Using Sumerian Command Words For Spells

I posted this on the LL forum the other day:

If you wanted to do something a bit different, you could give each spell a command word in some ancient dead language.

I've grown quite fond of Sumerian for naming things in RPG settings, and there is quite a large collection of Sumerian and Akkadian words found here:
http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html

So for the Fireball spell, the command word might be:
Ganzer [FLAME] + Ellag [BALL] = "Ganzerellag!"

Sometimes the word you are looking for isn't found, so you have to try to think of alternate words to type in.

Magic Missile would be:
Emeĝar [MAGIC] (E-Meng-Gar) + Gagsisa [ARROW] (Missile wasn't in the lexicon) = "Emeĝargagsisa!"

Just a random thought.

You could even have moments like in Army of Darkness where they mispronounce the words...

>: ) mwha mwha mwha mwha!!!

The Campaign So Far

I'll have to check my GM notes, but so far the group of adventures has been checking out the buildings that litter the surface of Darves Hill.  The buildings have no windows, and were made from bricks of some dark material.  The mortar is a reddish gray, and all of the buildings are dark inside.  The roofs of these buildings vary, but some of them are very easily accessed with the help of a rope or ladder.

They have met several NPCs of note, and there are more waiting to get their face time in the campaign.

Old Manx, is a rugged old ex-adventurer, that sells maps to those that wish to plumb the depths of Darves Hill.  The maps are fairly vague, but it is very helpful to those who have never plumbed the megadungeon's depths.  It was also learned, that Marnal the Dwarf who lives on the surface of Darves Hill, recycles these maps off the corpses of dead adventurers and returns them back to Old Manx.

The whole idea for the campaign so far, is that a religious order of priests wants to reclaim Darves Hill, because they claim that they once had a mighty temple that was rumored to have fallen into corruption and decay.  This order wants to clear out the ancient temple, and make it holy once more.  They would also like to cleanse the temple of as much evil as possible.  These priests have strange names, and also have a one-eyed cyclops-like ogre, that continually builds the holy symbol of the pantheon that they worship out of stones in a large open field.  One of the adventurers (with a low Cha) treated him a little badly, but it didn't end in bloodshed.

So far, Darves Hill has claimed one of the lives of our small band of heroes, and it is most likely that many pyres will burn the bodies of those that the hill has claimed...

Darves Hill is a LL Campaign

This blog will be a place for me to talk about my Darves Hill megadungeon campaign.  I'm using the Labyrinth Lord rules (retro-clone of Basic & Expert Classic Dungeons & Dragons).  I run it once a month at my gaming club (G.A.S.P.) in Pittsburgh. 

So far we have had two sessions, with a limited number of people, but I'm hoping that the numbers will swell in the next several months.  Those that have played seem to be interested to continue to play, so that makes me smile.

I hope to take enough notes, so that I can chronicle what is going on in the campaign.

The main website for this campaign can be found here:
http://darveshill.bravehost.com