Troll Lord Games

Hallo . .

anyone have this book?

Thoughts and/or impressions.

Many thanks,

Rhu.

Rhu, it's a decent book. It's just that, though - a thesaurus. There's nothing more to it other than words, nothing too fancy about it. But it covers the gamut of fantasy and historical words quite extensively. So if you're looking for a resource to give you more variety verbally, or one that can help you be more descriptive, this will work well.

Personally, I like the Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference. I ran across this book years ago (10, 15?) in a used book store and it's been pretty awesome. I've used it quite extensively over the years. It's not as extensive in its word variety but what it lack there, it more than makes up for in its descriptions. It goes into detail about its terms and it has many other nifty suggestions. For example:

The Complete Writer's Fantasy Reference, page 11 wrote:marquess (marchioness): Dating from the eleventh century, this title originally applied to lord who were responsible to lords who were responsible for guarding border areas, known as marches.

Or

The Complete Writer's Fantasy Reference, page 15 wrote:deacon (deaconess): Such ordained churchmen, immediately subordinate to priests, were responsible for serving their assistants, in charge of the purification ceremonies connected with preparations for baptism and charged with the care of the poor and unfortunate.

We're old hats at this, so stuff like this might not be as helpful to you or I (though it was for me, truthfully). But it definitely got my creative juices flowing.

It also has other nifty bits. It has a world cultures section - If you want to base a region of your campaign (or there's one that already exists in a published campaign setting) off of Mayan cultures, it talks about the different aspects of their (and other cultures) arts and sciences, government, military, economy, etc. There's a large section about magic. One part I thought really helped me was it presented questions on how to view magic in your world. Are there stories about famous wizards? What's their social status? Are there societies of them secluded away from the rest of the world?

There's a ton more: professions in a medieval/fantasy world by class (lower, middle, upper) and terms with brief descriptions for punishments, races, arms and armor, clothes, castles, and more.

I know you asked about the Storyteller's Thesaurus, Rhu, and I'm sorry I went off about a different book altogether. They actually do two different things, so having both isn't a bad thing. Every time I think about the ST, I'm reminded of the Fantast Reference. I guess I had expectations that the Storyteller's Thesaurus was going to be like the the WCFR and it wasn't, so I found myself going back to the latter book, still, after picking up the Thesaurus. Is the Storyteller's Thesaurus worth the $25? Yes. But if you haven't taken a look at the Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference, it's worth a look, too.

I bought it to support, but I doubt I will ever use it much.. not with the internet and duckduckgo or google. More useful than a buggy whip in my car, but not much.

Thanks LD. I see the WCFR is available for cheap in paperback on Amazon. I'll probably pick that up next time I put together an order.

As for the ST - I'll watch for that when TLG offers damaged books on sale.

Thanks CaptK - what's a buggy whip? Just kidding, the whip would be cool to use - but prolly not inside a car especially if there are passengers.

[Years ago when I was a kid. My dad was showing a friend his bull whip in his office and cracked it nice. The friend jumped up and said, OMG man, you almost took your son's eye out - I felt the wind tickle my eyelashes]

Dad was so sorry - ice cream sundaes for days . .

The buggy whip's only real use in modern car is to "reach" the problem kids in the back of the van while keeping one's on the road :}

And it moves along slow cattle in the road and Canadian Geese too.