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How to Name a Rock

Near the base of the Spire there isn't much to talk too, maybe the occasional Rilmani but they don't provide very good conversation, so we like to talk to anything, like the clouds and rocks, who have quite startling revelations from there point of view. It's hard to talk to someone though when they don't have a name for themselves, the few rocks I know calling themselves "3rd pebble near the shadow of a bigger pebble" so we like to make them names to liven up the conversation. Now of course, you probably could name something else, like characters or some such, but who'd want to do that when you can talk to a rock?

The methods bellow are just general ideas, and usually work better when stretched or used together. And remember, rocks care about what their called, so don't forget to involve them in choosing a name!

The Little Tiefling List
Many resources for picking the names of children can be bent for the evil use of naming your rock. One such is Kabalarians, and there are quite a few more around. Simply browse through the list and pick the name that bests suits your rock!

Language Switch
Another useful way to name your rock is to try converting words to another language, using something such as Bablefish. For example, say you could describe your rock as a "shiny dresser", simply put that in bablefish, and use the translated words as the name. In this example "shiny dresser" becomes "brillante raboteuse" which becomes Brillan Rabote.

Anagramia
A very useful technique for names is the anagram, or switching the letters around for those of you a few layers short of a plane. You can either take existing names or words describing your rock and mix them up. As an example if your rock reminded you of "Fred Flintstone" you could mix the letters into Tonf De'liternfs.

The Xaosman Approach
Just throw some random letters together, usually hitting randomly on your keyboard, such as Agah'ahja. Works great for those fiendish looking rocks!

To the Front
Give your rocks a good impression of a Blood War drill sergeant, and give them a nice name that you can yell at the top of your lungs with this technique. Simply take all the letters in a word, for example "Porcupine" and shift the letters to the front in alphabetical order, ending up with Ceinoppru. Sure to end up with a nice name that lines up on the tongue.

Slaadi Phonetics
This ones easy if you can pronounce words like a slaad, or just write like one, as you flip flop one word to another. Just scratch the words down exactly as you hear them in your brainbox, such as Bowld for 'bold' or Suliek for 'sleek'. Now, just to make sure a slaadi doesn't take these names to seriously and tries a bit of rock in his swirly soup.

Clashing Cubes of Acheron
To name your rock with a cube, and we all know rocks strive to be square but always seem to fail, simply pick a few words of the same length that you like or describes your rock. Once you've picked those out, simply line them in in a nice cube formation and zig zag your way through the cube's letters like a armored goblin patrol, that is even sometimes getting lost and crossing your own path, and string them all together like war trophies and see what name you get. For example you'd get the name Foroftls from the path in the cube:
f o o l
t r u e
s o f t
e e l s
 
Traveling the Ring
Some sodding guvners would go on about creating names through table and iterations, but we just like to call this technique traveling the ring. It's sodding simple to set up, the trick is to not forget about your pour rocks, who desperately need to be talked to, as you spin around the ring for the hundredth time. Basically you pick a word, take the second letter and think up a word that starts with that, then take the second of that, and just keep repeating until you get sodding dizzy. For example, if we start with Desire, we end up with - Desire D-egg De-gnome  Deg-new Degn-error Degne-roar Degner-often - then get tired and stay with the name Degneroft.

Even more to come...
More barmy techniques to come as we think them up, and we have an extensive think tank of rocks working on testing these out right now.

All content copyright 1999 Jeremiah Golden or credited authors.