What else is this book not going to have?----
"OK, Geoffrey. You've told us that the D&D book you're working on won't include any published monsters, or any published magic items, or any published spells. Anything else your book won't have?"
Yep. Names. There will be no names.
Some who know me will suspect that my inherent laziness is coming to the fore here: "Aha! That laggard is too lazy to supply names to the locations and NPCs in his book!"
Though I readily admit to being lazy, this is not the case here. (This is especially apparent when you consider that every single monster, spell, and magical location is designed by myself rather than simply taken from another D&D book.) The lack of names in this book is an intentional feature.
The very first module I ever owned was Gary Gygax's B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. You'll notice that no one and nothing therein is given a proper name. Even the titular Keep is simply called...the Keep. The lands around are...the Borderlands. Within the Keep live the Jewel Merchant, the Priest, the Bailiff, the Curate, the Castellan, the Scribe, etc. In the wilderness reside the Mad Hermit, the Hero, the Evil Priest, etc.
This "non-naming nomenclature" reminds me of nothing so much as this: [pic of the tarot]
The Major Arcana of the Tarot would be far less evocative if, instead of archetypal figures, they bore particular names: Pope Leo II (instead of "The Hierophant"), Johnny (instead of "The Hanged Man"), Emperor Frank (instead of "The Emperor"), etc.
Evoking the archetypes of the Tarot is especially fitting for the archetype-based characters of the Dungeons & Dragons game.
On a more mundane note, I recognize my limitations and that I'm not a philologist. I relish and revel in the names found in M. A. R. Barker's Tekumel and those in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. In both cases, a brilliant philologist invented entire languages for his fantasy world. The names therein have consistent linguistic significance, like traditional names in the real world. The invented names of Professors Barker and Tolkien therefore possess a euphonious beauty. Contrast that with most of the invented names that I have encountered in many other works of fantasy, whether RPG products or not. Most of them are not far from Dildo Bugger, or (even worse) Ith'ilindri'eldriletha.
I for one will not inflict that sort of thing on my readers. Supplement V: CARCOSA includes a dozen or so proper names, but all but three of them were lifted straight out of the old stories of the Mythos. My current project takes that one better and purposefully excludes ANY proper names. The names I invented would probably displease the majority of my readers, so the names would probably (and rightfully) be replaced by them anyway. This helps the pontifical referee to more clearly and memorably supply names proper to his own campaign. If, for example, I were to give a hermit the name "Tilbit" in the book, the referee who wanted to rename him "Guilleaume" would have to remember that "Tilbit = Guilleaume". It is easier to remember and to comprehend that "Hermit = Guilleaume".
Further, the text is more understandable without proper names. The reader of B2: The Keep on the Borderlands can never be in any doubt as to whom the Castellan (or anyone else) is. But if B2 had given proper names to everyone, the DM would be continually scratching his head as he read the module, "Now who is this Figbert again? Was he the bailiff, or the captain?"
For any reader who might lament the lack of names in the text, I humbly recommend that he simply acquire a list of French names and supply them at random to the NPCs and places in the text. After all, the setting described is intended to be outwardly similar to Clark Ashton Smith's French Averoigne, but with an underbelly inspired by CAS's Hyperborea and Zothique.
Claytonian at the gmails.
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