Adding a Touch of Colour: Or, Blue Dwarfs, Yellow Giants, and Red Trolls, Oh My!

There is a pleasing direct vividness about colour words appearing in book titles, monster names, or fantasy geographies. 'The King in Yellow'. Red Mars. Purple Worm. 'The Masque of the Red Death'. Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight. 'The White People'. The Silver Chair. The Black Speech. And so on.

The reasons for this are not very complicated, I suppose. First, we are so alive to colour as such that it instantly appears in our mind - one need only see the word 'red' to immediately see vivid red in one's mind's eye. No mental effort required. 

Second, colours often have connotations. Silver feels mysterious; white feels cold; red suggests blood or fire; green suggests nature or spring, and so on. There is a lot of semiotic significance packed into these single words. 

And the third is the blunt effectiveness of these often monosyllabic, Anglo-Saxon-sounding terms. Which of these is more evocative: The Blue Mountains or the Mountains of Syllrabiastra? It is the former for a whole arsenal of reasons, but one of them is simply that 'Blue Mountains' has a ring to it. 'Blue' is a good, solid word that anybody can understand; it also doesn't beat around the bush. It goes straight at you, in your face. Most colour words - certainly the simple colour words that we learn as children, or when learning a new language - have this quality. They don't mess around.

It follows that if one wishes to add some spice and vividness in worldbuilding, one can't go too far wrong with creative use of colour in the naming of things. This perhaps shouldn't be overdone, but it is surprising how much life can be breathed into even the most hackneyed concepts with a fresh hue. Instead of the Goblins of Elrexinfrax, go for the Purple goblins of Elrexinfrax. Instead of the Dwarfs of Undermountain, go for the Blue Dwarfs of Undermountain. Instead of the Empress of Yeffinfeff, go for the Red Empress of Yeffinfeff. And so forth. 

The important point here is not that the goblins, dwarfs, or empress are necessarily actually purple, blue or red (though they may be). Perhaps the blue dwarfs are called such because they mine blue-tinged iron to make their weapons. Perhaps the purple goblins make a violet dye from some strange fruit and use it to colour their skin, or for tattoos. Perhaps the Red Empress is known for bathing in the blood of virgins. Whatever. The colour both generates an evocative name - and a reason to pique the curiosity of the players - but also gets the creative juices flowing. 

To this end, I recommend using this technique before coming up with any details in advance. While stocking your hexmap you decide that this area of land is populated by a race of giants known as the Yellow Giants. Why are they yellow? That's what gets the ideas flowing.