The Five and their surnames

[Aran]

(Because nobody reads the EE talk pages anyhow.)

 

Some of the Five (the archmagi of Avernum, whose actual number is disputed between 4 and 6) have surnames. At least two of them (Erika Redmark and Patrick Padraig) are definitely mentioned in game canon:

 

Quote:

Memoirs of Rone the Wizard:

 

In one of the drawers of the desk, you find a leather-bound journal, filled with cramped, scratchy writing. You soon determine that it is the incomplete memoirs of Rone the Wizard.

 

He was cast into Avernum along with two other mages, Erika Redmark and Patrick Padraig, after they were at the wrong end of a political struggle in the Mages' Guild.

However, I have at least two more surnames somewhere in my notes (and one is prominently featured on EE). They're not game canon, and I don't even know where they come from. This is why I'm asking. The mages in question (who are the disputed members of the Five) are:

 

- Aimee Kilser (featured on EE)

- Linda Yonther (only in my notes)

 

Has anyone else seen these names anywhere that doesn't reference EE, or did I make them up at some point?

[ginger8445]

There's Partrick, Solberg, Erika,Rentar-Ihrno. That's all I can remember I haven't played in so long.

[Aran]

That is the most useful, on-topic and accurate answer that has graced these boards in a while. Thanks.

[Aoslare]

"Aimee Kilser" definitely appears in the games once -- in either E/A 1 or E/A 2. Linda never has a last name in the games. I suspect Yonther comes from either Chains or Zankozzie's Big Mistake, two scenarios featuring Linda's family.

 

And go read the talk page, doofus.

[Alorael at Large]

Quote:

Originally written by ginger8445:
There's Partrick, Solberg, Erika,Rentar-Ihrno. That's all I can remember I haven't played in so long.

Because I'm feeling less polite than Aran, I feel the need to point out that Aran was asking for surnames, not a list of given names. And Rentar-Ihrno definitely isn't one of the Five.

—Alorael, who can't find Kilser anywhere in the text of any Spiderweb game. Are you sure it's actually in there?

[Aran]

Code:

/home/weather/public/slartucker/dump$ ls -ltotal 7164-rw-r--r--  1 weather pg918088 1109470 Sep  7  2006 Av1dump.txt-rw-r--r--  1 weather pg918088 1721648 Sep  7  2006 Av2dump.txt-rw-r--r--  1 weather pg918088 2151146 Sep  7  2006 Av3dump.txt-rw-r--r--  1 weather pg918088 1131149 Sep  7  2006 Ex3dump.txt-r--r--r--  1 weather pg918088  431743 Sep  7  2006 ex1dump.txt-rw-r--r--  1 weather pg918088  750238 Sep  7  2006 ex2.dump.txt/home/weather/public/slartucker/dump$ grep Kilser */home/weather/public/slartucker/dump$ 

Nope.

And for good measure:

All occurrences of "Aimee" in all dumps

[Aran]

I think I've got it. A very likely origin for the first occurrence of "Kilser". And it's made up by me. Whoops.

 

Code:

<!--22.12.2003, 12:22.  Title:"The Halls of Magery.doc - Microsoft Word"--> Yonther<!--22.12.2003, 12:23.  Title:"The Halls of Magery.doc - Microsoft Word"--> [backspace][backspace]Ezekiel Solberg<!--22.12.2003, 12:23.  Title:"The Halls of Magery.doc - Microsoft Word"--> Aimee Kilser Fartraveller<!--22.12.2003, 12:23.  Title:"The Halls of Magery.doc - Microsoft Word"--> Patrick Padraig<!--22.12.2003, 12:24.  Title:"The Halls of Magery.doc - Microsoft Word"--> Rone Liecis

What does this mean? Close to four years ago, I made a Word document with a list of a few wizards. Being in a phase where, as far as Ermarian was concerned, improvisation was the same as research to my newbie eyes, I simply made up last names for the mages who didn't have them. Although I cannot currently find the place in the log where the document was started, I know that "Yonther" went with Linda.

 

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how I came up with these names. Not even "Ezekiel", or why Solberg was the only wizard whose common name became his last name.

 

What I find interesting is that although I named Rone and Linda, who weren't named by the game, the only one that stuck was Aimee, who was already named Far-Traveler by the game. To the point where Slarty was convinced it was canon. Fooled.

 

Time for some EE retcon.

[Aoslare]

There is an argument to be made for a few names based on non-canon material related to canon. Given that Jordan Bojar drew art for spidweb, the existence of a beta tester for Exile named Andrew Solberg is hard to ignore.

[Aran]

And although I didn't know that when I made up the names, I did realize that "Solberg" was (if at all) a very uncommon first name, and more common as a last name.

 

Which raises the question: Should we call the wizard Andrew Solberg now?

[Alorael at Large]

Andrew isn't any more canon than Ezekiel. It explains where the name came from in Jeff's mind, but not in any meaningful Ermarian way.

 

—Alorael, who just can't picture Solberg as an Andrew. He also can't picture him as an Ezekiel, though. Some mages only get one name.

[Synergy]

In Solberg's case, if I were to assign him a surname, it would have to be something a bit absurd, pretentious, yet ultimately nonsensical like Sulfinious Solberg. I found names like Linda, gleaned from Jeff's personal acquaintances, both kind of sweet, yet distracting from the otherwordliness of the games.

 

I have to admit I did personally appreciate the names of local Washington State towns in the Monroe Province of Avernum III. Monroe is the name of a town near Seattle where a state prison is housed. Paulsbo and Bremerton are towns on the Olympic Peninsula. Some of these names actually sound odd enough to fit in a fantasy world. We also have a lot of tongue-mangling native American named things up here, like our rivers: Stillaguamish, Duwamish, Skagit, Snohomish, and Lake Sammammish and the town of Issaquah, and so forth.

 

What's in a name?

 

-S-

[Aran]

To me, the common names in Ermarian gave the world an air of realism that Tolkien could only match with years and years of creative linguistics. Amid these normal names were some with alternative spellings, outmoded ones and foreign ones. This gave me the feeling of being in a world that was extremely tangible, but still different from ours.

 

--

 

But if Solberg was named Sulfinious, I can understand why he went by Solberg. Nymphadora Tonks, anyone?

[Andraste]

There's also Port Townsend in Washington. I was there!

[Tom]

Could Solberg's first name not have conceivably been Cheeseball? Perhaps he projects his eponymous misery upon his familiar.

[Dintiradan]

Solberg's first name was clearly Monte.

 

--------------------

As it turned out, Synergy decided to either give me a bath, lick my face off, or give me a ton of kisses.

- Nioca

[Jawaj]

I know this is a stupid question, but what is EE?

[tridash]

Encyclopedia Ermariana