Monster Names

[Tinalles]

I'm no slouch at bizarre words. I know multiple dead languages, thanks to four years as a medievalist grad student, and I've always enjoyed weird, obscure words.

But even so, sometimes I really wish that monster names came with some kind of pronunciation guide. I mean, in Bestiary 4 we've got Alpluachra, Aoandan, Graeae, and Qallupilluk. I can take a stab at those, but heaven only knows if I'm getting it right, and my poor players would probably just roll their eyes and stick to "the monster" instead of attempting to use its name.

It also breaks the immersion when I can't even say the monster name right. "As you round the corner, you find yourself face to face with an unpronounceable! Roll initiative."

Yeah.

[thenobledrake]

All 4 of the monsters you mention can be found via a quick Google search, meaning their names are no more exotic (less so, actually) than other monster names.

Alpluachra is Irish in origin, and is also called Joint-Eater - that makes saying it's name plenty easy.

Aoandan is Japanese in origin, so it appears to be pronounced as Ah-oh-ah-nn-don (quickly, and yes my phonetics for Japanese syllables is very rough). Alternatively, you could just call it Blue Lantern Ghost because that is a close enough description.

Graeae is Greek, and actually has 3 pronunciations easily found (gry-eye, gry-ee, and gray-ee) so just pick one of those (I favor gry-eye, but then I also say Minotaur as min-oh-tar rather than mine-ah-tore).

Qallupilluk is Inuit in origin, and appears to also be spelled Qalupalik in some places - in either case, I have no idea how it is meant to be pronounced off hand, but I expect the Q is a K sound and the double L is the same as a single L... meaning both spellings are probably the same pronunciation of Ka-lu-pa-luck.

[pres man]

Now lets talk about something hard.
For drow does it rhyme with:
(a)bow - the front of a boat
or
(b)bow - a weapon used to shoot arrows?

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Drow, rhymes with Elf.

I think adding a pronunciation guide to trickier names would be a good idea. If only so GMs everywhere don't butcher the languages of other cultures :)

[Umbriere Moonwhisper]

i butcher languages all the time

i even come up with valid gibberish that sounds like it could be legit for that language unless an appropriate native speaker of that language heard it.