Hey guys, I got roped into running an Earthdawn campaign by my gaming group because none of them have ever played it and want to give it a try. Since I play Shadowrun and know a lot about ED, I was the obvious GM candidate. I want to run an SR4 game after the ED one is done, and I want to link them. Since the ED game is going to take place mostly in and around Parlainth and concerns that city's resident dragon, Charcoalgrin, I want the SR4 game to include Charcoalgrin too.

Problem being that I don't want it to be obvious from the get-go that they two games are linked, and since the dragons of SR all have different names from what they were known in ED, I need a new name for Charcoalgrin. I tried running the words charcoal, ash, cinder, grin, and smile through Good Translator to get their German equivalents (to fit with names like Dunkelzahn, Feuerschwinge, etc) and the resulting combinations come out kind of long and unwieldy. If anyone -- especially our Deutsche friends -- could suggest a name that translates well, I'd appreciate the help.

Dragons change their names periodically. Take something Kazakh. After all, Parlainth's remains are in Kazakhstan (though canonically they have been looted dry long, long ago, with Yamatetsu/Evo and Renraku fighting over the last scrabs.

Tatzelwurm would be nice, if you're really looking for a German name. Bit generic, though. You should keep in mind where the dragon resides, though. Given how SR's dragons often use local myths to give themselves an image among locals, that's more important than whatever their name was in the previous ages. They might consider he dawn of the new age an event of Re-Naming.

Click here for some ideas.

And while this is absolutly off topic, I came across this looking up stuff for dragons and, well, it made me grin. Killed by peasants. I wonder if anyone suggested this in a "how do kill a Tarasque?!?!" threads that are so common on many D&D boards.

I would try one of the following:

Dunkelgrinsen
Schwarzschmunzler
Dunkelschmunzler

or

Schwarzfeixer

None of these "sound" impressive, but they'd be about the closest you'd get to a somewhat acceptable name, unless you want to create a completely new one.

The literal translation of Charcoalgrin would be Kohlegrinsen.

Of course you could take a little freedom and keep only the rough meaning of the name.

Maybe something like

Aschenblick (literally Ash Gaze)

In the german translation of Earthdawn this particular dragon is called "Kohlengrien"...

I think Kohlengrien is a little too similar; Aschenblick on the other hand is completely awesome!