Devblog #88 (Patreon)

Hey Wizards! Shady Character One here!

It recently came to my attention that we haven't really touched on the names that we use in the game, while some people might be interested in their origins and even pronunciations. I will not touch all of the names that we have in the game, but maybe some of the most interesting ones, at least from my point of view.

Let's start with the names of the Houses of Tír na nÓg. Ruachan, Cairngorm, Dunagall and Talamhdan. Those four Houses were named by four founding major clans of the academy. Why did we decide to name those clans that way? Well, we chose some territories on the British Isles (or simply the Isles as the wizards call them), that sounded somewhat fitting the profiles of the Houses. Yes, we just went by ear. All of the names were changed slightly, to both be more unique, and to signify their separation from said landmarks. Cairngorm is based on the Cairngorms mountain range, Dunagall is based on the name of the town of Donegal, and Ruachan is actually the mountain Ben Cruachan. Were the Cairngorms named after clan Cairngorm? Was it the other way around? Are those two completely unconnected and just named similarly because of some shared qualities that people assigned to them? As Question Baby would say - those are legitimate questions.

The issue of their pronunciation is another topic, however. While Cairngorm is pretty easy to read as is, the other three are more tricky. Dunagall is pronounced as [doo-na-gall]. Ruachan is not roo-a-chan as Google Translate would read it out loud, but rather [roo-ah-han]. And Talamhdan, if you would read it in proper Irish, would be something like [ta-luv-dun], but we read it much closer to [ta-lum-dun], though it is not necessarily correct. Let's call it a very specific wizardry accent.

The names of our professors and fellow students might really warrant a whole devblog entry of its own, but I will stop at a few that I find most interesting here. Some names I just make up on a whim, just because I feel that the name fits the character, but those are usually pretty common and unassuming names like: Eric, Gwen, Violet. Some names are homages to characters or actors that we like. And some are the ones that I task Shady Two to come up with. She usually returns to me after some research and presents me with three or four names to choose from. Usually those are uncommon names of Gaelic origin. Three of such names are interesting because of how they affected one another: Aisling (pronounced [ash-lin]), Ciara (pronounced [ki-a-ra], again, despite the proper Irish pronunciation), and Katelyn [kate-lin]. Katelyn was originally supposed to be Caitlin (a proper Irish name), but since Katelyn is not Irish, and mostly because we already had a girl with a name starting with 'C' and a girl with a name ending with 'lin', we decided to go with Katelyn to differentiate her from the rest.

So, yeah, the rule of thumb is: if a name is Gaelic — thank Shady Two for it. If the name is something more common or a strange anagram or a portmanteau — that's likely me.

Oh, and the name Bassant was proposed to me by a friend of mine. Accompanied by a dirty joke/pick-up line that could possibly be addressed at her. I am pretty sure that the joke will never make it into the game. But if it will, be warned, Bassant will not like it, and will not talk to you again after that one.

We, however, will talk again in a week. Until then.

Shady Character One, out!