[World Design] Portmanteau, Literal, or Gibberish?

Televangelist, turducken, skyjack...
The Rocky Mountains, bluefish, White Sands...
Haagen Dazs, Cthulhu, Tarzan...


When you're naming something, there are three ways to go.
You can cram two existing words together to create a portmanteau word.
You can literally describe the thing you're naming, or at least an aspect of it.
You can make up gibberish.


I don't do gibberish, because it doesn't evoke anything in the players' minds unless you explain that "A'Sharz-go" means "Desert of Glass Shards" in the Hiza tongue, Hiza meaning "footsore wanderers", and so on. Tolkien was a philologist and beautifully realized invented languages were a big part (in fact the original impetus) of his legendarium. I, on the other hand, am not a philologist. It's really hard to do invented language right, so I stay away.

[Flavah Menu] Elf my Elf

As I'm developing my blue box, I'm thinking about what resources I'd include for worldbuilding. When you work within a framework of generic high fantasy, you can bet there will be elves, for example. But whose elves? Use this handy menu to elf your elfin' elves to your heart's content. Pick one or more options from each section:


Origins: Elves are:

• An elder race, superior to humans in many ways, but less ambitious and impulsive.
• Very minor deities entrusted with protecting and sustaining the natural world.
• Refugees from a divine realm adjacent to our own that has since fallen into evil.
• Transhumans who represent a physical and spiritual evolution beyond humankind.
• Descendants of the neutral angels who sided neither with god nor the devil.

Relations with Humans: Elves find humans:

• A loutish, inferior brood worthy of contempt.
• Fascinatingly unpredictable.
• Well-meaning but ultimately destructive, wasteful, and foolish.
• The enemy.
• Pitiable for their brief lives and lack of mindfulness.

Banes: Elves can't abide:

• Iron.
• Fire.
• Sunlight.
• Domesticated animals, especially dogs and cats.

Temptations: Elves can't resist:

• Music.
• The urge to complete a rhyme.
• Silver.
• The sight of the sea.

Future: Elves believe they are destined to: 

• Dwindle and fade as the younger races flourish.
• Perish in a final conflict with humans.
• Gradually interbreed with humans until they are absorbed.
• Return to a promised land across the sea/in the sky/beneath the earth.
• Forever serve their current role in the world with little change.