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Names for giant robots

Spearhand Faring
A downloadable poem

One passage in Spearhand Faring requires names for a bunch of armours (giant robots).

As long-time readers will know, I think the best way to go about a task like this is to come up with a system to generate names for you; the system will then guarantee some feeling of consistency between them.

In SF I resurrect the system for armour names used in Cosmic Warlord Kin-Bright, producing names like:

  • Stubble Strider
  • Cherry of Chariots
  • Sycamore's Sigh
  • Sorrowing Sower
  • No Tulk Attacks Me Twice
    • tulk is a rare Middle English word for man/warrior, used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, probably in part to supply an alliterating term; this name is also a loose echo of nemo me impune lacessit
  • Adept at Dawn
  • Wildwood Ward
  • Zinnia Zealous
  • Ask My Ire
  • Evenstar Outpost
  • March-Tread Monster
    • march as in border, but a bit of a pun--given the famous description of his approach to Heorot, Grendel is a bit of a marsh-tread monster
  • Threnode Thresher
  • threnode is a dirge
  • Barrow Builder
    • also featured in CWKB; a very old armour even by the time SF takes place
  • Reaper on the Ridgeline
    • also featured in CWKB, and held there by the same clan that owns it in SF

As for the rules behind these names, they work like this. Armours have names which alliterate, and often include nature (e.g. Wildwood), pastoral (Thresher), or temporal (Evenstar) elements. The primary lexical stresses in words, not necessarily the first sounds, determine alliteration—Adept alliterates on dAttacks alliterates on t—and all vowels alliterate with each other (thus Ask My Ire). The name must include at least a pair of alliterating elements, but can extend to more (as in No Tulk Attacks Me Twice).

If you take on these rules, you've also taken on the rules for alliteration in Old English alliterative verse: match primary lexical stresses, which aren't always the first syllable, and match all vowels with each other. (In fact what we may be matching when we alliterate all vowels is the absence of a consonant onset.) Conveniently these rules also apply to all the alliterative verse dialogue in Spearhand Faring.

In other news, I have a rough edited version of the first half of Spearhand Faring ready. I still need to edit the second half and do some audio refinements, but I'm closing in on finishing!

Download Spearhand Faring
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