{"id":80,"date":"2007-03-17T17:26:46","date_gmt":"2007-03-17T22:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/80"},"modified":"2016-06-05T14:07:20","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T21:07:20","slug":"throne-of-darkness-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/80","title":{"rendered":"Throne of Darkness: Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t mentioned that objects in this game tend to have Japanese names.  That is, you don&#8217;t get a two-handed sword and a full helmet, you get a nodachi and a kabuto.  I was pleased to see the word &#8220;kanmuri&#8221; used for one of the weakest helmets, as I had seen this word before in a completely different context: in writing Japanese characters, a kanmuri is a radical that goes on top.  Apparently it means &#8220;crown&#8221;.  It&#8217;s all a little reminiscent of playing the Samurai class in <em>Nethack<\/em>, with its name substitutions for items, but in <em>Nethack<\/em> only a few items are covered, and here it&#8217;s nearly everything.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/tod-kunimichi-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/tod-kunimichi-1-300x225.png\" alt=\"tod-kunimichi\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/tod-kunimichi-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/tod-kunimichi-1-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/tod-kunimichi-1.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Some of these words have already percolated through gamer culture (is there anyone who doesn&#8217;t know what a shuriken is?), others have not.  (What on earth is a shinjyu?  Or a ka-ho? <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_80_1('footnote_plugin_reference_80_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_80_1('footnote_plugin_reference_80_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_80_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_80_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Answers:  The &#8220;shinjyu&#8221; in the game, an enchanted string of beads, is probably \u771f\u73e0, which means &#8220;pearl&#8221;.  There&#8217;s also an item-enhancement component called a &#8220;pearl&#8221;, but I think that&#8217;s just a result of the developers not paying much attention to translations when they were choosing names.  &#8220;Ka-ho&#8221; in the game is a gem that enhances your stats, and is probably \u679c\u5831, &#8220;good luck&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_80_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_80_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script> )  Some may be made up or misapplied: the strongest armor in the game is called &#8220;kunimichi&#8221;, which googles primarily as the name of a famous swordsmith.  I suppose that there aren&#8217;t any famous armorsmiths, and they ran out of real armor terms.  (They ran out of monster names too, but solved that with the time-honored gimmick of shoving prefixes in front of everything: Forest Oni, Fire Oni, etc.)<\/p>\n<p>To the extent that they refer to unknown things, the Japanese names are an obstacle to understanding.  I&#8217;ve noticed before that I generally have an easier time getting used to the relative power of things in fantasy games than in sci-fi games, because &#8220;dragon&#8221; and &#8220;unicorn&#8221; are extremely clear and distinct ideas in my mind, while &#8220;photon cannon&#8221; and &#8220;tachyon beam&#8221; both get filed under technobabble.  Similarly, even though I&#8217;ve studied Japanese a little, this game is full of what I can only see as Japanobabble.  To someone learned in traditional Japanese martial technology, the difference between a &#8220;shibata&#8221; and a &#8220;nisun nobi&#8221; might be obvious.  Me, all I have to go on is the pictures.  They both look like bows.<\/p>\n<p>But I suppose it&#8217;s educational.  At least, in those cases where they didn&#8217;t just make up the words or assign them arbitrarily.<\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_80_1();\">&#x202F;<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_80_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_80_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_80_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_80_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_80_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_80_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Answers:  The &#8220;shinjyu&#8221; in the game, an enchanted string of beads, is probably \u771f\u73e0, which means &#8220;pearl&#8221;.  There&#8217;s also an item-enhancement component called a &#8220;pearl&#8221;, but I think that&#8217;s just a result of the developers not paying much attention to translations when they were choosing names.  &#8220;Ka-ho&#8221; in the game is a gem that enhances your stats, and is probably \u679c\u5831, &#8220;good luck&#8221;.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_80_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_80_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_80_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_80_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_80_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_80_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_80_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_80_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_80_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_80_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_80_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_80_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_80_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_80_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t mentioned that objects in this game tend to have Japanese names. That is, you don&#8217;t get a two-handed sword and a full helmet, you get a nodachi and a kabuto. I was pleased to see the word &#8220;kanmuri&#8221; used for one of the weakest helmets, as I had seen this word before in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rpg","tag-throne-of-darkness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3313,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}