About time period names
History-book gravity shapes results like "The Era of Fright" and "The Age of Brutes", with French forms such as "l'Époque Divine" offering the same structure in another tongue. Stringing several together produces an instant timeline for an invented civilization. Alternate flattering and grim eras to imply who wrote the histories.
How time period names are built
Era labels come in English, French and Spanish branches. The English forms draw a period word such as Era, Age or Aeon from a 4-entry bank and set it either after the theme, as in "The Elimination Age", or before it in "The [period word] of [theme]"; the theme-first form draws its theme from a 201-entry bank and the "of" form from a 203-entry bank. The French branch fronts a period word like l'Ère or l'Âge onto either a 65-entry post-noun adjective bank or a 366-entry de-phrase bank. The Spanish branch mirrors this with el Siglo or la Era plus a 65-entry adjective bank or a 332-entry de-phrase bank in the same Romance frame.
The Era of Fright
The (fixed article) + Era (period-word bank) + of (fixed connector) + Fright (theme bank)
El Siglo de la Corrección
el Siglo (Spanish period-word bank) + de la Corrección (Spanish de-phrase bank)
L'Ère Civile
l'Ère (French period-word bank) + Civile (French adjective bank)
Naming notes
These read with history-book gravity, so stringing several together produces an instant timeline for an invented civilization. The English "Era of" and theme-first "Age" forms are the workhorses; the French l'Ère and Spanish el Siglo branches give the same structure in another tongue, useful when different cultures or chroniclers name the same span differently. Alternate flattering and grim themes (an Era of Ascension followed by an Era of Chaos) to imply who wrote the histories and which side they were on.
Questions about time period names
- Why do some eras come out in French or Spanish?
- Separate Romance branches build "l'Ère ..." and "el Siglo ..." with correct French and Spanish grammar. They let a chronicler from a Romance-language culture name the same period in their own tongue, which is handy when two peoples remember one era under different names.
- How do I build a full timeline?
- Generate several and order them. Alternating hopeful and bleak themes, an Era of Ascension before an Era of Chaos, implies cause and effect and hints at who survived to write the record. Three to five eras sketch a civilization's arc.
- What is the difference between an Era, an Age and a Siglo?
- They are interchangeable period words drawn from small banks; Siglo is simply the Spanish term for a century or age. Pick whichever fits the language and weight you want; none carries a fixed length, so you assign the span yourself.