Puns we know and love

[RHW]

Not sure if this qualifies, but Humakt could be an onomatopoeia for the sound a sword makes.

Huuuu as it swishes through air.

MAKT when it hits.

See previous Sword Sound joke here:

Edited March 11, 2019 by RHW
Boggles!

[RHW]

Speaking of whom: Elusu is Elusive.

And also... Loskalm has lost its calm since the Thaw.

[Sir_Godspeed]

9 hours ago, Tindalos said:

There's also (Em)Issaries, and Subere (Or Erebus backwards)

Damn, I can't believe I never even saw any of these. Not in a million years.

3 hours ago, RHW said:

Not sure if this qualifies, but Humakt could be an onomatopoeia for the sound a sword makes.

Huuuu as it swishes through air.

MAKT when it hits.

See previous Sword Sound joke here:

I can only assume that the word for knife is "Snikt", then. Bub.


EDIT: I guess the "Hu" could also be a reference to Bronze, ie. Hu-metal - but that's less of a pun and more circling back into worldbuilding.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[7Tigers]

As other towns, Alda Chur is coming from Greg's friend Allen Dalchur, according to a Greg interview in french magazine Backstab #23, Septembre/October 2000.

[Darius West]

12 hours ago, RHW said:

Not sure if this qualifies, but Humakt could be an onomatopoeia for the sound a sword makes.

Huuuu as it swishes through air.

MAKT when it hits.

See previous Sword Sound joke here:

I thought it was a combination of "to hew" meaning "to chop", and the Germanic word "macht" or "to make", thus hew-macht, meaning the one who makes chopping.  That's my 2 cents.

[Brootse]

On 3/11/2019 at 6:24 PM, Tindalos said:

There's also (Em)Issaries, and Subere (Or Erebus backwards)

hahaha

[Noita]

Prax comes from a Doctor Seuss book.

Edited March 15, 2019 by Iskallor

[Runeblogger]

3 hours ago, Iskallor said:

Prax comes from a Doctor Seuss book.

OMG!

[Noita]

2 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

OMG!

There was a thread somewhere where we came up with who and what the Zaxs were. Could probably tie in with the current migratory animal thread

[Bill the barbarian]

9 hours ago, Iskallor said:

Prax comes from a Doctor Seuss book.

,,,and to this day north going zax are still having conflicts with south going zax, in this strange prairie land that we all know as Prax!

4 hours ago, Iskallor said:

There was a thread somewhere where we came up with who and what the Zaxs were. Could probably tie in with the current migratory animal thread

1000% agreed!😀

[RHW]

Mastakos, Orlanth's charioteer, is a hungry fellow from a distant land. No matter how much he's eaten, he's always asking for more tacos.

"Mas tacos!"

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, RHW said:

Mastakos, Orlanth's charioteer, is a hungry fellow from a distant land. No matter how much he's eaten, he's always asking for more tacos.

 

No way, you have to making that one up. Then again...

Cheers

 

[RHW]

2 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

No way, you have to making that one up. Then again...

Cheers

 

I don't know if that one was intentional, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was.

Also, another one I don't know how intentional it was (though I suspect intent):

Show some respect for Eiritha. R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

 

[Bill the barbarian]

2 minutes ago, RHW said:

I don't know if that one was intentional, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was.

 

Any crew that would come up with the Hayward Onion are quite capable of anything I suppose.
And any excuse to play Aritha is fine by me (turning uppppppppp volume, leaning back and hitting play...."🎼What you want, baby I got it"... ahh!)

[RHW]

Another one, level of intent unknown...

Waha may be a reference to the Cleveland Indians (arguably racist) mascot Chief Wahoo. Or maybe not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Wahoo

Edited March 20, 2019 by RHW

[RHW]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Any crew that would come up with the Hayward Onion are quite capable of anything I suppose.
And any excuse to play Aritha is fine by me (turning uppppppppp volume, leaning back and hitting play...."🎼What you want, baby I got it"... ahh!)

When I played RQ with Chaosium playtesters like Al Dewey and Ken Kaufer way back when, I remember the group singing “Respect” every time we met an Eiritha priestess, so I think that one may be legit.

[jajagappa]

On 3/17/2019 at 6:58 PM, RHW said:

arguable

There's no argument. It is.

On 3/17/2019 at 6:58 PM, RHW said:

Or maybe not.

I'm inclined to say not. Don't think I've ever seen anything that would connect them.

[RHW]

On 3/18/2019 at 6:28 PM, jajagappa said:

There's no argument. It is.

Oh, I agree. I was trying to be nice.

[Runeblogger]

On 3/17/2019 at 11:58 PM, RHW said:

Another one, level of intent unknown...

Waha may be a reference to the Cleveland Indians (arguably racist) mascot Chief Wahoo. Or maybe not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Wahoo

I don't think so. Al-Waha means "oasis" in Arabic, so I think the Arabic origin of this name makes more sense. :-)

The Shan-Shan mountains is another case, since "shan" means mountain in Chinese (if I'm not mistaken).

There may be other Gloranthan names like this...

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

I don't think so. Al-Waha means "oasis" in Arabic, so I think the Arabic origin of this name makes more sense. 🙂

The Shan-Shan mountains is another case, since "shan" means mountain in Chinese (if I'm not mistaken).

There may be other Gloranthan names like this...

To my best knowledge, the name is pure onomapoesis, the "Wa Haaa" woop of the riders in the charge.

However, while "Ta Daaa" has similar potential, it is derived from Tadashi Ehara, early Chaosium member (co-founder?). If there was a Wayne Hansen or similar in Greg's circles in those years, that might be another reading.

 

Kralorela is riddled with the Mandarin or Han equivalent of dog Latin or (Pratchett style) Latatian. The Mountain Mountain Mountains do remind me of Pendle Hill (aka Hill Hill Hill), but at least the subdivisions have somewhat sensibly only a single Shan without any Mountains following.

I wonder whether the Hsa tiger Hsunchen are somehow related to the second syllable in Shang-Hsa MHNBC, and if so, whether the other part can be read in any way similar to Naga as in Shogun Toranaga (as we all know what "Tiger Tiger Tiger" sounds like in Japanese). Even so, "Tiger and Dragon" sort of comes to mind.

 

The discovery that the dragon emperor names that we got in the Jonstown Compendium might have been Theyalan transcriptions of imperial names came up on the Digest years ago, and was gratefully accepted by the community.

(And due inclusion of the belt buckles sales man's slogan "That looks good on ya", which was Greg's means of getting rice onto the cooker when the first copy of D&D was sold indirectly to him. The full circle comes when reading up on the EWF in Revealed Mythologies, which may not have made it in all details into the Guide, and the nuclear testing ground of Lop Nur slightly re-arranged to arrive at the name for the metropolis on Fanzai where foreigners arriving by ship need to spend a year in quarantine to prove they can keep their manners.)

 

Then there are of course mildly sinified (is that the proper parallel to anglicised?) names from coastal (at least) Lovecraft Country in certain coastal places of Kralorela.

 

How many slash horror flick titles have been immortalized in Glorantha? Not quite my genre, so I know only about one for sure, but knowing Sandy and his choice of terrible movies from various cons, there could be way more.

[scott-martin]

Mulling archaic Teshnos and when the "naga" people vanish from history finally lights the bulb: "wareran" should be spelled "wareyan," as in Indo-Wareyan migrations.

Lodril is of course half Old Norse "Lodh" (pendulous globe) and half English "low drill," with echoes of various Wagnerian fire / forge / volcano gods around the edges.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Lodril is of course half Old Norse "Lodh" (pendulous globe) and half English "low drill," with echoes of various Wagnerian fire / forge / volcano gods around the edges.

For all the phallic symbolism around his cult, Lodril really is a load of hot sperm shot into the body of Gata aiming to beget Umath, so I wonder whether the first syllable in the name should be "load". What to make of the rest, though? "Real" doesn't make much sense following "load", which probably leaves us with "drill" as in military exercise (rather than auger). "Aether had a full load drill."

About his brothers: Apart from the town of Yelm somewhere in the western part of the US, the name sounds a bit like a "Yelp!" with the end swallowed up. (If you think that is unfair, Orlanth sounds a bit like a legitimate barfing sound.)

And the other one appears somewhat dazéd, err (or if you feel inclined to speak like a pirate, "arr")? (Daystar doesn't make much sense for a god of light never seen in the sky.)

 

Am I alone in feeling that "Aether" is among the most uninspired names in all of Glorantha? Even "Sovereign Sky" or "Prince Plasma" has slightly more appeal, to extend the series of hardly more inspired alliterative homonyms for the elemental rulers in the monomyth (Dame Darkness, Sir Sea, Empress Earth...).

 

Calling the area of greater Teshnos Verenela (now depreciated) somehow made it an anagram of "venereal", which might have been somewhat on topic with the Solf cult except that Glorantha is free of this (other than the Impests, which aren't transferable through intercourse). It would be a logical extension of the continent of Genitalia, though.

Wokistan (the province which is the center of Somash  worship in Teshnos) sounds much like a liberal area accused of political correctness.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Joerg

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Am I alone in feeling that "Aether" is among the most uninspired names in all of Glorantha? Even "Sovereign Sky" or "Prince Plasma" has slightly more appeal, to extend the series of hardly more inspired alliterative homonyms for the elemental rulers in the monomyth (Dame Darkness, Sir Sea, Empress Earth...).

It works as a title, since many titles in Glorantha are derived from English, Greek, Latin, etc. that readers will recognize and engage with according to widespread cultural associations (the use of dog Latin for Lunar names and titles, for example - while not a personal favorite - does effectively get the Imperial image across - the same applies for Aether).

But as a proper name* it does "break the immersion" a bit, yeah. Even "Ether" (straight up English) would've been better, imho.


(*Finding the difference between titles and proper names is, of course, not *really* possible, but I'm writing in general terms.)

Edited March 20, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Am I alone in feeling that "Aether" is among the most uninspired names in all of Glorantha?

Just call him Vith and we'll be fine. 

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Even "Ether" (straight up English) would've been better, imho.

Reminds me that at Massachusetts General Hospital the auditorium where the first demonstrated use of ether as an anesthetic occurred is known as the "Ether Dome". 

[Bill the barbarian]

11 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Reminds me that at Massachusetts General Hospital the auditorium where the first demonstrated use of ether as an anesthetic occurred is known as the "Ether Dome". 

Two men enter, one man leaves staggers out?

(...Beyond the Ether Dome? Oh Mel, how low can you go?)