(Re)naming Kiths

[Seidmadr]

So! What with there being a limited number of kiths available in the CTL2 book, I've been thinking about how the community is guaranteed to start re-making all the ones from the Underhill preview.
I know I am.
When going through the ones I liked, I realized one thing however: The names are kinda strange; most of them are along the line of Gristlegrinder or Swimmerskin. Really evocative, really strange ones. Even ones that are descriptive are rather fancifully named, such as chatelain. And of course, there are a few that are named after traditional monsters, such as Troll and Brollachan. But... There are also a few named extremely plainly. Artist. Soldier. Miner.

This really doesn't fit in with the rest of the names.. So I thought, that when we dig into them, we should give them more evocative names. Artist (which I know is in the revealed document, but I hope it could be updated...) would to me work so much better as something like... Wondermaker. It does the same thing, but it puts a lot more of a fantastic twist on it, and it shows them as truly remarkable. Soldier is... bland. For those who marched in endless goblin armies, why not give them a name like Grimblade, or something like that. Or Brightblade if one wants to be noble. Soldier doesn't have any fantastic connotations, it's just someone who fights in an army. Grim-/brightblade, however, really drives home the fantastic horror (or terrible glory) that is war in Faerie. Miner. This one at least has a bunch of faerie connotations. Svartalves, and kobolds, and knockers all fit with the underground theme... But it's still a bland name. Why not call them Deepdelvers instead? It would mean the same thing, but it'd be more exciting and, again, fantastic.

I'd like to hear the community's view on this. What do you think?

[Charlaquin]

I think a lot of this is left over from 1e where Kiths were tied to specific Seemings. The Kiths that were plainly named after a job or craft, like artist, smith, and brewer were almost entirely Wizened Kiths, with a few Fairest like Dancer, Mannequin and Muse. That’s because at the time, Wizend’s whole thing was that they were modified by their Keepers to perform specific tasks. Fairest were generally taken to be objects of beauty, but some of them were made to do specific tasks of a more performative nature. Likewise, the Kiths that are named for specific mythological creatures like Troll and Brollochan were almost all Ogres, because again, that was Ogres’ deal. I think the more evocative compound word Kith names like Leechfinger, Runnerswift, and Fireheart were used because the Seemings they belonged to were not as task-oriented, so the names had to be more descriptive to get across their roles in Arcadia. Saying “I was taken to be my Keeper’s smith” is pretty self-explanatory, whereas if you were not taken for such a specific purpose, but the environment to which you were brought was a network of dark caves, tunnelgrub is a good way to describe the way you were adapted to that environment.

Now I haven’t pledged to the Kickstarter yet so I don’t know what role Kiths amd Seemonhs play in 2e now, but I imagine separating the two has made these naming trends a bit less intuitive. It certainly did so in David’s drafts.

I guess what I’m saying is, yes, I agree. Without the convention of all Soldiers being Wizend and all Wizend being taken to perform specific tasks, something like Trenchfighter would be a more effective name.

[Seidmadr]

Aah, yes. You are right.
I just took a look at the Underhill document and the as of now revealed parts of 2e.
It's a legacy problem. Still it wasn't consistent back then either, since even in the 1e core book we had the Wizened Woodwalker, which fits into the evocative themes that we see in the others, and Darklings have things like the Antiquarian.

To get back to the wizened though, Soldier is one of those who have the widest themes...
A faceless soldier in a huge unseelie army, someone who fights in a caricature of a modern war like vietnam or the first world war, a member of a shining legion bearing down on the enemy shining in purple and gold and whatnot. The anachronism of Faerie means that war can come from anywhere from tribal scuffles to a sci-fi battlefront. The only consistent part being... war.
So... Warbreaker? Battleborn? Something like that would probably be better than either Brightblade or Trenchfighter. Those would rather be the Kith views of it (Fairest vs. Wizened, in this case), but something that represents all of war...