So what is it lorewise?

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IIRC it is basically as you saw in HotU. Outsiders know their own true names, normal people don't.
Although I'm not an expert on lore.

EDIT: I recalled incorrectly

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Truenaming is essentially drawing on the Language which created the Universe, and speaking it in a fashion which creates effects, not unlike Magic.

Also , if I remember rightly this is the same Language off which True names are based. (Something everyone, every place, and everything techinically has)

((If you want a good book to look into that will have more information, the 3.5 book Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow and Truename is a good book))

I found these:








I also discovered a spell called True Name but I've not found out what book it's from.

Edit: Oops, forgot to search through a few books >.>







I also found that Truename is a level 7 spell, but not what it does =P

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Grymia's post is the most correct in the topic. As well, because it's such an alternative magic source, it requires a DM request if you're going to play a Truenamer or start using Truename magic, generally. Exceptions would be easy things that are already DM monitored by definition: I.e. learning an NPC villain's True Name.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Do you know where to get it, or if it's still in print?

Edit: I should note in the dwarven wedding ceremony, I am unsure if they mean truename literally, or whether it is just a different name. I was going to scrap it altogether until I saw truename used in-context later

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Since it's 3.5, probably not.

But.. pdfs... >.>

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I hate it when companies stop printing a book, but refuse to waive copyright or provide an alternate means of legally acquiring it.

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Legality matters on the internet, what?

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Every living (and unliving) being is in possession of a True Name, be they normal mortal, undead creature like a powerful lich, a spirit, a demon, a devil, a deity, etc. The True Name is attached to your very existence: your True Name embodies not only All that you Are, but all that you Have Been and also All that you Will Be. It is never really known to things on the Material Plane. For spirits, demons, and devils, and elementals, beings that have been born in realms that are potentially "closer" to the metaphysical spawning pool of reality, the True Name is more likely to be known....but they will NEVER go by their True Name.

Interpreting the meaning of a True Name is an art almost entirely lost to even the most epic magicians of the day and age. Perhaps only Oghma, and maybe Deneir, can unwravel the pantemporal meaning of a True Name so that they may immediately know all there is to know about the Named.

To those of you who understand the magical principles of Sympathy and Contagion that I have explained on this forum, the True Name is the ultimate sympathetic component. It is the very best thing you can possibly have to affect a being with your own dominant Will, no matter where they may be. You hear stories about magicians who summon and bind devils to their Will, and do so without ever having to enter into a Faustian pact or ill negotiation? Magicians do this by potentially risking their lives (or entering into Faustian pacts with OTHER devils/demons) to learn the True Name of their subject...and adding the True Name to a Ritual of Binding ensures that the subject will undeniably do as you command, for as long as you know the True Name, you have total control over the individual...provided you also understand how to make the magic work for you.

True Names are not something that should ever enter any RP that isn't DM-supervised due to the incredibly high magic and abuse potential. Not to mention the fact that only the greatest loremasters would even know they'd found a True Name.

No one really knows what form a True Name may take. It could be ridiculously long, or simplistically short. It could be nothing more than primal urges rendered into divine phoentics, a la Enochian. I rather fancy that, in FR, True Names are spoken in the tongue Oghma first brought to a thinking universe - a tongue that may never have been spoken by anyone but Oghma Himself, and those few who have dared to tamper with the power of True Names.

Entities that are aware of their own True Names guard them jealously. In fact, it is said that some great and powerful beings (this does not include any PC, because none of you are cool enough to compare) have scribed their True Name into a tome, onto a tablet, or burned it into the mind of a ward and locked this "record" away in some secluded location, a pocket dimension or a place where no one would look. In doing so, they supposedly block any attempts to interpret their True Name, or perhaps defeat any magician trying to use their True Name against them if they do not have the tome/tablet/source where their True Name was inscribed. Doing so is a great protection, but not without its equally incredible risk...if say, that devil had an imp serving him, an imp that hid the True Name somewhere, and that imp one day betrays its master by speaking the location of the True Name to a group of canny adventurers...

Magicians in institutions and Orders not unlike the Tower of Mystra have a tradition that pays some reverence to the notion of True Names. These are called Craft Names, and I do wish to see more magicians in Amia taking advantage of this neat mystical tradition.

A Craft Name is not a True Name, but some arcane scholars suggest that it might be a clue, a key, a hint, or some intuitive resonance of a magician's True Name. A Craft Name is typically composed of the magician's name, a name that he has chosen for himself, followed by the name his parents gave unto him (if there is a difference), followed by a precise listing of certain accomplishments.

Example:

Yossarin, Sunsinger, Inheritor of the Cantomantic Way, Scarlet Rebel, Conqueror of Gold and Man's Heart, Dervish of the San Szuri, He Who Fell From High, Ribboned by Grace etc. etc.

Craft Names tend more towards a kind of esoteric ostentation than the usual banal listing of mundane titles and offices. They speak ambiguously of things that have been done, and sometimes hint at things that the Named wishes to do or accomplish in his/her life.

There is a more secretive development of a Craft Name called a Shadow Name.

The Shadow Name is also not a True Name, but it may be closer to the True Name than a Craft Name. A Shadow Name is organized not unlike a Craft Name, but there is far, far, far more attention paid to the arrangement of syllables and the diction. Supposedly, a Shadow Name reaches for what the Deneirians call the "metatext".

The Shadow Name is never built or constructed, per se. It is intuited. It may never have anything to do with the True Name. Or it might actually have, within it, a single phoentic syllable that comprises the actual True Name...though you may never know which one, if any. The one that does would be considered part of the "metatext", which is essentially the oral language of True Names, according to Deneiran belief.

Screw official FR Lore, by the way, this stuff is way cooler.

Amen.

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I'd only ever heard of briefly before Yossarin put some flesh on the thought. Very interesting indeed:)

And from what I could see from Yurell's excerpts the realms lore is not really complete on the matter.

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Question for DMs; I traded one of my PCs soul to another character (Scarlet? The winged devil-woman) under DM supervision to be able to summon an Imp as a servant. She then gave me a piece of paper(emoted) and told me that I must use this name when summoning and the Imp would be mine forever. Based on the above I would assume that what she gave me was an Imps True Name?

Also, can I still use this? I cannot remember who oversaw the little exchange but I have RPed the soul belonging to someone else when I die thing since it happened. So my question, do I still have the true name of an Imp?

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Jess Incognito:- Ah, but the phoenix may fly only when its feathers are grown...

Olaf Grudgebringer: Stroppy Cleric or Morradin

Krunk (Underdark): Stay back! He's a bit mad.

the_incognitos@live.com

everyone else except Yossarin didn't actually answer my question, and I didn't request truenaming to my PC's, to their summons or anything like that, I just wanted to know what the h*** it was all about!

so summed up: true name is something that every creature (and even object?) have, and revealing it, you might get superior control over said creature?

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Categories and actions also have Truenames, if we're talking about the alternate magic class in Tome of Magic. There's a Truename for "kill the orc", for example. You don't have to know the name of the specific orc. And the Truenamer class doesn't (IIRC) gain complete control over a being whose True Name he knows. He also has to know the names of the actions he wants to connect to the being. He can't make the being fly or explode unless he knows the truenaming commands for flying and exploding, I suppose. It's pretty obscure and silly, IMO, and True Names of entities are more interesting.

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Yes. The superior control comes from using the True Name in a magical ritual in some way. That lvl 30 Ftr/WM may have the true name of a powerful demon, but he doesn't have a clue what to do with it - but he better get a mage to help him with it ASAP, because he is about to have that demon sending hordes after him to drag him down into hell. Or come after the guy himself to take that True Name back.

Objects may or may not possess True Names. If the idea that the metatext spoken of by Deneiran and Oghmanyte scholars is the source of the True Name, then it stands to reason that All things which exist possess a True Name...

...but the True Name really means nothing unless the bearer of the True Name has a Will of its own. Because as I said, the True Name is a pantemporal record of All that a thing was, is, and will be, and the vast majority of non-living objects really only exist to serve one extremely static purpose, and may therefore lack significant complexity. I would say that if objects do have a True Name, it is negligible, and there's no great threat in discovering it, and thus no impetus to keep it so intensely hidden.

I also mentioned earlier that deities, even, should have True Names. Naturally, the question is raised: can you control a GOD if you know the god's True Name?

IMO, those beings that achieve a "divine rank" and become part of the pantheon are immune to control via the True Name. Personally, I believe this is because the individual who becomes a god attains gnosis, reaches apotheosis (call it whatever you like), and the Will then becomes greater than the True Name. Ungodly beings are bound by their True Names, which again, are pantemporal records of All that they Are. They cannot change anything about their True Name. Gods, however, upon attaining a divine rank, transcend their True Name, which then becomes a malleable thing...perhaps even losing all meaning whatsoever.

In addition, gods exist in liminal time and therefore the idea of a single Name that embodies all that they Were, Are, and Will Be becomes consistent with their True Self...because, in liminal time, you are existing as all that you Were, Are, and Will Be. Hypothetically speaking, upon achieving a divine rank, a deity becomes His or Her True Name.

I remember that, it was Alicera in Cordor square.

Yes! Alicera! That was it... the Scarlet thing came from that damned banner I always see in the forum... the one with the red woman that looks like a Bikers tattoo.

So, was it a true name? Can I keep it? It cost me heaps.

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Jess Incognito:- Ah, but the phoenix may fly only when its feathers are grown...

Olaf Grudgebringer: Stroppy Cleric or Morradin

Krunk (Underdark): Stay back! He's a bit mad.

the_incognitos@live.com

As far as I am concerned, you can RP it as such, but for one reason: it is your actual summon, given to you by an easily and normally obtained class/item. We allow you to, for the most part, have your own RP regarding your summon and your relationship with your summon, and if you want to RP it as a minor demon (imp) that you have bound to you through its True Name, that is fine. Were I to play a solid Wizard, I would RP almost all of my own summons exactly like that.

Does that mean I cannot trade this True Name to someone else? I haven't used it yet you see.

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Jess Incognito:- Ah, but the phoenix may fly only when its feathers are grown...

Olaf Grudgebringer: Stroppy Cleric or Morradin

Krunk (Underdark): Stay back! He's a bit mad.

the_incognitos@live.com

There's some books on Truenaming that are easily accessible In-Game. Estara has them and I kinda RPed her as obsessing over them for awhile. I was interested in it OOCly, too, but it's an obscure thing to get into. And I know nothing about FR.

Just saying, because I bet loooots of people know Truenaming exists. Oh and in the books In-Game, it didn't seem to have much to do with magic. It seemed like a fighter could use someone's Truename as easily as a mage, but maybe I'm wrong. I think the difference is that mages just know moreso how to go about attaining the knowledge of one.

Isn't the "ability" of a Truename just speaking it? Anyone could do that.. no?

I believe t needs to be done in a magic ritual. I do not believe speaking the name alone is enough (although I could be wrong).

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There's a bit of a difference between the True Names of individuals and how they give you power, and the class Truenamer. The Truenamer is like an arcane spellcaster who learns dozens of new Truenames upon level-up, commands to manipulate targets in a multitude of ways.

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You're right. Speaking the name alone gives you no power over a creature. However, the most powerful entities may have the ability to hear their True Name being spoken, even from across the planes...

So I can't sell the Imps True Name?

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Jess Incognito:- Ah, but the phoenix may fly only when its feathers are grown...

Olaf Grudgebringer: Stroppy Cleric or Morradin

Krunk (Underdark): Stay back! He's a bit mad.

the_incognitos@live.com

What do you think? I've actually already answered this question in the thread indirectly.

Stupid me...read what's written.

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Jess Incognito:- Ah, but the phoenix may fly only when its feathers are grown...

Olaf Grudgebringer: Stroppy Cleric or Morradin

Krunk (Underdark): Stay back! He's a bit mad.

the_incognitos@live.com

I'm still interested in how you would make that work from an OOC perspective, hence why I asked what you were thinking.

Sorry, I misunderstood. The way it worked IC was that Alciera gave me the Imps true name and I was to use this name when I summoned the creature, thus granting me the power to call that specific Imp back when I wanted it.

However, I have not as yet completed this summoning IC and as such I have at my disposal the means to bind an Imp in servitude. I expect that this would be a valuable thing that many a spell caster would want, more so as it would allow a caster to summon a creature from a plane they would usually not be able to access.

Unless of course I have this whole True Name deal wrong?

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Jess Incognito:- Ah, but the phoenix may fly only when its feathers are grown...

Olaf Grudgebringer: Stroppy Cleric or Morradin

Krunk (Underdark): Stay back! He's a bit mad.

the_incognitos@live.com

As far as I'm aware it's usually used to bind a creature far more powerful than one could normally or have greater control over the summoned creature (including not paying it if it is Called).

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Basically if you find out the True Name of Orcus for example expect to get smacked down no matter where you hide

For more Truenaming Goodness, while NOT D&D - I'd try the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. The entire magic of the stories is made up of True Names. Power over yourself and over everything comes from knowing their true names.

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