On Awesome PC names

The sample name list has been a staple of fantasy rpgs since at least the 90s, often each culture and/or race in a setting has its own list of typical names. These lists can be very helpful in selecting a PC name that places your character firmly in the milieu. But every awesome PC name I've ever encountered ignores the setting rules and does its own thing instead. I've found that the best PC names follow a narrative logic all their own. Rather than being a string of culturally-approved consonants and vowels, a PC name can tell you something about the internal nature of the character or somehow signal the intentions of the player. Let me run down some examples selected from my favorite PC names past and present.

Dix Falcon - Looks weak on paper, but when you combine the way the first name sounds with the fact that the character really is a dick, suddenly you have comedy gold. Then add to the equation that Dix is an ill-tempered wizard who would not hesitate to fry you for making fun of his name. I think Johnny Cash once wrote a song about this PC.

Forgelock X-51 - Forgelock seemed the obvious answer when the question of what to call a Warforged Warlock came up, but appending the X-51 really makes this name sing. A crazy alphanumeric designation is pitch perfect for my new Eberron campaign, where Warforged aren't just kinda like robots, they're exactly like crazy comic book robots built by mad scientists. And as someone who has been reading Nextwave: Agents of HATE the X-51 designation even provides personality info. Marvel comics nerds will recognize X-51 as the model number of Aaron Stack a.k.a. Machine Man. In his recent Nextwave appearances ol' X-51 has been one of those "we robots are superior to you fleshy ones" types. I can't wait to see how that plays out.

Osric the Slayer - On the surface this is nothing to write home about. But if you're a huge fan of the greatest film of all time, Conan the Barbarian, then surely you get that this name was swiped from Osric the Usurper, the old king Max Von Sydow played. Since my guy was meant to be Osric prior to becoming a king, I dropped the Usurper part. 'The Slayer' seemed like a good alternate title, as the black lotus dealer in the film refers to Conan and Subotai as slayers. 'Osric the Slayer' sounds like the title of a bad sword & sorcery comic or paperback series, which is exactly the effect I was shooting for. Osric is a cheap Conan rip-off and the name communicates that fact on several levels. When Doug heard this dude's name he immediately understood the whole character. It should also be noted that Osric follows Ron Edwards' suggestion (from Sorcerer & Sword, one of the best genre guides in the hobby) for creating authentic sword & sorcery protagonists: use a real name that someone in history actually used and not a random jumble of renfaire-sounding crap.

Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter - The pre-gen PCs in Against the Giants all have great names but this one takes the cake. Seriously, this is the greatest character name Gary Gygax ever came up with. I have no idea what it is supposed to mean, and maybe that's the secret. I have to acknowledge the sheer undiluted coolness of Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter. And Gleep Wurp is fun to say out loud. Try it.

Bart Bolt - I stole this name and do not regret it. In fact, I stole the name from two different places. Bartholomew Bolt was the name given to a Citadel figure, a mounted crossbowman, that was released round about the same time 2nd edition AD&D rolled out. I was working on a crossbow-shooting ranger and there he was. But Bart Bolt was also inspired by Black Bart, the munchkin PC of Roger Moore. The editorial page of Dragon #161 (September 1990) was devoted to Mr. Moore waxing nostalgic about Black Bart and his beloved, the barbarian Ursula. Black Bart went on the kind of crazy dimension-hopping, high-octane escapades that were out of style in 1990, but Bart's adventuring career sounded like the bee knee's to me. Getting back to the matter of names, Bart Bolt's name worked even better in conjunction with his partner-in-crime, Sir Ian Wulfric Belvidere the Third. The two of them were a rolling buddy movie. Sir Ian played the nobleman swashbuckler who slopped his way through adventures and Bart was the Felix Unger, a ranger raised by dirt farmers who liked his adventuring overplanned and overcautious.

Kane Bloodtiger - I would call this an absolutely perfect example of the Morgan Ironwolf School of PC Naming. (Don't hesitate to ask who Morgan Ironwolf is. I will explain at length if it's requested.) For the first name you unabashedly reference someone cool. Here I don't know for sure if the reference is to the Karl Wagner sword & sorcery character or the Biblical father of all killers. Either option is badass to the nth degree. The last name is constructed by smashing together two English words. The more macho the individual words, the better.

Jayne Silverhand - Another great Morgan Ironwolf name. Do I even need to tell you who the first name references? Silverhand looks a little less macho than Ironwolf or Bloodtiger, until you realize that Nuada, the Celtic wargod, has a hand of silver that detaches from his wrist and flies around choking the shit out of his foes. I read that in the Deities & Demigods, so it must be true.

Endrin Greencloak - A wimpier Morgan Ironwolf style name for a wimpier character. The first name came out of the PC generator software that came bundled with the 3E Players Handbook. I tacked on Greencloak because that sounded somewhat Druidish and mysterious, but also a bit hackneyed. Which fits this character. Endrin is a total poser who thinks of himself as a Kane Bloodtiger, but in reality is more a Papertiger.

Razzak Gristlyguts - This one was meant to parody the Morgan Ironwolf style badasses of the world. Razzak was a shifty little xvart witchdoctor who grew up in a world where convincing bigger monsters you tasted bad was so critical to survival he used it as the basis of his last name.

Chester o' the Pointy Hat - A somewhat unorthodox and silly name for a somewhat unorthodox and silly wizard. As you probably already figured out, I don't buy into the immersive gamer's idea that naming a character is Deadly Serious Business. Which leads me to...

Bob the Fighter - I'm not talking about a particular character here, but rather the subset of PCs with boring, generic names. This is territory I've covered before, but it bears repeating. Sometime's Bob's player is stuck and can't come up with a good name. I'm all for helping that player out. Other times Bob's player is perfectly satisfued with a bland name. I urge GMs not to punish this impulse. This player is sending you a very important message about what they want from your game: Bob the Fighter isn't meant as a vehicle for deep setting exploration or immersive psychological play. This sort of Bob-player is at your table to roll some dice, hang with his buds, and eat cheetos. I say rock on, Bob!

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Unrelated: It occurred to me this morning that my Wednesday night group maps onto the mid-90s incarnation of the greatest pro wrestling stable in history, the Four Horsemen. Pat's wizard is Ric Flair. He's got mountains of charisma and sets the house on fire the moment he walks in the door. Doug's ranger is "The Crippler" Chris Benoit: fearless, professional, and utterly badass. He will wreck your shit. Jason's druid is Steve "Mongo" McMichael. Most of the time no one is sure how he got in the group or why the others keep him around, but every once in a while he does something completely awesome, usually involving the laying out of some sucka. And my barbarian is Arn Anderson. He may not bring anything new to the table, but in the lucrative field of brutal beating administration originality is often a secondary consideration.

Demon 5

When Empire Strikes Back came out me and my crew were still young enough to think action figures were cool. (We outgrew that phase but I eventually outgrew the outgrowing.) Dave, at the time my bestest friend in the whole wide world, got himself a Hoth Han Solo. Even back then we all considered Captain Solo to be the coolest guy in outer space. I was never a big toy-wrecker as a kid, but somehow I ended up snapping the head right off of Dave's Han Solo. He re-attached it with some superglue, but it was never quite the same. For one thing, poor Han lost all ability to rotate his head. This isn't one of the stories where Dave stopped being my friend because I broke his toy. He and I continued to be best buds for years after the Han Solo Incident. Still, when I try to figure out why Dave stopped talking to me a few years back I can't help but remember that one broken action figure.

RIP: Robert Anton Wilson

I picked this up from Dorkland: Robert Anton Wilson passed away yesterday. Best of luck to Uncle Bob, wherever he may be.

I mourn for Jolli

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have the coolest in-laws in the known universe. As supporting evidence I will offer up the fact that my brother-in-law and his wife got me a Star Wars trade paperback for Christmas. I've been interested in Dark Horse's A Long Time Ago... line since they came out in '02. In seven volumes this series collects the entire run of the old Marvel Star Wars comic from back in the day. The first volume, Doomworld, collates the first 20 issues. Issues 1 through 6 of the original Star Wars comic were a fabulous adaptation of the film. The remaining 14 issues in this book are something special. Basically, it's some guys over at Marvel going apeshit making up stories using just the stuff from A New Hope and their own imaginations. It's glorious. There are no worries about following canon, no heavy-handed Lucas oversight, just rocking adventure tales set after the Battle of Yavin and before Episode V was anything but some half-baked notes in a file folder.

In addition to being made of solid awesomite, this volume also solved a personal childhood mystery of mine. For years I've had a gap in the memory of my early childhood: what was my first comic? Most comic fans can tell you without hesitation, but for the longest time I couldn't remember. Well, cast your gaze to the right to see the cover of the first comic I owned: Star Wars #7, the first post-movie adventure. When I saw the cover it all came back to me in a flash. I got this comic off the magazine rack at Bart's Market, the only grocery store in Flanagan, Illinois (population 1000). I grew up on a farm about 3 miles outside Flanagan and Bart's was the nearest source of comical funnybooks. When they had any.

Looking back I kinda understand why my memory was clouded for so long. First of all, I was only four years old when this comic came out in early 1978 and I can barely remember some things that happened to me in my twenties. But more importantly, this comic has long been filed in the Star Wars bin in my brain, which apparently is nowhere near the conceptual space wherein I keep my memories of comics. Growing up a nerd in the late seventies and eighties, that Star Wars bin is pretty crowded. I had action figures to keep track of and stuff.

Star Wars #7 is hella cool, by the way. For starters it stars the coolest guy in outer space and his big hairy pal. Other features include an alien priest trying to bury a dead cyborg, a 'Sikurdian' battle-axe wielded by a dude with purple tentacles for arms, disco Cantina babes, and space pirates. Boy, howdy, does this issue have space pirates. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Crimson Jack and his girl Friday, Jolli:



Despite my dodgy memory those panels taught me a few things I will never forget. First, space pirates are awesome. This lesson would be confirmed later in '78 with the original broadcast of the Superfriends episode "Sinbad and the Space Pirates". Unlike Crimson Jack, Sinbad the Space Pirate wears pants. And a cool hat. Another thing I took away from this comic is that Crimson Jack is a fabulous name for a pirate captain. Seriously, you'll be hard-pressed to come up with a better pirate name. But Crimson Jack pales beside the sheer awesome-ness that is Jolli. She is both stone cold and smokin' hot.

I know in this modern era of anime and Lara Croft knockoffs and whatnot that busty ball-breakers with weird hair colors are old hat, but back in '78 I had never seen anything like Jolli. She was wicked cool. And that beret is just perfect. I wouldn't lay my hands on another Star Wars comic until issue #13, "Day of the Dragonlords". And amazingly enough, Jolli is in it! Since last I had seen her it seemed that she has developed some feelings for a certain Captain Solo. Also, we get to see her gams.

That was the last issue of Star Wars I would read for a long time. But in the Doomworld trade I discovered that Jolli got a complete character arc of sorts. In her last appearance we find out that Jolli was the daughter of a space pirate. The old scallywag abandoned her and her mother when the Imperial forces came looking for him. Mom died in the resulting carnage, orphaning Jolli. So what does Jolli do? She grows up to become a man-hating space pirate and finds a substitute father-figure in the form of Crimson Jack. Sheesh. Genre stories are chock full of female characters with daddy issues, but this one takes the cake.

Jolli may have been a stock type , but it's worth noting by that point in the comic she has a more fleshed-out character history than either Han Solo or Leia Organa. More importantly, unresolved feelings about one's father are an important motif in the larger Star Wars story. Just as the House of Skywalker eventually laid Anakin's sins to rest, Jolli ends up with a sort of redemption. She rejects Crimson Jack and saves Han Solo, at the cost of her own life.

Now I won't disagree if you point out that picking one man's affections over another is not the most fufilling way to track Jolli's self-actualization. But the important thing here might simply be that Jolli made a choice. And when push came to shove she chose the possibility of a scoundrel's love over the domination of an authority figure. When I first encountered Jolli in 1978 she was a titillating but two-dimensional character, but somewhere along the way she became something a little bit more.

Rest in peace, Jolli.

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On a completey unrelated note, remember how awesome it was the first time you saw the Falcon jump into hyperspace in Episode IV? In the comic version that moment is almost better.
The use of color here is fan-frickin'-tastic. Until I saw this panel I would have told you that Fantastic Four #290 was the coolest comic portrayal of FTL travel I had ever seen.

art project: 100 Demons

When I want to read a serious, non-explosion based comic I turn to Lynda Barry, the master of what she calls "autobifictionalography". Her book One Hundred Demons is one of the reasons I've started drawing recently, even though I suck at it. (If you're looking for more people to blame Scott McCloud and S. John Ross' Encounter Critical were my other two big inspirations. These three helped me ignore my internal critic and just draw some stuff, no matter how inept or juvenile the results.) Anyway, One Hundred Demons was itself inspired by an earlier work, a 16th century Zen monk who painted a long scroll with a hundred demons running across it. Barry decided to try a similar project.


Barry urges her readers to try drawing a hundred demons of her own. Strangely, she takes the brush and ink she uses very seriously and instructs fellow travellers to use a similar set-up. Then she notes that for paper she uses any old thing. Newspaper, yelow legal pads, whatever. Weird. Personally I'm going to ignore her suggestions for writing utensils and use whatever is at hand. Here are my first four demons, done with magic markers and crayons on printer paper.


Don't expect much more sophistication than this, folks. I'm using this project as an excuse to play with my daughter's art supplies.

Winter War Preview Links

Friday afternoon, February 9th

Friday evening, February 9th

Saturday morning, February 10th

Saturday afternoon, February 10th

Update to Friday and Saturday events

Saturday evening, February 10th

Sunday morning, February 11th

Sunday afternoon, February 11th

Winter War Preview: Sunday Afternoon

This is it, folks! The last installment of my Winter War preview series. For all my regular readers who have not commented over the last few days, let me thank you for putting up with me devoting my energies to purely local matters.

Here are the links to the previous entries in this series: Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, general update, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. Now let's get down to business.

Sunday, February 11th, 2pm

I expect the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk rooms to still be active through the final few hours of the con. But since the ASL room is devoted to one big tournament I suppose it is theoretically possible they could be done before this session starts.

Other boardgame events include more sessions of Formula De and Feudal. Tim Gritten will be running Power Grid. That's a fun game and Tim Gritten is a good ref and instructor. In addition to Feudal, Tom Hendricks offers some Axis & Allies action, with a variant allowing for more special weapons to brought into play. That sounds fun. I love the special weapons in A&A but they don't get much screentime in a regular game. Speaking of variants, El Nyberg will be running Rail Baron with ramped-up starting trains. My personal pick for the Sunday afternoon boardgaming would be Al Conrad's Aliens game. Based upon the movie of the same name, Aliens offers a some fun tactical play with awesome special rules, like the "Oh crap! Acidic alien blood just ruined my face!" rule or the "Oh noes! I just fell down an inexplicable bottomless pit!" rule. And playing with the flamethrowers is always fun. If tactical xenomorph slagging doesn't ring your bell, go with Tim Gritten's Power Grid session.

In the minis area four events are scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Two of them, Ken Vreeman's Advanced Civilization game and Russ Hartley's 25mm fantasy affair, are continuations from Sunday morning. Given it's the last day of the con and people might not want to spend 8 hours at a single game, it might be possible to get into one of these two events anyway. Ask the ref at the table but always make sure to clear special situations like this with the front desk. The con staff are always keen to know these things, not because they want you to jump through hoops to play, but because they need to know which games are popular and which aren't.

The two new minis games are Tom Reed with another Desperado Wild West shoot-out and Chris Fawcett with Full Thrust. Recommending one game or the other is a tough call here. Cowboys versus Indians in 25mm reverberates with the childhood of many a gamer who remembers the golden age of the cinema Western. But Full Thrust is one of the best rules-light sci-fi ship-to-ship games ever written. I have to give the nod to the Desperado game simply because referee Tom Reed is such a fun guy to game with.

As things are set right now the role-playing department offers you two choices. I'll be running a session of dungeon-delving using the 1981 Basic D&D rules. That's the one with the awesome Erol Otus cover. Meanwhile Chris Fairfield will be running Pentatastar. I don't know anything about that game but Chris has run it before at least a couple of times. I can't really offer you a recommendation here other than to say this: you're either interested in a dungeoneering game where Elf is a class and only Thieves (not Rogues) have skills, or you're not. I think you'll probably have a good time at either table.