Giikari

[muckefuck]

I finally got around to digging out my old OA campaign notes last night--an inevitable consequence of seeing Onmyoji last weekend. I'd been scribbling notes on the train all week. Monday I got a terrific idea for--

Know something odd? I don't want to post it. Not out of embarrassment (I am so beyond that at this point), but out of fear of spoilers. See, even though the campaign has been lying dormant for over ten years at this point, I've never entirely given up on it. Me and my brothers still game and still see each other from time to time, so there's always a chance we'll start things up again, isn't there? I'd hate to have bunj know what was in store because he read it here first. Silly Da!

As usual, I got distracted by the names. When I first drew the map, I didn't know crap about Japanese--and the GM who drew the map it was based on knew even less. So what did I do? Try to rationalise them, of course! Sure, I could just rename everything properly, but that would be too easy. I have access to such good reference material now that I can spin out suitable and interesting names without half trying. There's more challenge in tweaking these naïve creations.

For instance, one of the villages was called Yeijo. (The syllable yei doesn't even exist in modern Japanese.) I sat down with Nelson's and went through almost every character with the on reading ei or jo until I found two I liked that worked together: "wide pillar" and "barn; villa". Now suddenly the village has the sketch of a history: Clearly, at some time in the past, someone important built a large, noteworthy structure there. Who was it and what became of the building? More questions to answer, which in turn will add depth to the setting--even though it will just go back into the folder within a few days to be pulled out again next time something makes me think of it.

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

You have a great brain.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It's HUGE!