Random Word: Murmaider
For today's Random Word, i asked my gaming group. Mr. Randall was the first to pipe up with the word "murmaider," the title of a song from the band Dethklok from Metalocalypse animated show aired on Adult Swim.
(album cover courtesy of Amazon.com)
How I can talk about this word and things associated with it to the subjects of tabletop gaming, fishing, and 3d printing will be tricky, so here we go.
From a tabletop gaming perspective, the word murmaider is a play on words of the words 'mermaid' and 'murder.'
Mermaids are a taurian race (half man half beast) of ocean dwelling fish people, with the upper torso of a human(oid) and the lower portion, normally depicted from hips down, as a fish. Most commonly referred to as Merfolk. They are excellent water combatants, very territorial, but otherwise aimicable beings. They are often depicted as both benign and malignant, depending on what setting you are viewing a mermaid in - Disney cartoons, horror movies, or what have you.
The song itself is a heavy song with a lot of deep riffs at a moderate headbanging pace. It would make an excellent battle song for an epic boss fight.
One other use for the song is to use the lyrics and meaning as inspiration and make an adventure or campaign. Off the cuff, the main bad guy is an evil triton bard trying to summon killer Mermaids, Sahagun, and Kou-toa to kill the land dwellers.
From the concept of fishing, i really got nothing interesting. There are conspiracy theories about how people have caught mermaids in fishing nets off the CA coast or how they wash up on the Pacific Coastline. I'm not diving down that rabbit hole on this one.
However, I will dive down the rabbit hole on Mermaid biology from the fishy lower half. Depending on the depiction of the merfolk, they appear to have blue, green, or colorful scales and, at minimum, a split tail. Other tail variants include a sharp V tail and a split fan tail. This leads me down to the concept of comparisons, and by those comparisons to what kinds of climates one would potential find a mermaid - for tabletop gaming purposes only.
Ocean Carp and Bettas come to mind with regards to tail comparisons. In some depictions, sea bass and salmon also come into play with regards to tail comparisons. General observation - always an ocean-type fish depicted. Pics below are for reference of tails. Take note of the tail shape.
Ocean Carp
Betta Fish
Sea Bass
Chinook Salmon
Now how to talk about the word "Murmaider" when it comes to 3D printing.
This piggybacks off the first subject regarding tabletop gaming. With a 3D printer, one could print Mermaids (and similar merfolk and cousins like Sahagun, Kuo-Toa, etc) for their games.
Other options include a variety of decorative art pieces. Just a simple drop of the word "mermaid" into the Thingiverse search engine revealed flexi-toys of mermaids with moving tails, mermaid pots, mermaid shaped headphone stands, mermaid related fish tank items, keychains, earrings, other jewelry, and similar non-tabletop gaming items that are mermaid themed.
Taking it one step further, i dropped both "murmaider" and "dethklok" into the Thingiverse search engine and got an interesting output - nothing outside of the band's name on a plaque. A bit disappointing, as I thought there would be more.
In conclusion, this word was a half-decent challenge, but given whom I received the word from, and he knew nothing about this blog series, it was a little off. Otherwise, it was enjoyable and I look forward to the next Random Word.
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