So, at least one official module/AP book has a character who is described as cursing a lot in their native language. What are some weird made up swear words from the language one could use (they don't have to necessarily sound harsh or nasty, some real life swear words don't sound like anything if you don't know what they mean)
I like the dolphin sound from Spongebob
|
Frak is used in Battlestar Galactica. But I had a similar issue and when I brought it up to the table, they decided they didn’t want me to use swears either (two of the players were former Navy, so they had heard enough).
I settled on describing the gist of what the character says:
She talks in depth about your mother’s dating habits and then goes on to berate your handling of knots as if you were an animal that didn’t have opposable thumbs.
I liked it better in the end than saying those things myself since it left more to the imagination.
Pull a Firefly and use Chinese to swear so it doesn't get censored.
my favorite was the player of a half-ogre in an older 3rd edition game described having intercourse with anything as "bumpins"
so I've used that a lot.
Also "grok" is a good bestial-race stand-in for most swear words.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I use 'grok' in everyday speech. Thank you Mr. Heinlein
You could always go Klingon: P'Tok! I'm sure there's a bunch.
Or Pirates of Darkwater: Noy Jitat!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Another fun formula I like for culture-specific swears is (deity name)'s (body part) - it doesn't even have to be anything particularly inappropriate to work well. Desna's thumbs!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Another fun formula I like for culture-specific swears is (deity name)'s (body part) - it doesn't even have to be anything particularly inappropriate to work well. Desna's thumbs!
Yeah, blasphemy works really well when you have so many gods.
Pharasma's (Un)Holy Daggers! -- And if you mix in a little bit of Gadzooks or 'zounds, you can get something like Rasdag (also spelled Razdag), an abbreviation/bastardization of Pharasma's Daggers. You would use Holy Razdag for a pleasant surprise and Unholy Razdag to refer to something that is unpleasant. "Holy Razdag, am I glad to see you guys!" or "What the unholy Rasdag are you doing here? You're supposed to be keeping watch in the tower!" Also, "Razdag it!" as a suggestion that Pharasma stab something or someone with her (presumably unholy) dagger.
Three-eyed -- A reference to Lamashtu's holy symbol, most often referring to some rundown or foreboding place (a place where you would most likely see the symbol flying) or to the type of person who would lurk in such a place. Also three-looker to describe such a person. "I'm not going in that alley alone. I'm sure some three-looker's in there just waiting to put a knife in my back."
Zon hook 'em/you/me -- A reference to the god of pain and... well... his hooks. Often shortened to Hook 'em/you/me. "I'm gonna throw a fireball into the mix next round. If the guards can't get out of the fray by then, hook 'em."
Cal-slapped -- Suffering a beatdown or some misfortune, presumably as a result of one's own actions or misdeeds (as if suffering retribution at the hands of CalIstria). "After getting Cal-slapped so hard last time you charged in here, I didn't think I'd see you come back."
Sacred Suds -- Or simply suds. Having the guts or chutzpah to do something outlandish or risky. A reference to Cayden Cailean and his mythology's propensity to portray him drunk. "I didn't think you'd have the suds to face me alone, but here you are!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
speaking of cultural context for curse words...
a slightly approach to swearing I ran across in another novel was in a book titled Monster... one of the passing characters is a Demon (Succubas) that swears and it's all:
"Blessing this" and "Blessed to Heaven!" or "By the Light!" maybe "Creation!" - mostly religious swearing, but reversed.
It got my attention, and then made me grin. Cute idea. it's all in the delivery..."Faith, Hope & Chastity! What in Creation were you Blessed thinking!"
Or I could see cursing in a culture that viewed Eating the way we view most other bodily functions...
"Chocolate Marmalade PIE!", or "Oh, Fudge..." or even "You little Twinkie! I'm going to feed you a bacon sandwich... sideways! With extra mustard!" --
now I really want to see a Balor or Pit Fiend scream; "Heaven's to Besty!"
Sod. One of the most universally useful terms in any language, fictional or not, used in Planescape.
"Sod off you sodding sod!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I laughed when GiTP had an imp use "home sweet home" instead of "hell". What in the home sweet home is going on?
|
now I really want to see a Balor or Pit Fiend scream; "Heaven's to Besty!"speaking of cultural context for curse words...
a slightly approach to swearing I ran across in another novel was in a book titled Monster... one of the passing characters is a Demon (Succubas) that swears and it's all:
"Blessing this" and "Blessed to Heaven!" or "By the Light!" maybe "Creation!" - mostly religious swearing, but reversed.
It got my attention, and then made me grin. Cute idea. it's all in the delivery..."Faith, Hope & Chastity! What in Creation were you Blessed thinking!"
Or I could see cursing in a culture that viewed Eating the way we view most other bodily functions...
"Chocolate Marmalade PIE!", or "Oh, Fudge..." or even "You little Twinkie! I'm going to feed you a bacon sandwich... sideways! With extra mustard!" --
My go to phrase for casting Blistering Invective is "oh, BUGGERS!". Gets 'em every time.
The ultimate insult and profanity: "Elf"
From the Dark Tower series:
Sweetmeats = balls.
Trig Cove = clever b@st@rd/sonuvab#%$+.
From the Dark Tower series...
I also liked "yar" as a somehow profane affirmative.
From "The Kingkiller Chronicles": "charred body of god", "blood, bracken and bone", "wrack you"
From "The Lord of the Rings": "curse you and crush you", "garn!"
Sod. One of the most universally useful terms in any language, fictional or not, used in Planescape.
"Sod off you sodding sod!"
I'm pretty sure sod has some unfortunate history, specifically what it's short for. Not likely to offend anyone these days, even Brits.
I like the meta "taboos it". Yep, do the generic forbidden things to it.
Drug names aren't bad either. A sailor muttering "bronine and prozac" under his breath isn't going to be too odd.
The ultimate insult and profanity: "Elf"
Reminds me of the Trolls in the mini series 10th Kingdom who were always exclaiming, "Suck an elf!" when anything went wrong.
I also liked "yar" as a somehow profane affirmative.
Heh. Now I'm amused by the thought of "um" as a profane affirmative.
"Tell us, brave adventurer, are you with us to storm the castle?"
"Um... Yeah..."
* CROWD EXPLODES IN CHEERS *
"UM YEAH!!!!!!"
Honestly, you can use anything with the correct enunciation and emphasis...
"Ah, BISCUITS!"
"Son of a BROOM!"
"Oh cartwheels, I'm hit..."
Using setting specific details is always good, so anything using actual monster names or body parts is encouraged. I like using food for the overly large, and equally the tiny types, too... food is always on their minds and they subconsciously blurt out random things to eat. For named NPC's, I try to pick a theme... one might like astronomy and say "by the stars" a lot. Some have insults that nobody else is insulted by, "You must be the son of a tanner." Some use barely modified curses, "That's a load of boarsheen!"
Both the examples I'm thinking of outright say it's in a language other than common (sylvan for one, draconic for the other). So it seems like I would need some made-up words (or some from an obscure real life language), rather than just sweary phrases.
This works pretty well with a language where you're not really familiar with the pronunciation scheme, too, since an intuitive English pronunciation of a significantly different language (say, Japanese) can result in words or phrases that sound like they're part of a real, indecipherable language (I got this idea from an anime where they gave Japanese dialogue to foreigners who didn't understand Japanese to accomplish just this).
Also, consider a rotation cipher and/or transliterating English into a different language.
As an example, take a word written in Japanese syllables in Romanji:
fa a ku
rotate them over 2 categories and down 1 (hiragana or katakana lists available in many places).
pi ki su
And you get pikisu (or, if you want to leave out some vowels, you can get pikis or piksu or piks).
Here's a few places with syllable lists if you want to try out the rotation cipher:
https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/324/what-are-the-most-commo nly-used-chinese-syllables
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana
How many fictional languages actually exist?
I know "fictional" kind of means that it doesn't "actually exist", but Tolkien's Elvish language actually exists, so there might be others.
I believe there's a complete Klingon language, too.
I may not actually be understanding the question, correctly. If you want made-up swear words... make some up. It doesn't matter what they are, as long as the context is consistent with each use.
Like you can't really say
"Ehm you!"
And "You piece of Ehm!"
It doesn't make sense... is Ehm a verb or is it a noun?
That's one of the reasons I like the rotation cipher as a solution -- It helps keep usage consistant if you're using an actual word. It also, in my opinion, makes it feel more real to me. Just preference, I guess.
Saying something like, "Hey! Flarff you, buddy!" doesn't feel as real to me as saying something like, "L'jaqa dug! There's no way I'm going to do that!" or "Tell you what, geyaya, you go first!"
Again, just my preference and it interests me seeing how others feel about it.
Plus, I'd be self-conscious that others would recognize the language I'm swearing in
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'll take swords for 700!!!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'll take swords for 700!!!
That's "S" Words...
Saber!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My wife used to teach Spanish, and taught them a swear word to use at home: "Sacapuntas!". Parents were shocked, until they learned that it means "Pencil Sharpener".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In the Adventure Path I'm playing, one of our earliest adventures included as debate about whether to wade through filthy water to reach more of the dungeon. One player was RPing their character's low-IQ by being oblivious to the hazard, so the investigator PC replied with, "You don't understand epidemiology, do you?" The first player decided to adopt the word as their new favorite swear and war cry.
Another fun formula I like for culture-specific swears is (deity name)'s (body part) - it doesn't even have to be anything particularly inappropriate to work well. Desna's thumbs!
I've used this one from time to time. One of my (non-Pathfinder) PCs is a champion of Anansi, so when he's really shocked or impressed, he swears by the highly inappropriate body part that the Spider stole from Tiger. In contrast, my PFS dwarf stonelord paladin uses the much cleaner, "Torag's beard!" or "Hammer and tongs!"
I have a new PFS PC who is a dhampir warpriest of Pharasma, an orphan raised to destroy the sort of things responsible for her own birth. Because she looks like a walking corpse herself (nosferatu-born), she's gotten into the habit of invoking her goddess's name and titles regularly to make her allegiance clear to all. "Graves" (short for "Lady of Graves") and "The Lady's Eyes" are a couple of the swears I've invented for her. (I also quite like Kitty Catoblepas's "Rasdag," above.)
"It's as cold as a White Witch's heart"
I seem to recall that phrase referenced a different part of her anatomy.
From Batlestar Galactica: Frack, Feldercarp
- The latter was to be used when you wanted a long drawn out swear word, or to alternate with the former.
From Mork and Mindy: Shuz-butt
- Often heard by Mork after learning things didn't go well or he couldn't do something.
From Max Headroom: Bleep, Censored
- Example: "What the bleep?", "Why the censored are you going there?". In universe, these expressions that replaced swear words in time became swear words.
/cevah
Slag. It's a good one for smiths and dwarves to use. Source?
The Transformers, comics to be specific.
Anyone remember the name of a certain bad-tempered Dinobot Triceratops?
:)