April 12th, 2021, 08:52 PM
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Usurper of Shenanigans (but only 10 points under)
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Join Date: December 31, 2009
Location: USA - UT - Vernal
Posts: 2,665
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Re: Soldiers of Valhalla - nominations and discussion
Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight of Scape
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper
I know they are from human history. I did look that up. As NB said, take a name inspired by that. Or, as you say yourself, take a name that is just a translation from something in some other language. That's all fine.
But there are, as far as I know, *zero* examples of real people - a real clan, here - imported directly into Heroscape, with the exact name being kept, but the specie and planet changing to something fantasy. Zero.
You could change the name to anything. I don't care. But you won't.
It's not the only problem with this design, as I see it, but it seems like an easy fix. Oh well!
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Beowulf is very much a mythological story. It also includes dragons and monsters and such. So given that Beowulf and related poems seem to be our primary source of information on the Wulfings, I don't think it's clear that they are real people. According to Wikipedia, they may have been predecessors of the similarly named Wuffingas clan, which we do have evidence of.
But even if the Wulfings were real people, it seems disingenuous to me to say that the Wulfing Hunters are "imported directly into Heroscape, with the exact name being kept." The meaning of the name--"related to wolves" fits with how the Wulfing hunters work. But the Wulfings from Beowulf didn't wear masks and weren't known for being silent hunters, so they have very little connection with this design, they just happen to share the same name.
I feel like this design would be weaker if they were changed to be humans from Earth, because the thematically these guys do not feel like viking clan from Beowulf
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See, that argument just makes the design weaker in my eyes. If they are going to have the same name as a mythological people, they should actually feel like an homage at that point. Being totally different than the source and just happening to have the same name seems like another level of theme break.
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