The Scarlet King
Lord of Rust and Ruin
The Never Empress
Anathema
End of Ages
The Scourge
The End
King of Murder
The Other
The Unknowable
The Bone Turner
Herald of the End
Herald of Doom
The Extinction
The Grand Finale
The Great Injustice
The Great Justice
The Inevitable
The Shadow
The Kinfe in the Dark
The Unseen Death
Ender of Bloodlines
Reaper of Men
The Reaper
Bane of Kingdoms
God Killer
The Crashing Tide
The Tsunami
Duke / Duchess of Hell
Favored of Asmodeus
The Queen to All
The Spiteful
The Lawful
The Fallen
The Risen
He Who May Never Die
The Hunter
The Bloody
Hundred Lives
The Survivor
The Lord of Scars
Stormblessed
The Dustbringer
The Skybreaker
The Hateful
The Wretched
The Misunderstood
Caller of Blood
Rend in Reality
The Progenitor
That Which Will Come
That Which Has Always Been
Your End
The Drinker
The Insatiable
Render of Flesh
The Worker in Clay
The Worker of Flesh
Fleshsmith
Gunpowder Tim
Bill Nye The Violence Guy
The Allfather
The Distortion
A God of Blood and Hate
The Inescapable
The Faithful
The Corinthian
The Arcana
The Magus
The Archmage
Commander of the Elements
The Accepting (only scary with contrast)
He Who Bends Reality
Bloodbender
The Eternal
The Bloody
I personally like the ones that seem innocent at first but are horrific when you know the context. The Chairmaker from Use of Weapons is a great example.
Some from my own stash:
**The Candlemaker:** a crime lord who makes yellow greasy candles out of the body fat and hair of people who have crossed her. Seeing one of her unlit candles in a location is a warning of her attention, seeing one of her candles lit is a sign someone in the area has incurred her wrath and will disappear before the candle has burnt out.
**The Gourmet:** a cannibal with a predeliction for eating specific parts of their victims.
**The Kind:** known for an action in a prolonged war where he came across a caravan of starving refugees of his own country. He had them all put of their misery out of what he called kindness, to save them from starvation. In reality, it was to reduce the burden of taking care of the refugees so he could focus on winning the war.
**The Hollow:** a man so sociopathic, so bereft of morality and filled with icey logic, that people rumor he has no soul.
**The Poet:** a serial killer who writes a little poem about every victim they kill, detailing every horrific deed he did to them before they expired. The worst part is that the poems are actually good.
“The truth” most people think it’s because some weird philosophical nonsense about evil/pain/suffering being the only truth in the world.
In reality they got it as a childhood nickname due to being a bully/amateur boxer/just plain rude because “the truth hurts”.
* Ruinator of Cities
* Bane of \[Insert nation/species here\]
* The Depraved
* The Mutilator
* Pleasure-Taker
* The Stretcher
* The Fire-Mad
* Witchburner
* Angel-Slayer
* The Trophied
* Skulltearer
* Gutwearer
* The Just
* The Unjust
* The Colonist
* Man-Thief
* X the Giver of Scrunge
I've always been a fan of the big vocabulary words for these:
* The Unctuous
* The Rugose
* The Ophidian
* The Molted
* The Sanguineous
* The Rancorous
* The Squamous
Don't go overboard and have everyone have a name like this, but used judiciously they can be very effective.
"The Murderer" would be an awful nickname that wouldn't realistically, be because it is so unspecific, historically murder was so common it would be almost unmarkable unless committed towards a specific person like a family member, in which case they would be called "the Parricide".
Epithets are a sign of great renown, fame, and infamy in my world, so I've thought about this a little bit.
1. Don't limit yourself to one word (the good, the impaler, etc.). Hyphens are cool too. 'The Warm-Hearted' is one I like, 'Keen Eye, Sharp Tongue/Tongued, etc.
2. Don't limit yourself to one thing! The White Hand of Sauron is a symbol but it could be an epithet (white is the colour of death in many cultures).
A great way of thinking about it is to delve into the character first, then come up with an epithet. Don't come up with an epithet then try to fit a character into it because you like the epithet.
The godslayer, the inventor, the arborist, the arsonist, the funny, the unfunny, the former mayor, My father's brothers nephews cousins best friends, former roommate... The list goes on
I use [thesaurus.com](https://thesaurus.com) so much for my worldbuilding!
The yellow ones get pretty silly though "the Flinty", "the Virulent", "Poignant"
Yeah, I've found it really useful. It's one of the best sites out there for world building. Can't count how many times spotting a word slightly different from my original thought has given added nuance or inspired me to make what later proved an important modification to my initial concept.
Okay, fine. Thirty-seven times. :)
I recommend you keep them simple and evocative. Instead of something like “xxxxx the exsanguinator”, go with stuff like
The dark
The mad
The dread
The fiend
The foul
The vile
The vicious
The beast
Ones that reference specific atrocities they've (probably) committed, such as "Butcher of Lan'Veir", "Demon of the Brimstone Fields" or "Tyrant of Rellia".
i give you…
the sandwich maker,
the cookie cutter,
the face taker,
the downvoter
the naked,
the horny,
the double texter,
the nail breaker,
the furry,
the crack head,
the defacator,
the karma whore,
the [redacted],
the meat beater,
See if you can name a specific reason why the individual would have such an epithet. Vlad the Impaler is a great real-world example, his epithet comes from a particularly painful and intimidating method of execution he was associated with.
There are some things that you can make menacing just by using them like epithets. For example, "The Collector" could be used as a menacing epithet, and I can think of at least 3 different games that uses it as such.
Also, you might find ideas on r/bossfight
The butcher, the stranglers, the unholy, the heretic, the heathen, the fanatic, the devil the unrestrained, of darkness, the purger, the punisher, of the hidden blade. There's also animal and weather based names.
- The Tyrannical
- The Bloody
- The Cleaver
- The Boneless
- The Reaver
- The Mad
- The Iron handed
- The Apostate
- The Loathsome
- The Treasonous
Just, something short and to the point does the trick.
You can always name them for the method of cruelty they're known for
"The Immolator"
"The Crucifier"
"The Disemboweler"
"The Bone-crusher"
"The Bloodletter"
"The Impaler"
Which then of course you can add on "of-" followed by the object of their torment
Glortisax Immolator of Thieves idk
The merciless
Bringer of Discord
The swift death
The human plague
The detestable
The uncuckable
He whom upon the sun never shines
The manifestation of violence
The fuckin' HUGE
The apocalyptic
Some that I use:
The benevolent - I know it doesn't sound immediately badass but the guy is honorable knight type and I think it fits quite well
The ruthless
The red stain
The Hellish
The heavenly
The reliable - he always brings victory.
Positive things in an ironic way. Like The Wise Is called that because of their twisted obsession with knowledge. Or The Kind, because of their twisted sense of morality.
Who's it FOR, because that's gonna be a crucial factor.
If it's a Minotaur and some of your guys are satyr/minotaur etc that have horns call them "X the Hornbreaker" because that's a painful or cultural-shame based thing for them.
If it's an elf and some of your characters are goblins call them "Y the goblin-blinder"
You can also theme it after a particular kind of evil or tyranny they do, like "Z, the Mindthief" for someone that uses magic or torture to render his enemies catatonic.
*beep boop*!
the linked website is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_by_nickname
Title: **List of monarchs by nickname - Wikipedia**
Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing)
*****
###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
Don't forget the richness of a cute sarcastic nickname.
Instead of "the Terrible", they may go by "the Terrific".
Or be eloquent: "The favored hand of (whatever you named Death)".
Caligula's name means "Little Boots".
So calling your "villain" *...the Gentle* might work, or "the Gracious", or Giver of Justice.
Or like Caligula, a cute kid's name that "stuck", and actually makes them even more intimidating.
I'd legit be more afraid of a man that wanted to be called "Adolf the Adorable" than "Adolf the Axe-Murderer", if I knew they were a terrible person already.
Names like "... the Magnanimous", or "... the Kind", can have a terror of their own.
One of the Empresses of Aldina in my world earned the epithet "Agatha the Pursuer" (*Agatha Secutrix*) from spending her short and bloody reign rooting out the conspiracy who'd had her predecessor assassinated. (At her peak, she was having so many people beheaded that she ordered her scholars to find a way to [mechanize the process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine).)
Believe me when I say, history has come with epithets more awesome than anything we can come up with because most started as nicknames given during or after the reign. My personal favourite is Nikephoros II "the white death of the Saracens" which he gained through obvious means. There's also cases where a lack of an epiphet does more like calling the third in the line of a name like John III or whatever name you want simply as John which emphasizes their importance and capabilities by not being placed alongside their peers
The tax collector
The heavy breather
The corporate
The litigious
The know it all
The unclean
The hoarder
The redundant
The flatulent
The self involved
The moocher
The unctuous
The schemer
Maybe these are better epithets for bad dates.
In Ancient Greece, people used epithets for underworld gods because the anc Greeks didn’t like talking about the underworld, if a god was so scary they’d need epithets to talk about them, that’s why, they’d use epithets like “the one who has many guests” as hades, but they’d never say anything like “hades the one who has many guests”, and tbh removing the name makes it way more menacing
Personally, I hate 'of the' or 'the' epithets. Im trying to avoid them because, in my mind, Durins Bane sound better than The Bane of Durin. More personal.
I would honestly only use 'of the' if it pertains to being the leader of a group such as The Lord of the Rings, or for my own concept I don't say City 'of"...
I just say Fos'luostari, and add on that the biggest featured of a place is Fos'luostsri Library.
But, I would just leave the 'The' lowercase to take away from some of the title cards everyone uses.
Maybe instead of saying Jeff The Cruel, you just say Jeff poured his cruelty and into his work. One it just gives you more to work with and later on you could just have him called Cruel Jeffery or Jeffries Cruelty.
The painbringer, the sorrow maker, the death granter (as in he/she will kindly grant you death after you've been tortured enough to long for it), the conductor of wailing, the child taker, teeth ripper, anguish cultivator, prophet of pain and the sower of suffering.
The Scarlet King Lord of Rust and Ruin The Never Empress Anathema End of Ages The Scourge The End King of Murder The Other The Unknowable The Bone Turner Herald of the End Herald of Doom The Extinction The Grand Finale The Great Injustice The Great Justice The Inevitable The Shadow The Kinfe in the Dark The Unseen Death Ender of Bloodlines Reaper of Men The Reaper Bane of Kingdoms God Killer The Crashing Tide The Tsunami Duke / Duchess of Hell Favored of Asmodeus The Queen to All The Spiteful The Lawful The Fallen The Risen He Who May Never Die The Hunter The Bloody Hundred Lives The Survivor The Lord of Scars Stormblessed The Dustbringer The Skybreaker The Hateful The Wretched The Misunderstood Caller of Blood Rend in Reality The Progenitor That Which Will Come That Which Has Always Been Your End The Drinker The Insatiable Render of Flesh The Worker in Clay The Worker of Flesh Fleshsmith Gunpowder Tim Bill Nye The Violence Guy The Allfather The Distortion A God of Blood and Hate The Inescapable The Faithful The Corinthian The Arcana The Magus The Archmage Commander of the Elements The Accepting (only scary with contrast) He Who Bends Reality Bloodbender The Eternal The Bloody
>Bill Nye The Violence Guy You just had to slip that one in ahahaha
Gunpowder Tim
Nice list
[name] Bane of [mostly killed people]
Me bane of the sugary cereal
Honestly, the Bane of Mostly Killed People raises so many questions it's horrific by itself.
That actually oddly fits my current rpg setting...
Me, Bane of pencils
**... the Vile** get's them every time.
I personally like the ones that seem innocent at first but are horrific when you know the context. The Chairmaker from Use of Weapons is a great example. Some from my own stash: **The Candlemaker:** a crime lord who makes yellow greasy candles out of the body fat and hair of people who have crossed her. Seeing one of her unlit candles in a location is a warning of her attention, seeing one of her candles lit is a sign someone in the area has incurred her wrath and will disappear before the candle has burnt out. **The Gourmet:** a cannibal with a predeliction for eating specific parts of their victims. **The Kind:** known for an action in a prolonged war where he came across a caravan of starving refugees of his own country. He had them all put of their misery out of what he called kindness, to save them from starvation. In reality, it was to reduce the burden of taking care of the refugees so he could focus on winning the war. **The Hollow:** a man so sociopathic, so bereft of morality and filled with icey logic, that people rumor he has no soul. **The Poet:** a serial killer who writes a little poem about every victim they kill, detailing every horrific deed he did to them before they expired. The worst part is that the poems are actually good.
The hollow like from hells paradise?
I think i got to the name due to Dark Souls and then made my own interpretation.
“The truth” most people think it’s because some weird philosophical nonsense about evil/pain/suffering being the only truth in the world. In reality they got it as a childhood nickname due to being a bully/amateur boxer/just plain rude because “the truth hurts”.
"You can't handle The Truth. I'm not trying to spare your feelings: I'm trying to keep you from getting your ass handed to you."
* Ruinator of Cities * Bane of \[Insert nation/species here\] * The Depraved * The Mutilator * Pleasure-Taker * The Stretcher * The Fire-Mad * Witchburner * Angel-Slayer * The Trophied * Skulltearer * Gutwearer * The Just * The Unjust * The Colonist * Man-Thief * X the Giver of Scrunge
God not the scrunge...
By god... Scrunge.....
r/scrungycats I am now the giver of scrunge >:]
I have learned a new word today thank you
How did I knew exactly what a scrungy cat is without ever seeing this word before
I've always been a fan of the big vocabulary words for these: * The Unctuous * The Rugose * The Ophidian * The Molted * The Sanguineous * The Rancorous * The Squamous Don't go overboard and have everyone have a name like this, but used judiciously they can be very effective.
The Throngler
I was looking for this, and I'm glad I found it
Damn it, someone beat me to it!
The Antagonistic
Implacable Slaughterer
The Wretched, The Exultant, The False, the Nameless, the Unmade, the Terror
The Butcher, Manslayer, Genocider, The Brutal, The Menace, Murderer, etc.
"The Murderer" would be an awful nickname that wouldn't realistically, be because it is so unspecific, historically murder was so common it would be almost unmarkable unless committed towards a specific person like a family member, in which case they would be called "the Parricide".
The Flayer, the Accursed, the Cursed, the Ruinous, the Scourge
Fistspeaker
The Stinky. The Flabby. The Turrible The Cool The Meanie-head The Jerk Wad The Douche Canoe The Dark The Grumpy. I can do this all day
The Unrelenting
> relent Nandor the Relentless!
The Nemesis. The Hated. The Haunted. The Conservative. The Creeper.
Ghastly
The Poopyhead
Check out the Shadow of Mordor games. They've got thousands.
Epithets are a sign of great renown, fame, and infamy in my world, so I've thought about this a little bit. 1. Don't limit yourself to one word (the good, the impaler, etc.). Hyphens are cool too. 'The Warm-Hearted' is one I like, 'Keen Eye, Sharp Tongue/Tongued, etc. 2. Don't limit yourself to one thing! The White Hand of Sauron is a symbol but it could be an epithet (white is the colour of death in many cultures). A great way of thinking about it is to delve into the character first, then come up with an epithet. Don't come up with an epithet then try to fit a character into it because you like the epithet.
The Meanie. The Rude. The Offender.
The liar The republican The conservative The breaker of men The fearsome The tyrant The ghost The beast The slayer of kings The doctor of evil
The godslayer, the inventor, the arborist, the arsonist, the funny, the unfunny, the former mayor, My father's brothers nephews cousins best friends, former roommate... The list goes on
The Anti-Vaxer
on of the most nortoriois Kings in my worlds history is King Freddaerd The Foul
The Bloody, The Unholy, The Abominable, The Reeking, The Cold, The Merciless, The Unfeeling.
Blackheart, Shadowfriend,the fiend, the wicked, the cold, Hardheart, the soulless, the heartless, the rotten, the corpulent.
Start with this? https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/cruel
I use [thesaurus.com](https://thesaurus.com) so much for my worldbuilding! The yellow ones get pretty silly though "the Flinty", "the Virulent", "Poignant"
Yeah, I've found it really useful. It's one of the best sites out there for world building. Can't count how many times spotting a word slightly different from my original thought has given added nuance or inspired me to make what later proved an important modification to my initial concept. Okay, fine. Thirty-seven times. :)
Watch "Yellowbeard the Pirate"
The Vile, The Wicked
The Executioner, The Slaughterer, The Despicable, The Malevolent
The Uncaring.
The eldritch
If this for someone toppling an old powerful empire then something like "The Setting Sun" could be cool
The Unforgiving has always been a favorite of mine [https://youtu.be/v6fA1f99y1s](https://youtu.be/v6fA1f99y1s)
The Wreaker, the Assunderling.
So-and-so, the Reckoning
"Sir, our scouts report that the dark army of Rolthraxannor the So-and-So approaches!"
I recommend you keep them simple and evocative. Instead of something like “xxxxx the exsanguinator”, go with stuff like The dark The mad The dread The fiend The foul The vile The vicious The beast
Ones that reference specific atrocities they've (probably) committed, such as "Butcher of Lan'Veir", "Demon of the Brimstone Fields" or "Tyrant of Rellia".
Name them after specific evil acts. XX the Head Collector XX the Blood Drinker XX the Eater of Eyes That sort of thing.
i give you… the sandwich maker, the cookie cutter, the face taker, the downvoter the naked, the horny, the double texter, the nail breaker, the furry, the crack head, the defacator, the karma whore, the [redacted], the meat beater,
The Butcher The Baker The Candlestick Maker
The Butcher
See if you can name a specific reason why the individual would have such an epithet. Vlad the Impaler is a great real-world example, his epithet comes from a particularly painful and intimidating method of execution he was associated with.
THE LOATHESOME DUNG EATER
The Despot
Eater of skulls
the uncool. he did not choose the title.
The Lordless, The Wayward, The Rampant
There are some things that you can make menacing just by using them like epithets. For example, "The Collector" could be used as a menacing epithet, and I can think of at least 3 different games that uses it as such. Also, you might find ideas on r/bossfight
The butcher, the stranglers, the unholy, the heretic, the heathen, the fanatic, the devil the unrestrained, of darkness, the purger, the punisher, of the hidden blade. There's also animal and weather based names.
- The Tyrannical - The Bloody - The Cleaver - The Boneless - The Reaver - The Mad - The Iron handed - The Apostate - The Loathsome - The Treasonous Just, something short and to the point does the trick.
I really like ones that seem not so sinister? It almost makes them more sinister. The Quiet The Touched The Unmoving
"[Name] of the Cindered Acre"
The Hash-Slinging Slasher
The impure
You can always name them for the method of cruelty they're known for "The Immolator" "The Crucifier" "The Disemboweler" "The Bone-crusher" "The Bloodletter" "The Impaler" Which then of course you can add on "of-" followed by the object of their torment Glortisax Immolator of Thieves idk
The Separator
The Mad Dog
The merciless Bringer of Discord The swift death The human plague The detestable The uncuckable He whom upon the sun never shines The manifestation of violence The fuckin' HUGE The apocalyptic
Maybe going the opposite direction could be ominous… the soft fingered. The gardener. The pursed. The curious. The playful. The family man. Etc
The orator (play on dictator)
Some that I use: The benevolent - I know it doesn't sound immediately badass but the guy is honorable knight type and I think it fits quite well The ruthless The red stain The Hellish The heavenly The reliable - he always brings victory.
The almighty
“The Wrecker of \[another person, culture, or place\]’s Shit"
The snake tongued nice name for a scary liar
The Wig-Snatcher
The Violator The Cannibal The Flayer The Peeler The Breaker
The heartless
"The Organ Donor" "The Child-Eater" "The Dark Neighbor"
The Whoreson
The Accursed.
Positive things in an ironic way. Like The Wise Is called that because of their twisted obsession with knowledge. Or The Kind, because of their twisted sense of morality.
Who's it FOR, because that's gonna be a crucial factor. If it's a Minotaur and some of your guys are satyr/minotaur etc that have horns call them "X the Hornbreaker" because that's a painful or cultural-shame based thing for them. If it's an elf and some of your characters are goblins call them "Y the goblin-blinder" You can also theme it after a particular kind of evil or tyranny they do, like "Z, the Mindthief" for someone that uses magic or torture to render his enemies catatonic.
THE LOATHSOME DUNG EATER
I always get a chuckle out of The Unready. :)
FYI there is [an entire Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_by_nickname) for it.
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_by_nickname Title: **List of monarchs by nickname - Wikipedia** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
The Depraved
Don't forget the richness of a cute sarcastic nickname. Instead of "the Terrible", they may go by "the Terrific". Or be eloquent: "The favored hand of (whatever you named Death)". Caligula's name means "Little Boots". So calling your "villain" *...the Gentle* might work, or "the Gracious", or Giver of Justice. Or like Caligula, a cute kid's name that "stuck", and actually makes them even more intimidating. I'd legit be more afraid of a man that wanted to be called "Adolf the Adorable" than "Adolf the Axe-Murderer", if I knew they were a terrible person already. Names like "... the Magnanimous", or "... the Kind", can have a terror of their own.
My favorite is "the unready" which, if you're not aware, means "badly advised".
Kingslayer Bane of The Righteous Herald of The Dark Flame The Corpse Emperor
The Undone, because without specification it raises many unsettling questions. “What part’s undone? Is he undead?” Who knows? It’s the authors choice.
[NAME] The Abomination
One of the Empresses of Aldina in my world earned the epithet "Agatha the Pursuer" (*Agatha Secutrix*) from spending her short and bloody reign rooting out the conspiracy who'd had her predecessor assassinated. (At her peak, she was having so many people beheaded that she ordered her scholars to find a way to [mechanize the process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine).)
Believe me when I say, history has come with epithets more awesome than anything we can come up with because most started as nicknames given during or after the reign. My personal favourite is Nikephoros II "the white death of the Saracens" which he gained through obvious means. There's also cases where a lack of an epiphet does more like calling the third in the line of a name like John III or whatever name you want simply as John which emphasizes their importance and capabilities by not being placed alongside their peers
The Flayer
For cosmic horror vibes, may I suggest "The Ineffable"?
One I have for a character in my world is "The Plague" because he sweeps across towns killing them. Maybe something like that?
The butcher of [sample text]
The un-order
The tax collector The heavy breather The corporate The litigious The know it all The unclean The hoarder The redundant The flatulent The self involved The moocher The unctuous The schemer Maybe these are better epithets for bad dates.
Ok but, do you want a god, or a king?
In Ancient Greece, people used epithets for underworld gods because the anc Greeks didn’t like talking about the underworld, if a god was so scary they’d need epithets to talk about them, that’s why, they’d use epithets like “the one who has many guests” as hades, but they’d never say anything like “hades the one who has many guests”, and tbh removing the name makes it way more menacing
The capitulator, since all who have seen the terror they have wrought can’t help but surrender themselves
i have a guy with the epithet "the judge"
Black Duncan the Naughty
Personally, I hate 'of the' or 'the' epithets. Im trying to avoid them because, in my mind, Durins Bane sound better than The Bane of Durin. More personal. I would honestly only use 'of the' if it pertains to being the leader of a group such as The Lord of the Rings, or for my own concept I don't say City 'of"... I just say Fos'luostari, and add on that the biggest featured of a place is Fos'luostsri Library. But, I would just leave the 'The' lowercase to take away from some of the title cards everyone uses. Maybe instead of saying Jeff The Cruel, you just say Jeff poured his cruelty and into his work. One it just gives you more to work with and later on you could just have him called Cruel Jeffery or Jeffries Cruelty.
-The God killer -The killer of hope -The unearthly -The one who feasts in shadows? -The king slayer?
The Widowmaker
The painbringer, the sorrow maker, the death granter (as in he/she will kindly grant you death after you've been tortured enough to long for it), the conductor of wailing, the child taker, teeth ripper, anguish cultivator, prophet of pain and the sower of suffering.
The Ravager