The World of Layonara
The Layonara Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Script Wrecked on September 02, 2007, 09:57:10 pm
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In a recent post (http://forums.layonara.com/595402-post4.html), the term "duergar" was corrected to "deep dwarf". Have I missed a prior posting that advised us of this, or is this part of the Layonara milieu that I was unaware of but should be?
Also, should we be using different terminology for "drow" and "svirfneblin"?
Regards,
Script Wrecked.
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Dark Elves, Deep Down Dwarfs (deep dwarfs) or ...er..Deep Gnomes?
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It's not Forgotten Realms but specific to Layonara. I think a lot of it is covered in the upcoming handbook. Plus I think Leanthar is trying to stay away from copyrighted stuff on Layo, but I might be wrong.
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The copyright stuff I don't really understand..
Duergar is the old Norse word for dwarves, I think the copyright has expired for several hundred years. ;-)
Drow or Trow is from British island folklore.
Svirfneblin I assume comes from some germanic/northern european legend, just judging by the name, but I can't say that for sure...
I understand that Layo wants to differentiate itself from standard D&D, but I really don't see how avoiding the word D&D has borrowed from folklore accomplishes this, since (at least, pre new handbook), they really are fairly close to the D&D concept.
Personally, I like words with older origins, and so I have a hard time not using drow and duergar...
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Besides, Deep (Down) Dwarf, is Terry Pratchett
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At the moment we are using Deep dwarf, Deep gnome, and dark elf.
WotC lawyers have big big teeth people.
Really big. And pointy.
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Hmm. So what do we call all of the creatures?
No Beholder, Basilik, Worg, Invisible Stalker etc..
They preety much own everything if we take it that way, especially while we use the NWN system which is totally based on D&D.
However I agree that's better to be safe than sorry so from now on it's Deep dwarf, Deep gnome, and dark elf. =]
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The copyright stuff I don't really understand..
Duergar is the old Norse word for dwarves...
Indeed "Dvergar" in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson in the mid 1200s. If you read and enjoyed Beowulf... this is an amazing piece to read through. There's also a list of the line of norse families in there which include Gimli, Gandalf, Gloin... just about every stereotypical dwarven name is in the Prose Edda. hence why I have a dwarf named "Bjornigar". ;)
Definitely drop by project gutenburg and give Snorri's works a read if you haven't already! He's the real world's most famous skald.
We should just change duergar to "dvergar" in its original form and if WotC has a problem with that, we could sue them on behalf old Snorri... of course he would likely prefer a viking raid to any legal action.
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At the moment we are using Deep dwarf, Deep gnome, and dark elf.
WotC lawyers have big big teeth people.
Really big. And pointy.
This is basically the deal.
Right now, we're still playing with a WotC-sanctioned game engine, but at the same time, we're formalizing our world lore. Regarding the names of creatures and things, there's no reason to change their names at this time. Some may be copyrighted, others not, but that doesn't matter now, as we're using the NWN engine.
In terms of world lore issues though, for the foreseeable future the races are being termed as Honora has mentioned above.
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This is basically the deal.
Right now, we're still playing with a WotC-sanctioned game engine, but at the same time, we're formalizing our world lore. Regarding the names of creatures and things, there's no reason to change their names at this time. Some may be copyrighted, others not, but that doesn't matter now, as we're using the NWN engine.
In terms of world lore issues though, for the foreseeable future the races are being termed as Honora has mentioned above.
Correct :) Thanks both