True Names

Knowing a subject’s true name gives you verbal command over it. The subject neither can resist nor refuse.   Everything has one or more given names, but they also have secret “true” names. Everything includes people, animals, objects, and materials. True names are acquired at birth or creation automatically, yet most beings live and die without ever learning them or even suspecting there is such a thing. If you learn your true name, then you must guard it carefully, for to lose it to a hostile power puts you at their mercy.   This true name holds its owner’s essence the individuality. It is the sum and key of every owner. If you learn your true name, you feel naked, for it highlights all your flaws and failings. It encompasses all the scars, strengths, and trials that make you who you are. Conversely, the same name also feels like a welcome part of you, even comfortable, like a well-worn pair of boots or favorite vice.   Mages’ true names have a way of expanding syllable-by-syllable as the adept grows in will, intent and arcane power. All things, not just people, have true names but, for most inanimate objects, they have class names; all non-specific oak trees, for example, have a shared true name. The more specific the term, the better the true name. Oak, for example, is more powerful than tree, which are more powerful than plant.   Powerful mages may alter true names. The name’s new spelling might be changed into a compound phrase; a numerological conversion; conversion into an acronym, with each letter becoming its own secret word; spelling inversions; loss of a letter or syllable; or a notarikon, gematria or temurah. A true names different parts represent the subject’s distinct aspects. For example, taking the letters that represent mortality and replacing them with immortal letters might cause someone to live forever. Such magical operations are tricky and dangerous.  

If a wizard knows where to look, he can divine a subject’s true name. Some wizards hide their names by clouding them with multiple synonyms. Synonyms only hold limited power over the wizard, unlike a true name and the absolute authority it imparts.   Knowing a person’s true name means you may verbally order them to do whatever you want. They have no defense and instantly will do as you command. You even may compel them to reveal secrets, or perhaps harm themselves. The subject’s emotions and memories also will be at your mercy.   Mythology records that Adramschaar, the First Man, was the Great Namer, and he assigned names to all things. Tol is the tongue he created, and it was the root human language and the source of all subsequent tongues, and all humans may comprehend it intuitively, even those whom have never heard it spoken before. Tol is a dead language in that is forgotten, but it has an alphabet. Its letter-forms are based on astrological patterns and so tied to the cosmos. Tol and its formulas are considered the root language of reality.   Despite claims recorded in some old grimoires, knowing the so-called secret or true names of God does not grant you power over him. Those names are mathematical variations of his true name, constructions that point to God, but they are not God himself.