Names#

Naming your character

Give them one name. Add a family name if their family holds a city charter, and skip the middle name unless they’re royalty or an ascended hero. If nothing comes to mind, find your race under Names by race and roll four d20s on its table, or press the button above it.

One name#

Most people in Sedia carry one name, given at birth. If their family holds a charter they add its family name after it: Daegon, or Daegon Ashford. That’s the whole of it for nearly everyone you’ll meet on the road.

Each race keeps its own customs on top of that. Dwarves aren’t named until they come of age, a freed gnome throws out the name a master gave them, and an elf will likely give you a different name than the one they answer to at home.

Middle names#

A middle name belongs to royalty. A royal is named three times (a given name, a second name and the family name, as in Zagreus Desmond Alvander), and the name in the middle is what tells anyone reading it that they’re royal.

Giving a commoner’s child a middle name claims royal blood the family doesn’t have. Those children are scorned wherever they go, their parents with them, and in the stricter provinces somebody ends up in a cell over it. Two kinds of commoner wear three names without trouble: an ascended hero, whose god gave them the middle one, and a troll, who is only saying their mother’s name.

A middle name at the table

A player who wants a middle name for a commoner is asking for a secret, so make it one: a royal parent nobody admits to, a family’s ambition, or a forged charter. The name is the question the story gets to answer.

Family names#

A family name is granted, not taken. The charter of the family’s city approves it, and any group of blood relatives may ask for one. Most come from what the family does (Miller, Mason), where it lives (Ashford, Tharnwick) or something a founder did that people still talk about (Stonecleaver). In Narsis a charter can be bought, and plenty of family names there are younger than the coin that paid for them.

Some people take a family name instead of being born to one. Servants and soldiers of a powerful lord often take their lord’s name so everyone knows where their loyalty sits. Every soldier of Julius Mandak’s Legion is a Mandak, which sets them apart from the common folk of Tharsis the moment they’re introduced.

Giving a name back

A soldier who leaves Mandak’s Legion gives the name Mandak back, and until a charter grants a new one they have no family name in the city’s eyes. Nobody gives a lord’s name back quietly, and the lord always hears about it.

Family structure#

A family works like a small clan, with its own hierarchy and its own purse. Most keep a shared coffer that every member pays into, and it buys what one member can’t: a ransom, a healer, a funeral, or a house in the city when a relative makes it into the gentry.

Because one member reflects on the whole family, a city usually deals with the family before it deals with the person. Punishment, chores and praise go through the family’s eldest first, and only reach the feudal court or the lord when the family can’t settle it. Not every lord or province runs things this way, but most do.

The oldest custom, from around the time of the War of Souls, puts the family name first on formal occasions: Ashford Daegon. Older citizens still introduce themselves that way, because to them your family says more about who you are than your own name does.

Forms of address#

A rank goes before the family name, never the given name: a baron is Baron Ashford to everyone outside the family. Guild ranks aren’t titles, so a master smith is still Brom Ironhand.

Names by race#

Every race below names its people its own way, but they all roll the same way at the table: one d20 for each half of the given name and one d20 for each half of the family name, read across the race’s table. Where the second half says to stop, the name ends with the first half. Each race also has a sound, a rule of thumb for making up a name of your own that sits well next to the rolled ones.

Elf#

Elves keep to Darkwood and the warmer lands and share little with the other races, their names included. An elf’s true name is spoken among elves. Outside Darkwood most elves give a human name instead (roll one on the Human table) and keep the true one to themselves, which is why the other races think elves have such plain names.

Elves don’t take city charters. Their family name is the house they were born to, given in the old tongue.

The elf page has how they live and where.

Sound Long and flowing, built on l, r, s and th with soft vowel pairs. Nothing ends hard.

Penelopy Cyphos Eremayis Photia Yohstis Quilotal

Pixie#

Pixies and sprites are among the oldest peoples of Urd, made by Lythantos in the Age of Peace, and they don’t come from families the way the younger races do. Each wakes in a bloom Lythantos planted and takes the bloom’s old name as their family name, written with a break in the middle: On’thill, So’lahar. A pixie and a sprite who woke in the same bloom count each other as kin, however many centuries apart they woke.

Every pixie is female, and a pixie’s name always ends on a vowel.

The pixie page has how they live and where.

Sound Light, two syllables, always ending on a vowel.

Mimi On'thill Rohna So'lahar Lilia Ve'lume

Sprite#

Sprites woke from the same blooms as pixies and take their family names the same way. Every sprite is male, and where a pixie’s name opens, a sprite’s closes: it always ends on a consonant, like a door shutting. That suits them, since plenty of sprites are gravediggers.

The sprite page has how they live and where.

Sound Short and closed, one or two syllables, always ending on a consonant.

Logan So'lahar Corvith On'thill Brin Al'dris

Roll the family name on the Pixie table.

Dwarf#

A dwarf isn’t named at birth. Until they come of age they go by their mother’s name and the order they were born in (Lohma’s Second), and their first finished work at the forge or in the mine earns them a name of their own from the clan’s elders.

A dwarf family name records a deed: what the founder did, in stone or metal, that people still talked about when the charter was written. The family is expected to keep doing it, and a Stonecleaver who has never split stone hears about it at every feast. King Mishnal Stonecleaver of Tharsis is the best known dwarf outside Jewall.

The dwarf page has how they live and where.

Sound One or two hard syllables with round vowels. If it sounds like a hammer landing, it's dwarven.

Gorbo Stonecleaver Brom Lohma Fireforge Haldi Deepdelver

A dwarf with no name yet

A young dwarf can start the game unnamed, going by their mother’s name and birth order. Earning the name is a fine first goal, and the elders decide when the work is good enough, not the player.

Orc#

An orc is born with one hard syllable, given by their mother. They earn the rest of their name from their warband, along with the deed-name orcs use for a family name: Blackmaw, Gorefang, Ironjaw. A warband can take a deed-name back as easily as it gave one.

An orc who comes home from a war puts an apostrophe in their name where the war broke it (Gor’ash). An orc without one hasn’t been to war yet, and every other orc knows it at a glance.

The orc page has how they live and where.

Sound Short and harsh, on g, k, r, z and sh. One syllable for the young, two for the proven.

Gorash Krasha Blackmaw Tzacko Gor'ash Skullsplitter

Gnome#

Most gnomes of the Northern Reach are still slaves of the dwarves, and a gnome in bondage answers to a work-name their master gave them: one blunt syllable, usually off the Dwarf table. A gnome who wins their freedom buries the work-name and takes a long, bright one, and the longer the name the freer it feels.

A freed gnome family takes its family name from the first thing it owned outright. The kettle or the button may be long gone, but the name keeps it.

The gnome page has how they live and where.

Sound Three bouncing syllables that end bright, on -y, -ick or -le. A work-name is the opposite: one dwarven syllable.

Fizzywick Copperkettle Nimmobble Bentnail Linnybell Tinwhistle

The master’s ledger

A freed gnome is free in the eyes of their new city, but their old master’s ledger in the Northern Reach still lists them under their work-name. Anyone who learns the work-name can find the ledger, and the dwarf who keeps it.

Goblin#

Goblins name themselves, and rename themselves whenever they like. An old goblin has a dozen names behind them and will list them for anyone who asks, and for plenty who don’t.

A goblin’s family name is an insult somebody threw at them, kept and worn with pride. The worse the insult, the prouder the goblin. Calling a goblin by their family name is a compliment, and inventing a new insult for them is a gift.

The goblin page has how they live and where.

Sound Short and squeaky, with doubled letters and endings like -ik, -ix and -azz.

Gribix Mudnose Snik Wartchin Rikazz Gutterlip

Kobold#

Kobolds never name themselves. A kobold’s pack argues a name onto them, sometimes for days and usually out of spite, and the name that sticks is the one the pack fought hardest over. Every kobold also keeps a second name to themselves: the one they mean to give a dragon.

A kobold family name is the dragon its pack claims to descend from, like Ashwyrm or Copperbrood. Whether that dragon ever lived is another argument.

The kobold page has how they live and where.

Sound Hissing and sharp, on s, sh, k and x.

Kessira Ashwyrm Zekix Vashara Venomhatch

Troll#

Trolls live by their tribe and its travels across the desert, and they carry their family in the way they introduce themselves: their own name, then their mother’s, then their tribe. Mbaru Tooma Saltwell is Mbaru, child of Tooma, of the Saltwell tribe. Roll the given name twice, once for the troll and once for their mother.

Three names sound royal to city ears, and trolls in Tharsis get stared at for it. Among trolls, leaving out your mother’s name is the insult.

The troll page has how they live and where.

Sound Long, open vowels on soft m, b and n. A troll name rolls out slowly and never stops short.

Mbaru Tooma Saltwell Lumoru Kaba Dunewalker Zumaya Bomene Stardrum

Human#

Humans are the newest race and the most common, and their names borrow from everyone. A human child is named at birth by its parents, often after a grandparent or someone the family admires.

Human family names come from the city charter: a place (Ashford), a trade (Miller) or, for the households that serve one, a lord’s name (Mandak).

The human page has how they live and where.

Sound Two or three syllables that end soft. Humans borrow from every race, so almost anything passes.

Daegon Ashford Melahna Rhodeus Tharnwick Verdinicous Flat

Half-Elf#

Half-elves turn up in Tharsis and Crecia and usually hide their elven half. Their names do the same: a human name that ends the way an elven one would, which is about as much elf as a half-elf will show a stranger.

A half-elf takes the human parent’s family name.

The half-elf page has how they live and where.

Sound Starts human and ends elven.

Calanor Fairwood Meliel Kellwick Wilynne Hartbury

Roll the first half of the given name on the Human table and the second half on the Elf table. Roll the family name on the Human table.

Half-Orc#

Half-orcs are born of the orc raids into the Northern Reach and raised by whichever side keeps them. Their given names start in the warband and end in the village: hard up front, soft at the end.

A half-orc raised by humans takes the human family name. One raised in a warband earns a deed-name like any orc (roll it on the Orc table instead).

The half-orc page has how they live and where.

Sound Starts orcish and ends human.

Gorinor Krashett Ranholt Mogan Stanmore

Roll the first half of the given name on the Orc table and the second half on the Human table. Roll the family name on the Human table.

Halfling#

Halflings came out of the War of Souls and have grown alongside humans ever since. A halfling child is named for the person the family owes the most, and being a halfling’s namesake is an honor that comes with an invitation to every one of their birthdays for the rest of your life.

Halfling family names are homely compounds from the field and the pantry: Thornhoof, Barleyloaf, Puddlefoot.

The halfling page has how they live and where.

Sound Two cozy syllables that end on -o, -a, -ish or -lot.

Ferlo Thornhoof Jota Furthing Homlot Yimish Honeyloaf

Quickling#

Quicklings talk too fast for long names. Most have one clipped syllable and say it twice when they shout it (Zip-Zip!), and since quicklings name themselves, the name is usually something they wanted at the time.

Quicklings rarely bother with family names. When a city charter asks for one they give a boast: Quickfingers, Nevercaught. A quickling who gets caught is expected to give the boast back, and the others never let them forget.

The quickling page has how they live and where.

Sound One quick syllable, two at most. If you can't shout it twice in one breath, it's too long.

Zip Nevercaught Jink Kipit Quickfingers

Ascended names#

An avarie or a daemune was a hero first. When a hero ascends as the avatar of their god, they keep the name they earned and their god adds one more between the given name and the family name. That makes an ascended hero the one commoner who can wear a middle name in any city, and nobody who reads it on a charter mistakes them for royalty for long.

The god’s name is closer to a title than a name. Celestial gods give names of light and office, like Dawnward or Brightvow; infernal gods give names of hunger and debt, like Ashtithe or Gravesworn. Melahna Kellwick ascends as Melahna Dawnward Kellwick, and from then on the god’s name is the one people use.

Naming a place#

Sedia’s places mostly name themselves after what they’re like, in the words of the country around them. Pick the country, then a prefix and a suffix from its lists: Frost and fell make Frostfell, Bone and dune make Bonedune. For what the locals call it, put a describing word to a thing: the wind-scoured crag, the reed-choked mire. The roller does both, and the lists are below it.

Use the name for a farm, a hill, a ruin no map bothers with, or the inn at the crossroads. The towns and the great sites already have theirs.