Here for your amusement is more material for name
inspiration if people don’t want to steal obscure names from history, or from
Ikea products: pharmaceutical names. If
you want to go for a knowing joke around the table, you can use well known
ones. But there are plenty of
pharmaceuticals which are more obscure and whose names are blank canvases for
DMs and players.
Cymbalta – “One of
the many caravans hauling spices from Minchetabish to the fortress city of Cymbalta
was attacked by ghouls.”
Remeron – “The ancient port city of Remeron and its
eponymous maritime empire have ruled the seas for centuries.”
Ativan – Could be a city, could be the name of a
paladin. A lot of these drug names could
be the names of elves.
Celexa – An elf queen?
It also sounds like a Korean car: “Introducing the 1997 Kia Celexa hatchback
with 35 mpg city, 38 mpg highway…”
Zyprexa – Haughty elf queen?
Street magician whose prestidigitation provides cover for her gang’s
thievery? Embattled kingdom which must
never fall to the besieging goblinoids? The
name of the planet which controls 84% of the Andromeda Galaxy’s starship engine
manufacturing interests?
Latuda – Meh. This seems
deserve only a name next to a medium-sized circle on a map. The North Central mid-states number 3
trans-shipper of plumbing supplies.
Naltrexone – THIS seems to have more schmirntz! A streetwise con man? An up-and-coming rough-and-ready republic
ruled by a meritocratic merchant oligarchy?
Haldol – If you don’t think names like this are too
well-known, or don’t feel this has serious and sad associations that shouldn’t
be part of gaming, I suppose this could be the name of man-at-arms. Most of these drug names deserve a moment to
think about the associations for people at the table. If you decide it won’t be a problem, go ahead
and repurpose the names…
Invega – Sci-fi?
Planets need a lot of names.
Risperdal – Beautiful-sounding name for a kingdom, a city, a
valley, a river, or a wizard.
Olanzapine – So many of these names, especially generics,
sound like chemicals (which is what they are, anyway) so converting them into something
else is like putting Bangkok Thai Deli into the former Burger King on
University Avenue, with its specially-shaped roof. Everyone refers to the restaurant as “the one
that’s in the old Burger King- you can tell it when you see it.” But I’m willing to try: “Pirates infest the
waters of the Olanzapine Gulf,” or “This is Princess Olanzapine.”
Lunesta – My hat is off to the marketers who crafted this
very poetic, positive-association-saturated name. Eccentric dowager aunt? The Faery Queen? Walled city on the moon, reachable by
voyaging through the aether on the backs of huge Lunar Moths?
Librium – Island city of Libertarian pirates and merchants? Magical lighter-than-air metal from which angel-like wings can be fashioned?
Rivotril – If you ever need a name for a Thri-Keen NPC…
Serax – A fine name for a celebrity gladiator, a sorcerer, a
centurion, a horse nomad chieftain or mountain-province warlord.
Atarax – Formidable Lawful champion, or, conversely, the
name of an evil spirit formerly worshipped by a cult of mystical anarchist
philosophers in Late Antiquity.
Venlafaxine – Foppish noble snob- female or male. Insists that name must always be preceded by
elaborate, long-winded title when addressed or spoken about.
Mebicar – An ogre.
Another wizard name. Another city-state,
maybe the antagonist vs. the PC’s hometown.
Selank – I love obscure Russian pharmaceutical names! This sounds like a prison cell door sliding
into place and locking, or a heavy sword pulled out of its sheath and hefted
onto a rusted metal table. The commandant
of an orc guard tower in the Borderlands.
Or a tough, rebellious, disinherited noblewoman, the former Lady Selank,
an excellent horsewoman and falconer.
Buspar – Kind of an annoying sound to this name- it would be
a square peg to fit into a campaign world of carefully chosen names. It
sounds like a European gas station chain with a slick logo. But it could be a forest kingdom of tough,
portly people, human or not-completely-human, who wear metal-studded leather
armor and carry cudgels: “The rude subjects
of Radahast, King of Buspar, are known as Busparts.” Make sure to pronounce it BOO-sss-par and not
BUS-par, so that people don’t associate the name with the Metro Transit Authority
and its prosaic vehicles of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Sediel- Sounds like an angel, or a fallen angel, or one of
the Nephilim. Could be an elf, or the spirit of a forest stream, too.
Ectris – A sorcerer or sorceress. A sadistically cruel minor
noblewoman. A telekinetic alien.
Girosa – Bustling mercantile city-state. Inhabitants are famed for their
sometimes-inappropriate jollity, heavy
drinking, rubicund faces, and culturally-ingrained frequent loud belly-laughing
habits.
Rotigotine – This should be an adjective describing
something ornate and intricate - “The parading guardsmen carried masterpiece silver-chased
rotigotine 17-point guisarme-voulges which glinted in the sun.” Jorge Luis Borges would have had a field day with
this drug name list.
Piribedil- Promising young page attached to the Court. Or maybe a Court Sage who is both cited in
matters dealing with magical research, and consulted for all the juiciest
gossip.
Talipexole – A seaside village near Puerto Vallarta overrun
with German scuba tourists. Or Is this an M.A.R. Barker kind of name for an NPC?
I don’t really know much about Empire of the Petal Throne.
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