I’m kinda terrible with names so almost all characters in my hacks are either references or just Ace Attorney-style puns. Since I pretty much exclusively make short hacks, might as well go over all of them here (that I remember):
AVALON X EMBLEM
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This originally took place in an alternate timeline SoV, so most names are just named after that game’s characters (very slightly modified to be overly overt):
- Fey is Faye
(and also my name) - Mira is Alm (originally Mila)
- Achilles is Celica
- Caspian is Lukas (originally Klicas)
- Felix is Kliff (originally Flick)
- Gisella is Gary (originally Gary)
- Norman is Tobin (originally Nobbit)
- Mike is Mycen
- Sol is Slayde
There are two other references though to friend in-jokes:
- Michael Phillips XII (background evil king) is named after “mikel filipes” - a Worms 4 team my friend & I found when booting up my ancient copy after like a decade. I’ve never known a Michael, not to mention a mikel, and have no idea where it comes from, so he quickly became a stand in for the devil.
- Lord Morbius is not, in fact, named after Morbius (film). Or well, not directly: my friend & I used to play an online game where we each made a bunch of characters, and he named his mage Lord Morbius & gave him the most hilariously over-the-top Evil Wizard design he could find. That character then proceeded to be absolutely atrocious in-game and kind of turned into that game’s mascot for us, so Lord Morbius quickly became our stand in for “Incompetent Evil Wizard”. I honour that game’s legacy by naming every single Incompetent Evil Wizard Lord Morbius.
Kingslayers
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This was designed (at least my chapters were, 1 & 3) as a fake TTRPG campaign, with most names being Ace Attorney-style puns, which should hopefully be pretty obvious. The item sets were also references though:
- Bucks Tuber is the traitor, and all his item and skill names are lies.
- Faulse Rend is the metagamer, and his item set is D&D spells (complete with D&D accuracy for Vicious Mockery).
- Nout Shure is the roleplayer (who is having a terrible time due to the plot being nonsense), and her item set is Palutena’s classic “Watch This! Black Hole! And Mega Laser!”.
- Rick Lesse is the action hero, and his item set is based on Dungeon Defenders’ Barbarian stances.
- Grey Dye was originally the loot goblin (hence the name), and the murder hobo in the final game. Her items are MTG cards.
- Ella Long is the DM’s friend who joins for one session, and her weapons are generic lances + Galeforce.
Endgame also has three bosses named after three in-joke characters:
- Mordred is another friend made OC from the same game as Lord Morbius, a fighter in modern day t-shirt & jeans.
- Mortivar was the main villain in a dead Warcraft III campaign we made with the same friend, a massively scaled up militia peasant.
- Lord Morbius is not, in fact, named after Morbius (film). Or well, not directly: my friend & I used to play an online game where we each made a bunch of characters, and he named his mage Lord Morbius & gave him the most hilariously over-the-top Evil Wizard design he could find. That character then proceeded to be absolutely atrocious in-game and kind of turned into that game’s mascot for us, so Lord Morbius quickly became our stand in for “Incompetent Evil Wizard”. I honour that game’s legacy by naming every single Incompetent Evil Wizard Lord Morbius.
The Pen
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Not as many direct references here, only two tales were:
- Sintel is named after Blender’s best short film.
- Lord Morbius is not, in fact, named after Morbius (film). Or well, not directly: my friend & I used to play an online game where we each made a bunch of characters, and he named his mage Lord Morbius & gave him the most hilariously over-the-top Evil Wizard design he could find. That character then proceeded to be absolutely atrocious in-game and kind of turned into that game’s mascot for us, so Lord Morbius quickly became our stand in for “Incompetent Evil Wizard”. I honour that game’s legacy by naming every single Incompetent Evil Wizard Lord Morbius.
Journey of a Blade
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Every single name starts with J.