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A Truename, in a nutshell, is like your character's cosmic signature on the parchment that is reality. Truenames can't properly be expressed with words, it's a kind of primal concept that gets embedded into your character's brain when you're exposed to it. Many people live their entire lives without ever learning their own Truenames. Generally, it's the kind of thing that you'd have to have high level divination magic to find out, or know some kind of powerful extraplanar being and have them get the info for you.

Dec 18, 2012 -- 9:40PM, LadyBlackwell wrote:

Maybe I've missed it, but can somebody explain to me what a true name is?  How does one find out what a character's true name is?  If I go up to a wizard who has it in for me and say "Hello, I'm Mildred Blackwell."  Does that mean he can Otto's Irresistable Dance me?  If that's the case, is my name really not Mildred Blackwell anymore after the spell is cast?  If I don't know my new name, how will a wizard know it?  I mean, high profile baddies could be easily taken out by something like this, as they're likely using their real names.  Or do BBEGs and the like use aliases on a regular basis now to prevent this?

A true name is  basically a cosmic description of a being. The being's code in reality. Stating a being's true name before them gives you power over them. Weaving a truename into a spell makes it almost impossible to resist.

Saying "He who first put peanut butter in chocolate is now deaf" in Ancient Speech before Archmage Reese rewrites reality and removes function from his ears.

But as beings can change, truenames can be altered. Significant acts and effects can alter your truename. Therefore it typical require powerful divinations and allies to know an updated truename or years of special training to guess one.

Dec 19, 2012 -- 5:40PM, LadyBlackwell wrote:

So, again, how does one learn a person's truename?  Spells involving truenames can either be extremely powerful or a waste of a slot depending on how easy it is to learn a truename.

In most setting, you go to a major library or college and hire a truenamer or truename scholar.

Or bring a truenamer with you.

Thing is... if someone knws a truename is with you, they tend to nova your behind. If you manage to get a truenamer to high level foes, you have earned the right to kick its butt.

Truenames have traditionally been presented as difficult to learn. Hints to what an individual's true name might be could be available, but individuals who are important enough that anybody would seek their true name are often the same individuals with the means and motivation to explicitly work to obfuscate it. Most people's true names are protected by security through obscurity; nobody is going to bother to do the legwork to get at someone random's truename. While true names are usually presented as something that can be discovered through research, it's never been super clear to me where the material for that research comes from in the first place. Powerful divination, maybe.

I don't really like the true name clause on Otto's Irresistable Dance. That seems like just something not special enough to bring in true names, and it makes them feel less special. True names should be for things that feel like you're really cosmically singling someone out, not for exending the duration of an extremely silly high-level Hold Monster variant. If you're going to do something like that, it should at least be something with an epic-feeling effect, like maybe you freeze the target in time permanently or something.