Thousands of years ago, there was a giant continent on the planet, and it was called Panderra. The continent was mostly populatd with humans, the Xana, and the Oni. Because of the influence of demons on Panderra, the continent knew only war. All life was slowly becoming corrupted by the effects of such a prolonged war. As a partial remedy to the situation, the Xana used their magic to separate the continent and its populations. The continent of Alderra is the home of humans and most Oni. It is separated by a number of city-nations. Alderra is, for the most part, a peaceful nation. While there have been wars between the city-nations, it's nothing like what Panderra was. Each city-nation of Alderra is named after a mythological bird of some sort that I've decided I don't want to use as a monster in the game. ·Alicanto - A city-nation located between a mountain range and a tropical coast line. It is named after a mythical bird from Chile that fed on gold and was too fat for flight. Alicanto will represent a number of indigenous South and Middle American cultures and a little bit of Hispanic culture in there, maybe. ·Bennu - A city-nation located around a desert oasis. It is named after the ancient Egyptian version of the phoenix, and will be representative of said culture. ·Karshipta - A city-nation located in the same desert as Bennu. It is named after a bird from Zoroastrian mythology that acted as the messenger of Ahura Mazda, and will be representative of Persian and possibly Mesoptamian, Akkadian, and Sumerian cultures. ·Melatha - A city-nation located on an island off the coast of the actual continent. It is named after the male lightning bird of Choctaw mythology, and will represent a combination of Choctaw and Japanese cultures (provided I don't choose to add in an extra city-nation specifically for Japanese culture, which is a possibility). ·Pegais - A peninsula city-nation. It is named after a bird from Greek mythology that had the head of a horse, and will represent ancient Greco-Roman cultures. ·Salgofnir - A northern city-nation in a cold, mountainous region. It is named after the cock that will call the warriors of Valhalla to Ragnarok. It will represent ancient Norse culture. Xanasei is the continent the Xana made for themselves. It is said to be perfect and is hidden from all non-Xana. It is from here the Xana monitor the rest of the planet and safeguard several ancient and powerful relics. Gwylheim is the dark continent populated mostly by the Kobolds. The continent is nearly always at war, like Panderra, and the dark magics they abuse cause the land to be constantly covered in storm clouds. Gwylheim has a higher amount of monsters and demons than Alderra. Theriod is the land of monsters, scarcely populated by any sapient race, but some sapient monsters. The land has been used for some as a training or hunting ground. Others have came to reside there for isolation. Theriod is also known for having a large amount of ancient relics from before the separation. Here's the races. Keep in mind, I just came up with these today. Some are more fleshed out than others, i.e. the variety in Oni. I'm workin' on it. I'm skipping humans because you people know what humans are. Kobolds - a race of beings descended from cursed humans. during the era of war on Panderra, a group of warriors launched an attack on a Xana city and there were casualties on both sides. the humans that survived where cursed for their malice. kobolds have coal black skin, red hair and red eyes. they were sent to Gwylheim after the separation and have remained war-like and barbaric since, so much that they can not unite themselves alone. the kobolds have adapted to their environment and are therefore much different than than normal human counterparts. Xana - a magically-powerful race of beings with the natural ability to manipulate nature. they take it upon themselves to keep order in the world. they only intervene when they see the end result being disastrous. no Xana has been seen since the separation. Jungle Oni - said to be the original race of oni, they are found exclusively in jungle terrain. they are humanoid and usually stand between eight and ten feet tall. they have a tiger-like head with three eyes and a black and orange tiger-stripe pattern on most of their skin. jungle oni are both magically and physically powerful and are moderately intelligent. they prefer to remain isolated from outsiders, but are mostly lawful neutral. Nothern Oni - possibly an off-shoot of Jungle Oni or descendants of oni half-breeds. they are physically adapted to the cold northern mountains and use very little magic. they are mostly independant and tend to be malicious towards whatever or whoever they encounter. nothern oni generally stand nine to eleven feet tall and have three horns. their skin is roughly the color of stone, a dull gray. Field Oni - the most magically powerful type of oni, thought to be the descendants of oni and another magical race. they resemble humans more than any other type of oni, standing around six to seven feet tall. their only distinguishing feature is their third eye. they lack the typical oni super-strength, but are faster than their counterparts. they are lawful good.

Neat stuff. Is this for a game of yours?

Agreed, I love the names. I wish I could come up with equally cool ones. I never seem to be able to :)

Are there any special reasons why the city-nations of Alderra are all named after mythological birds?

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/4544/birds/index.html

'Was looking at a print-off of that site and realized there was a major mythological bird for almost every major culture. I figured, I wasn't going to use the names for creatures, so I might as well use them for the names of the nations.

Do the names come naturally to you head or do you have a way to think of them?

I go to an online thesaurus and type in a word a specific word, look at the different words and if one seems name-like I will use it, if not I will try to cut words up and mix them into other words.

For example, I wanted a name for an army in the Antartica, I went to www.thesaurus.com typed in 'Ice' - loads of words came up, I looked through them didn't find anything so I next typed in 'Army' - I found the word 'Artillery' and thinking back to 'Ice' there I remembered the word 'Polar', so I mixed the words together and the end result was 'Polartillary".

Panderra comes from the words "pan," meaning all, and "terra," meaning Earth. Alderra comes from "all" and "terra," making it something of a misnomer. Xanasei comes from Xana, the name of the race, and "sei," the Japanese word for "star" or "planet." Theriod is based on the Greek word "therion," meaning "beast." Gwylheim comes from the Welsh word "gwyl," meaning darkness (I believe), and "heim" comes from the Old Norse language, but I can't remember the exact definition. I think it means "land," but I'm not for sure.

I usually take a word from a language and then modify it slightly to make it sound nicer

example: Aracon (spider-lord), from the word Arachnos (Spider).
Appatèn (Dark lord), from the word happatè, wich means to betray.

I really like the setting you've created, although you should watch out that the cultures don't mix up too much, because that'll result in something very unrealistic.