👤, ✍️, 💀, and 💓 for both Bellona and Ellywick? :))
👤 - what’s the origin behind their name? [either within or outside of their lore]
Ellywick:
So OOC Ellywick's name (Ellywick Asbestos Wormwise) came from a few different sources, because one of the source books says Gnomes generally have lots of names/nicknames and I like to play with that lore. I asked my friends for name suggestions, while also looking through the names in Xanathar's guide and seeing what names Fantasy Name Generator threw at me. I wrote everything that interested me down then spent some time picking my favorites! 'Asbestos' was a total joke name @sharkiethedork threw at me while she was very sick and taking cold medicine and I laughed and wrote it into Ellywick’s backstory :p
In-character, I've written between the lines of the lore that gnomes have so many names because each name signifies a different facet of themselves that they present in a different relationship with others. So they might use one name at work, another with their partner, and another yet with a group of friends, then use their favorite name as a 'default' in between. Ellywick doesn't have many friends though, so she never accumulated many nicknames to choose from. Her handful of given names (that I'd have to go into her word doc to find ^^;) are all from family members. Her father calls her 'Tappitha', which was also the name of a famous scholar from the Wormwise bloodline, and of course he was always strict with high expectations of her. Her mother only called her 'Ellywick' when the two of them were alone, which tended to be somewhat softer moments. 'Asbestos' was a mean nickname Ellywick's classmates gave to her at university after she proved herself accident-prone in the lab. She spitefully leaned into it and decided to make it a nickname worth having, at the very least.
When Ellywick was expelled and made her way for non-Gnomish settlements, she read up on the whole 'You can only have 3 names' custom. However, she slightly misunderstood the difference between middle names and the way nicknames can be included after the first given name, so she treats 'Asbestos' as a combination of both concepts. One last note is that her name gets casually shortened to ‘Elly’ a lot by party members, and she has definitely picked up on this and is beginning to consider it a new nickname :)
Bellona:
I sort of came up with Bellona’s name (Bellona Bumblefoot) out of the blue. Bumblefoot I think I decided on first, because it sounds like ‘bumblebee’ and is like a sort of clumsy-cute sort of thing (Apparently it is also the name of a disease birds can get and a rockstar but I knew neither of those at the time ^^;). I started trying out different first names that started with ‘B’ with it in my head for a little bit before ‘Bellona’ just popped in and I liked the sound of it so much that I couldn’t settle on anything else, despite the meaning (The Roman goddess of war, and aside from that just means ‘battle-ready’) not being super fitting for the shy personality I had already decided on at that point. I figured that goddess doesn’t necessarily have to exist in a game’s pantheon, and therefore 'Bellona’ could just be a name with a nice sound.
Gradually though, I decided to embrace her name still meaning ‘battle-ready’ in universe too. Since her character involves a lot of struggle against people’s initial perceptions and assumptions about her based on her being a goblin, having an unfitting name started to seem sort of fitting, actually. I don’t think it’s a stretch that her halfling parents maybe named her with that incorrect assumption about her future personality in the back of their minds (though it’s not like they were going to rename her because by the point they would have realized the error, ‘Bellona’ just meant their daughter). They also named her twin brother Bartholomew which means ‘son of the farmer’ and he’s the one that never took to living on a farm and wanted to leave so... 0 for 2 Bumblefoot parents. (Bellona does kinda kick ass in combat when she Zephyr Strikes in and shreds the back line casters tho... But only after she begs not to fight, lol)
✍️ - what do you like about them/what would you like about them, if they were a real person?
💀 - what do you dislike about them/what would you dislike about them, if they were a real person?
(I’m gonna combine these two)
Ellywick:
She’s funny and smart, definitely the kind of person that likes to make more obscure science jokes. She’s also pretty fiercely independent, and good at putting on a show of acting how she pleases and not caring what people think about her. I would watch across the classroom and think ‘she seems like she’s really got it put together’ for the first few weeks.
And then. She keeps not following procedures in lab, and is maybe sort of obnoxious actually, and god can she please stop arguing with the professor so we can finish the damn lecture?? She’s also the kind of person I would half be intimidated by but also half just have a sense that she’s trouble. So I would probably steer clear of any actual interaction with her, haha.
Bellona:
I think I would get along a lot better with Bellona irl. She’d be a really nice and genuine person to talk to and be friends with, and honestly it would be fun to listen to her just gush about bees and beekeeping all the time because she’s really passionate about it :)
The things I think I would dislike about her are that she’s a little stubborn/slow to take up on new things she doesn’t understand. In-universe this is magic, but in our world she would absolutely be the kind of person who just. refuses to learn how to use technology well and gets frustrated with it really easily. She’s also almost painfully shy, to the point where you really need to speak up for her quite often. Which I don’t wanna knock too hard because I was/sometimes still am that person but she’s definitely a character built out of recognizing that it’s not necessarily a good way to be
💓 - what’s something small that holds great significance to them? why?
Ellywick:
This is tough because beyond like some really obvious stuff I don’t know that she really places a lot of sentimental value in anything. Her Homunculus, Silly, is more like a pet which feels like cheating, and her non-Newtonian goo pistol is only important because it’s an invention she’s very proud of (plus she loves that she had to destroy a rare item to do it and that it pisses people off). I honestly wanna say the aforementioned name thing here with her party calling her ‘Elly’ now and not realizing that the new nickname actually means a lot to her
Bellona:
Again I’m not gonna say the bees because that feels like cheating lol. So instead... The feathers in her hood. Those weren’t part of the beekeeping suit before it was handed down to her, and I think Bellona probably added them to the outfit when she was very young and first visiting the hives with her dad. He thought it was absolutely adorable and encouraged her to keep doing it, maybe even adding them to his own suit as something special between the two of them. On her travels I’d think Bellona probably switches out specific feathers out if they get too worn, but having two feathers like antenna in the front of a hood or hat reminds her of home and her dad.
