denizens of Tithe Marghûlv are an optimistic lot, albeit of a gruff and dark humor.  For them, the ashes of the Asterspire hold many treasures, relics, and rare substances waiting for someone brace and tough enough to come and claim them.  As a result, many travel to the Asterspire to seek their fortune, but for every seron who finds vast wealth, there are countless others who either perish in the wastes or are trapped in inescapable drudgery. Located near the primary Arc that leads elsewhere to the Firmament, Port Nephatesh is a busy hub of ship traffic and trade and the center of worship for the dragon god of travel and commerce the city is named after.  Though still far smaller than Telseranct, Port Nephatesh is densely populated by shipcrews, dock workers, mechanics, merchants, harbor masters, and emissaries representing numerous trade ventures and international interests.  Of all of these, the two most prominent presences are that of House Segoril and the personal consortium owned Plutarch, another dragon god of wealth and trade.  Though the presence of two of the largest and wealthiest trade guilds in the Firmament as well as the ever-watchful guards and bureaucrats of Nephatesh’s primary temple keep the city’s never-ending bustle as orderly and congenial as possible, there are rumors that House Segoril or Plutarch are maneuvering to become the dominant faction in the city, not only supplanting the Temple of Nephatesh as the leader of economic and political matters, but also, in Plutarch’s case, in theological ones as well. Though the Pact Republic claims all of Inpalav as its domain, the truth is that there are huge regions that are not under its control or authority.  One of the most prominent is the Lasu Sea, a massive body of water and other, more esoteric liquids that takes up nearly a quarter of Inpalav’s space.  While most of the Lasu Sea is one single entity, the sea itself ebbs and flows in the Aether, forming massive bubbles of aether, swallowing up small, neighboring motes, and breaking up into a chain of smaller, intricate geometric bodies of water.  Numerous sapient species, both aquatic and not, call this region home, and a few of the motes near, on, and within the sea host small societies and loose confederations of nomadic tribes.  The Republic has invited many of these groups into the Pact, but thus far most have refused, preferring to tend to their own affairs.  For their part, the Republic has honored their decisions, pursuing friendly relations with their neighbors and enforcing such agreements against any who would seek to plunder this region at the expense of its inhabitants, but the Republic’s enforcers are only so many and the Lasu Sea has plenty of places for the bold to venture forth unmolested.  There are many tales telling of undiscovered or forgotten riches and wonders to be found, including a portal to the Realm of Dreams itself.

[aramis-dagaz-imaginarium]

Current version of a NPC generator for my current Pathfinder campaign setting, mainly just for determining nationality, home region, and species.

Nationality (1d8) 1-4: Inpalavese 5-7: Foreigner 8: Vollerian

Vollerians are beings that originated from Volleri, the dreamrealm, or are dreamers who found their way to the Firmament.  Their behavior is typically based upon dream logic and thus seem odd to most folk in the waking world.  They sometimes interact with reality in unpredictable ways and see or know things beyond the ken of conscious minds.  Whether this is a boon or a hindrance is difficult to discern at times.

Inpalavese Home Region (1d6) 1: Telseranct 2: Port Nephatesh 3: Tithe Marghûlv 4: Chalcauri (1-in-6 chance of actually being from The Sovereignties) 5: Republic Space 6: Outside Republic Space

Telseranct is the capital of the Republic and center of Inpalav’s energy trade.  Laws are strictly enforced here.

Port Nephatesh is the primary port and trading hub of the Republic.  Very cosmopolitan and where a lot of adventurers base themselves out of.

Tithe Marghûlv is nothing but a ruined, blighted urban wasteland.  The only civilization here are in small, heavily fortified towns and outposts.  Economy is based entirely on adventurers braving the ruins and bringing back salvaged treasures or unique artifacts that resulted from the devastation generations ago.  Populated mainly by the brave, foolish, desperate, or opportunistic.

Chalcauri is a large, sparsely populated mote where organic and Kaurathi ecosystems coexist.  Very rural, dependent mainly on farming and mining, though currently in economic decline.

The Sovereignties is mainly a wasteland on the Chalcauri mote where radical political dissidents go.  It’s a mix of an Australia and 17th century Massachusetts.  Many of the people living here are glad to be out from under the Republic’s thumb, even though farming there is horrendously difficult due to the ever prolific krisweed and the Republic Navy corvettes patrol the borders to make sure they don’t leave.  Of course, they could have left Republic space beforehand, but those sent to the Sovereignties were already in some kind of legal trouble and it was either this or prison.

Republic space is the Aether outside of the four largest motes where the people living there are either professed citizens of the Republic or where the Republic Navy reliably patrols.  Small towns, minor cities, farms, industrialized motes, and similar locations are found here.  If your character is from Republic space, they are of a rural or small town background as opposed to living in the big cities or on Chalcauri (which is also rural and small town, but on a large mote).

While most places outside of Republic space are similar to those within the Republic, they are settlements either on the frontier of the Republic or are completely independent from it.  Even though the Republic claims all of Inpalav as its sovereign territory, it only can control about a quarter of it and is only capable of reliably projecting the power of the Navy into a third of the region.  People from outside of the Republic can be criminals, dissidents, independently-minded settlers, or Republic citizens living or working beyond its effective borders.  The only laws out here are those you can enforce yourself.

On the species table below, your result is dependent on if your character is from Inpalav or elsewhere in the Firmament.  Roll 1d12 if you just want an even chance of any species, reroll on 12.  Vollerians use same column as Foreigner.

Species (1d20, or 1d12 for even chance) Inpalavese 1-4, Foreigner 1-3: Firarsian (if Foreigner, 25% chance of being an Epistrephan) Inpalavese 5-6, Foreigner 4: Kobold Inpalavese 7, Foreigner 5: Achnari Inpalavese 8-11, Foreigner 6: Kaurathi Inpalavese 12-14, Foreigner 7-10: Fhalsnir (roll 1d12 for your House: 1-3: Sgoreil, 4-5: Lorgaidh, 6: Braemar, 7: Gaoith, 8: Fasnakyl, 9: Balmorii, 10-12: unaligned) Inpalavese 15, Foreigner 11-12: Sahmuli (10% chance of being a Kahmulo) Inpalavese 16, Foreigner 13: Djinni Inpalavese 17, Foreigner 14: Naga (sex is always female, 3-in-4 chance of being a queen, 50% chance of being part of one of the major naga banking clans) Inpalavese 18, Foreigner 15-16: Phaneroi Inpalavese 19, Foreigner 17: Demi-human (1d8: 1: human, 2: elf, 3: dwarf, 4: orc, 5: gnome, 6: halfling, 7: other, 8: hybrid (roll twice)) Inpalavese 20, Foreigner 18-20: Other

Firarsian: Felinoids descended from dragons, which are more feline than reptilian.  Espistrephans are a subculture of adventurous, swashbuckling bards. Kobold: Diminutive cousins of Firarsians, tend to have more draconic features than their taller cousins. Achnari: Humanoids that are just as much plant as animal.  Masters of genetic engineering and husbandry. Kaurathi: Living mechanical organisms. Fhalsnir: Most common humanoid species in the Firmament, culture is based on shared bonds via pheromones.  Typically aligned with one of seven transnational Houses that specialize in a particular activity or belief, such as trade, mercenary work, law enforcement, or arcane study. Sahmuli: Short distant cousins of Fhalsnir.  Occasionally a Sahmuli becomes a Kahmulo, who grow to be over 10 feet tall. Djinni: Masters of Esgari, the language of magic.  Essentially experts in true name magic and can affect the world with poetry and calligraphy. Naga: Four-armed humanoid snakes, all of them female.  Renowned for their secure and discreet banks and financial services throughout the Firmament. Phaneroi: Manifestations of the id, created when powerful emotions or ideas are concentrated in a given area or via spells or magical mishaps.  Many are fully sapient with agendas of their own, though they tend to be heavily influenced by the circumstances of their creation. Demi-human: All traditional high fantasy races, such as humans, elves, and orcs. Other: There are many strange, unique, and wondrous species to be found in the Firmament and the realms connected to it, though not nearly as numerous as the species listed here.

[aramis-dagaz]

How do you come up with names for your fictional settings, factions, characters, etc? -a fledgeling DM

In all honesty, through a lot of pain, wailing, gnashing of teeth, beseeching of dark and eldritch powers, and wrestling with my crippling self-doubt.  I can come up with an interesting and intertwining system of government, religion, social castes, and the history of it spanning a thousand years in a day, maybe longer if I’m doing a lot of research.  Coming up with names will literally take me weeks, completely stalling the project until then.  God help me if I ever have children.  If you have trouble coming up with names, you’re not alone.

In the naming of things, you’ll want to follow these three Rs: Research, wRite it down, and Remix. - Research: exactly what it says on the tin.  Hit the books, visit websites, keep your ears and eyes open to anything that sounds or looks interesting. - Write it down: you will forget.  Don’t let those thoughts get away from you.  Also record where you got those ideas from so you can revisit that particular well. - Remix: the fun and/or painful part where you torture your initial fodder into something useful.

Thankfully, there are a lot of tools and resources to help make this process easier, though it really depends on whether you’re basing your names on an existing or historical culture or making something more unique.

If you’re basing your naming schemes on existing cultures or fictional settings, then your best bet is https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/.  This site, by far, has name generators for just about anything you can possibly want as well as generators for things other than names.  Best of all, Emily, the site creator, explains her logic for why the names sound the way they do.

Another good resource and the one I use probably more often than fantasynamegenerators is http://www.behindthename.com/random/.  This site provides actual real-world names along with some mythical, ancient, and literature-based names.  Best part of using this site is that you can look up what the names’ etymology, historical development, and what they actually mean, which is perfect if you like to give your characters symbolic names.  There’s also a sister site for surnames as well, https://surnames.behindthename.com/.

Sometimes, though, you’ll either not find what you’re looking for on the previous sites or want to dig a little deeper into the logic behind certain naming schemes.  In that case, you’ll have to do some legwork.  Doing an Internet search for “[whatever] name generator” or “[whatever] name lists” can help.  Avoid baby name sites, they are complete garbage.  Wikipedia can also help if you want lists of kings or historically important people (such as this list of ancient Egyptians, though admittedly these are for very important people who had their names written down somewhere, so your mileage will vary).  This will help you at least get an idea of what these names look and sound like, if not actually create as-close-to-authentic names as you can.  Also look up the languages involved so that you know how they look, sound, and are put together.  Anglicized versions of names from non-European languages can be fraught with peril, as the combinations of letters you read don’t always translate to what you think they should sound like (especially Irish Gaelic and Chinese.  Whomever did the Latinization of those languages needs to be slapped).

If you want to make names that are essentially just basic words from another language (like naming a character “Radish”, only in, say, Japanese), Google Translate is a good start and will give you an idea of what those words would look like written in English as well as similar words.  However, I highly recommend trying out other online translators as it’s already firmly established that Google Translate is not completely reliable.  I named a character this way, Altarus Almakhzun, which is bastardized Arabic for “Gears Inventory”, which fits because he’s supposed to be a djinni artificer.

If you’re looking for place names that are based on a real world culture or language, a good method is hopping onto Google Maps or getting an old road atlas that shows all of the tiny towns and villages, picking a random spot, and then just wandering around, making note of any interesting-sounding place names.  If you’re ever on a road trip, keep a piece of paper and a pen handy to jot down interesting names you see on the roadsigns, but please please please be careful if it’s just you driving.

Okay, that covers names that are at least grounded in some version of reality.  But what about truly unique names?

In all honesty, the sky’s the limit and you’re kinda on your own.  But here’s my process: - Start with a strange or interesting-looking word or name (eg, Inpalav evolved out of Impavide, meaning fearless, the motto of the 90th Missile Wing) - Find the syllables and sounds that appeal to you.  Make a list. - Load those syllables and sounds into the Hadron collider of your brain.  Smash them together, rip them apart, twist them into a fractal gordian pretzel as many times as you please - Take a few of the results that stand out, and then mutate them through a thousand permutations, swapping out letters and syllables each time - Imagine someone saying this name in casual conversation, awed, reverent tones, and at the top of their lungs swearing eternal vengeance - Pick the ones that pass this Darwinian struggle

That said, though, here are a few other rules to make sure that you have something that’s workable: - Say the name out loud.  If you can’t pronounce it on command, adjust it so you can. - Make sure how it’s pronounced and how it looks jive together.  In my experience, I’ve found names that look cool and sound cool, and they don’t always coincide. - Keep apostrophes to a minimum.  One per name is fine, especially if the apostrophe is culturally or linguistically relevant, but avoid them if you can. - Share your ideas with friends and see what they think.  If they immediately think of a cutesy nickname for your Dark Lord of Ancient Evil or just immediately call your Elven Prince of a Thousand Apostrophes “Bob” in lieu of twisting their tongue into a klein bottle, it’s back to the drawing board.

Once you have some workable names, think about the fictional etymologies of them.  You don’t need to go all Tolkien here and actually write out the exact origins of these names, but at the very least think about a few rules for this particular culture.  Does the name mean something?  Are there any common or reoccuring syllables?  Does a particular syllable denote something about the character, such as gender, place of origin, or social class?  This will help make the names feel more real and part of a larger culture.

A couple examples from my own settings: - The Fhalsnir are a very widespread species and have multiple cultures (they are the humans of the Firmament), but there are a couple of etymological holdovers from their homeworld.  Typical names are about two to four syllables long and typically end in -ig, -rig, -vig, or -ith (eg, Sorvig, Sorvith, Maegrig).  -ith is usually considered feminine, but cultural drift and change has made that rule largely irrelevant in the present day.  Some cultures cleave to these rules, some ignore them entirely and adopt names from other cultures and languages, and most adopt some combination thereof. - One culture names everyone with numbers, with some of the longer names resembling a fantasy version of an IP address (given name, parents’ names, clan/tribe name, perhaps town of birth, etc). Should such a character found a ruling dynasty, they may end up be Primus of the Third Dynasty of the Nation of Seven, with their parents retroactively given negative number names for the history books, never mind that Primus of Third (informally Prime-Three) was originally Twelver, child of Octus and Quint, born of the Fiftieth Tribe of the One-O-Sixteenth Province.

As a reward for reading all of that, I’ll share a couple of links for some more esoteric and whimsical names: - 16th-19th century Puritan names: https://aramis-dagaz-imaginarium.tumblr.com/post/134169440876/brookenomicon-sonnetscrewdriver - If you want to give your characters some descriptive names but want to use some very esoteric words, such as Sagacious Zu from Jade Empire, this site has got you covered: http://phrontistery.info/clw.html - A collection of blog posts on names, including some random generators, ways to create fantasy names, and some name-based humor for writers stressing out over naming characters: https://aramis-dagaz-imaginarium.tumblr.com/tagged/names

Hope this helps!  May your characters and nations get the memorable names they deserve!