Naming The Trails

[Asher Fairchild]

Last crafternoons a few of us discussed the need to name the trails (re: "the muddy trail" registered as 5 different places between the 5 of us) so I thought it'd be fun to start throwing names around. Mitch will be travelling to site soon to take pictures of said trails, which will make voting on names and distinguishing which trail were voting on much easier. We could start thinking about the major ones for now though!

Southern trail (large trail leading into town from the far side of the field. Passes by the trail to the earth circle, the knights camp and ends at the water circle)
Northern Trail (Trail leading from the parking lots, passing the fire circle, inn, and onto the field)
Trail to the Earth circle and beyond (Starts at the southern trail, passes the earth circle, and leads up into the woods)
Trail to the fairy circle (Small trail that starts in the field, leads to the fairy circle and onto a larger trail)

I think if we start trying to distinguish the other trails it could get confusing. They don't have many common markers.

So throw out your ideas and we'll start a vote!

[Degren Brightforge]

We could just name them for what they lead to. It could be as simple as calling the Southern Trail "The Road", the Northern Trail the "Fire Trail", the Trail to the Earth Circle the "Earth Trail", and the Fairy circle trail the "Fairy Trail". Everything else gets pretty tough to name after that.

[Lady Val]

Southern Trail (i.e. the big one) -- Bay Road
Northern Trail (i.e. from the parking lot) -- Applevale Road
Trail to Earth Circle - Earth's path
Trail to Faerie Circle - Faerie's Path
Trail by the outhouses - Mountain Path
Trail up the mountain by the Earth Circle - River path
Trail running up by the Knight's camp - Knight's Path
Trail running up to Fairchild Grove - Fairchild's Path
Trail running across the hill from Earth circle to the path by the outhouses - Cross Mountain Path

[Kuromori, Taka]

I'd be inclined, if we're going to call any of them roads, to use that for both of the ones that lead out of town, i.e. "The North Road" and "The South Road"

The fairy trail is a nice name.

(Also Lady Val posted while I'm typing. Haven't read it yet. Going to bed.)

[Torvallis!]

I think descriptive names would be confusing for new players, so proper noun names might be better.

For that reason, I do like Fairchild's path, for example.

Destination-based naming for important destinations is pretty solid, as long as the beginning of the path is understood. In most cases, that'll be the watering hole or the field. But for example, "Earth's path" understood that way would be starting at the watering hole/the field and going up to the earth circle . . . in which case, where do the knight's path and Bay Road branch off from/differentiate from that? (We're all already familiar with the paths and locations, so I think we can all agree that Bay Road is the main road, and Knight's path runs off into the woods by the camp from the Bay Road, and Earth's path also comes from the Bay Road. Someone who's less familiar might not realize, and it's not important enough for it to come up and correct mistakes, until it's too important to get wrong :p)

With that all in mind, wrt Knight's Path, I would suggest naming it 'Brightforge Path'. Naming it directly after the knights makes it sound like it's heading TO the knights instead of running BY the knights. Naming it after Brightforge still names it after the knights . . . ish . . .but no longer implies a location.

The River path is confusable with the other muddy path going up the hill near the Mountain path, and 'mountain path' itself is fairly confusable. I would suggest naming the River path to 'Tiberius path', and if we want to name to other muddy path going up the hill, name it something that reflects that it isn't often used.

For the outhouse path, I would differentiate between the outhouse path and the path by the big flag pole, although they both join the cross mountain path. The big flag pole path I think could be called "Necrodancer's Sister", since she's buried at the foot of it. The outhouse path could just be called the outhouse path? And I think the cross mountain path, Necrodancer's Sister, Faerie's Way, Fairchild's way, the unnamed path I mention in the above paragraph, and the outhouse path could be collectively referred to as 'the mountain paths'. (As well as any other unnamed paths in that area).

Oh, naming conventions.

I think paths named after their destination should be named 'way'.

So Faerie's Way, Earth's Way, Fairchild's Way, etc.

Paths that don't go anywhere in particular can be left without a designator, like Necrodancer's Sister. But if they do use a designator, should be named 'path'. So: 'cross mountain path'.

It seems 'road' is already used for major roads, so that works well!


Um, the path behind the back deck of the watering hole that leads to the fire circle is used often enough to differentiate it from Applevale Road, I think. We obviously can't name it 'fire's way', since that's confusion with Applevale Road :p Is there still a forge by the backdeck? Then we could name it 'forge-to-forge path' or something.

Also, take in mind some future-proofing. Once we have names for paths, we'll probably start talking about routes more often and strategizing about them. We won't have new paths in the future, but we may want to talk more precisely about existing paths.

[Malva]

I'm not sure there's only one trail that spans across the mountain

We could name paths after characters, and fight about it IG

[Malva]

Also guys, cause there's no way I'll have it done before game; here's my rough draft of the map of the trails if you want to name them. It's based on actual GPS coordinates I took in April.

[Cast (Helen)]

If someone draws up a map of the site or polishes this one I might be able to transpose it to fabric. I'm thinking of transfer sheets because I can't draw and I don't want to mess around with embroidery. We could split it across say four regular 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. Once it's on fabric it can go up in the Watering Hole every event, like the banner.

Maybe we can make this a goal to meet before the end of the season?

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