What's in a name?

[Muggins]

Dear Jake (and don't take this too seriously),

I was working last night on the handout for my latest and greatest campaign (the one that's been percolating through my brain, and for which I chased up the TRoS rules), when I hit a block. A brick wall. An impasse. And it has ensured that I cannot continue. I have the setting, the NPCs, the new rules (cool magical ones you may get to see), even the outlines for the first adventures, but I can't continue.

You see, when writing a campaign about an evil empire conquering the world, it is always a good idea to have a awe-inspiring name for the Emperor. Something that evokes fear. Something that makes the players tremble when they say it. But on Weyrth, they call their evil Emperor:

Uglub.

I tried, I really did. "Uglub is coming to get you!". "Bow down before Uglub!". "Fear the wrath of Uglub." But somehow, it just doesn't work.

I like everything else about the setting, but I am afraid I shall have to change the name of the hideous emperor of Gelure.

But first, I must ask: How did you come up with that name?

James

[Valamir]

Heh.  Not quite as awe inspiring as Thulsa Doom, eh?

I believe Ugluk was the name of the Uruk-hai chief who kidnapped Merry and Pippen and was killed by the Riders of Rohan in The Two Towers.

I remember thinking it a horribly annoying name for an Orc.

I doubt that was the source inspiration for it.

[Caz]

I'd be scared of a guy named Cecil if he was a powerful sorcerer and harsh ruler of an entire hostile country who wanted to torture and kill me.

[Dain]

*grin*...I think it's an Anagram for Gates...as in Bill. That would scare the s%&t out of me. "Gates is coming to get you", "Bow down before Gates", and "Fear the wrath of Gates"...they all make perfect sense to me.

[Tash]

Zod...they all much kneel before Zod!

[MikeJW]

Have a bard named Johan Cashius sing about A Boy Named Uglub and how it made him the toughest dictator on the  continent.

[Stephen]

If memory serves me right, Jake explained this once:  Uglub was the name of a goblin character from an earlier game of his.

He also noted in the same post that a sorcerer as powerful as Uglub is not going to be using his real True Name in everyday speech, so it's pretty good odds that's a "use-name" only.

[Tash]

Or maybe that IS his true name....after all no one would actually think the most powerful sorcerer in the world had a true name that rhymed with Butt Plug now would they?

[Jake Norwood]

I didn't name him. Just 'cause my name is first on the credits doesn't mean I wrote everything...

The name did really grow on me, though.

Jake

[Muggins]

I glad to see that I am not alone in confronting this menace to the Riddle of Steel.

Perhaps we should have a forum-wide poll to select a suitably evil moniker for the Great and Ghastly Gelurian God-emperor?

James

[Tash]

Great and Ghastly Gelurian God-emperor?

James

Well that's got my vote....or we could call him...Betty mmmmmmmmm.....

[Dain]

uhg...Betty...Betty...Betty Nugs. Wheeze the juice!