The Ancients: Yes I know this trope is old but this is how I'm getting my d20 future crossover. These things made a colony 26000 years ago (c. 24500 BC). They're humanoid type but very alien - not quite aberrations but almost. They had progress level 8 technology. I need names for their species and civilization.
And some legendary NPCs that need names. These levels are super high so it took me a while to find some interesting builds. These are historical figures meant for pure fluff, are the highest level characters in history (character levels, classes, and dates from my simulator program), and not meant to be optimized NPCs.
A TN female dwarf cleric 36 from 5500 BC. I need something vaguely primal about this one, like a shamanistic dwarf society or something. I thought about druids but their tradition is already fleshed out.
A LE female elf sorcerer 16/incantatrix 10/archmage 5/elven high mage 10 from 860 BC. Commonly only known as "The Sorcerer". I need a name and a functioning build based on spontaneous casting that does not involve wizard. She started the Sorcerer War (which needs a new name as well) wherein the Priests of Ra attempted to destroy the fledgling art of sorcery because they perceived it as a threat.
A LN male elf wizard 17/loremaster 10/archmage 5/elven high mage 10 from 815 BC. Commonly known as "The Wizard", he formalized sorcery into the science of wizardry.
A NE male half-elf wizard (conjurer) 3/sorcerer 1/ultimate magus 10/thaumaturgist 5/archmage 5/loremaster 10/alienist 10. Presently named "Magus the Summoner" I decided the Chrono Trigger reference should be removed, so I need something else. In 215 BC, he accidentally summoned a colossal advanced paragon ELH-pseudonatural hecatoncheires sorcerer 21/dervish 10 from the far realm (with perfect multiweapon fighting, of course), who summarily killed this guy, and then conquered the world by setting up mile high towers in strategic locations and filling them to the brim with abomination-class monsters.
A LG female aasimar paladin 5/ranger 1/abolisher 10/sword of righteousness 3/divine crusader 10/divine champion 10/divine emissary 6 (ECL 47) from 521 AC. I'm currently using the name Raziel the Crusader but would prefer something else. This woman was the leader of an NPC party that liberated the world from the critter mentioned above and banished it once more to the far realm.
A LN male wu jen 24/psion 3/cerebremancer 10/archmage 5 from 1050 AC who was the primary caster in an epic spell that made a 150-mile radius archipelago permanently take flight. I would like a Japanese or Polynesian sounding name for this guy, although his nation is Fei Zhou (flying land if I guessed the translation correctly). Anyway, his name has got to suggest "incredible eastern mystic", and he holds the title High Imperial Wizard.
The Ancients: Call 'em the Sota, it's quite soft and intelligent sounding, yet ancient. Their civilisation could be called Minpatowa.
A TN female dwarf cleric 36 from 5500 BC: Dune Urumight
A LE female elf sorcerer 16/incantatrix 10/archmage 5/elven high mage 10 from 860 BC: Nix the Seven-Fingered
A LN male elf wizard 17/loremaster 10/archmage 5/elven high mage 10 from 815 BC. Elrune Caster
A NE male half-elf wizard (conjurer) 3/sorcerer 1/ultimate magus 10/thaumaturgist 5/archmage 5/loremaster 10/alienist 10: Orbist de Garo
A LG female aasimar paladin 5/ranger 1/abolisher 10/sword of righteousness 3/divine crusader 10/divine champion 10/divine emissary 6 (ECL 47) from 521 AC: Uriel of the Golden Banner
A LN male wu jen 24/psion 3/cerebremancer 10/archmage 5 from 1050 AC: Son Unkia Monagatari
as for people names, heres the list I use, feel free to use any of them you like.
Male
Arlen Orran
Vaas D'Voure
Orim Valonis
Vallen Silverwolf
Draco Kel'Morain
Garcen Wyrmslayer
Quillan Gwaylar
Egam Sumner
Loax
Cornell Farwalker
Cole Sen'dao
Dorin Flint
Kalkiirvec
Thayron Magnus
Daknar Ironfell
Ullek, the Tormented
Kul'zudar Raemsis
Javyar
Otikk Mandrake
--------------------------------
Female
Am'Lael Brineth
Kalindra
Amirin Galestrom
Oriana Moonflower
Leera Mistwalker
De'dra Mallov
Ellian Mistborn
Deirdra Vollier
Nasuka
Chirp: thanks for the list. Now you've got my mind going on fleshing out the Ancients more than just "mysterious alien semi-humanoid high tech colony".
Here's what I know about them: peaceful, human-looking tech (it's the template for most human technological development), elegantly shaped metal with crystal. Its civilization is downright weird. Their weaponry was very powerful, but rare. They used mecha of all sizes when forced to defend themselves.
The ancients had black chitinous skin. They were gaunt, 7 feet tall, were vaguely humanoid (two arms, two legs, two eyes). They had one mouth that opened sideways and one large gill like orifice on each cheek that were used for breathing. Their language is lost, but their writing suggests that it evolved into Old Draconic and Old Elvish. The language has a very alien grammer that is lost to history (DC 50 Speak Language check to translate if the character has ranks in both old draconic and old elvish).
Their most-preserved ruin is located in an area where time and space were considerably warped in the 1000's AC (the current year is 1412 AC) during a massive epic spell battle during the Second Ugrek War (that name is tentative). Basically what happened was somebody let out a nullball spell (an epic spell I made, destroy seed, 20d20 gravitational force damage in a 40 foot radius), and it hit a large gravitic generator, creating a similar effect as when two black holes collide, annihilating the building that it was in and spewing gravitons all over the place in such a way that a 5-mile radius is highly radioactive and exhibits non-euclidean geometry now, and random plane shifting happens every now and then.
But before that happened, it was a twisted pile of fallen 500-floor skyscrapers. I use d20 Apocalypse rules for them. A handful of substructures are severely damaged, one or two are unsafe to enter, and the rest are just rubble covered in tall grass and vines, with other ruins piled on top. The site is essentially a mountain of exotic metal (primarily starmetal, obdurium, megatanium, and neovulcanium) and crystal () with little bits of structures poking out in places. They've been looted clean (except for some small, hard to access areas to be determined by the DM). The site is an excellent place to acquire rare metals for building, if some way to get rid of the radiation can be found. Power plants also contain small amounts of highly radioactive neutronite, neutronium, and even trace quantities of orichalcum.
They had advanced robotics and utilized them. Almost all of them have long since stopped functioning. However, a few still work, with 99% of them malfunctioning in some way.
As to why the ancients left, they discovered that a nearby red giant was going to emit a gamma ray burst. They evacuated the planet and never came back for whatever reasons. That gamma ray burst killed 95% of all life on the planet and mutated the rest. It also caused a massive transference of energy from the various planes (particularly the positive energy plane), weakening planar boundaries across the world, creating wild & null magic zones, areas with localized planar traits, and triggering an incredible rebound in lifeform population and variety (hence the almost total recovery within 10000 years and presence of monsters and nonhuman races).
So far I'm using Dune, Nix, Kalkiirvec, and Uriel. The Sota sounds like a cool name, but it's not quite ringing right.
Maybe have a Elvish, Dragonic and Common name for them.
Like say;
Elic'deus, Akkadios & Arcdeus
Sum'of'al, Sunmaul & Sunnermal
Valusk, D'annar, Ixien, Annaroc, Odriian, Drusk
Just a few ideas off the top of my head given the information you provided.
I've named them Elic'deus, their elvish name. It fits because tribes in the Thin Lands worship them (they have always lived in the shadows of their ruins).
However, these NPCs that need names were produced by [thread=1174549]a computer program I wrote[/thread]. So I really don't know anything about them except for their levels (and I didn't bother to record their race, even though it's in there!), which I proceeded to fill out based on their times in history. I think I'm going to re-run the sim, only this time recording the race, class, gender, etc. for the record holders and ones over level 40.
Thanks for the names!
I did a little research and found this:
http://www.ufodigest.com/siriusb.html
There's an isolated tribe in West Africa that has an oral tradition that describes how aliens called the Dogon from the Sirius system used neutronium from Sirius B to genetically engineer humans at three different points in history. This history correlates with the Sumerian belief that amphibious alien humanoids named the Annunaki came to earth and settled Sumer. Of course this is one of those fringe sites, but it's pretty wild stuff and is a lot like how I envision my ancient ones.
Okay, here's the final names for the Ancients: they are named the Elic’deus by the elves, the Dogon by the tribesmen of the Thin Lands, the Anasazi by the tribesmen of the Mist Forest, the Annunaki by the Agans, and the Annaroc by the dragons. They are also nicknamed "bugmen" by the mercenaries of Temporus.