Mo Douqiu - Name Meaning and Importance?

[AP Edgelord]

Hello!
My players left downtown a hot mess for Book One, ended up taking care of the Noperra-Bo and the Ritual for a halfweek before coming to liberate downtown much later.

Because sandbox.

Anyway, Mo Douqiu has essentially been promoted to the BBEG for Book One de facto (I foreshadowed him immensely and then they promptly left town for days), and I have managed to generate great animosity against him from my players, in part because I wanted to end Summer with a big fight (promoting him to Level 5!)

And now they ask: What does his name mean, if anything?

Here are some of their guesses:

mo2 dou1 qiu4 = "Imitate All Autumn"
mo4 dou2 qiu2 = "Drowned Pause Seek"

Based loosely on Mandarin with the numbers describing different intonation...

Having a blast running this adventure!

=)

[James Jacobs]

Nothing in my notes or the author's comments indicates that his name means anything, but I also very much relied upon the authors of each of these volumes to bring their expertise to the subject of naming NPCs and creatures and monsters. Hopefully said author might notice this question and hop in for a comment, but at the same time, when players ask unexpected questions like this and start suggesting answers, one of my favorite GM tricks is to pick the answer I like the best and try to work justification for that answer into the sessions to follow, and then reveal at a good point the truth. This not only lets the players feel satisfaction at figuring something out, but gives the impression that you or the author of the adventure created a really well-written adventure that gave JUST THE RIGHT INFORMATION AND CLUES for the players to figure things out in a satisfying way! :-)

Of course, that tactic generally works much better for mysteries when a player "figures" out the solution to a mystery that isn't exactly right as written in the adventure, but adjusting things so that it IS right is a fun way to reward player creativity. Using the same tactic to reveal the meaning behind names is potentially tricky, especially if your group has experts on how names are built using the language in question, or if you're going on to publish something publicly (which isn't as big a deal at all for a home game, but is a major deal for our side of things).

[taks]

Mo Douqiu:

I pronounced it for my table as More Dookie. And that's the way we played him. Basically, a hedonist rolling around in his own dookie. Of course, the first barbarian up to bat got a crit, so the fight ended quickly, maybe one last... event, before heading to the Boneyard.