What is a Gode?
 

I was just curious about some of the -heim units and the origins of their names. For instance, "Jarl" is the Scandinavian form of "Earl", the title of nobility equivalent to a Duke and generally referring to someone of at the level of a chieftain. But there are some others I don't know:

EDIT: Posted the answers, thank you to those who contributed!

Gode - Godi were Aesir priests
Herse - Hersir were military leaders under Jarls.
Van (prefix) - Short for Vanir a house of Norse gods
Skratti - Icelandic for "Devil". Also, a wizard.
Huskarl - "House man" or bodyguard of some kind
Hirdman - Another personal bodyguard
Asmeg - Descendant of the Aesir after Ragnarok

Can anyone help me out? :)

Re: What is a Gode?
 

I don't know about the ones you listed, but I think "Huscarl" means "House Man" referring to the men who attended a noble's house. Atleast I think so :).

Re: What is a Gode?
 

"Van" is the singular form of Vanir, a group of gods in Norse mythology opposed to the Aesir.

I'd looked up Skratti and got the same answer you did... there's probably another spelling involved, but the meaning shouldn't be too far off from 'witchery is involved!'.

I think Herse is another spelling for Hersir, a sort of warrior/lord under a Jarl who commands a band of warriors.

Gode is a different spelling for Godi, which was a fairly high-ranking priest involving in a particular aspect of the cult, but the specifics escape me at the moment.

Unless I am sorely mistaken, Huscarls are indeed "Housecarls", yet another spelling that may be more obvious for the modern eye... they were armed, though, so don't get them confused with lowly servants :)

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Well, some of the words have been used slightly differently over time and in different areas, but they are all from the Nordic culture.

Gode - essentially a priest of the Aesir
Herse - a chieftain
Van - this prefix is taken from the other (not the Aesir) family of gods called the Vanir.
Skratti - wizard


Hope that helped.

Edit:
A bit late, I see.

And now that I am at it, I might as well mention that 'Skratti' may mean troll as well.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

I think you can find those in the Edda. Vanir live in Vanaheimr. Skrattinn seems to be another name for Satan, yes.

Van seems to mean something like "the Glamorous", "the Habituals", "the familiar gods of fields and meadows".

Edit: the others are right, goði is a priest. And the hersir was a military commander.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

ON a related note, what is the meaning of asmeg ? Does those people appear in nordic mythology too ?

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Thanks, everybody. You all get a forum "thanks" and I put the answers in the first post.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

"meg" should be "might" and "as" should be short for the aesir, so someone who is a personification of the power of the aesir...

/speculation ;)

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a vague recollection of "gode" having a Saxon meaning too.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Presumably 'Old Scratch' would be derived from that, then. Cool.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Asmegs are the (more human) descendants of the dead Aesir that will populate the new world after Ragnarök, according to some reference.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

(I'd render 'ð' as 'th' instead of 'd'.)

I couldn't find any references to Asmegs on the Googlosphere. Anyone know of any resources or alternative spellings?

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Well, if you want. The english 'th' is being pronounced too closely to 's' for me though, while 'ð' is phonetically equivalent to the greek delta and was mostly replaced by 'd' according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ð

Maybe ásmegin. I don't speak norse, but that's what you can find in the norse Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál versions of the younger Edda. Wikipedia unfortunately only lists a band of the same name. Literally As-strength or Áss-power, the Wikipedia article says that it means "by/with the might of the gods".

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Hey, how did "Áss-power" make it through the Shrapnel obscenity filter! :)

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Because it is a magnificent Áss-power.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

I've got some more, not -heim specific though:

Galderman
Hangadrott - "The Hanging God" referring to Odin
Vanadrott - ?
Enarie
Ambibate - (Actually any website that might clue me into the Maverni units would be nice)
Shura
Onaqui

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Drott is a king, more or less. Hangatyr (tyr=god) is a more common Odin name, although I think hangadrott was used at times.

Enarie is used by Herodotos to name the transvestite soothsayers of the scythians.

Ambibates was one of the gaul tribes IIRC. Their specifics in dominions are of my design IIRC. Their specifics are probably not historical.

The Shura is a warrior ghost according to the old but beautiful Bushido RPG. Bushido is by western fiction standards a remarkably good portrayal of Japanese medieval culture. Although it makes some strange creations to fit spirits and stuff into a fantasy setting. The Shikome of nihongi have turned into some kind of stone eating goblins, but the game is still a nice source on yokai, obake and japanese folk religion.

The Onaqui is a tribute to the old pen and paper RPG 'Chill', or rather it's swedish version 'Chock'. There was an entity named Onaqui in an adventure that later on was adopted and remade in the monster-book of the most widespread swedish fantasy RPG 'Drakar och Demoner'. Thus the Onaqui is probably not a nahuatl or mayan name. Some of it's aspects on the other hand can be found in gods such as Camazotz, the bat. I was fond of the Onaqui in the swedish RPG milieu when I was 12-15 years of age so I couldn't resist my nostalgia and used the name, even though it might be inaccurate. Coming to think about it it might be a good idea to rename the beast bat to camazotz or zotz, since the jaguar fiend is called Ozelotl (jaguar).

Edit: Galderman is a singer of Galdrar, spell songs. Thus a Galderman is a spellsinger or a sorcerer able to conjure mists, turn arrows and cause fear to grow in the hearts of the enemies. Galdr and seith/sejd were the two magic traditions mentioned in norse myth. Hmm, inscriptions of runes as well, but that would probably be something galdermen did. Seith was different. It was declared unmanly and forbidden by Odin. He was the only male god that was allowed to use it's dangerous powers. Seith was used to perceive the past, present and the future, as well as sending curses, death and disease on people and livestock.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

"galdr" is cognate with english "yell", though any sense of singing is long lost.

"Seith" (i'm pretty sure) is cognate w/ Sooth, so derived from old IE for truth, *es, and related to sanskrit terms for being like "sat"

the "kona" in seithkona just means woman; cognate w/ gr. "gyne"



Bushido brings back memories - an offshoot of the old Chivalry and Sorcery rpg; which was noted for having the world's most obtuse magic system :)

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Further to Seith/Sooth... in words like Soothsayer, I believe the Sooth part is implied to mean truth about the future.

Afterthought: Not knowing much about the nordic languages, I'd assumed kon was similar to the scots ken, meaning roughly 'to know', and therefore a seithkonur was 'one who knows the future'. It's nice to know better.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Three more today:
Kunshu
Uba
Nushi

I think they're all Japanese but I didn't see them on obakemono.com

Re: What is a Gode?
 

I think Kunshu is a title, like drott. Kumo-kunshu, bakemono-kunshu etc. My knowledfge of japanese is limited to the occasional word or prefix, so 'm not sure.

Uba means old woman or hag I think.

The nushi appears in both Bushido and other RPG's IIRC. In bushido it's a kind of Uba-hag of the swamps.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

i think both kunshu and nushi mean lord or master of a place, which are modified by some adjective. Kunshu is a higher honorific. like lord, while nushi is more localized, like master. The Yama-uba is a seductive crone from old folktales

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Ok, I finished peeking at the database, this is the last bunch I have questions about. :)

Mandaha
Ri (unit 1754)
Davana - (Actually I am having general trouble with Hindu demonology)
Kalendologist
Astrapelagist
Kenzoku

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Ri I think is a Celtic word meaning king (approzimately).

Kalendologist would I guess be someone who studies days or patterns of days (think calendar - calens is latin for 'day') in order to see the future.

Astrapelagist comes from astra (star) and pelagos (sea) - the meaning (in the context of the unit) presumably being 'one who studies the great sea of stars', or in other words an astrologer.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Maybe it's supposed to be Danava?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danava_(Hinduism)

Still lost on Mandaha and Kenzoku.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Came up with this for Kenzoku (http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/k/kenzoku.htm):
Though there are probably other explanations, the translation means "family, dependents, household" apparently.

One obscure source lists Mandaha as the Hindu interpretation of the roman Saturn.

Davana is one of the reincarnations of God Shiva in the Hindu religion. The blossom of the plant with the same name are being used as an offering at his altar.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Mandaha, probably a "creative" spelling ;p

Manda would be Saturn; but not the Roman god, but rather the planet, and so the god associated w/ the planet, and the quality "slow" :)

however, perhaps KO was linking w/ Saturn, who is a version of the greek Kronos... the devourer?

Re: What is a Gode?
 

The Mandaha is actually a Mandeha. When I discovered the misspelling there was already discussions on the Mandaha on the forum, and I decided confusion and problems with finding references in the forum would cause more problems than it would was worth to change the name to the proper one. My references on the subject are quite vague anyway.

If you like you can make a mod replacing the name for the correct one.

The Davana is of course a Danava. I hadn't realized I misspelled that one. I guess the same applies here as well, but Danavas are well known so it might be good to change their name anyway.

Damn sanskrit spellings :(

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Given how most people can't even spell most nations correctly, famous examples being Niefel, Agartha, Abysia, Arcoscephale and others, I think there would not be much of an impact by correcting the names of those units with their correct ones. Some fuzziness is always there.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

The spelling of R'lyeh seems to vary a lot too :)

Re: What is a Gode?
 

The apothropes (another difficult word!) in T'ien Ch'i also vary a lot. I've given up and started using Tien Chi.

I agree that it'd be nice to have the in-game spellings updated when they are that close to the original creatures.

Re: What is a Gode?
 

Hence you writing it wrong? :) And they're quite easy - just in front of the i's...

Re: What is a Gode?
 

*apostrophes

Your English is so nearly perfect, it's easy for me to forget that isn't your first language. :shock:

Re: What is a Gode?
 

How much Swedish would you know if Dominions had more than the occasional "Något gick fel". Perhaps Illwinter's next project will be Dominions S: Jag måste lära mig svenska!
Also, Pratchett. There's so much untranslated Pratchett!

My spoken English sucks because I don't talk in or hear much English. Also, I tend to avoid difficult words, like "pronunciation", and replace them with easier words or terms, like "spoken English".