Author Topic: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations  (Read 5729 times)

Chrono'99

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Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« on: December 08, 2007, 03:27:32 pm »
I suppose I could have used one of the old naming topics, but for clarity I'll start a new one. We need names for the locations of the Reptite Timeline. Note that since this concerns the newest part of the ROM, the positions of these locations on the overworld maps aren't even decided, especially in 1 A.D. since the whole overworld was changed. I have a few ideas but please discuss, oppose, propose, etc.

1/ The little mountain trail in which Marle wakes up (1 A.D.)

We could put this in Truce Canyon but that would be a lazy solution; players want novelty! I've currently put it in what would become Lucca's island, except it's linked to the continent. This is an unimportant location since it's just where the Gate is located, so we could go with a generic name like "Mountain Trail" or something, but my idea for a non-generic name is Astur Hill.

The Astures were a Celtic population that lived in Spain before the Roman conquered the area. The name doesn't mean anything special in the context of this game, but the cultures it alludes are coherent with what we created, I think: Cedric, although he has an Anglo-Saxon name, could allude to Rome through his founding of an Empire; and the "Spain" details subtly alludes to the Reptites, since we gave them Maya names and the Mayas were invaded by the Spanish. As an extra allusion, "Astur" sounds a bit like "Ashtear", Lucca's family name in CC, and that's why I put the location on her island.

2/ The Reptite Forest (1 A.D.)

This is Marle's dungeon before Terra Tower. The forest is a small maze like the one in Zelda 1 on NES. We could keep "Reptite Forest", but this was already used in Prehistory in CT. I tried to search for nifty Maya names to use, but I didn't find anything that sound good to English speakers. I propose Snaking Forest, a simple name, but it alludes to both to the Reptites and the maze aspect of the location.

3/ Robots (2302 A.D.)

We need a name for the base of the Reptite Robots. This is where Lucca and Robo arrive. It could be interesting to have a name for these Robot people too, although obviously a generic "Robots" could suffice.

4/ Reptite Factory (2302 A.D.)

A name either for the factory or the (unseen) city in which it's located in. A Maya name would be nice but good-soundind ones are hard to find. Maybe we could make Tohil the name of this city instead of that of the world for the Reptites (since the divergences with the human timeline have slightly lessened in the later plot outlines). Or maybe Xamolt since the Reptite time-travelers come from here and they're called "Xamoltan" (I can't find the exact original Maya reference though, what does this name mean?).

Of course, Dinopolis would be an obvious choice, but the differences between the CE Reptites (stained by the Frozen Flame) and the CC Dragonians are too large to warrant the name, I think.

5/ Mountain Trail in which Crono/Glenn/Magus wake up (1002 A.D.)

Could be the same location as Marle's mountain trail, or something else.

6/ Reptite Village (1002 A.D.)

This is the typically peaceful rural paradize... Like the Greek utopia of Arcady, but we probably can't use that name since it sounds too familiar for something Reptite. Any idea?

Now fire away.

Vehek

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2007, 05:35:34 pm »
Do we need location names for Reptile 1002 A.D.?
Isn't it supposed to be a bunch of linked location maps now?

Chrono'99

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #2 on: December 08, 2007, 05:48:47 pm »
It would still be nice to have a name for the Reptite village...

Although, I've just checked the list, and apart from the unuseable Apocalypse overworld, we still have the original 2300 A.D. overworld from CT. Is it possible to convert it into a map that uses the Present tileset?

Vehek

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #3 on: December 08, 2007, 08:53:39 pm »
I guess so, but what do you want it for?

Daniel Krispin

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2007, 10:51:58 pm »
It would still be nice to have a name for the Reptite village...

Although, I've just checked the list, and apart from the unuseable Apocalypse overworld, we still have the original 2300 A.D. overworld from CT. Is it possible to convert it into a map that uses the Present tileset?

I'll think of one or two. I have to try and think Myan/Aztec. Oh, by the way, the whole Xamoltan thing... take of the 'an' ending. The place should be called Xamolt. The adjective (anything to do with it) Xamoltic, ie. Xamoltic art. The people hailing therefrom be Xamolti. Xamoltans sounds too English.

Anyway, about other names. Tenoltian. There's one.

By the way guys, you need names for things, just come to me. I think I'm pretty good at coming up with names and alternate names (see, if you really want depth in something, give it more than one name. Ie. to the natives it is this; to these others it is this. Or give a person an epithet which serves almost like a nickname. The Iliadic 'brilliant' being attached to Achilles, for example. Sometimes, when kept in their original language, become names themselves, alternate ones. The son of Achilles, for example, is alternately Pyrrhus for his red hair, or Neoptolemos because he arrived at the end of the war. Give the world a few different names for different contexts, and it feels more fleshed out.) I've got that mentality from reading a whole heck of ancient works. I'm used to seeing 'Loxias says thus' and not going 'who the heck is Loxias? Oh, wait, right, Apollo.' Of course, it has to be said understandably, in other words, you can't just go using alternates (like the ancient works do, which are either written by pedantic writers or those who assume a certain prior knowledge.) Rather, if there is a formal speech, you can say something along the lines of 'our city (1), revered (2), our mother (3)' Just a thought. And typically if I come up with names, I don't do so for their sounding 'cool'. Usually, it's somewhat allusive and cohesive with context, and just as importantly it's readable. I can't tell you how much wrath I have at some fantasy books and all which have names that violate one or both of these laws. Either the names sound entirely out of place, or they have ludicrous spelling and pronunciation. Chrono, thank goodness, is at the better end of things. Half its names are simply, well, simple and cheesy or what not - hey, if you're not being allusive, sticking to context is just as good if not better. The other half are excellent. The three wise men, Zeal, Janus, Medina, and all... these work. Heck, that's half of what attracted me to the game in the first place! The rest fit in context, and there are very few that don't. And almost nothing is too difficult or strange.

Anyway, rant done, I think. Basically, we've got to get some phonetically good if not allusive names going here for them. I'm thinking, as I said, Tenoltian. Maybe try varying it. Or maybe something from 'Teotihuacan' that sort of gives the same sound but in a simpler manner, and acts much like the Tower of Geddon did to the word Armageddon. You could also split it up. Say, Tenoc Hacan. 'Tenoc' could mean citadel. Hacan could mean anything else. Then you could also use it for Terra Tower, make it something like Tenot (something). Just guesses. I'm way better at making up Gk/Latin names, because my head especially tends towards Greek rules. If you were to ask me to start writing random words, I bet not a single one would end in a b, d, f, g, h, k, l, few m's, p, q, rare r's, t, v. Things like that don't happen in Greek. Hes noton en stoltios hiloi pleros men outako tilasi stebous, ten mekasti leno mai... heh, random gibberish, but all words that could be more or less 'greek'. It's a bit tough, therefore, for me to think of words that end in consonants. Not to mention we should ask: is the city name singular? Plural? How do such things work? After all, half Greek cities are one; half the other; there is a precident to this. You have the plurals in Mukenai, Delphoi, Athenai, and so on. But others, Pulos, Argos, Korinthos... all singular. Why? Haven't a clue. Maybe some are confederations in origin. Anyway, that makes naming things more complex.

I know it's not neccessary to conceive of the hows and whys behind things. Or is it? Half of what makes these games fun is the depth behind the scenes. If we can have people going 'wait a minute, there seems to be a lot more behind this than they're showing us', sort of play on the imagination of the audience, then that's a potent result. And I think one of the ways of doing this is, in making these things up, working under 'real world' assumptions: considering how they have worked before in literature and in history, and making use of them. The best known and perhaps best user of this is Tolkien himself - I don't think any after have been half so subtle as he, in part for his linguistic background. That's why I looked to Teotihuacan as an origin point. It was a mighty city, after all. Classical Mesoamerica, apparently. What better thing to use?

Let's see what else strikes me as Mesoamerican (I'm thinking gibberish)... Haboc, Tintelan, Mazacana, Tik, Tixa, your Tohil. These all would work together. So my idea for the city is Tenoc Hacan. Terra Tower you can refer to as Mazacana (though whether earth is kana or maza is open. The tower of Hacan could be said to be Kana Hacan, or maybe Hacancana or perhaps mazahacan if maza is tower... these are just background ideas. Nothing direct. Maybe if some little NPC is saying something in a spell you can use maza for earth. mazatu can be the genitive; accusative mazaa. Let's see... the root in Tenoc is a hard c which makes adding the t tough. But maybe... tenoc'tu? That could work, I suppose... I think, though don't know for sure because this never happens in Greek, but I think that that ' makes a stop between the consonants. So 'city' is tenoc. Of the city is 'tenoc'tu'; against the city is 'tenoca'; in the city, a locative, is 'tenociz'; for the city, dative, is 'tenoce'. Just making things up as I go. Of course I'm assuming the language to be declined. And assuming all words are declined in the same order (for simplicity). I'm not sure now if, in the 'city (+name)' the city is in nominative or genetive, ie. if Tenoc Hacan is 'city Hacan' or 'city of Hacan'. I think in Greek they go 'the city (name) by name', with name being in the dative. If, however, the people are called the Hacan, then perhaps a plural genetive could be used to denote 'the city of the hacan people.'

Tough. I've got to go over what I've got. Oh, and Xamolt... that is Xamoltu in genetive, Xamolta in accusative. If it is, indeed, the city name (which I don't think it should be, it should be the people name, from which the city gets it) ... okay, this is going too quickly. Remember amidst all this this is background. If they read an inscription, hear a spell, that sort of thing. The convention is usually to use only the nominative in referring to other languages, so we'll usually only see the nominative singular or plural. Thus most often it'll be Xamolt for the city (which in English can stand for the city of the Xamolt people, but in the 'language' it'll need a plural genetive.) It'll be Tenoc Hacan always.

But this is how it'll decline:

Root+
                    Sing         Pl
Nominative       -            s
Genetive          tu          stu
Dative              e           se
Accusative        a            sa
Vocative           o            so
Locative            iz           siz

So, the example of Tenoc Hacan

Root+
                    Sing                             Pl
Nominative       Tenoc Hacan                Tenox Hacans
Genetive          Tenoc'tu Hacantu          Tenoxtu Hacanstu
Dative              Tenoce Hacane           Tenoxe Hacanse
Accusative        Tenoca Hacana             Tenoxa Hacansa
Vocative           Tenoco Hacano            Tenoxo Hacanso
Locative            Tenociz Hacaniz            Tenoxiz Hacansiz

Though if we decide to make it 'city of the Hacan people', it'll be Tenoc Hacanstu, technically.

Or Xamolt

Xamolt     Xamolz
Xamoltu   Xamolzu
Xamolte    Xamolze
Xamolta     Xamolza
Xamolto     Xamolzo
Xamoltiz     Xamolziz


Heh. Well, that's an effort. Any word that we make up can fit the scheme if needed. It's not that great, but it'll do for spells and all, should they arise. Note that I shifted to a z in that last because I didn't like the 'ts' look.

So I guess now we'll have to see which is what. Xamolt is... the time travelers. One would be 'a Xamolt' and plural 'two Xamolz'. To go 'of the place' we in English usually use English Genetives on the other roots, so we'll say they're Xamoltic, if it's also where they come from. Hmmm... no. Xamolt means hero. Xa is a preposition much like our 'over', and 'molt' is a soldier or figher of any sort. Tenoc Hacan will be the city. Or... wait, you said Dionopolis, so this is Terra Tower? And Terra Tower is Mazakana. If it's seperate, let the city in which the factory is be Tenoc Hacan.

Now what do we have left? A forest; Reptite village; Robot base and robots. Excellent.
Forest is Tixa. So this forest is, well, Tixa Forest (which would mean 'forest forest', but no matter.) Village... Tintelan. And Robots... no, Robot is Tik, so robots is Tixa, and locative plural, 'the place of the robots' I suppose, is Tixiz. Hmm... sounds a bit wrong. But hey, work with me here. Come up with your own alterations.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2007, 11:12:54 pm by Daniel Krispin »

Chrono'99

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2008, 06:51:01 pm »
I guess so, but what do you want it for?

For saving the game easily, and basically just for kicks. FFX had no world map and lots of people complained. However, it's true that the Reptite 1002 A.D. overwold may be the less "useful" one to have, especially considering the bugs with the Apocalypse overworld map. We can probably scrap it.

For now (and probably for good), the overworlds are used as follows:
{0} 1002 A.D.
{1} 602 A.D.
{2} Reptite/Human 2302 A.D.
{3} 64,999,998 B.C.
{4} Reptite/Human 1 A.D.
{5} 12001 B.C. (Zeal)
{6} 11998 B.C.
{7} Apocalypse (unused, but we could still use it for cutscenes)

I still have to review these names... there's a lot of good stuff.

Chrono'99

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2008, 07:42:39 am »
Tenoc Hacan may seem too much like a big mispelling of Teotihuacan for those who may be familiar with the original name, so perhaps Huacan will do. (I googled Hacan and it appears to be an organization, "Hispanics Against Child Abuse And Neglect"... we might like to avoid a useless connection; Huacan with a "u" will do.) This also allows us to put "Huacan Factory" on the world map, since something like "Tenoc Hacan Factory" would be too long for the program and cumbersome to read. The city next to the factory, which is mentioned but not visited, can be Huacan Dome.

We should perhaps use Xamolt generally without declension, since Xamolz might look like it's a typo. We can still decline it in incantations and that sort of stuff. In any case, the Reptite time-travelers are the Xamolt, and Tohil or Tohil Dome can be referred to as their (unseen) home city.

Tixiz Dome sounds good for the Robot base. These "x" and "z" give the Maya feeling without being too difficult to pronounce.

I think Tintelan sounds really good too. It's less Maya-sounding (makes me think about Tintagel for some reason), but perhaps this isn't a problem since it's located in 1002 A.D. -- the transitional era between 1 A.D. when humans still existed and 2302 A.D. where Reptite civilization is at its peak.

For the 1 A.D. forest, well, I still think Snaking Forest might be a good choice. Having it be named Tixa Forest might lead to too much Reptite-related names that start with a "T-". Moreover, the forest will perhaps remain in the human version of 1 A.D., so we might need to keep the unspecific name so that it can fit in both timelines. ...Or we could come up with another name for the same place in the human timeline.

So, to summarize, the tentative names are:

1/ Astur Hill
2/ Snaking Forest
3/ Robot Base => Tixiz Dome
4/ Reptite Factory => Huacan Factory
+ Tohil Dome
5/ Mountain Trail => probably doesn't need a name (no overworld); can be referred to as Tintelan Hill if necessary
6/ Reptite Village => Tintelan

Plus Terra Tower which is the common landmark between the 3 eras.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2008, 07:44:18 am by Chrono'99 »

Vehek

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2008, 09:33:32 pm »
What are your thoughts on some of the names being used now? As you may have noticed, Terra Tower is now called "Dinopolis".
« Last Edit: December 01, 2008, 05:58:47 pm by Vehek »

Chrono'99

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2008, 05:44:59 am »
Well I thought it was a placeholder so I replaced it with Terra Tower, actually. I don't know...Dinopolis kind of implies a really huge place, while Terra "Tower" better fits the smaller nature of the location. It might depend on whether we can hack in the Terra Tower sprite on the overworld maps though. It would be nice to have the tower visually identical on the 2 Reptite overworlds.

Concerning the other Reptite location names, I'm thinking the Robot Base can become Tixiz Dome (as above), and the Factory, Huacan Factory.

Agent 12

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2008, 01:19:15 pm »
Zeality changed it from dinopolis for a reason though I can't remember what it is off the top of my head.

--JP

ZeaLitY

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2008, 01:33:58 pm »
I was concerned that Terra Tower might be an El Nido-specific name, but then again, I guess Terra Tower doesn't even appear until it comes out of the ground...who honestly names it that in Chrono Cross? Belthasar?

Chrono'99

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2008, 02:07:11 pm »
I was always puzzled by the fact that the place had two names in Chrono Cross... Searching through the script, I found this quote from an NPC in Guldove:

Quote
[Man]
   That must be the '"Terra Tower"'
   that the folk legends referred to...
   I never thought I would
   ever see such a legendary
   tower in my life...

Perhaps Dinopolis is the proper name and Terra Tower is the folk name that was passed in legends by people who didn't know what it really was. If that's the case, it does appear to be an El Nido-specific name.

I'm okay with having Dinopolis in Crimson Echoes, but I'm a bit concerned that people might think the place suffered a Time Crash event similar to Chronopolis later, due to its existence in 1 AD and 1002 AD. Then again, I guess people could also think that with Terra Tower...

The way I see it (though I don't think it has been set in stone anywhere) is that the tower was built without any time travel purpose, at some point before 1 AD. The Xamoltan would then invent time travel in the tower in 2302 AD, and make the place their base in all eras for convenience, retroactively.

So...what do we do? We can keep either Dinopolis or Terra Tower and make it clear that there's no Time Crash involved (how?), or we could change the name completely (Tohil Tower?) to clear up any ambiguity, but we'd partially lose the CC allusion (though there's still the Vision Serpent/Dragon God parallel).
« Last Edit: December 01, 2008, 02:08:50 pm by Chrono'99 »

Agent 12

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2008, 02:19:51 pm »
I vote against the new name.  It's a really cool throwback to CC and people go crazy whenever they find one of those.

--JP

nightmare975

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2008, 03:59:15 pm »
Just go with Dinopolis.

Is it possible to have be named two things? Perhaps Terra Tower in 1 AD and Dinopolis in 2300 AD, to show the evolution of technology.

Chrono'99

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Re: Names for the Reptite Tiimeline locations
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2008, 06:30:31 pm »
I guess we should go with just Dinopolis. Having two names sounds good for us because we know the plot but it might just be confusing for first-time players. It's not that confusing in itself, but there's a lot of story and backstory contents in the Reptite chapters as is.