Thursday, August 4, 2022

The Naming of a Fictional Science

If you want magical items that feel scientific, you need a branch of science for them to belong to.  You're not going to fool anyone into thinking a weather control device is scientific unless you've got a university degree in physiodetics or a couple of textbooks in geophotodynamics or some other fictional branch of science.

And a fictional branch of science needs a proper name.

Roll for a Prefix and a Suffix.  You might need to add an -o- between them to make it sound right: hydr- + -sophy = hydrosophy.

If you roll a 19 or 20 for the suffix, the name becomes longer.  Roll again for both, but keep the prefix you already rolled at the beginning: geomechanoscopy, phylochemidetics, etc.

New Science (d20)
1 aer- “air” -(c)ism / -(t)ics
2 aether- “space” -analysis “investigation”
3 astr- “star” -detics “categorization”
4 chemi(c)- “substance” -dynamics “power”
5 erg- “work” -geny “origin”
6 geo- “earth” -gnosy “knowledge”
7 helio- “sun” -history “inquiry”
8 hydr- “water” -istry “practice”
9 magnet- “magnet” -logy “science”
10 mechan- “machine” -mancy “divination”
11 metall- “metal” -matics “information”
12 morph- “form” -metry “measure”
13 natur- “nature” -morphy “form”
14 opt- “sight” -nomy “rules”
15 phot- “light” -physics “nature”
16 phyl- “category” -scopy “viewing”
17 physio- “nature” -sophy “wisdom”
18 prot- “first” -urgy “work”
19 rheo- “flow” Roll again for both and add the prefix you already rolled.
20 tele- “distance”

Some of these are already scientific disciplines, of course: astronomy, metallurgy, telescopy, etc.  But if you stumble across an obscure name that happens to be in use in the real world, feel free to redefine it for your own use.

Click here for random results.
new science

No comments:

Post a Comment