Tuesday, 12 June 2018

The War-[x] Game

Put the word "chaos" in front of almost any animal name (or any object, pretty much) and instantly you get a monster idea. Try it. Chaos butterfly. Chaos dog. Chaos toad. Chaos cow. 

The same is also true of "war". War bat. War hippo. War heron. War owl. 

What I like about the "war-[x]" gambit is that you don't just get a cool-sounding monster name. You get an implied setting and culture surrounding it too. What society has war bats? Maybe a race of troglodytic jungle cave men who use their war bats, trained to fly into people's faces, to blind enemy warriors. What about war hippos? Clearly one that resembles Ancient Egypt, Nubia, or maybe Great Zimbabwe. Its elite warrior class, its knights, ride around on hippos and are even able to use them to travel up and down rivers (legends still tell of a famous battle in which an army of war hippos, together with knights, crossed the sea to sack a city of the Ancient Greece analogue in the setting). War herons are trained by a marsh-dwelling people to peck out the kneecaps or pierce the feet of intruders as they pass by thick reed beds. War owls are used by a society of nocturnal elves to scratch out the eyes of the foolish humans who enter their forests - or maybe to hunt down and devour pixies.

Try it and see. 
Posted by at

13 comments:

  1. Dmitry Gerasimov12 June 2018 at 04:30

    War quokkas!

    ReplyDelete
  2. trollsmyth12 June 2018 at 04:48

    Did somebody say war-hippo knights?

    https://flowerzzxu.deviantart.com/art/Monsoon-560850595

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. noisms13 June 2018 at 02:55

      It terrifies me how many amazing illustrators there are on Deviant Art.

      Delete
    2. Mongrell's Rants14 June 2018 at 10:34

      OMG I love it Peachie Kean Zoobie Cow Wow Great Stuff there!

      Delete
  3. Cullen12 June 2018 at 16:30

    I completely agree. "Doom" is another good adjective here, e.g. Doom Bats, Doom Drakes, Doom Bolts (this latter being a spell ... these all stolen from "Master of Magic"). But the implied setting offered by "War" is passing good

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. noisms13 June 2018 at 02:57

      Yeah, "doom" works. There's also "dark".

      Delete
    2. Mufn14 June 2018 at 06:24

      A bit passe now, but zombie i think is in the same list. Is there a name for this? They arent purely adjectival (i dont think 'ravenous' follows the same logic), but more like noun adjuncts.

      Useful strange nounjuncts does have a ring to it (maybe not a NICE ring haha)

      Delete
    3. noisms17 June 2018 at 03:02

      I like "nounjunct". Something in the mists of my memory tells me in grammatical circles that you call that sort of thing a "complement" (or possibly "compliment"?).

      Delete
  4. anarchist16 June 2018 at 05:35

    I think I read in 'Fantasy Wargaming' that British folklore had 'venomous' animals including venomous sheep.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. noisms17 June 2018 at 03:03

      Never heard of that, but sheep-headed orcs are an idea I've been playing around.

      Delete
  5. paulierockets19 June 2018 at 15:43

    Chaos War Realtor. Available soon for WH 40K.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dada Dan Akiko 13 July 2018 at 00:32

    Try with goblin- before a kind of weather... goblinwind, gpblinrain, goblindrought

    ReplyDelete
  7. Narmer10 March 2020 at 13:29

    This is brilliant.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)