Element Naming Aid?

[JRolik 24]

For my current projects, I keep thinking of renaming the usual elements and attack commands [special, magic, etc] into Latin, because I feel like Latin is important to my characters too much [it's a class they all share, since it takes place in a school]. But would it be too confusing? I just feel like the current names I'm using don't quite fit.

 

My current names are:

Physical

Fire

Water

Earth

Wind

Thunder

Light

Dark

 

And the attack types in general include 'Special' and 'Elemental'.

 

Somehow, it just doesn't fit right. Is my idea to change some of these to latin a good idea, or would it be too confusing?

And is there a better way to name the elements and such otherwise? Or is it actually alright as it is?

[Silenity 33]

Idk about Latin but you could always just change them slightly.

 

Fire could be pyro, flame, flare, scortch, blaze, etc

 

Ice could be crystal, snow, frost, etc

 

Thunder could be spark, lightning, electric, etc

 

Water could be aqua, liquid, marine, etc

 

Earth could be nature, Gaia, rock, ground, etc

 

Light could be divine, holy

 

Dark could be evil, demonic, death, unholy

 

Wind could be air, zephyr, gale, etc

 

 

Whatever fits your game and your liking should be fine

[lonequeso 1,921]

What are the names of the elements in Latin?

[Rikifive 3,411]

Your game, your rules. =3

In all seriousness ~ even if the names will be confusing at the beginning, the player can get used to these later. It also depends on how complex the names are. ^^

The names, that Silenity suggested would be not confusing.

[JRolik 24]

True, it is my rules as the one making it, but it also is important to make it understandable.

I like a lot of the names Silently mentioned, so I might look into trying those instead of latin in some cases. Maybe a mix.  Some of those also could make it more broad in a way, such as liquid instead of water- liquid can be a much more broad category than H2O after all. 

 

By the way, the latin names would be:

 

Fire would be Flamma or Ignis [ignis sounds really cool to me]

Water would be Aqua [not complicated, though I'm still preferring Liquid right now xD]

Earth would be Humus or Terra [probably Terra so I don't confuse myself, since I see humus and think of hummus, like the food...xD]

Wind would be Ventus [though Aquilo, which means North Wind, is also sort of cool...]

Thunder would be 'Attonbitus' [it technically means thunder-struck, but it was all I could find and it sounds funny]

Light would be Lumen, Luminarium or Levis

Dark would be Ater, Atra or Atrum.

 

As for the element/special/physical categories, in succession, they'd be Elementum/Precipuus or Proprius/Fortitudo.

 

Maybe i should do a mix? o.o;

[HeckHound 61]

As long as you're consistent in the game, it shouldn't matter what the name of the element is (for example, having two terms for the 'fire' element).

 

Physical skills (command) -  artes militaris (arts of the soldier)

Magic skills (command) - artes magus (arts of the magical)

 

Even with the latin names, they both look reasonably similar to English words they represent to give the general idea what they are. Militaris (military > soldier) and magus (mage > magic).

 

Thunder - Fulgura/Fulmina (actually means lightning though, though since thunder is a by-product of lightning, I figured it wouldn't matter too much )

[JRolik 24]

HeckHound, how did you find lightning? I actually tried to find it and my source had nothing D: Fulmina sounds awesome though.

Your concept for the Physical vs. Magical skills are pretty neat. I was never planning on explicitly calling them 'magic', but that might be simpler. Though...I was going to have 3 sections, thus the 'physical, special, elemental' thing. What would you recommend for the third?

[HeckHound 61]

On eudict, it's under 'lightning strikes the mountain tops', but I knew what word it was thanks to the Dresden Files (on of his spells is fulminaris).

 

Artes specialitas could be construed as 'special arts'? Follows the same pattern as the other commands and is easily identifiable. 

[JRolik 24]

That's a really great pattern to use...If you really don't mind me using it, I think I will. It has such a good ring to it and will flow well for the latin background of a lot of the characters.

[Silenity 33]

Could use Tempestas means storm

[JRolik 24]

What would you recommend Tempestas to be for? Wind? Though storms themselves have a lot of elements...

[HeckHound 61]

What would you recommend Tempestas to be for? Wind? Though storms themselves have a lot of elements...

 

Could use it for a specific, multi-element spell / weapon?

 

Tempestas in Aquilo - Storm on the North Wind

[JRolik 24]

That sounds like it'd be a really fun spell. 

Since I do want to make certain combination spells/abilities when certain characters are in the same group, I'll totally do that for one of them.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Tempestas sounds like it could be an arte. A special class possibly. Essentially an Elementalist.

Personally I like aqua for water. If you flamma for fire, it would fit well. If you use ignus, I like liquid more.

I don't think making the names Latin will be confusing. I'm assuming the player will in some way be able to see descriptions anyway. Most are similar enough to English words too. Fulmina and any of the Dark options are the only ones that differ greatly. I think you'll be fine with the route you're going.

[Yuugami 252]

Just pushing the discussion a step forward, but when you're considering the element names and spell names and stuff, I'd consider how'd the name will change based on the spell tier. This is assuming the spells and the elements both share the same name and/or uses latin.

 

For example, Final Fantasy has Fire, Fira, Firaga. Dragon Quest has Frizz, Frizzle. Shin Megami Tensei has Agi, Agilao, and Agidyne. Also, if you plan to have single-target and multi-target spells, how would you separate it (Going back to SMT, we have Maragi, Maragion, and Maragidyne)? If you plan to be simple and do stuff like Ignis I, Ignis II, or something like that, it's fine - hell, if you don't plan to go this route at all, that's fine too.

 

It's just something to consider - you wouldn't want awkward spell names and all.

[HeckHound 61]

One last thing before I stop procrastinating on my uni work, I'd check out both the Dresden Files and Mahou Sensei Negima! wikis, since they're both likely to have a lot of latin terms and spells you could use.

 

http://dresdenfiles.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Dresden%27s_spells

http://negima.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Spells

[JRolik 24]

Just pushing the discussion a step forward, but when you're considering the element names and spell names and stuff, I'd consider how'd the name will change based on the spell tier. This is assuming the spells and the elements both share the same name and/or uses latin.

 

For example, Final Fantasy has Fire, Fira, Firaga. Dragon Quest has Frizz, Frizzle. Shin Megami Tensei has Agi, Agilao, and Agidyne. Also, if you plan to have single-target and multi-target spells, how would you separate it (Going back to SMT, we have Maragi, Maragion, and Maragidyne)? If you plan to be simple and do stuff like Ignis I, Ignis II, or something like that, it's fine - hell, if you don't plan to go this route at all, that's fine too.

 

It's just something to consider - you wouldn't want awkward spell names and all.

 

A very good point you have. Some spells will depend on things like the weapon attached, such as a sword being required for a 'fire slash', etc. 

I only really know the Dragon Quest ones, so being reminded these things is a great help.

 

And thanks for the resource, Heck Hound~ That will definitely be useful!

[Cookie Ninja 374]

This is a very personal preference but to me consistensy is important. Use all english or all latin, if you are worried about understandability the might I suggest using icons in conjunction with skill and command names. Given time however a player will probably get familiar with the commands and skills even without such aid. Who knows maybe even learn some latin to go along with it?^^ If you mix and match the previously mentioned possibility will be lost.

 

It's your game however so do whatever you are comfortable with (paraphrasing what the ponie said).

[JRolik 24]

I'm hoping to learn some latin as I go for certain quests and such in the game. 

In the end I'm definitely using latin for the element names and the artes concepts that HeckHound gave. 

Figuring out latin for different spells and stuff will be a pain, but I'm trying to use it for a number of them so far.

It'll be hard not to mix and match in my mind sadly. But I'm going to try to keep it consistent as much as I can.

So...I wonder if I should look for heavy-duty resources on latin...?

[Tsarmina 2,612]

I know Latin *raises hand*

 

I know Google Translate is....faulty...often times. ^^ I don't think it's necessary to get that far into the linguistic aspect of it, especially since Latin, Spanish, English, French, etc. are so very closely intertwined, sometimes words may not be noticeable if they are not quite authentic Latin. c: 

 

Regardless--ehehe. Why not play around with some ideas ^^

 

Fire would be Flamma or Ignis [ignis sounds really cool to me]

Water would be Aqua [not complicated, though I'm still preferring Liquid right now xD]

Earth would be Humus or Terra [probably Terra so I don't confuse myself, since I see humus and think of hummus, like the food...xD]

Wind would be Ventus [though Aquilo, which means North Wind, is also sort of cool...]

Thunder would be 'Attonbitus' [it technically means thunder-struck, but it was all I could find and it sounds funny]

Light would be Lumen, Luminarium or Levis

Dark would be Ater, Atra or Atrum.

In Latin, flumen is river. (Flumine is also usable ) If you're interested in using more general liquid stuffs, you could easily manipulate the word fluid also (e.g. Fluis). Other Latin bases you could use are aecor (ocean) and fluenta. There are also so many awesome sounding Latin words, but they probably aren't recognisable as immediately "water." XD

 

Wind could also be zephyrus, which is more suited to lighter winds :c Airus is literally "air," or you could use spiritus or caelum (the latter meaning "sky.")

 

I like fulmina, though I usually prefer fulminata since it sounds cooler XD

 

Light - Sol/solis is another possible option (though it means "sun")

 

Dark - umber/umbra is shadow, if that's helpful at all

 

I dunno if you would want these for element names, but hopefully they'll help you with elements/skills or just in general ^^

[JRolik 24]

I think they'll be especially useful with skill naming, Tsarmina! I've been using freedict for my translations since all the languages I ever want to use are on there, but I can only really do a word at a time, so having dual-word spells and stuff would be troublesome to do at points. Your list of ideas is gonna help me make a few good spells with similar latin names this way.

 

And true, many languages are similar. I mean, 'yes' is the same in Spanish and Italian, for example. Many languages have similarities- but they have very unique differences too oftentimes~ Thus my obsession and worry.

[Cookie Ninja 374]

I look for words here and I know abit of grammar, as long as the declension of the words are consistent the word order is pretty liberal. 
Here is an example of a feminine word, most if not all nouns have genders and declensions depend on that.

                                                                                        SINGULAR.

                                  CASES.                                         MEANINGS.                                                  TERMINATIONS.
Nom.                         porta                                              a gate (as subject)                                        -ă

Gen.                          portae                                            of a gate                                                       -ae
Dat.                           portae                                            to or for a gate                                              -ae
Acc.                           portam                                          a gate (as object)                                           -am
Voc.                           porta                                             O gate!                                                          -ă
Abl.                            portÄ                                             with, by, from, in a gate                                 -Ä

                                                                                        PLURAL.

Nom.                         portae                                            gates (as subject)                                         -ae
Gen.                          portÄrum                                       of gates                                                         -Ärum
Dat.                           portÄ«s                                             to or for gates                                               -Ä«s
Acc.                           portÄs                                            gates (as object)                                          -Äs
Voc.                           portae                                           O gates!                                                        -ae
Abl.                            portÄ«s                                            with, by, from, in gates                                  -Ä«s

 

homo portam componere and homo componere portam both translates to "A man builds a gate". The first metioned is the more commonly used (subject-object-verb) and the latter was probably more used in everyday speech (subject-verb-object). But either way you compose that sentence it will be grammatically correct. Google translate however... *shudders* 

 

You decide exactly how ambitious you want to be with it, if you want to go all out and don't know where to start don't hesitate to PM me 

[JRolik 24]

This makes me want to make a portal/gate spell that I have no idea what it'd do. But that's a great little site you showed me. I'll probably bug you in PM for fun to [like... to say hi right now. and maybe get input on spell ideas, etc]. 

[Cookie Ninja 374]

This makes me want to make a portal/gate spell that I have no idea what it'd do.

 

Apply banish state or summon something xD

[lonequeso 1,921]

or a return spell that sends the player to the last town or can exit a dungeon instantly. Or open the gates of Hell and unleash Satan's army upon the Earth. I rather like that last one.