A few months back we got some great feedback from one of our associates regarding the names of the Aethermon elements:
Sunstruck; Moonlit; Earth; Sky; Water; Fire; Thunder; Nature; and Rainbow.
Our associate pointed out that having a compound-word name for only Sunstruck and Moonlit, and having single-word names for the other six elements, has the subtle psychological effect of elevating the first two elements in the player’s mind. The fact that these two elements seem to be diametric opposites only serves to reinforce that sentiment.
The names for the elements had originally all been single-word names except for Moonlit, where we felt that ‘moon’ falls too close to ‘dark’ and didn’t want to confuse players between it and ‘The Darkness’, the shadowy big bad evil of our world. So Moonlit was born, and by a slip of the tongue we got Sunstruck, while the rest of the names stayed as they were.
In fairness, we had wondered about the elevating effect of compound-words for only those two, so it was almost a relief to hear it from another quarter reinforcing a feeling of our own. We concluded that our associate was right in his assessment, and that the names would need to change.
Then we did nothing about that for six months. Oops.
Finally, we have spent a few weeks testing out various options, finding a compound-word for each element that we are happy with, and that doesn’t step on the toes of any other. This required a slight adjustment of the initial lineup, but we managed it. Many thanks to our associate for providing this feedback, as well as offering suggestions to the changes.
Announcing the new elemental names:
Sunkissed; Moonlit; Earthformed; Skybound; Waterborn; Fireforged; Thunderstruck; Naturegrown; and Rainbowdrawn.
Keep overthinking things, AetherRen!