Original D&D Discussion - I need another name for Balrog

« I need another name for Balrog »

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
May 21, 2013, 1:05pm

Original D&D Discussion :: Dungeons & Dragons (1971-1978) :: Chainmail (1971) :: I need another name for Balrog

Page 1 of 3 » Jump to page Go

Poll

Poll Question: What makes a better replacement name for a Balrog?

Poll Status:

This poll was automatically locked on Nov 23, 2011, 11:29am.

Poll Options:

You must be logged in to vote in this poll.

Gothrog

(6 votes, 42.8%)

Baalroch

(5 votes, 35.7%)

Either will do in a pinch.

(0 votes, 0%)

What horrible names! I could do better than that!

(3 votes, 21.4%)

Poll Totals:
Total Votes: 14
Total Voters: 14

Author

Topic: I need another name for Balrog (Read 997 times)

jacar
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

[avatar]

Joined: Apr 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 191
Karma: 10

I need another name for Balrog
« Thread Started on Nov 18, 2011, 8:28am »

Title says it all. Not type IV/VI demon or anything. Winged <something> maybe.

Any suggestions?

John

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Azafuse
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

[avatar]

Joined: Apr 2011
Gender: Male

Posts: 150
Karma: 5

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #1 on Nov 18, 2011, 9:32am »

Balrog became officially Balor with the 2nd Edition of AD&D, and it still is inside the SRD (it comes from the Irish Mythology, so it should be freely usable).

An alternative could be Gothrog (a fusion of Balrog and Gothmog), that IMHO could fit good both as a specific or a group name.

Just don't call it Vega or M. Bison.

« Last Edit: Nov 18, 2011, 9:35am by Azafuse »

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Cameron DuBeers
Level 9 Sorcerer

member is offline

[avatar]

Did I Make My Save?

Joined: Nov 2012
Gender: Male

Posts: 1,554
Location: Austin TX USA
Karma: 151

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #2 on Nov 18, 2011, 9:37am »

Delving Deeper features a monster similar to one you describe (cough, cough) and we called it a Fire Demon. The descriptive text goes on to note the creature is not an actual demon but is called one because of its appearance.

« Last Edit: Nov 18, 2011, 9:37am by Cameron DuBeers »

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

GOBLINS, Sir Rico! Thousands of 'em!

jacar
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

[avatar]

Joined: Apr 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 191
Karma: 10

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #3 on Nov 18, 2011, 10:32am »

Some good names here. I am partial to "gothrog". Pretty clever mash up. It also has a similar ring to Balrog. I am trying to stay away from "demon" simply to not turn off folks that might be less inclined to play with demons and devils. I include myself in that pack.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Cameron DuBeers
Level 9 Sorcerer

member is offline

[avatar]

Did I Make My Save?

Joined: Nov 2012
Gender: Male

Posts: 1,554
Location: Austin TX USA
Karma: 151

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #4 on Nov 18, 2011, 10:51am »

Nov 18, 2011, 10:32am, jacar wrote:

I include myself in that pack.

That is understandable. How about this?

Have you seen Matt "Mythmere" Finch's rather clever play on the name? In the S&W Core Rules Monster Book he lists a monster called Baalroch, a contraction of Baal-aurochs or "Bull of Baal".

Matt is a terribly clever fellow and I have to admire this ingenious bit of wordplay. The name highlights both the evil and strong aspects of the creature, and the name sounds quite like Balrog. HTH!

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

GOBLINS, Sir Rico! Thousands of 'em!

jacar
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

[avatar]

Joined: Apr 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 191
Karma: 10

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #5 on Nov 18, 2011, 11:13am »

Nov 18, 2011, 10:51am, Cameron DuBeers wrote:

Have you seen Matt "Mythmere" Finch's rather clever play on the name? In the S&W Core Rules Monster Book he lists a monster called Baalroch, a contraction of Baal-aurochs or "Bull of Baal".

Matt is a terribly clever fellow and I have to admire this ingenious bit of wordplay. The name highlights both the evil and strong aspects of the creature, and the name sounds quite like Balrog. HTH!

Hmmm....that's kind of a cool name. Sounds kind of Celtic. I like it. So now there is Baalroch and Gothrog. Both fine choices. So which one to choose? :-/

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Cameron DuBeers
Level 9 Sorcerer

member is offline

[avatar]

Did I Make My Save?

Joined: Nov 2012
Gender: Male

Posts: 1,554
Location: Austin TX USA
Karma: 151

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #6 on Nov 18, 2011, 11:25am »

Nov 18, 2011, 11:13am, jacar wrote:

Both fine choices. So which one to choose?

Dude! Go "old school" and roll d2! (flip a coin)

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

GOBLINS, Sir Rico! Thousands of 'em!

jacar
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

[avatar]

Joined: Apr 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 191
Karma: 10

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #7 on Nov 18, 2011, 11:26am »

LOL!

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

jacar
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

[avatar]

Joined: Apr 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 191
Karma: 10

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #8 on Nov 18, 2011, 11:30am »

I went high tech. Check out the poll.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

harami2000
Level 5 Thaumaturgist

member is offline

Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 298
Karma: 7

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #9 on Nov 18, 2011, 1:34pm »

Cthuga's (sic) Flame Creature; if you're going by the original Lake Geneva campaign.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

aldarron
Level 9 Sorcerer

member is offline

[avatar]

I must protest bitterly that my aircraft still has not been painted red.

Joined: Mar 2009
Gender: Male

Posts: 1,596
Location: Schenectady
Karma: 73

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #10 on Nov 18, 2011, 8:47pm »

Being one who doesn't favor (actually really really dislikes) mixing judeao-christian mythologies with Nordic and/or middle-earthen ones, I don't much care for calling a balrog a demon, or using phoenician/canaanite name soundalikes for allies of Sauron.

In D@D I used the deceptively unclever "Barlog", but for Champions of ZED I've gone back to the original. In quenya a balrog (singular) is Valarauko. Since b and v are indistinguishable phonemes in some languages, I substitute b and drop o, - achieving a dialectical variant:

Balarauk

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

http://boggswood.blogspot.com/

We thought we were crazy, but we had a great time. - Dave Arneson

aher
Guest

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #11 on Nov 19, 2011, 5:03am »

"Balrog" is Sindarin for "demon of might." But it clearly has cognates with the two Hebrew words:

בעל ךע

(not sure if unicode shows up), which are the letters Beth-Ayin-Lamed Resh-Ayin, transliterated as "Baal Raa." That final "aa" makes a gutural "g" sound (as in "s'dom v'AAmora"="Sodom and Gomorah"). "Baal Raa" translates into: "Master (of) Evil" or "Lord of Bad(ness)." (You all know the verse: "Love thy *evil* as thyself"..."Raa" also means "neighbor" or "fellow." There's some ambiguity due to the lack of vowels in the original miqra--kabbalists love these double meanings.)

Because I run my campaigns in Mystara, I don't mind mixing up the Hebrew/Arabic, Celtic/Irish, Mongolian, Sanskrit/Pali, etc. We've got...

The Emirates of Ylaruam = the medieval Islamic empire at its height
The Five Shires, home of the hobbits -er- halflings (don't they do an Irish jig at Bilbo Baggin's birthday party in Peter Jackson's film?)
The Golden Khan of Ethengar = the Mongols at the time of Kublai Khan
Sind/Shahjapur = India
Etc.

The evil cleric in my Keep on the Borderlands is basically Ayman Al Zawahiri. He's from Ylaruam, of course, and and he's radicalizing the nonhuman natives of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos (where the Keep is located) to take back their ancestral lands from the human settlers coming-in from the Empire of Thyatis. Why else would various orc tribes, goblins, trolls, ogres, minotaurs, etc., who don't normally get along, live side by side in the Caves of Chaos, unless it was some kind of holy war against a common foe that's uniting them? (The Keep is their co-belligerence issue.) Since Ylaruam is the northern neighbor of Thyatis, having Ylaruam traders and missionaries in Karameikos (Thyatis's western nighbor) isn't out of place, so the players shouldn't immediately suspect the Keep's cleric of being a terrorist mastermind unless they're Ylaruam-o-phobes. Area 51 on the map, the "Boulder Filled Passage," is an area the cleric is excavating to free a Baal Raa who was imprisoned in the Caves of the Unknown during the prior epoch. The Baal Raa is the WMD the cleric wants to unleash on the Keep and the settlers.

BUT if you really wanted something Celtic/Irish sounding instead, you could always go with something literal like "Máistir Olc."

Google Translate is your friend for finding translations that have whatever ethnic sound you're looking for...

http://translate.google.com/

As an aside, Marvel comics has a group of supervillains called the "Masters of Evil": the Melter, Radioactive Man, the Black Knight, and Nazi scientist Baron Heinrich Zemo.

Good luck naming your demon!

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

gronanofsimmerya
Level 6 Magician

member is offline

Joined: Jul 2011
Gender: Male

Posts: 478
Karma: 37

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #12 on Nov 19, 2011, 12:19pm »

Good grief. Just call a Balrog a Balrog.

Or honor the spirit of Gary Gygax and his convention for naming his player characters, and call it a Gorlab.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Michael Mornard
--------------------------
Played in the original Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and EPT Campaigns
"Gronan of Simmerya" aka "Old Geezer" aka "LORD Grumpy"

Cameron DuBeers
Level 9 Sorcerer

member is offline

[avatar]

Did I Make My Save?

Joined: Nov 2012
Gender: Male

Posts: 1,554
Location: Austin TX USA
Karma: 151

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #13 on Nov 19, 2011, 2:44pm »

Nov 19, 2011, 12:19pm, gronanofsimmerya wrote:

Good grief. Just call a Balrog a Balrog.

I just figured he had some LotR enthusiasts in his group who would argue "that isn't a balrog!" I recall some crazy thread on another board wherein a flame war broke out over whether balrogs had wings. The thing finally got locked IIRC.

Nov 19, 2011, 12:19pm, gronanofsimmerya wrote:

Or honor the spirit of Gary Gygax and his convention for naming his player characters, and call it a Gorlab.

That's actually a pretty good suggestion.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

GOBLINS, Sir Rico! Thousands of 'em!

premmy
Level 4 Theurgist

member is offline

Joined: Sept 2008
Gender: Male

Posts: 107
Karma: 4

Re: I need another name for Balrog
« Reply #14 on Nov 19, 2011, 6:55pm »

I think it's high time jacar spoke up and actually explained WHY he "needs" another name for it. Because until he does so, the only answer he'll get out of me is "No, you don't. Call it a Balrog."

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Headless Horseman blog.
Recklessly creating original material for old-school D&D.

Page 1 of 3 » Jump to page Go

Click Here To Make This Board Ad-Free