Moana Needs a New Name

I got some feedback from last week's idea. To save you from clicking the link, the idea was for a campaign set in a fantasized version of stone-age Hawai'i. Let's address it!

Dustin

I immediately assumed it was based on the Moana Disney movie, and the description didn't change my mind. That said, I'd play that.

Well, I'm glad he liked the idea!

I had completely forgotten about Disney's Moana. Well, not completely, I guess. When I typed the name last week, I thought "Wait--isn't there a Disney thing about moana?" So I tought about it it for a second and decided "No--Disney's Hawaiian movie is Lilo & Stitch. I must be thinking about how the say 'ohana' all the time" Oops.

So I need a new name. Kai is the Hawaiian word for "sea." Maybe that will work, but I'm thinking about stripping away all the Hawaiian in order to not be culturally offensive. 

James

Can you take on another world? LOL

This is a good point. But I'm not going to go full bore. Basically this is just a modification of my Okeanos setting. And this might actually make a great setting for my U.S.S. Crowfield idea.

But the idea doesn't have to be fully fleshed out. I just need to get enough "flesh on the bones" so that when I'm ready to run it I can dig up my notes and work on it more.

Snowgen (me)

Doesn't this sound a lot like Earthsea?

Yes, I'm answering my own thought. But this is a good point. I think Earthsea was the first non-Tolkien fantasy series that I read. The author, Ursula K. Le Guin, purposely created a non-medieval non-European fantasy world. Wikipedia describes it this way:

The world of Earthsea is one of sea and islands: a vast archipelago of hundreds of islands surrounded by mostly uncharted ocean. Earthsea contains no large continents, with the archipelago resembling Indonesia or the Philippines ... The cultures of Earthsea are literate non-industrial civilizations and not direct analogues of the real world. 

So yes, there are definite similarities. It's not a direct copy, though, and there will be very distinct differences, so I think I'm safe. 

Snowgen, again (me)

Do you have to do this? Has someone else already done the work for you?

I didn't se any GURPS worldbooks, so that makes me think no one else has. But I did come across a free RPG called Mythos of the Maori. I haven't read it in depth, but it seems like good work. Except this is exactly what I'm trying to avoid: a direct reproduction of actual Polynesian culture. I fear that is too likely to be offensive to modern sensibilities.

Epilogue

So those were my thoughts and the thoughts inspired by those that send me comments. If you have any more thoughts, please let me know.

I'll leave you with is picture I took a couple of nights ago as I was standing on the rim of Kīlauea. The glowing stuff is lava!