Here we are at day 25 already and the word for today is 'Calamity'. The first thing that popped into my mind with this prompt was 'Calamity' Jane. Thanks to Wikipedia I know that the real-life Calamity Jane was a frontierswoman named Martha Jane Cannary who cared a lot for the sick and helpless out on the frontier. She famously appeared in Wild Bill Hickock's Wild West Show wherein she recalled how she got the nickname 'Calamity'. She said it was because of saving a famous General of that time from a 'calamity' involving an American Indian uprising--others said it was because when men tried to date her that they were 'courting Calamity'. Whatever the case may be the nickname is what I remember--that and the character of the same name from the original Deathrace 2000. So today I'm going to tell about some of my characters with memorable names and nicknames and explain the jokes--which are possible good for a mild chuckle to older people and most probably completely lost on the young people I generally play with.
Darville Frostbeard--a Mountain Dwarf D&D character who sold bootleg ale--of course comes from Smokey and the Bandit. The bandit's real name was Bo Darville--surely you knew that.
KiraKira--my Ryujin character from Ryuutama. The Ryujin is unique to Ryuutama. It is a character that the GM runs by design. The Ryuujin has three forms--an innocuous small form for which I chose a pixie marionette, a winged humanoid form, and a dragon form. KiraKira is the Japanese word for Glitter which was the name of the pixie character in the Kidd Video cartoon from the 80's.
Caladium Araceae--Speaking of pixies, D&D 4E had real rules for playing them, so of course I took advantage of that. Caladium is a poisonous plant from the family of Araceae. The plants themselves have interesting nicknames that I applied to the character on the one hand it can mean 'Angel Wings' but on the other hand it can mean 'Elephant Ears'. She took it as the former while her friends took it as the latter.
Syllan Blackleaf--Dungeons and Dragons Elf Ranger. The surname of course came from the anti-Dungeons and Dragons Jack Chic tract from the 1980's.
Gnissa Fumblebuck--so she's a gnome for starters and I went with the old Great Space Coaster "joke" featuring the puppet newscaster, Gary Gnu who used the cringe worthy tagline 'No Gnus is Good Gnews' every time I could come up with such a pun it got less and less punny. Fumblebuck was also an obvious play on the suggested gnome gname--see not punny at all is it?--of Stumblebuck from the player's handbook. Gnissa had a pet rat named Baldric who was named for the character from the Black Adder TV show. I knew nothing of famous fighter and his tiny rat sidekick at the time I created this character, but I find that I was doing a lot of the same schtick.
CoCo Lopez--Cyberpunk media character who goes by the handle COLO she was named after a drink mixer I used to stock all the time at the grocery store where I worked. She has a cousin who runs with a Nomad crew whose name was Manuel Labor.
Amber "Spade" Spayed of the Gar Fields tangent of the Heath Cliff Clan--She's a 5E Tabaxi character. If you haven't looked into creating one I'll tell you they get a first name, surname, nickname and tells where they came from. I never had her announce all her names unless it was to annoy my friends. Everyone just called her "Spade". "Spayed" is like birth control for pets. Garfield and Heathcliff are famous orange comic-strip cats.
There are probably some more "good" ones that I've forgotten over the years, but surely I'll never forget these fine characters.
Darville Frostbeard--a Mountain Dwarf D&D character who sold bootleg ale--of course comes from Smokey and the Bandit. The bandit's real name was Bo Darville--surely you knew that.
KiraKira--my Ryujin character from Ryuutama. The Ryujin is unique to Ryuutama. It is a character that the GM runs by design. The Ryuujin has three forms--an innocuous small form for which I chose a pixie marionette, a winged humanoid form, and a dragon form. KiraKira is the Japanese word for Glitter which was the name of the pixie character in the Kidd Video cartoon from the 80's.
Caladium Araceae--Speaking of pixies, D&D 4E had real rules for playing them, so of course I took advantage of that. Caladium is a poisonous plant from the family of Araceae. The plants themselves have interesting nicknames that I applied to the character on the one hand it can mean 'Angel Wings' but on the other hand it can mean 'Elephant Ears'. She took it as the former while her friends took it as the latter.
Syllan Blackleaf--Dungeons and Dragons Elf Ranger. The surname of course came from the anti-Dungeons and Dragons Jack Chic tract from the 1980's.
Gnissa Fumblebuck--so she's a gnome for starters and I went with the old Great Space Coaster "joke" featuring the puppet newscaster, Gary Gnu who used the cringe worthy tagline 'No Gnus is Good Gnews' every time I could come up with such a pun it got less and less punny. Fumblebuck was also an obvious play on the suggested gnome gname--see not punny at all is it?--of Stumblebuck from the player's handbook. Gnissa had a pet rat named Baldric who was named for the character from the Black Adder TV show. I knew nothing of famous fighter and his tiny rat sidekick at the time I created this character, but I find that I was doing a lot of the same schtick.
CoCo Lopez--Cyberpunk media character who goes by the handle COLO she was named after a drink mixer I used to stock all the time at the grocery store where I worked. She has a cousin who runs with a Nomad crew whose name was Manuel Labor.
Amber "Spade" Spayed of the Gar Fields tangent of the Heath Cliff Clan--She's a 5E Tabaxi character. If you haven't looked into creating one I'll tell you they get a first name, surname, nickname and tells where they came from. I never had her announce all her names unless it was to annoy my friends. Everyone just called her "Spade". "Spayed" is like birth control for pets. Garfield and Heathcliff are famous orange comic-strip cats.
There are probably some more "good" ones that I've forgotten over the years, but surely I'll never forget these fine characters.
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