#also originally I didn't know I'd be creating a durge version of aune but that ended up working so well too! one side moves towards life

[spiritsong]

A fun anecdote about Aune's name —

So, I've had this note on my phone for YEARS that is just a list of names that I enjoy that sound at least vaguely appropriate for a fantasy setting. I pick from it whenever I'm playing a video game and need a name for my character. The name Aune had long lived on this list, but I had yet to use it.

Before I even got my hands on the EA version of the game, I already knew I wanted to play a half-Drow Cleric of Eilistraee. Though I didn't know that I'd be multiclassing her as a bard yet in the full release, I was at least RPing that she was a dancer and musician, as per the Sword-Dancer tradition. I came up with the bones of her backstory — that a tragic and mysterious event that occurred at the time of her birth gave her a unique understanding & intimacy with the forces of life and death, and as such, ending up as a Life Domain cleric felt right to her. This seesawing between two opposing forces would be symbolic of her journey in understanding her own morality and concept of self. (Also, from a meta standpoint, this backstory gave me the space to change my mind and class as a necromancer while still keeping the same character, because I just really love necromancers.)

I also already knew that she would live some time as a slave, as she'd be born to a parent with a decent social status in Lolthite society (so raising a half-elf would be unthinkable). And of course this would play into her personal connection to Eilistraee.

Well, some time passed after that, and it occurred to me that maybe Aune wasn't an appropriate name for a Drow. Obviously at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, but these sorts of things have a way of bothering me until I can't function anymore lmao so I decided to look up a naming resource. I found a detailed list of prefixes and suffixes in the Drow language, along with associated meanings, allowing you to build a name that's suitable.

WELLLLL imagine my surprise when I found:

Prefix Aun—, meaning: crypt, dead, deathly, death Suffix —aun, meaning: dance, dancer, life, player *Suffix —e, meaning: servant, slave, vassal

yeah. I was honestly a bit scared lol

but if I had been toying with the idea of playing a different Tav, that discovery IMMEDIATELY put the idea out of my head.

Aune was ~ meant to be ~

*Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Aune's given name was Aun, but the —e was added on when she was first sold as a slave. In present time, she refuses to drop the letter; she prefers to keep it as a reminder of what she endured and how it has shaped the person she has become.

another fun little detail is that the Aun— is the feminine version of this prefix, and —aun is the masculine of the suffix. I was happy about it turning out that way because Aune is agender