DnD on Earth?

[malak]

I'm sure it is good for some people. Just not for me.

The different LOTFP books are also widely different in quality. There's amazing stuff like Better than No Man and horrible trash like The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children...

[Anon_issue]

The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children

Oh boy. The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children. Sounds likes a very deep, thoughtful roleplaying experience written to the highest standards.

I'd just do "Earth, but myths are real" if you wanted a D&D Earth deal. No "secret prehistory" (like Conan) or secret post apocalypse (like Greyhawk). You can just get books of myths from your local library (or look them up online) if you need adventure inspiration for a specific region...or look at what monsters come from which mythologies and plan accordingly.

I did strongly consider that as an option. A lot of fantasy settings actually work exactly like that where there will be a not-Africa and a not-Asia and in each region you will find stuff based off African/Asian folklore respectively (Al-Qadim and Rokugan are good examples).

The problem for just doing that with Earth is that premise "Magic and Monsters have existed since forever, but in 1750 the world's economic and social structures are 95% percent identical to what they were in our world" is the kind of thing that rubs me the wrong way. It seems like lazy worldbuilding. What, the exact same ethnic/linguistic groups became dominant at the same time as in our world? All the same dynasties and nations became prominent at the same time as in our world? All the fashions and technological trends were the same? All (or at least most) of the famous people were also famous? And that's not even getting into long-term economic effects of Cure and flying mounts.

What would be really ideal be a "magic comes back" scenario like Shadowrun or Rifts, except in 1211 or 1411 instead of 2011. That leaves enough time for the fantasy stuff to be well-integrated while the history is still broadly recognizable.

I don't know, maybe what I want is just so specific there's just no mainstream option for it.

[Eikre]

You might benefit from one of the etymological maps by Omnimap.

This isn't a black mark on your suggestion, but how the fuck do they get "Marsh Farm" for D.C? It's Wheat Sheaf Town, located in the District of Dove-land. And the only etymology for "Penn" I can find indicates that it means "Head," not "Main Hill." "Defender of Men" as a component of Arlington?? Æþel is going to be cognate with some kind of inheritance from the last time it was a term in a spoken language all the way back to conjecture about proto-languages. They got Baltimore and some other stuff right but that entire sample is [citation needed] as fuck.

[angelfromanotherpin]

This isn't a black mark on your suggestion, but how the fuck do they get "Marsh Farm" for D.C? It's Wheat Sheaf Town, located in the District of Dove-land. And the only etymology for "Penn" I can find indicates that it means "Head," not "Main Hill." "Defender of Men" as a component of Arlington?? Æþel is going to be cognate with some kind of inheritance from the last time it was a term in a spoken language all the way back to conjecture about proto-languages. They got Baltimore and some other stuff right but that entire sample is [citation needed] as fuck.

The maps have their justifications on the back, but of course many names have multiple plausible etymologies and they often seem to have just picked whichever one seemed best to them. For instance, they trace Washington back to the Old English wase-tune (directly marsh-farm), but in other cases the same '-tune' root becomes 'town' and it's not at all clear why they chose one over the other.

[deaddmwalking]

I'm not gonna disagree with you, but according to the website,

The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today's maps of the World, Europe, the British Isles, Canada and the United States.

For instance, where you would normally expect to see the Sahara indicated, the Atlas gives you "The Tawny One", derived from Arabic es-sahra "the fawn coloured, desert".

The 'True Names' of 3000 cities, countries, rivers, oceans and mountain ranges are displayed on these four fascinating maps, each of which includes a comprehensive index of derivations.

The Wikipedia article for the origin of Washington indicates that 'wheat sheaf' might be a cognate with 'House of Vasa', but I'm not convinced that House of Vasa could be interpreted as 'wheat sheaf'. The modern Swedish word for Wheat appears to be 'vete', while 'vasa' appears most similar to the existing word for 'hiss' or 'fizz'.

So without seeing the derivation that Omnimap uses, I'm not ready to call it bullshit outright. Things like 'Pennsylvania' meaning roughly 'Penn's Woods' then becoming 'Land of the Main Hill Wood' seem strange - I think the surname Penn derives from 'an area that housed strayed animals or a hill'. But I'm not certain that 'Animal Enclosure Woodland' is any more or less accurate than what they went with.

[Eikre]

The Wikipedia article for the origin of Washington indicates that 'wheat sheaf' might be a cognate with 'House of Vasa', but I'm not convinced that House of Vasa could be interpreted as 'wheat sheaf'. The modern Swedish word for Wheat appears to be 'vete', while 'vasa' appears most similar to the existing word for 'hiss' or 'fizz'.

Well you're certainly right that the Wikipedia article is dubious, but it conforms to interpreting the "-ington/ingham" place name as a construction that conventionally would be wedded to inhabitants.

I do concede that the name could have easily just morphed from something similar into a form that merely resembled other names.