Writer's Block: A rose by any other name ...

[athelind]

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It's Old English for "Noble Serpent".

I've been using it since the early '80s, originally assembling it from a "Random Old English Name Generator" table in an early issue of Dragon Magazine. If I recall correctly, "Lind" (serpent) was only on the prefix table, not the suffix, so from a gamer standpoint, I "cheated" -- no idea how well or poorly it may work on a grammatical standpoint.

The original "Athelind" was actually a Champions character, a centuries-old dragon who decided to take up superheroing as a lark.* A decade or so later, when "The Boojum Snark" decided that it would be more comfortable for the rest of alt.fan.dragons to address him by a name rather than a title, he adopted it as his nom de guerre.

And the rest is history.

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* At almost exactly the same time, a comic called The Southern Knights, and that Atlanta-based superhero team included a centuries-old dragon who also decided to take up the crimefighting trade. Needless to say, my fellow players immediately brought it to my attention.

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Comments

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

YOU'RE the boojum snark!?!? I remember that name around usenet.

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I remember the alt.fan.dragon days. :3 That was the first place I joined up with that lead me to the rest of the furry world. And probably secured my dragony self quite happily in place. ^..^

[athelind.livejournal.com]

[[sinuous bow]]
The one and only, sir.

That old signature:
Softly and suddenly vanishing away,
I remain Your Obedient Serpent,
Athelind Stormrider, The Boojum Snark

(After quelonzia Prismdancer and I got together, we combined our surnames to the current "Stormdancer".)

[drakegrey.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'd created Gaea, a earth-manipulating super villain for my Champions game...

One month before Perez and Wolfman brought Terra into the world, and onboard with the New Teen Titans.

My players took GREAT delight in pointing this out to me. Over, and over, again.

(She was also technically my second furry character after Drake, being that she was a faunlike sorceress. Like if that matters.)

[astor-apatosaur.livejournal.com]

That's so weird..."Astor" in Old English means "He who feeds Noble Serpent too much". That's a coincidence!

...I remember your old signature. Maybe it was from the HML mailing list because that's where I first poked online. Hmmm.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I used it on both the HML and LD4/LD5 -- the latter for much much longer.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

It's because of you that I still want to sign my emails 'Your Most Obedient Serpent'. :)

[palanth.livejournal.com]

I have those "Southern Knights" books, actually, including the four-issue "Dragon" miniseries. Surprise surprise. *chuckles* Trivia: The very first issue, they were named "The Crusaders". #2 and onwards, they became "Southern Knights". Also, bucking the trend, #1 and #2 were published in magazine-size instead of comic-size (which is slightly annoying for storage).