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

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.

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.

*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.

Zod...they all much kneel before Zod!

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

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.

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?

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

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

Muggins wrote: Great and Ghastly Gelurian God-emperor?

James

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