Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Random Chart: Quick Barsoomian Name Generator...

Good Afternoon, All:

Here's another random chart, this time to allow for quick Barsoomian Name generation. Barsoom-style games are becoming more and more popular, making a little generator like this one a nice addition for those who are running them, or even for players seeking names appropriate for their characters within that setting.

Using this chart is pretty easy. First, roll 1d6 to determine the format of the name itself. After that, roll on the appropriate table(s) as called for. The Prefix and Suffix table are both d66 tables. Those familiar with this blog already know how to create a d66 roll. For those that aren't, roll two d6s and read them similar to percentile dice. The first d6 represents the tens digit, and the second d6 represents the ones digit. For example, rolling a 2 on the first d6 and a 6 on the second d6 would create a result of 26.

So, by way of demonstration, let's create a Barsoomian Name. To determine the format of the name, I rolled a 3 on my d6. That indicates that the name should be formatted thus: "[Prefix] [Prefix][Suffix]". My three d66 rolls are, in order, 64, 26 and 51. That gives us a Barsoomian name of: Yerst Kantolian. Not bad, not bad. It's definitely not a name you'll see in a bog-standard fantasy game. (Okay, maybe Kantolian might make a good wizard's name, but I digress.)

This table was generated by parsing a list of names from the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and pairing down the resulting list of prefixes and suffixes by frequency and by flavor.

Table: Name Format
d6Format
1[Prefix] [Prefix][Suffix]
2[Prefix] [Prefix][Suffix]
3[Prefix] [Prefix][Suffix]
4[Prefix][Suffix]
5[Prefix][Suffix]
6[Prefix]

Table: Barsoomian Name Prefix
d66Prefix
11Am
12Banth
13Carth
14Dur
15Flor
16Gant
21Haj
22Ham
23Il
24Jad
25Kand
26Kant
31Lan
32Mat
33Nast
34Or
35Pand
36Parth
41Roj
42Sark
43Sol
44Sor
45Tal
46Tar
51Tark
52Tav
53Thor
54Thur
55Thuv
56Ul
61Um
62Val
63Vor
64Xax
65Yerst
66Zand

Table: Barsoomian Name Suffix
d66Suffix
11a
12ab
13ad
14ah
15ai
16aj
21ak
22al
23am
24an
25ang
26ar
31ark
32as
33at
34ed
35ek
36el
41i
42ia
43ion
44is
45o
46ok
51olian
52on
53or
54oris
55os
56u
61ul
62um
63un
64ur
65uren
66us

Enjoy,
Flynn

7 comments:

Norman J. Harman Jr. said...

Hope you don't mind I made a little generator using your data.

Flynn said...

Looks great! About the only clarification I could make is that the entry "[Prefix] [Prefix][Suffix]" is intended to represent two separate names, a first name ([Prefix]) and a second name ([Prefix][Suffix]). It may not have been clear from the data above. :)

Thanks for putting that together. That is just awesome!

With Regards,
Flynn

Norman J. Harman Jr. said...

Hmmmm, If I had noticed that I wouldn't have had spent all that time figuring out how to lowercase that 2nd prefix!

Fixed code. Generator is now much more Barsoomirific!

anarchist said...

Hi,

I was wondering if I could use this table on my random tables site (www.apolitical.info/webgame/tables). If so I'll credit you and link to your site.

Yours,
James.

Flynn said...

James:

I would be honored if you would include this among the tables that you've gathered. Thank you very much for asking. You may also use any of the other random charts I've created, if you find them useful for your efforts.

With Regards,
Jason "Flynn" Kemp

anarchist said...

Thanks! I've added it to the site. I'll have a look through the rest of your site as soon as I can.

Yours,
James.

Jonathan Farley said...

I tried to port your rules table to a kwet rules file, but it didn't work very well, but it spurred me on to create a lexical analyser shellscript so I could create my own rule set:

http://www.bondle.co.uk/?programming/kwet---rules-based-random-word-generator/rule-files.html

Thanks for the idea.

Jon