If you havent noticed (which you probably have) there sre many norse legends in BG2, for instance, the god TYR is the norse god of justice, Illmater is the norse god of suffering, Drow are norse, the nine hells or nine worlds are norse, Aegis-fang derived from Mjollnir, Thors hammer. There is a norse god called Balder, also much if not most of icewind dale is norse, There is much more as well!

Whoa, I didn't know that Obsidian! I guess one of the creators of those games was Norwegian......

apparently the Forgotten Realms people were Norwegian. it's not just BG2, but the entire AD&D setting.

If I remember right, Tethyr is the name of a Nordic province or municipality; I forget which, but I do remember that name being a real place. Also, "King Strom", the buried king in Windspear Hills that was an ancient king of Tethyr..."Strom" means "current" in German; both water current and electrical current (thus, Angstrom). [img]smile.gif[/img]

-Sazerac

[ 07-04-2002, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Sazerac ]

maybe they just liked norse mythology

I think they got Baulder from an old fantasy book

It was about this gnome named Baldur, who fished the seas north of Annen

Balurs Gate Baldur sailed the seas north of Amn, very simmillair, and he was a dwarf, not a gnome

No, the people who created AD&D, Forgotten Realms etc. just didn't have a very good imagination ;)
A lot of the place names and gods are simply derived from existing mythologies (Mielikki for example is a Finnish goddess), like the ones Obsidian mentioned.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the same is true of the creators of the BG series: lots of references to be found...
Anyone notice the whole thing with selling souls, Marlowe and VonGoethe in TOB... too corny! :D

[ 07-05-2002, 06:24 AM: Message edited by: Melusine ]

Like Mel said, it's a bit o' this, a bit o' that. ;)

thinking up new names is hard. it's much easier to find an existing name from some obscure old mythology than it is to make up a new name that sounds good. If you use too many names like "dave" "tom" and "mike" it seems really uninventive. good "fantasy-sounding" names are hard to come by. ancient texts have much cooler names.

If you care to see Ad&d books of monsters, you will see, that almost nothing is original. Most monster and even itens, stories and cosmovision of AD&D is based in something else. No mentioned before, trolls are of nordic tradition and elves are saxonic. I guess nordic mithology is just another good source, because it´s soo rich and can be easily researched.