I need a name for a Robin Hood-like fantasy character

[rjcurrie]

Hi folks:

I have been working on a potential Fantasy Hero convention game where the PCs are a group of rebels fighting against a usurper. Theorhetically, the leader of their group is a character called the Smiling Fox. However, in a twist, at any one time, any one of the characters can appear as the Smiling Fox.

In any event, the name "Smiling Fox" is a placeholder -- I'd like somehing better unless people think it works.

Comments? Suggestions?

Rod

[Gunrunner]

Can you describe the confines in which you want the name? For example, do you want a name similar to "Smiling Fox", like "Mischievous Madcat" or do you want something different entirely?

[McCoy]

I think Smiling Fox is going to be difficult to beat. The Fox is a trickster figure in a lot of stories, there is the Zorro connection, the Disney version of Robin Hood had a Fox as the lead character. Stay with the Fox.

[Outsider]

Fox Forrester?

[Fitz]

In the old fables, the fox was always called Renard or Reynard, that being the word for fox in French. How about Renard de Sourire (which, if Babelfish can be trusted, means Smiling Fox).

[rjcurrie]

I think Smiling Fox is going to be difficult to beat. The Fox is a trickster figure in a lot of stories, there is the Zorro connection, the Disney version of Robin Hood had a Fox as the lead character. Stay with the Fox.

I'd forgotten Disney used a fox for Robin Hood. And until I looked it up just now, I didn't realize that "zorro" was spanish for "fox".

Smiling Fox was a suggestion by a friend of mine when I told him I was looking for something like the Black Fox from the Court Jester. It just seems to be missing something.

Maybe the Laughing Fox?

[rjcurrie]

In the old fables, the fox was always called Renard or Reynard, that being the word for fox in French. How about Renard de Sourire (which, if Babelfish can be trusted, means Smiling Fox).

For reasons I don't feel like going into here, French doesn't really work for this situation.

Rod

[rjcurrie]

Can you describe the confines in which you want the name? For example, do you want a name similar to "Smiling Fox", like "Mischievous Madcat" or do you want something different entirely?

I open to suggestions -- although McCoy points out good reasons to stick with the "Fox" part.

Rod

[Savinien]

How about simply, The Fox?

or, add a color... The Crimson Fox, Silver Fox, Amaxing Multicolored Fox, Black Fox, White Fox...

Or, are you looking for another adjective... Rogue Fox, Samaritan Fox, Fox the Large, Arrow Fox, Foxamillion, Foxtastic, Foxerrific...

Okay, I'm done.

[sbarron]

Here are some ideas to get this going...

What is the name of the land or nation that was usurped? Where are the rebels from? Where do the hide? Take each of these names and try it with Fox.

Examples:

The Fox of Monte Christo (Monte Christo is name of town)
The Allusian Fox (Allusia is name of province)
The Sherwood Fox/ The Fox of Sherwood (sherwood is home forest)
The Highway Fox (Highway is road he pilliges)

Further, is there something distinctive about the Fox?

Examples:

Crimson Fox (Wears a "crimson" cloak)
Booted Fox (Flashy Boots)
Hooded Fox (wears a hood)
The Red Fox (has red hair)
The Dancing Fox (dances before battle/at robberies)

I'm sure you get the idea. Take something about the character or story and have that be the name. Hope this helps.

[Captain Obvious]

Foxbat?

[mangahunterd]

Finn McCool... Not really a fox but it is a great name

[Cancer]

Coyote, Jay, and Crow all seem to enjoy the same underlying connection as Fox with cleverness and trickery, so you might swap one of those in for Fox. Jays and crows are both corvids, and most of the rest of that family seem to be thought of as tricksters as well, so that could add in Magpie, Rook, Raven.

USers tend to forget about rooks (they're Eurasian), though we're used to using the word "rook" as a synonym for "defraud". Since there's multiple levels of ambiguity in the term (drawing on the bird, the game of chess, a distinction from "White Knight"), I might suggest White Rook as a name.

[Savinien]

I'd prefer Black Rook, but I like the logic, Cancer!

[Dead guy on tab]

The Dread Pirate Roberts?
Coyote

[TheTemplar]

I think "Smiling Fox" has a nicer ring to it than "Laughing Fox".. but that's just me. Could be the way the words flow together.. I dunno.

I definitely like the Fox reference for this character type, as it implies a great deal of Intelligence and Grace... two ingredients which inevitably lead to mischief. And, the Smiling Fox makes him sound light, cheerful, etc. (You wouldn't expect to meet Smiling Fox, the Dark Scourge of Asherok, after all..)


Yep. I'd go w/ Smiling Fox.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I think Smiling Fox is going to be difficult to beat. The Fox is a trickster figure in a lot of stories, there is the Zorro connection, the Disney version of Robin Hood had a Fox as the lead character. Stay with the Fox.
I agree. Keep the Fox. Smiling Fox is even better -- distinctive.

Danny Kaye's character worked for the Fox in The Court Jester, a film which had a very similar backstory to what you are describing. At one point he was mistaken for the Fox.

But I like the idea of the Smiling Fox being a sort of "collective identity", and it can be sued to advantage. "I caught the Smiling Fox!" "But wait! The Smiling Fox just raided the garrison in Greymoor! This can't be him!" "You're right. I'm going to let you go, but stay out of my hair from now on...."

The premise of Mark Arselault's Legend of Zorro RPG (one of those odd games that was creatively pretty darn good but a commerical disaster) was that Zorro was taking apprentices who would even don the mask on occasion.

[AndyStaples]

I'm with Savinien - just 'The Fox' does it for me. In the past, I've used the names The Silver Fox and The Grey Fox for similar characters.

An alternative that may not be as well known: in the north of England, foxes are sometimes known as 'tods', so 'The Tod'. In German, however, Der Tod is Death, so the name may hold a hint of malevolence.

[Basil]

Hi folks:

I have been working on a potential Fantasy Hero convention game where the PCs are a group of rebels fighting against a usurper. Theorhetically, the leader of their group is a character called the Smiling Fox. However, in a twist, at any one time, any one of the characters can appear as the Smiling Fox.

In any event, the name "Smiling Fox" is a placeholder -- I'd like somehing better unless people think it works.

Comments? Suggestions?

Rod

I'll join in with the chorus approving Fox. Might I suggest Lord Fox? It has that "nobleman unjustly deprived of his inheritance" shtick that fits the whole RobinHoodian feel. It might be <100% original, but since you're talking about a convention game, you want to pull people in quickly, and a judicious use of cliches helps that.

As a slight twist on that, if none of the PCs/NPCs are nobles, the name Lord Fox is a good red herring to throw at the bad guys. ;)

BTW, Vulpes (or Volpes) is Latin for "fox" -- pronounced in two sylables, the "e" in the second sylable sounds much like the "ey" in "hey". Could come in useful, or not. Hm... Tod Volps/Volpy as an alias? Needs work.

As for non-fox names: the fox is the pre-eminite trickster in European folklore, though the crow (not the raven so much) is a runner-up. However, crows are also seen as greedy, and ravens as associated with death, so I don't think those would work. Coyotes are unknown in Europe.

However, if you don't want/need to be specifically European, names like The Crow, Raven O' The Woods, and such are all possibilities.

Hope that helped. :)

[Curufea]

Danny Kaye's was "The Black Fox" I believe. And he was impersonating a Bard/Jester/Assassin called Giacomo "King of Jesters, and Jester of Kings".
Great movie.

I also like the Xena episode that stole one of the major plot elements "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

Dang, now I can't get "The vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true" out of my head. And the flagon with the dragon. Or the chalice from the palace....

Argh!

[McCoy]

Danny Kaye's was "The Black Fox" I believe. And he was impersonating a Bard/Jester/Assassin called Giacomo "King of Jesters, and Jester of Kings".
Great movie.

I also like the Xena episode that stole one of the major plot elements "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

Dang, now I can't get "The vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true" out of my head. And the flagon with the dragon. Or the chalice from the palace....

Argh!
"There is malace in the chalace from the palace but the flagon with the dragon holds the brew that is true."

Or was that from The Monkees?

[Savinien]

Grinning Fox occurred to me over the weekend. Strange timing, though. We were scrimmaging against a D3 team and I'd just moved up to the right 50 blasting out my mirror. I heard a teammate yelling that a guy was coming to bunker me and I turned. It was late, but my teammate unloaded a big fat rope on him. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Anyway...

[Dale A. Ward]

We were scrimmaging against a D3 team and I'd just moved up to the right 50 blasting out my mirror. I heard a teammate yelling that a guy was coming to bunker me and I turned. It was late, but my teammate unloaded a big fat rope on him. He was grinning from ear to ear.

:confused:

Yo no comprendo. Habla ingles?

[Shadowpup]

:confused:

Yo no comprendo. Habla ingles?


Something about Doom3(??), moving to an emplaced weapon, got a warning but was too slow, team mate saved his bacon with a well timed stream of hyper velocity mayhem, which made him smile big-ly

[Savinien]

No. Paintball practice.

I was playing right tape (the edge of the field on the right). In tournament paintball, both sides have the same bunkers in the same places. So, I have a 'mirror' bunker to whatever bunker I'm in on the other side. The field is cut into sections with lines made parralel to the end lines. The very center 'line' is the 50 (the middle). Bunkers on that line don't have mirrors as that is the 'fold' point.

Tournament guns shoot up in the range of 15 bps (balls per second) to 30 bps. So, when you fire quite a few rounds, the balls are close enough together it is often called a 'rope or paintballs', or just 'rope'.

There are two international series in tournament paintball. The lowest level of competition in these series is called Division 3. Next is Division 2, then 'D1', then Open/pro. I play on a D2 team.

When you advance on an opponent, basically running in the open with the intent of coming around an opponents bunker and firing on him point-blank, it is called bunkering. When you string a number of 'bunker moves' together, bunkering one guy, still running, getting the next guy and so on, it is called a 'run-thru'. Sometimes, even after you bunker someone, they'll still 'turn' on you. This means, according to the rules, they are eliminated and should no longer be firing, they do anyway, trying to eliminate the bunkerer. (You have to remember we're talking split seconds.)

So, to reiterate my 'story'...

I was in my bunker, near the right side of the field. An opponent was in the same bunker on the other side of the field, shooting at me. I moved forward into a bunker on the fifty eliminating the opponent in my 'mirror'. I was shooting out the right side of my bunker, towards the distant corner.

An opposing player came down the 'inside' of my bunker, my left while I was looking the other direction. A team-mate glimpsed him and warned me. I started to turn, but knew I couldn't get my gun around before I was already eliminated.

Fortunately, my team-mate was ready and fired his marker multiple times, eliminating the opponent trying to bunker me. It was then, I could see him grinning through his mask.

A lot of adrenaline in tournament paintball.

[tm80401]

The Scarlet Pimpernel?

[Dale A. Ward]

No. Paintball practice.

I was playing right tape...

<vast amounts of snippage>

A lot of adrenaline in tournament paintball.

allllllllllllllllllll righty then...

:nonp:

[forged]

Another suggestions for fox would be kitsune, which I believe is the Japanese word for fox. Perhaps break up the word a bit? Use "Kit" as a first name and some other local sounding name as the last name? (Kit Derring?)

[Hierax]

"Smiling Fox" is good. You've got rebels that are being hunted by corrupt nobles. Foxes are cunning and are hunted. The cunning fox(es) out foxes the nobles and smiles at his own cunning. It works well for a Robin hoodesque set up.