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I Cast...Brainstorm issue 7!

I Cast...Brainstorm issue 7!

A weekly newsletter of ideas and advice for D&D Dungeon Masters, players, and fans

Dave Palmer
May 23rd, 2025

In partnership with

This week — Thoughts on Names, 20 Names of Magic Items, and a New Feat for Blind Characters

Thanks for reading I Cast…Brainstorm!, a weekly newsletter with ideas and advice to help make DM-ing and playing D&D (and other TTRPGs) easier and more fun.

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Let’s brainstorm some fun!

So Many Names!

As a player, I need to think up a few names at time — a character name, maybe some people and places for my backstory, and during the adventure I might need to create a name or two for things we acquire along the way — mounts, pets, magic items. It’s not always easy to come up with something just right, but the volume is manageable.

As a DM, though? As a DM, I need so….many….names! NPCs, towns, rivers, forests, magic items, historical figures, and everything else that the characters encounter, or even hear about, feels like it needs a name. And my nightmare is to have to come up with a name for a place, an ancient magic item, or even a shopkeeper, off the cuff, and blurt out something that doesn’t quite feel right for the world:

The knight removes his helmet, and bows as he introduces himself. “You may call me…Sir Larry.”

The sheer volume of names gets tricky for me, because I want the game world to feel memorable, distinctive and original, but I also want the names I create to feel like they really fit the character/location/thing. For me, that has more to do with understanding the culture around the thing. This is what helps me on both those accounts —

Just Play/ Go Weird

As both a player and a DM, I like names that sound really other-worldly, like Star Wars universe names. Sometimes just making up nonsense words will turn into a fitting and original name — Murl Clibbin, Wiggo Grax, and so forth. Or I’ll sometimes just take a regular real-world name, or a celebrity’s name, and change a couple letters — like Yeanu Xeeves, or the well known scholar of magic, Veyoncé. The name can be weird as long as it sounds like the character to me, and for that I need to understand the culture the creature or location is part of — more on that below.

To add variety (and maybe a little grounded-ness) to all the made-up names, I sometimes add descriptive words, too. A character detail or a location added to a name just feels “D&D” to me — “Heksa the Scarred” or “Brinn Zo of the Towered City”. The fact that I have no idea what the “towered city” is doesn’t really matter to me, until I need to know it. I can always figure out (or make up) the details later.

I use the same techniques for locations and objects, too, and mix in made-up names like “the River Villyus”, with more descriptive names like “The Twilight Forest,” and throw in provocative names like "The Mountains of Sorrow”. Why are those mountains so sorrowful, you might ask? Damned if I know, and I probably won’t need to until one of the PCs ask. Overall, I’m looking for names that elicit curiosity, and have a nice variety and texture of sounds, to help my world feel distinct and expansive.

Decide on (or Create) a Culture Around the Thing

A variety of names is important (to me) for interest and texture, but culture is more important when deciding if the name feels right. In the real world, cultures feel distinctive — France feels different than Germany which feels different than Egypt and so forth, and the language, history and personality of those cultures all inform the names they use. I apply that same logic and structure to the fictional worlds I create, whether I’m recreating something from history, or using a culture from history or books or movies as inspiration, or just making something up.

Cultures can form around almost anything — species, kingdoms, organizations, families or even between two best friends, and once I figure out or decide on a culture, it really helps me find a name of anything in, related to, or even near that culture.
What are dwarven societies like in the campaign? What makes them distinct from halfling, elven and all other societies? Is there a kingdom of demon-worshipping clerics? How does that religion affect how they name their people and places? Maybe there’s an organization of heroic knights who change their names when they join? Anything that makes these units distinct — their values, their customs, their language, etc. — contributes to the culture, and that will inform how they name things.

So how does thinking about this help? For me, my first ideas seem to always lean Tolkienesque — dwarves are strong and brave delvers into the earth, and so their names reflect that, with references to “stone” and “iron” mixed in. Elves are ancient, wise and reserved, and their names are elegant and ancient-sounding. This is pretty standard in D&D, too, and a fine start for broad strokes, but I don’t like things to get too homogeneous even inside the same culture. If I have a lot of dwarves to name, for example, I’ll throw in one dwarf named “Rosepetal” amongst the “Stonebrows” and “Ironaxes” to help keep things from getting too predictable.

Descriptions of the cultures in your game world don’t need to be extensive — they just need to include enough details for you to understand them, and to feel different enough for you to know when a name fits. Or, that it doesn’t fit, and why. So you can have that halfling named “Gorbolov the Soul Eater”, and even if no one else understands it, you’ll know that it makes perfect sense.

Make Lists

Once I figure out the cultures in a campaign world, making up names on the fly is much easier. But the best way I know how to have names at my fingertips, is to make lists and keep them close.

I have lists for elven first names and surnames, dwarven names, halfling names, domain of dread names, magic item, landscape features, ancient ruins, tavern keepers — anything I think I might need. Then, if I need something in a session, I consult the list, pick one, (and this is important), note on the list where I’ve used it! Its fine to reuse the same name in different play groups, or even different campaigns for the same group, but if your players run into two shopkeepers in different cities in the same adventure who both go by Klimrim the Shrewd, they’re going to think something is fishy.

Which, you know…might be a great adventure hook, too.

And last but definitely not least, when I’m really in a pinch and need something that I don’t have a list for, and my mind is a blank, there are fantastic websites like fantasynamegenerators.com that are life savers.

20 Names of…Magic Items

Sometimes all you need to craft an interesting NPC, town, magic item or anything else is a name that sparks your imagination. Here are 20 names for magic items that you can add to conversations and the lore of your world. Just the idea that a cool-sounding, powerful magic item is “out there” somewhere can really encourage your players to delve deeper into the world you’ve created.

And if the characters decide they really want to seek it out, you can use it as a MacGuffin to lure them into one escapade after another, or even stat it out, and drop it somewhere in the world where they can actually get their hands on it. Just keep in mind — the more powerful the item, the greater the risk to claim it!

Hagruman’s Folly
The Fist of the Oathbound
Godstone
The Ice Queen’s Betrayal
The Maw
The Blade of Eternal Remorse
Eyespike
The Pallium Terribilis
Stunflower
The Lute of the Sixth Abyss
Dragonspite
Elliambryl, the Sword of Darkness
The Hook of the Planesmith
Wañuchiq
Earthbreaker
Ayar Cacha’s Hammer
The Unwavering
The Moon’s Rumination
Blood Weeper
The Ukulele of Doom

A New Feat

I love feats that help players create specialized and distinctive characters, and I created a version of Sightless Warrior for a player in my home game who wanted to play a blind Monk.

There are all sorts of ways people have designed blind characters in D&D, and this is just my take. I don’t think its perfect, (I’m on the fence about Advantage on Perception checks, for example), but it seems to be working at the table. I’d love to know what you think about it.

Sightless Warrior

Origin Feat
Prerequisite: Blind

You have the Blinded condition, and have honed your senses to a supernatural level, allowing you to navigate your environment and detect creatures and objects by using all of your senses except sight.

If you are not paralyzed or petrified, you gain the following benefits:

You gain blindsight with a range of 30 feet. You can not use this blindsight while deafened.
You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing, smell, and touch, and gain +5 to your Passive Perception for hearing, smell, and touch.
You may take the Search action as a bonus action. When you do so, you may only make a Wisdom (Perception) check that relies on hearing, smell, and touch.

At lvl 1, this feat works as long as you are in contact with the ground or any other surface, but it only gives you information about corporeal creatures and objects also on the same surface to a range of 30’. (A wall and a floor are considered the same surface, since they’re connected. A floor and a floating platform above the floor are considered different surfaces, since they’re not connected.)

At lvl 5, your abilities are honed to where you can also sense corporeal creatures and objects in the air, or in contact with different surfaces, when you are in contact with any surface, to a range of 60’.

At lvl 10, you can sense corporeal creatures and objects while you are flying or levitating, to a range of 120’.

At lvl 15, you can all sense all corporeal and incorporeal creatures and objects to a range of 240’.

At all levels, a creature who is not moving and has Total Cover from you, or is actively hiding from you using Stealth, has the Invisible condition for you as long as the creature’s Stealth or Hide check is higher than your Passive Perception, Active Perception roll or Search check.

Brainstorming Links

If you love D&D and other RPGs as much as I do, you probably already know about the folks below, who are real inspirations to me. If you haven’t already, please check ‘em out!

The Arcane Library — masterpiece adventures, and Shadowdark, too!
https://www.thearcanelibrary.com

The Angry DM — so angry….so many great ideas….
https://www.thearcanelibrary.com

DMDave — on point analysis of D&D rules, and a ton of fun ideas
https://bsky.app/profile/dmdave.bsky.social

RPGBot — whip smart critique and explanations of 5e rules
https://rpgbot.net/

Sly Flourish — a DM’s best friend who is also a better DM
https://www.slyflourish.com/

Treantmonk — years of helpful advice and clever ideas
https://www.youtube.com/@TreantmonksTemple

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What I’m DM-ing

A weekly Curse of Strahd campaign via Roll20 using 2014 5th edition rules
A weekly Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, in-person, with 2024 5th edition rules
A series of one-shots in a bi-weekly game at a bar in LA
Two different campaigns with my kids, (Rime and Storm Kings Thunder) when schedules align

What I’m Playing

A 5th ed. Dragonlance campaign as a 9th level Tinker Gnome Gadgeteer Rogue, named Professor Flondersnoot
About to start playing Vecna: Eve of Ruin as Clybb Thistlebridge, a 9th level Halfling great-weapon Fighter
And in all my free time, I play a LOT of Hearthstone!

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The original ideas in this issue of I Cast….Brainstorm! are covered under the Creative Commons BY-SA license — all content is free to use (including commercially) and change, with proper attribution.

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