Had some unscheduled time today so, after I grabbed breakfast from Mei Zi Quan Breakfast Restaurant 美滋泉早餐店 (or maybe it was Tian Tian Wu Breakfast Restaurant 甜甜屋早餐店),
I walked aimlessly and found myself at Anning Street where umbrellas decorated the space between buildings overhead
Time to grab a U-Bike!
And go where? Why a little bike tour from Lane 450 to Lotus Pond and back. Like this:
One issue I’ve noticed both as a player and DM is that names of non-player characters get lost in the mix, sometimes because they are too banal or otherwise forgettable. If you as a DM want your players to remember that important NPC’s name, I’m here to help you pick one!
My friend Tony on facebook said “As a GM I am not a fan of celebrity or joke names in serious games as it breaks immersion for me.” and I get that. I’m not putting names like Bogart and Pacino on this list because I think they might be TOO ripe for caricatures. One way to mitigate this concern is to swap gender, for example: Theron the dwarf priest; Lugosi the tabaxi handmaid. Another trick is to use old-timey celeb names for groups of younger players, and names of hot new tiktokkers for groups of old grognards. The players might have heard these names peripherally, but can’t connect them with an individual. So hopefully they will remember the names without a preconceived association – if that is your wish.
The idea here is using familiar names as a ‘hook’ to jog player memory. You, the GM, control the NPCs personality and looks. There may even be a few names on this list that resonate with you but you can’t place them without googling!
Anouk Arkin Bela (a baron?) Bo (alt: Beau) Bronson Chavalier (a chancellor or chamberlain?) Claude (alt: Klod) Cobb Crispin Cybill Damon (definitely NOT a tiefling, heh heh) De Havilland Dench (a deputy?) Diaz (a duchess or duke?) Eckhart Elba Firestone Forest (a priest? Father Forest, or Forrest) Furlong Goldie Guillaume (gee-yohm) Gwyneth (a traditional Welsh name for happiness) Hagen Harrison Herzog (sounds like an orc or bugbear to me) Hoagy Humphrey Irrfan Izzard (…the lizard wizard?) Jada Jaffe (alt: Jaffey) Joaquin Karloff Keitel Khan Kiefer Kingsley Klaus Krige (alt: Kreeg) Kruger Kubrick Lakshmi Lancaster Langella Lansbury (a legate? Legate Lansbury?) Lithgow (lord or lady?) Lugosi Lundgren (a lieutenant?) Mads Mervyn Mifune (a magistrate?) Monaghan (a marquis?) Morgan Nimoy Novak Odenkirk Ogden Omar Orlando Orson Palance Patel (Prince Patel?) Pfeiffer (Fifer) Quan Quinn Radcliff Radner Rama Rathbone Ratzenberger Red Richter Rockwell Rogen (alt: Rogan) Rutger Sandoval Sarsgaard Savalas Scarlett Seacrest (the notorious) Sigourney Simu Skelton Slezak Sloane Stormare Sutherland (alt: Southerland) Swinton Takashi Talia Tallulah Tautou Theron Tremayne Uma Viggo (a vassal, no doubt) Vincent Voight (alt: Voyt) Warwick Winkler Wolfard Yaphet Yul Zane
Drove the car to Taiwan Sugar Factory Museum in Qiaotou district (North Kaohsiung). Took many photos of rusty textures and post-apocalyptic structures. Enjoyed a Taiwanese sausage and Pocari Sweat.
The site was quite interesting also because it was build under the Japanese occupation. The main office building had gun holes to defend people resisting Japanese authority. Also according to this site https://topics.amcham.com.tw/2020/07/taiwans-sugar-industry/ US bombers targeted Taiwan sugar factories because they also produced ethanol.
In the evening we went to a Japanese BBQ place where the service was slow, unfriendly, and a homeless guy selling stuff kept coming and the staff yelled at him. A barking dog sat nearby. We were there OVER 2 HOURS and I was very bored so I walked around outside to stertch my legs and take photos of things!
One issue I’ve noticed both as a player and DM is that names of non-player characters get lost in the mix, sometimes because they are too banal or otherwise forgettable. If you as a DM want your players to remember that important NPC’s name, I’m here to help you pick one!
You probably won’t recognize some of these names as cars, but I assure you, I’ve done my research, all the way back to 1889. This is one part of a larger series. Note: if you run a serious campaign where jokes are frowned upon, this list is not for you!
Acura – maybe put the emphasis on the second syllable
Ajax – also a figure in Greek mythology
Alfa Romeo
Altima
Argo – also the ship from Jason and the Argonauts!
Astra -literally means a star
Audi
Austin
Bendix
Bentley
Bolt
Borgward – possibly an orc name?
Buckeye – also a tree!
Bugatti – some people told me to not include this one but it just sounds too great.
Camaro
Carhartt
Cayenne – also a spice!
Citroen
Cricket
Cutlass
Cyklon
Daihatsu
Dingfelder
Dudly Bug
Durango
Edge – probably a rogue or some guy who thinks he’s cool.
Elantra
Elgin – sounds like a scholar to me
Envista
Ferrari
Fiat
Ford
Forester
Grout
Gurgel
Gurley
Gutbrod – another orc name? Or a dwarf?
Harley
Heinkel
Huracan
Impreza
Jetta
Kermath
Kia
Kukushka
LeRoy (accent on the second syllable, HATES being called LEE-roy)
Levante
Lexus
Lincoln
Lockheed
Lux
Malibu
Maserati
Maverick
Maxima
Mercedes
Metris
Murano
Nautilus
Niro
Omikron
Otto
Packard
Passat
Peugeot
Pieper – pronounced ‘peeper’ if you like
Piggins – a plump halfling?
Porsche
Portofino
Primus Priamus Prius
Protos
Renault
Rickenbacker
Riker
Roma
Rover
Royce
Saab
Savana
Scion
Sienna / Sierra
Sirocco – also a Mediterranean wind!
Solidor
Solterra (literally ‘sun earth’)
Sonata
Sorento
Spark
Spaulding
Sprinter
Stinger
Studebaker
Talbot
Telluride
Tiguan
Trax
Urus
Wartburg
Wendax
Wingle Yugo
Zender
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY… 500 Post-Apocalyptic Place Names
Nuclear war has broken out and an old survivalist and his daughter are safe in a valley protected by a warm lake and lead mountains. Various visitors show up and are rebuffed by the man and welcomed by the girl. Unsteady relationships break down quickly while a mutant from outside the valley stalks the home.
Not set in the year 2889. This is a bad TV movie remake of the bad black & white Roger Corman movie The Day the World Ended. The actors did okay but weren’t helped by the terrible editing and blocking, where the camera is on a character’s backside while they give exposition.
Tropes: pretty girls are rivals; water is the monster’s vulnerability; victim of radiation becomes monstrous and craves raw flesh; wino has secret stash of hooch; a man dictates that women should have babies to repopulate species
Took the high speed rail from Kaohsiung to Taipei (a 2 hour 20 minute trip) where I saw the mountains and farmland of Taiwan
We arrived and walked around the neighborhood of our hostel, and visited the National Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall
Creepy
I wanted to try Britshake, the British-themed restaurant, to see how it was in Taiwan. Unfortunately, not super memorable. So I won’t bother with pics. Anyway – here’s an interesting chart showing the ethnographics of Taiwan
A little park/mosquito breeding ground
Check out the space age 7-11. What happens in there? I don’t know
It’s a gas station just for scooters. They’re ubiquitous!
Your average Taipei commuter train station
We met up with two of Erica’s old friends, Frankie and Andy, at Kokoro izakaya (Japanese bar with food) where I had a cute little cumquat, deep fried bitter melon (yummy) and some nuts of some kind!
After that we went to a lesbian karaoke bar that I believe was called 7 Plus, but I couldn’t find it on google. It was…interesting, because the lesbians will try to chat you up for tips, which I found to be awkward, because although they were very nice and tried hard to make me feel welcome – I don’t really drink, and we don’t speak the same language. But there was some karaoke so not too bad!
I wanted to go to the poo-themed restaurant I had heard about years prior, but sadly they had permanently closed 🙁
A research facility discovers time travel but can only safely send young people. It is discovered in the future an ecological catastrophe has cast civilization into ruin so a group of teens are sent to start it anew. When it is revealed the transference procedure renders them sterile, Karen, having already suffered the traumatic loss of her sister in an accident, abandons the group and eventually manages to return to the present, inexpertly adjust the machine, and transfer back to an even scarier future.
A story and concept not without it’s merits, but the casting of street kids with no acting chops limits the potential here. I admired some of the scenes, however clumsily shot, and the fact that the heroine’s cosmetic upkeep degraded as she travelled the wastes. I waited for a shot of bagged corpses that never came, but was described.
Tropes: future humans have devolved; military goons spoil a science project; humans are biofuel; dead child’s toy; time travel can also move you through space;
I see this every day in one of the D&D groups , and this is always my answer (the drawing is mine, published in from the book Aasimar & Tiefling, Green Ronin 2003)
You must be logged in to post a comment.