So for those who aren't aware, a collective noun is a count noun that strings together a group of individuals that have some sort of string running through them. So in magic, there have been a couple already printed (crash of rhinos, murder of crows), but i was wondering if anyone out there has heard of or know of the official or most commonly used collective nouns for magic-specific races? so for example eldrazi or sliver or myr?
an annihilation of eldrazi? a sliver of slivers? a cute of myr? that was a quick stab in the dark, but i'm sure someone more knowledgable/creative out there can correct me/improve my attempts!
Bunch of small Eldrazi are a "Brood", a lot more become a "Swarm", just like insects
An eldrazi brood means something more like "family" or "lineage". It doesn't refer to groups of a certain size.
Id say thats more a breed, while a brood is actually a single flush of newborn, so how many that is, depends on the animal (might be just 3 or many many more), so at least a "bunch" In case of Eldrazi thats allready quite a lot i assume that hatch in one brood.
A lot of broods become a swarm, by definition "a lot of". For insects a small number doesnt make a swarm, you need a LOT to make a swarm. Not a real defined number like exactly 500 or something, but A LOT (an insect swarm is really huge). For bees that would probably be a hive.
At least for me a brood is smaller than a swarm in any context i could think of.
A brood of birds is pretty much a "family" (mother bird, papa bird, bunch of little birds) , a flock is the bigger bunch of broods and birds.
But a "swarm" of birds, would be even bigger, many times.
I make a motion to call a group of minotaurs a "labyrinth of minotaurs."
Homarids, being basically slightly humanoid lobsters, would be a "pod of homarids."
Salamanders are apparently a "congress," so that leaves us with a "congress of amphins," which seems appropriately mysterious, given what we know about them.
Seeing that "atog" is an anagram of "goat," due to their similar association with eating everything, we could possibly use one of the collective names for goats, though none of them really stand out as super appropriate to me: tribe, trip, drove, herd, flock. Maybe something eating related? An "appetite of atogs," perhaps?
Let's bust a few out; a "line of assembly--workers," an "abnormality of weirds," an "uncertainty of shapeshifters," a "variability of changelings," and a "fortess of walls" all seem suitable to me. I'm just having fun here.
No one is going to convince me that there is a better name for a group of slivers than a "sliver of slivers." It even feels the right amount of awkward to say that it's just perfect for them.
A group of ants are called an "army," and since myr are heavily inspired by ants, right down to the etymology of their name, I think it's safe to say it'd be an "army of myr," at least until we come up with something better.
Following the unstructured logic of giraffes being a "tower," porcupines being a "prickle," hyenas being a "cackle," and roaches being an "intrusion," I vote that eldrazi should be something along the lines of an "incomprehension of eldrazi."
Other types unique to Magic are harder to come up with. Species such as kavu, kor, licids, surrakar, and vedalken are so different from anything real-world or present in other franchises (even with certain similarities) that it's difficult to make proper assumptions. I'm not even gonna attempt to unravel the intricacies of the dauthi, soltari, and thalakos races.
an annihilation of eldrazi? a sliver of slivers? a cute of myr? that was a quick stab in the dark, but i'm sure someone more knowledgable/creative out there can correct me/improve my attempts!
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Myr in high enough numbers become a Myr Battlesphere ;P
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An eldrazi brood means something more like "family" or "lineage". It doesn't refer to groups of a certain size.
Id say thats more a breed, while a brood is actually a single flush of newborn, so how many that is, depends on the animal (might be just 3 or many many more), so at least a "bunch" In case of Eldrazi thats allready quite a lot i assume that hatch in one brood.
A lot of broods become a swarm, by definition "a lot of". For insects a small number doesnt make a swarm, you need a LOT to make a swarm. Not a real defined number like exactly 500 or something, but A LOT (an insect swarm is really huge). For bees that would probably be a hive.
At least for me a brood is smaller than a swarm in any context i could think of.
A brood of birds is pretty much a "family" (mother bird, papa bird, bunch of little birds) , a flock is the bigger bunch of broods and birds.
But a "swarm" of birds, would be even bigger, many times.
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Faeries obviously appear in swarms (Faerie Swarm) and Pegasi in herds (Storm Herd).
And at least in Shadowmoor, Elves come in droves (Drove of Elves).
And whatever creature type appears in way too large numbers on the board, the whole lot can probably be called a pest.
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Homarids, being basically slightly humanoid lobsters, would be a "pod of homarids."
Salamanders are apparently a "congress," so that leaves us with a "congress of amphins," which seems appropriately mysterious, given what we know about them.
Seeing that "atog" is an anagram of "goat," due to their similar association with eating everything, we could possibly use one of the collective names for goats, though none of them really stand out as super appropriate to me: tribe, trip, drove, herd, flock. Maybe something eating related? An "appetite of atogs," perhaps?
Let's bust a few out; a "line of assembly--workers," an "abnormality of weirds," an "uncertainty of shapeshifters," a "variability of changelings," and a "fortess of walls" all seem suitable to me. I'm just having fun here.
No one is going to convince me that there is a better name for a group of slivers than a "sliver of slivers." It even feels the right amount of awkward to say that it's just perfect for them.
A group of ants are called an "army," and since myr are heavily inspired by ants, right down to the etymology of their name, I think it's safe to say it'd be an "army of myr," at least until we come up with something better.
Following the unstructured logic of giraffes being a "tower," porcupines being a "prickle," hyenas being a "cackle," and roaches being an "intrusion," I vote that eldrazi should be something along the lines of an "incomprehension of eldrazi."
Other types unique to Magic are harder to come up with. Species such as kavu, kor, licids, surrakar, and vedalken are so different from anything real-world or present in other franchises (even with certain similarities) that it's difficult to make proper assumptions. I'm not even gonna attempt to unravel the intricacies of the dauthi, soltari, and thalakos races.
Thoughts though?
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And I don't know that you'll come up with any sort of collective for humanoid races (vedalken, soltari, thalakos, etc) that isn't incredibly awkward.
How about Spirits? I think the term for a group of ghosts is a "fright." But these are spirits. So, uh... how about a "haunt of spirits"?
With the myr though, I was thinking that a cuteness of myr seemed to fit since that's what most people think of them..
An aura of licids maybe?
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