Guild Wars 2

Hello all, I’m returning to the English Forum to get some wide and authorized audience from loremasters. All this is motivated in overhauling the localization in French. But maybe, it could help the localization in other languages (don’t let your hatred preventing you from answering ! ). At least, you could see it as an opportunity to discuss some names here. Well, when I say “overhauling”, it’s just “submitting some alternate translations”, to be clear. Also, I confess that I didn’t check all the wiki base (trivias, etc.), but I’m confident in that all the questions are relevant just because they refer to some material that sounds odd or ambiguous in French.

I’ll post here questions about toponyms one map after the other (Points of interest, Map areas, Waypoints). So, I’ll necro the thread each time a new batch of questions is ready.

Lastly, don’t fear to “hijack” the thread if you want to submit another toponym : you are welcome even if I didn’t see any problem with this one.

Map: Kessex Hills
http://gw2.mmorpg-life.com/kessex-hills-map-of-pois-waypoints-vistas-skills-and-more/3598/

Names and titles

—> Yes; I’ll submit “Commander” (cf. Hamlet) as an equivalent in French (Overseer and Feudal Overlord are ugly)

—> I’ll go for some earth shaman commander and submit “Lord of the Earth”, though it’s rather heavy

Other

—> I’ll submit “Red Oldwharf” (In French, currently it’s “Oldwharf”)

Map Areas
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Kessex_Hills_area_maps

—> I’ll submit “Hill of the Meeting/Gathering on the Mere” (currently, it’s “Festive Hill”, because of the modern meaning of “moot”)

—> currently “Swamp/Ponds of Lychcroft”, I’ll submit “Swamp/Ponds of the Fields of the Lich” or “Swamp/Ponds of the Necrotic Fields” (in reference to a dialogue with an asura researcher who wonders why the risen are attracted to this place)

—> I’m not going to submit anything: all names are “of Delania”, that sounds fine enough.

—> I’ll assume that a triskellion and a triskell are the same geometric celtic pattern, and I’ll submit “Vale of the Triskell” and “Quay of the Triskell” instead of the current “Vale of Triskellion” and “Quay of Triskell”, the vale being named because of its three branches shape, and the quay because it’s just in this vale.

—> I’ll assume that a viath/a viathan is a local name for a leviathan and I’ll submit “(Le)”Viathan’s Lake", “Viathan’s Arm” and “Viathan’s Shore” or “Leviath’s Shore”

• Earthworks Bluff
  - What are the bluff in this context? Is only see a earthen and wooden work with palisade (as we can see elsewhere on the same map).

—> I’ll submit “Dominion Hunting Grounds”

—> Alright, it’s the same word and it means rich in ferro-magnesic rocks (hence `ma f ic’)

—> Blackroot being an American plant, we don"t have a vernacular name for it and it was translated into “Bitter Roots”, which is fine (“Veronica” would be too modern, and “Dove’s Root” would be un-meaningful for Europeans anyway). I’ll submit “Bitter Roots’ Trench”, or some equivalent, to replace the current and inaccurate “Bitter Roots’ Passage”.

—> answered

Some good questions! I can only answer a few of them, but exploring the etymology of place names is a good exercise for English-speaking players as well, since it could provide hints at future content (e.g. thinking about Abaddon’s Mouth would have hinted at Nightfall).

Haaznahnuff.1907:

• Viath Shore, Viathan Lake, Viathan’s Arm
  Whooo… three different forms!
  - Is Viath a NPC?
  - Does “Viathan” means “of Viath”? What is the subtlety in English between “Viath Shore” and “Viathan Shore”? Why not “Lake Viath” or “Viath Lake”, etc?
  - Then we have “Viathan’s” = “of Viathan” ! Is “Viathan” a river, or the lake proper?

Viathan Lake is named after the leviathan, one of which was reportedly once caught in the lake.

Haaznahnuff.1907:

• Dominion Execution Zone
  - A furnace pit for tengus sentenced to death, or a hunting, larger ground for the same usage? So is it really the Tower Hill in London?

The Dominion Killing Zone, as it is called in English, seems to just be a hunting ground for tengu to fight Destroyers.

Haaznahnuff.1907:

• Mafic Core
  Any hint?

Seems to just be a description of the mineral composition of the area; see mafic on Wikipedia.

This would be cool to figure out, but I fear you’re going to hit some walls…
Mostly a game designer would a pick a specific name just because it sounds cool.

To be fair, I expect far less answerers than readers, and far less interested readers than the player base is large, but only one answer may win the day, and Tamias just started the process ! And he provides us a reason why I started this thread: “killing zone” was translated into “execution zone”, so I thought that tengus were sentenced to death and executed there…

And he’s right… think how most of the wiki pages are poor when it comes about the origin of the names. If we could add for some at least one sentence…

Haaznahnuff.1907:

Names and titles

1. The Overlord
   - Who is the Overlord? / what is an overlord? A rank, the head of all the Harathi army?
   - Is he the Harathi Overlord to be killed in the nearby group event?
2. The Earthlord
   A centaur I guess…
   - Could you provide an alternate name ’the lord of the land(s)“?”of the dust"?
   - Is this a rank?

Overlord sounds like a rank or title indicating someone who leads at least the Harathi in the local area (i.e. western and maybe central Kessex Hills). The only Overlord in the area I’m aware of is the one you kill for the group event. The Harathi never seemed especially organized to me, so I doubt they have an overlord that leads the entirety of the Harathi.

Earthlord might be a rank, though it probably only applies to centaurs with elemental ability. It also might simply be a title for any centaur elementalist skilled in manipulating the element of earth (as anyone who can command earth could be considered a lord of earth). Whether it’s a title or rank is somewhat ambiguous in English. If you’re looking for alternate translations you might look at what earth elementals were translated to. Off-hand my first thought for alternative names would be “lord of stone” or “lord of rock.”

Haaznahnuff.1907:

*
Other

• Auld Red Wharf
  - Is it like “Old Red Quay” or is there a subtlety? Why “red”?

“Auld” is an old Scottish word meaning, basically, ‘old’. Its use has connotations of ‘really, REALLY old’ – generally when you see that term it’s putting additional stress on how old something is by using a more archaic term, generally on the order of centuries rather than decades.

AFAIK, there’s no particular reason why it’s red, except that it’s red and not some other colour. Considering the area is now ruined, it might be a reference to blood spilled when the town fell, but I don’t think so.

Map Areas
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Kessex_Hills_area_maps

• Meremoot Hill
  - What does it evocates in your mind: a lords assembly of old?

Basically that. A ‘moot’ is an assembly as you say. ‘Mere’ can mean it’s either small, or it could be a reference to a water body (a marsh or pool). So this could be a place for small moots, or it could be the location for moots on the centaur war effort around Godslost.

*Lychcroft Mere
- Are we okay to say that this mere is the same as in “Meremoot Hill”?
- Is Lychcroft a NPC, or could it be further translated (Lych Croft)?

‘Mere’, in this case, is definitely referring to a marsh. It’s definitely not the same mere, since Lychcroft is a long way from Godslost, but it likely has the connection that they both refer to marshes.

‘lych’ generally refers to ‘(un)dead’, and ‘croft’ is an archaic term for fields, so this name could possibly be loosely translated as ‘swamp that is a field for the dead’. It’s possible that there was a graveyard or something there before Zhaitan rose and it became ‘Lychcroft Mere’ after it was flooded in the Great Tsunami.

• Delanian Foothills
  - Is Delania a NPC or some random generated name? Is Delanian a region?
• Triskell and Triskellion Vale
  - Which derives from the other? Who/What is Triskell?

Delania seems like it might just be a region.

A triskelion is a shape with three bent lines radiating out of it, while a ‘vale’ is basically a valley. This matches the shape of the vale – centered on the quarry, there’s one arm pointing towards Earthlord’s Gap, one towards the nearby haven, and one towards Triskell. Thus, it basically means ‘triskellion-shaped valley’, with Triskell likely being named after the valley it is located in.

• Blackroot Cut
  What is a “cut” here? A rift, a bassin (the area is surrounded by upper ground) or a pass, some shorter way?

In this context, it’s a rift – specifically, the rift in the earth between the cliffs to the north and south.

• Giant’s Passage
  There is also a passage in the Bloodtide Coast region. So, are all passage subterranean, narrow areas? What is the difference with a pass (in the GW2 usage)?

In English, a ‘passage’ is simply a route from one location to another. The distinction would be that a ‘pass’ usually refers specifically to crossing over a mountain range, usually a low point (the Blue Mountains in Australia being an exception, as the passes there are over the ridges, but the geography of that region is weird and took the early explorers quite a while to figure out) – ‘passage’ is more general, and thus covers things like tunnels that go through a mountain.

Hope this helps!

What an answer, thank you both of you!

By the way, Lychcroft Mere is just south of Meremoot Hill, in the Kessex area, not in Godslost!

Also, is a blackroot an irl plant?

Feel free to go on commenting while I’m preparing the next batch.

Huh. For some reason I thought it was the gathering area in Queensdale, east of Godswatch. My mistake!

Being that close to Lychcroft – yeah, it’s probably a good bet that it’s the same ‘mere’, being a reference to the swamp. Given that it’s got a centaur leader that is probably the most powerful (adjusted for map level) short of the Ulgoth in the Hinterlands.

On blackroot – I hadn’t come across it before, but now that you mention it: https://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/blaroo53.html