Name that... thing

Mithril. With one word, those in the know have an image of a silvery yet light metal in their head. The rest of the population react completely normal with a "what?".

Steel. Now we pretty much are all on the same plate. You know it, you have seen it, probably touched it. You might not know exactly what it's properties are or how it's made, but you know it's heavy, sturdy and well, a metal.

You see Mithril might be very well known and it's highly likely you get crucified by a strong following of Tolkien if you politely inquire about what the hell that is, but it's still a completely fabricated thing, something named by (although lots of background thought went into it) purely one persons brain with no correlation to reality.

If the following example sounds familiar, you get 2 geek points. Say we don't speak the same language. I pick up a cup of coffee from the table and offer it to you, then say "kekorti". Now what do I mean? Coffee? Drink? Warm? Pay attention the damn thing is hot? Friend? Drink this and die in honor? Yes it's from Star Trek.



Naming something that is vital something seemingly random is though on the brain. The little gray puddle of goo in our skulls likes connections. Steel has such connections. Steel bars, the man of steel, steel plates, steel beams, tough as steel, steeling yourself for the challenge. Mithril doesn't. It's that shiny metal in Lord of the Rings.

So a custom word is fine for anything that has a name, like a human, an animal or a place. It works increasingly worse for categories, like metals, stones, professions and so on.

Now there are two tricks to counter this, that might work, but not always will. Execution is the key here.

First you can use similar names. Avatars Unobtainium springs to mind. That -a(i)nium suffix is very common in our minds as metals and there is your connection. Switching a couple letters, dropping or substituting them also works in that vein. As long as your mind can still pick out the original word, it might work.

Second comes the artificially generating connections.Use it in sayings and other contexts ("that looks like X") and so on to generate the users connection before they have to actually deal with X directly. Even after, that, reaffirm the connections even deepen them if you can. The name you chose will become second nature in no time, might even spread beyond your game.

And of course there is the sidestep. Use descriptive names. An example would be "Worldkiller" or "Chain Metal". You might not exactly know what it is, but the name tells you pretty much all you need to know beyond that, giving you the ever important connection.