BCRPG: Word Bearer Naming Conventions

[Lord Mad Balrog]

In the upcoming release of the "Black Crusade" tabletop RPG (in the same vein as Game Workshop's "Rogue Trader", "Dark Heresy", and "Deathwatch" RPGs), the game is focused on the viewpoint of Chaos, and will contain rules for the creation of Chaos Space Marines and mortal heretics alike.

 

A friend of mine and I (and hopefully a couple other people) are planning on playing a Black Crusade campaign once one or the other of us buys the corebook. His character will be the central one, whereas mine, a Word Bearers Chaos Space Marine, will serve a function sort of like an in-game Game Master (I am going to be the overall GM, but I didn't want to get totally left out of the actual playing of a Chaos Space Marine!).

 

So my question is this: what are the naming conventions of the first-generation Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines, and how can I use them to create a new name for my CSM? By "first-generation" I mean Horus Heresy-era Word Bearers, or those who otherwise are extremely old and were born outside the Eye of Terror. My friend keeps telling me names like "Kor Phaeron" are Sumerian or Akkadian in origin, but I've looked up Sumerian and Akkadian names, and none of them really strike me as being similar to "Kor Phaeron". There are also guys like Erebus, whose name is most likely Grecian in origin ("Erebos" was a name for the underworld), so I'd like to keep the naming conventions from the Meditteranean/Persian area of the world. Any ideas or sample names would be helpful.

[Octavulg]

Many seem to be named for Mediterranean-area gods or religious figures.

 

Grabbing a quick list from Lexicanum:

 

Erebus - First Chaplain of the Word Bearers.1 - Greek (see here)

Marduk - Dark Apostle, former First Acolyte of Jarulek. - Babylonian (see here

Kol Badar - Coryphaus of Jarulek and then Marduk. - Badar was apparently Mohammed's first battle (see here and here

Eliphas the Inheritor - Dark Apostle, leader of the Dark Crusade on Kronus. (Dec.) - Hebrew (see here)

Zadkiel - Fleet Captain of the Furious Abyss. - Hebrew (see here

Ikthalon - Brother-Chaplain of the Furious Abyss. - Marvel Comics (see here)

[Lord Mad Balrog]

Alright, thanks for the list. There seems to be a general trend of cultures among the Word Bearers, but that's no surprise. I was thinking of a name along the same lines as "Kor Phaeron" or "Kol Badar", the same two-word name structure, but I obviously don't want to copy the name of canonical figures. The cue-word for me was "cuneiform", the characters used on Colchis, so I started looking at Terran cultures that used that style.

I'll do some more digging, see if anything appeals to me. I'll have to check out a map of the general region or something.

[Octavulg]

Find religious figures with appropriately harsh sounding names, co-opt those names, knock off for lunch. :woot:

[The Emperor's Champion]

Their theme is evil and stuff people think of as evil. *shrug*

 

Erebus is the Greek primordial God Of Darkness. Blacker than the blackest black times infinity.

 

Erebus is both a god and a place (like Hades, Tartarus, Ouranos, Gaia, etc etc). Erebus is the darkness that surrounds Hades(the Underworld) and separates it from the mortal realm.

Normally it was the job of the psychopomps(Hermes and Iris) to escort souls through the realm of Erebus to the banks of the River Styx.

 

 

I'd not be surprised to find Word Bearers named Hades, Chemosh, Phlegethon, Sobek, Apophis, Minauros, Surtur, Nessus, Malebolge, Avernus, Geryon, Mammon, Dispater, Sargonnas etc etc

[Lord Mad Balrog]

The names "Nessus", "Avernus", and a "Sargonnas"-like one I've seen used either in the novels or by other players, but not for the Word Bearers. (I think "Nessus" was a Black Legionnaire".) Looking at some maps of Persia and the Middle East, there are a couple options that appeal to me: Herat, Abbas, Ahskabad (Askabad), Sardis, and Adocius (from "Cappadocia"). I want something that's pretty easy to spell, since I'm writing in the character names in the campaign outline.

None of them sound very intimidating, though, or have the same history as names like "Sargonnas" do, so I think I'll keep looking.

[Something Wycked]

Kol/Kor Sardis. ;)

 

Or come up with your own prefix to the name, like Ur-Sardis.

[The Emperor's Champion]

The names "Nessus", "Avernus", and a "Sargonnas"-like one I've seen used either in the novels or by other players, but not for the Word Bearers. (I think "Nessus" was a Black Legionnaire".) Looking at some maps of Persia and the Middle East, there are a couple options that appeal to me: Herat, Abbas, Ahskabad (Askabad), Sardis, and Adocius (from "Cappadocia"). I want something that's pretty easy to spell, since I'm writing in the character names in the campaign outline.

None of them sound very intimidating, though, or have the same history as names like "Sargonnas" do, so I think I'll keep looking.

 

What!!??

What?

What.

 

 

Are you kidding?

Sargonnas is a fictional evil god from DragonLance. He's one of the only ones that really DOESN'T have a history.

 

 

 

Hades - Greek God of the Underworld. Not actually evil, but often depicted and thought of as evil because of his lordship over the dead.

 

Chemosh

According to the Hebrew Bible, the worship of this god, "the abomination of Moab," was introduced at Jerusalem by Solomon (1 Kings 11:7), but was abolished by Josiah (2 Kings 23:13).

Chemosh, also known as Lord of the Undead and the Lord of Bones, is the god of death.

He is often described as the lord of false redemption, as although he offers immortality, the price of that immortality is eternal corruption. Nearly all the evil undead on Krynn have become that way through a pact with Chemosh or one of his minions.

Clerics of Chemosh generally wear black robes and white masks that resemble a human skull. The eldest cleric is known as the Deathmaster, and is able to cast powerful attack spells using their Battle staffs.

Phlegethon - Greek God/river of blood and hellfire.

 

Sobek - Egyptian crocodile god. Not evil, but deeply feared and the first being to emerge from the primordial chaos.

 

Apophis - The Egyptian demonic snake god. The true evil Egyptian god.

 

Minauros (the 3rd layer of the Nine Hells Of Baator. D&D)

The third layer of Minauros is an endless bog of vile pollution. The weather on Minauros consists of acidic rain, flesh-slicing hail, and harsh winds. Most of the layer is a vast dismal marsh of foul rotting soil, littered with carrion and pools of water. Through murky fog, one often encounters numerous carcasses soaking up the filthy rain. Another horrid feature of these lands are "cells." These are large shallow pits, filled to a depth of two or three feet with water. Chains and manacles of brass and iron are attached to huge stones laying at the bottom of the cells, where intruders and others captured by Mammon's barbed devil sentinels will be kept. The chained prisoners are forced to stand or sit in the chill, fetid water until they die from exposure or starvation, unless they are taken away for torture or interrogation first. Fortunate prisoners escape, though occasionally the barbed devils will allow a prisoner to escape in order to hunt it for sport.

The huge stone city of Minauros the Sinking is located here, so called because the weight of the city causes it to continually slip beneath the slimy waters; only the endless efforts of thousands of slaves prevents it from doing so. The city sits in a marshy bowl in the center of these volcanic lands, and is constructed of a black stone gleaned from another plane, perhaps a world on the Prime Material, and rests on mighty pillars that eternally sink into the foul bog that fills the layer. Below the city are said to be the ruins of a town that once resided in the Outlands, a town filled with riches beyond dreaming. Hanging in the sky over the stink of Minauros can be found the kyton city of Jangling Hiter, City of Chains, suspended by chains suspended from who knows what.

Mammon the Viscount is the ruler of Minauros; he resembles a long serpent with a human torso. He rules from the centre of the city, within a huge mausoleum-like structure made of gold.

Aeaea, the secondary realm of the goddess Hecate, is on Minauros,[4] as is the realm of the Blood Queen of the aboleths.

Surtur - Norse god of the fire giants who are destined to destroy the world.

 

Nessus (evil centaur in Greek mythology, also the name of D&D's Ninth Hell of Baator-realm of the dark lord Asmodeus)

a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. Nessus is known for his role in the story of the Tunic of Nessus. After carrying Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, across the river, he attempted to beat her. Heracles saw this from across a river and shot a Hydra-poisoned arrow into Nessus's breast. As a final act of malice, Nessus told Deianira, as he lay dying, that his blood would ensure that Heracles would be true to her forever.[1]

Deianeira foolishly believed him. Later, when her trust began to wane because of Iole, she spread the centaur's blood on a shirt and gave it to her husband. Heracles went to a gathering of heroes, where his passion got the better of him. Meanwhile, Deianeira accidentally spilled a portion of the centaur's blood onto the floor. To her horror, it began to fume by the light of the rising sun.

She instantly recognized it as poison and sent her messenger to warn Heracles but it was too late. Heracles lay dying slowly and painfully as the shirt burned his skin—either in actual flames or by the heat of poison. He died a noble death on a funeral pyre of oak branches, and was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus and welcomed amongst the gods for his heroic exploits.

Nessus

Nessus is the ninth and deepest layer of Baator. It is a place of pits and ravines of virtually endless depths. The great citadel of Malsheem lies immediately below the portal between Cania and Nessus and is the largest fortress in all of the Outer Planes. Here, Asmodeus rules over the entire plane, and thus the entire race of devils.

It is a plain shattered by rifts deeper than the deepest ocean trench. Many of the ravines and canyons here reach thousands of miles into undifferentiated, dead stone. Most of the trenches seem natural, but some appear as if they were cut or blasted into the land. Rumor has it that an offshoot of the River Styx flows here and there, dropping into trenches and trickling its way across the layer. Few know how to reach this tributary, if it exists at all.

A rift of incredible depth and width lies immediately below the layer boundary between Cania and Nessus. Malsheem, the Citadel of Hell, rises in its dark, elegant, fiendish beauty from the trench. From here, the Overlord of Hell, Asmodeus, rules the plane of Baator.

Malebolge

In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, part of the Divine Comedy, Malebolge is the eighth circle of Hell. Roughly translated from Italian, Malebolge means "evil ditches". Malebolge is a large, funnel-shaped cavern, itself divided into ten concentric circular trenches or ditches. Each trench is called a bolgia (Italian for "pouch" or "ditch"). Long causeway bridges run from the outer circumference of Malebolge to its center, pictured as spokes on a wheel. At the center of Malebolge is the ninth and final circle of hell.

In Dante’s version of hell, categories of sin are punished in different circles, with the depth of the circle (and placement within that circle) symbolic of the amount of punishment to be inflicted. Sinners placed in the upper circles of hell are given relatively minor punishments, while sinners in the depths of hell endure far greater torments. As the eighth of nine circles, Malebolge is one of the worst places in hell to be. In it, sinners guilty of "simple" fraud are punished (that is, fraud that is committed without particularly malicious intent, whereas Malicious or "compound" fraud — fraud that goes against bond of love, blood, honor, or the bond of hospitality — would be punished in the ninth circle). Sinners of this category include counterfeiters, hypocrites, grafters, seducers, sorcerers and simonists.

Avernus

Avernus was believed to be the entrance to the underworld, and is portrayed as such in the Aeneid of Virgil. The name comes from the Greek word άορνος, meaning "without birds", because according to tradition, all birds flying over the lake were destined to fall dead.[2] This was likely due to the toxic fumes that mouths of the crater gave off into the atmosphere. In later times, the word was simply an alternate name for the underworld.

Geryon

Geryon was often described as a monster with human faces. According to Hesiod[3] Geryon had one body and three heads, whereas the tradition followed by Aeschylus gave him three bodies.[4] A lost description by Stesichoros said that he has six hands and six feet and is winged;[5] there are some mid-sixth-century Chalcidian vases portraying Geryon as winged. Some accounts state that he had six legs as well while others state that the three bodies were joined to one pair of legs. Apart from these weird features, his appearance was that of a warrior. He owned a two-headed hound named Orthrus, which was the brother of Cerberus, and a herd of magnificent red cattle that were guarded by Orthrus, and a herder Eurytion, son of Erytheia.[6]

Mammon - basically the Anti-Christ

 

Dispater - Greek God of all the wealth beneath the earth. Often confused with Hades and thus the evil wrongly associated with him.

 

Asmodeus - D&D Archdevil, Lord of Hell. Makes the Chaos Gods look like declawed kittens. Also a mythological Archdevil

Asmodeus or Asmodai (Hebrew: אשמדאי‎ Ashmedai) (see below for other variations) is a king of demons mostly known from the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, in which he is the primary antagonist.[1] The demon is also mentioned in some Talmudic legends, for instance, in the story of the construction of the Temple of Solomon. He was supposed by some Renaissance Christians to be the King of the Nine Hells. Asmodeus also is referred to as one of the seven princes of Hell. In Binsfeld's classification of demons, each one of these princes represents one of the seven deadly sins (Pride, Lust, Envy, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Wrath). Asmodeus is the demon of lust and is therefore responsible for twisting people's sexual desires. It is said that people who fall to Asmodeus' ways will be sentenced to an eternity in the second level of hell.

[Lord Mad Balrog]

"Sargon" was some sort of ancient evilish god from somewhere; most of the names from DragonLance have real-world counterparts, and/or were stolen directly from other D&D pantheons, like Paladine the "Platinum Dragon". Once I go through the novels again, I'll tell you where I've seen "Sargon"ish one. I've got a lot to read until then, though, so I don't recommend holding your breath.

 

I like the sound of a lot of Nordic names, but I keep those for my Warhammer Fantasy Northmen characters. There's nothing better than "Hraesvelg" (a giant eagle that ate the dead) to my ear. "Jormungand" is also a good standby, but it gets overused a lot. In Warhammer 40K, the Space Wolves seem to have co-opted most of the Nordicish names, so I figured the Persian/Sumerian/Akkadian route was better for the Word Bearers.

[The Emperor's Champion]

"Sargon" was some sort of ancient evilish god from somewhere; most of the names from DragonLance have real-world counterparts, and/or were stolen directly from other D&D pantheons, like Paladine the "Platinum Dragon". Once I go through the novels again, I'll tell you where I've seen "Sargon"ish one. I've got a lot to read until then, though, so I don't recommend holding your breath.

Paladine and Takhisis are just regular D&D's Bahamut and Tiamat under different names (DragonLance being a D&D setting). They're not especially based on anything in actual mythology, names aside.

 

I like the sound of a lot of Nordic names, but I keep those for my Warhammer Fantasy Northmen characters. There's nothing better than "Hraesvelg" (a giant eagle that ate the dead) to my ear. "Jormungand" is also a good standby, but it gets overused a lot. In Warhammer 40K, the Space Wolves seem to have co-opted most of the Nordicish names, so I figured the Persian/Sumerian/Akkadian route was better for the Word Bearers.

That's why I'd not suggest most Norse names for anything except Space Wolves or a Norse themed Chapter. But, Surtur, as a god of hellfire and evil giants...made of fire..., isn't really in the same realm of naming as Space Wolf stuff. Hell, Surtur doesn't even necessarily sound all that Norse unless you happen to know who he is.

 

That said, if I ever make a Space Wolf army with a Land Raider Redeemer, I'm totally naming that sucker Surtur. :P

[Something Wycked]

Sargon the Great wasn't actually a god, he was an Akkadian king/general. If you want famous historical names, I can totally help with that ;)

 

Personally, if you just want a hard-as-nails name, I like Vortigern. He was a 5th century British warlord.

[The Emperor's Champion]

Sargon the Great wasn't actually a god, he was an Akkadian king/general. If you want famous historical names, I can totally help with that :whistling:

 

Personally, if you just want a hard-as-nails name, I like Vortigern. He was a 5th century British warlord.

Vortigern seems like it'd be an appropriate name for a Black Templar, or an Imperial Fist, more than anything. Maybe a Luna Wolf....

[Lord Mad Balrog]

"Tiamat" was the name of some real-world goddess-entity-thing-or-another; lots of the names from the Nine Hells were stolen from real-world religions. Go figure. Bahamut! I knew the sucker's name began with a "B".

 

I'm wondering if I can take names from the Catholic Inquisition and Crusades-era conventions. Those both seem like good sources of names for a Legion of fanatics. Some of the Middle-Eastern or Moorish names might fit in better, though.

[Lord Mad Balrog]

If anybody still cares, I decided on the name "Sel Atar". It has similar conventions as with the canon Word Bearers, but isn't the same kind of prefix, like "Kor" or "Kol". Not knowing Colchisian, I figured they had some sort of religious significance, and I didn't want to put my character on the same level as the Master of the Faith himself.

[The Normish]

I was going to suggest "Zosimus", fifth Century Pope and destroyer of Pelagianism. It has nice ring to it.

But Sel Atar is nice too, sounds very appropriate.

[Bigger-than-Jesus]

If anybody still cares, I decided on the name "Sel Atar". It has similar conventions as with the canon Word Bearers, but isn't the same kind of prefix, like "Kor" or "Kol". Not knowing Colchisian, I figured they had some sort of religious significance, and I didn't want to put my character on the same level as the Master of the Faith himself.

Well, Sor Talgron had his name from when he was inducted into XVI(?) Legion, so I'd assume Kor Phaeron and Kol Badar are the same. Incidently, The First Heretic's a great source of Word Bearer names, as well as an epic, EPIC read

[Lord Mad Balrog]

I would've liked it a lot better if Lorgar hadn't been such a whiny... monkey.

 

But, yeah. I was mostly interested in the conventions, and they seem to be: prefix title-name ("Kor", "Sor", "Kol", etc), with a little more standard name following, with a vaguely Assyrian/Sumerian godly twist. "Atar", to me, is simple and strong enough to qualify.