# Adventure Group Names



## TylerDurden

I am having a hard time coming up with a cool yet not cliche Adbenture Group Name. You know the name you call your D&D party group...its official company name.

Any ideas?


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## justanobody

Welcome to ENWorld, and I never really named my party before....


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## Lanefan

Let it grow on its own, out of something the party do or become known for.

The last party I helped name was called "The Company of the Green Cloak", for no other reason than most of the character pieces we were using had, by coincidence, been painted with green cloaks... 

Another party I once ran with called itself "Team Overkill", mostly due to its habit of, as its DM once put it, "using lightning bolts to kill mosquitoes".

Lanefan


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## Freakohollik

My longest running game was a group of 3 barbarians. We called ourselves Anger Management. On the subject of overkill, throughout all 10 levels we played, we power attacked everything. Every time. To the max.


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## blargney the second

One party I'm in is called The Lions Rampant.  It makes the heraldry really easy, and there's some setting significance as well.

Another is the Blinkstone Companions - we found a defective light stone that blinks intermittently on an adventure.  We all thought it was kind of cool, and it became our mascot. 
-blarg


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## Jeff Wilder

In the two groups in which I'm a player, I went out of the way to make sure we had a group name, and it's added a lot to our roleplaying.

One group is called The Scaled Company, after the very unlikely defeat of a Tyrannosaurus Rex when the group was only 3rd- and 4th-level.  We skinned the beast and made several pairs of masterwork boots, which we give to new and replacement members as a sign they've earned our trust.

Another group is The Blood Griffons.  My half-ogre named us when we needed a team name for the Champion's Belt event in Greyhawk.  Technically, he spelled it "Blud Grifuns," but one of the other party members corrected it surreptitiously.  The name is a variation on the half-ogre's father's company of mercenary ogres, The Black Griffons.  (The father, BTW, is human, which is a longer story.)


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## firesnakearies

Confederacy of Dunces.


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## NerfedWizard

Elvis Lives?


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## Darkwolf71

My advice is don't try to force it. Out of all our campaigns only the highest currently has a 'company' name; The Portal Walkers. Long story, but basically our world has been cut off from all other planes for several hundered years, one of the side effects was that the ability to use the large scale teleportation portals was lost. We were the first to do so again, thus "oh, look it's the Portal Walkers". It stuck.


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## Ydars

In our current Undermountain 3.5E campaign our Group is known to the patrons of the Yawning Portal as "Dead and Buried". They love betting on us to die but we keep coming back (though I am on my 3rd character).


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## el-remmen

In my last few campaigns we have had:


The Sign of Four
The Oath
The Fearless Manticore Killers, who became. . . 
The Keepers of the Gate

And my current group has been calling itself,


The Scions of Thricia

Other groups I have been a part of included, "The Hand of the North" and "The Company of the North Wind".


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## Radiating Gnome

I'd let it come naturally, in time.  The best names work that way.  And let the players work on the problem, too -- after all, it's their group name. 

Of course, doing that, you get some silly names.  In my longest running 3e campaign, the party called themselves the Goonies more often than anything else.  The group that played through the Age of Worms chose a name for themselves when they went through the gladitorial combat adventure -- they signed up for the melee as "Klobo's Hobos" and the name stuck (one PC was named Klobufus, Klobo for short . . . . not a great name, but it oddly suited him).  

-j


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## Daniel D. Fox

The players call themselves the Kingmakers, as they act as an elite mercenary/espionage group that works with political factions as free agents.


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## Mallus

firesnakearies said:


> Confederacy of Dunces.



Nice!

On current 4e adventuring company is known by several informal names: Artichoke's Ar*eholes (after our quasi-leader Captain Artichoke), the Just-Us League (after our resemblance to a team of 3rd-rate superheroes), and the Radiant Seed of Justice (which no one except me likes, since it's a euphemism for my paladin's semen).


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## Drkfathr1

The group I DM for are called the "Company of the Horn", named after slaying a minotaur at low level and then carting its head around. One of their early patrons had it stuffed and had the horns gilded in gold.


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## timbannock

We are 'A Band of Traveling Minstrels'

We'd used this terrible cover to break into places, sneak into places, carry out assassinations, and generally cause havoc...in pretty much every campaign and every group I've ever played with.

It took us some 20-odd years, but we finally made a group of characters that actually WERE a band of traveling minstrels.

Of course, we became the King's honor guard, but we were also promptly cursed with a quasi-undead state that caused us to slowly rot, and so we all lost most of our Charisma score.  Obviously, our Perform skills got really sucky at that point!


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## Coyraven

Our current party had contracted a disease that slowly made them vanish. 

A nemesis adventuring group had hired street criers to spread the news about us "Vanishers". 

My pc paid off the street criers to change it to the "Vanquishers", and our group name was born.

CR


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## WampusCat43

Our PbP group has a druid (me) with a large ape companion (Rheis) that frequently tears things limb from limb.   We occasionally refer to the group as "Six Men and a Monkey".  The giblets he serves up are called "Rheis' Pieces".

There's a long list of clever team nicknames in the AoW thread on Paizo's boards, for the aforementioned Champion's Games.


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## sjmiller

Since I started playing D&D back in the late 70s, only once have I had a group give their characters a group name.  That was back in the early 80s, and we were playing AD&D 1e.  We were going through the Giants series of modules, and had a gnome illusionist with a wand of frost.  He used this wand as often as possible, and against the fire giants it was most effective.  That is how the group got the name: The White Dragons of the North.  It later evolved into The White Dragon Adventuring Club.

Now, I have had groups of *players* name themselves, but that is different.  My current group is called the Curmudgeon Gamers, mainly because we are all getting older.


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## Loincloth of Armour

As others have said, don't try and force it.  If it's important the name will come to the party naturally.

As an example, in a 2nd edition game we finally named ourselves after the first group of big bad undead we defeated.  Our name:


Three dead trolls and a banshee.


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## Ktulu

I named our group after the original big-bad organization in my first game, Sovereign Discord.  It was cheesy, but it stuck.


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## firesnakearies

For a band of morally-ambiguous, rude, and difficult mercenary heroes:

A Necessary Evil.


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## The Green Adam

I'm more prone to naming a superhero team, an order of knights or a gang then to arbitrarily name a group of adventurers. As has been mentioned, sometimes an action the PCs take earns them a name or they may, on occaision, name themselves after performing some grand deed ("We who have slain the Chaos Beast of Barthomaur shall hence be known as The 1st Law! May all who follow Chaos fear the 1st Law!").

That said, adventure party names I've GMed include but are not limited to:

The Order of the Pegasus (AD&D 1E)
The Keepers of the Keys (AD&D 1E)
The 7 Against Evil (Also known as 'The Unknown 7') (WFRP)
Nephlihem's Bane (Ars Magica)
The Covenant of Old Chalk (Ars Magica)

AD


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## Minigiant

My favorite past adventure group names:

The Order of the Three Keys

New Grinoc Plumbling and Dungeoneering.

Adventure Bank (We adventured for money then gave weaker adventurers loans so they could buy overpowered weapons and armor. Was great 'til the recession.)


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## TylerDurden

*Lots of great ideas*

I appreciate all the feedback. Some of our group rode horses into battle and then got pushed off a cliff. So we could be Bloody Horses.

I like the idea of letting it come from how we play.


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## Lord Sessadore

If I remember correctly, when the guys from Penny Arcade and PVP did their podcast game with some of the WotC R&D guys (James Wyatt and Chris Perkins?), they named their group "Acquisitions Inc." I believe the cleric was the CEO


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## Thondor

You should check out a thread that I made back in september, and possibly the thread that originally inspired it.

It allows for the radom generation of group/organizations/adventurer names and if you want to go farther then that you can even randomize leaders, group colours, bases of operation, and more.

Check it out here http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...orked-thread-band-adventurer-group-names.html


comments on it are appreciated as I never got much response.

There is something to be said for letting it come organically, but you also want it to be something that is functional in many circumstances (something you can be proud of in front of a king, or a beggar) and something that works through all levels. off the cuff: skullsplitters always works, orcslayers not so much when your 15th level.


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## Man in the Funny Hat

We have always liked to try to name our PC parties but it doesn't always stick as so often one or more players/PC's just doesn't care for someone elses idea.  However, some that have been used in games I've been in/run include:

The Avengers
The Replacements (didn't really stick but it never quite was disposed of either.)
The Crew of the Red October
The Heroes of Arabel (a.k.a., HoA, and it's pronounced HOO-ah!)
The Arbiters of Succession (actually the same group as HoA, just their secret ID.)

and the one _I_ came up with that proved popular enough that it actually got used a number of times in D&D and online RPG's...

The Flashing Blades Adventuring Company - FBAC


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## Wik

Yeah, the group I run for is currently "The Blinkstone Companions" (as Blarg said), but I have a feeling that might change - since the current group is actually two groups merged together.  Blargney actually gave the other group their name - "Lear's Lackeys", after the wizard who supposedly lead the party.  Now the Lackeys and the Companions are together, we'll see where it goes.

I've rarely seen named groups, though I remember an FR group had a name in our 2e days.  I think it was something to do with Feather Falls - the base of our group.  In another 2e group I ran in (or was I a player?  I forget) the group had a wagon that had been converted into rooms and extra carrying capacity, and the group was sort of referred to as "The Wagon Group".  Doubly fun because they refused to leave the road.  (They also had a talking horse that wound up being a pretty fun NPC).


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## Baron Opal

I think, maybe, I had a group about 20 years ago that gave themselves a name but that's about it. Even when I tried to foster the process and had multiple, named adventuring groups in the campaign world, the players were never interested.


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## justanobody

Addendum to previous post. I was reminded that there was a "group name" for one of my groups in the past. The "Wild Bunch" taken from the movie of the same name, and also had similar results.


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## haakon1

Had many, many groups in 27 years of gaming.  None of them ever had a name like this.

If they are referred to as group, it's "Whoever is the Leaders"'s Company.


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## MortalPlague

This is a trend I tried to foster in my 4th Ed campaign, but it fell flat.  I introduced a group of adventurers called "The Company of the Black Lantern".  Although they were impressive NPCs, the PCs never decided to give their group a name.

In my 3.5 campaign, the group banded together behind a gnome cleric of Garl Glittergold named Fnipper.  They named that group "Fnipper's Fine Fellows".

Other than that, it hasn't happened.  I would love to have a game where the PCs band together in a company or organization.


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## roguerouge

We actually sat down and brainstormed an idea and had a vote for one campaign we were in. We decided on Balzar's Bane.


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## Ydars

To be clear; my adventuring group did not choose their name "dead and buried"; it was given to us by the DM (in game via the patrons of the Yawning portal).

I must confess that I often name companies adventuring when I DM as well; after all, NPCs have to call the collective group of PCs something.


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## carmachu

Our Bard is a glory hound....SO he's been running around where ever we go saying "Its Vastur Caine and company...."

And it stuck. At first the rest of us didnt like it, but on further reflection, we decided to let it stand.  It lets him have hsi glory, and if things go bad, he becomes the lightning rod......


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## Set

The only group that I've played in that had a group name was in Al-Qadim;
the Lions of the Desert.

But in online games, we use guild names all the time. I've been in guilds with names like;

Ebonlore
Domination
Nomadic Brotherhood
Einherjar
Gnomish Marine Corps
Royal Order of the Drunken Ferret
Ork and Beans


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## Switchblade

Never really had a group name in DnD, we’ve tried but nothing was ever agreed on.  

I did lumber a Shadowrun group with “forlorn hope” as the GM after one too many high collateral, high profile bloodbaths with a high PC turn over.  From that point on they started getting the missions they deserved as no Johnson would bother hiring them for anything involving tact, subtlety or cunning.


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## neg

*Names*

It seems that I am the one that names our gaming groups.  If I don't come up with something...the group never gets a name.  In most cases it is organic, and any time it is forced, the names are horrible and mocked mercilessly.

A recent one was "Dragon Dogs" based off a DM description of a creature in our very first session.  "It appears to be some kind of dragon...or a dog....it's really small".  We killed it and skinned it and made a tabbard.  That lead to us yelling "Dragon Dogs ride!" whenever we had to leave on horseback.  Corney and good fun.  The DM hated it and we were TPKed soon after....

My most successful was "The Sometimes Six".  This is in a long running Hackmaster campaign where we had six players to start, and that count has shifted up and down since then.  There are 3 core players and a few others who join in when available.  So Sometimes we are six.  The Sometimes Six is well known in Garweeze (default setting of Hackmaster), having fought many giants, a dragon, drow, and visited the City of Brass.  We are escaped slaves looking to stop a war on a campaign scale, and profit as much as possible doing it.  

"The Sometimes Six" was also the name of our guild in World of Warcraft.  All of the Hackmaster players and GM started playing and it seemed the obvious and best name for our guild.  Though some of us have gone seperate ways, the guild lives on.

I also named our Rock Band II band name.  It seemed only right after all, I AM the lead singer.  Surely you have heard of us?  "Truck Stop Whores?"  Ah, but that is another tale for another day....

-neg


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## buddhafrog

I've never given a name to an party.  The game I'm runny now, however needs a name.

The PC's party of 3 is playing in a world under gradual attack from the outside with the permission of the King and ruling class in exchange for keeping their ceremonial roles in the new kingdom to come.  The PC's oppose this, and have wrecked havoc across the land.  They have been chased into the last major city that is ruled by free and rebellious leaders.  When they enter the city, I want them to hear people whisper their party's name - a name that unbeknown to them, others have been spreading.  

I want my players to like the name, so I told them last night to tell me their name.  They are debating it.  Making their own name is only moderately appealing to them, but once they realize that it was actually made by others spreading (and exaggerating) their exploits, I think they'll like it.


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## Crothian

The group had a chance to name themselves but never did so the newspaper did.  It was easier to refer to them that way.


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## Stormonu

TylerDurden said:


> I appreciate all the feedback. Some of our group rode horses into battle and then got pushed off a cliff. So we could be Bloody Horses.
> 
> I like the idea of letting it come from how we play.




I'd go with Raining (reigning) Horses.  Or, perhaps, Bloody Mares. 

Groups I've DMed included:

Link & Company (by official charter, led by a high elf named, of course, "Link")
Fellowship of the Burning Portal (named for the antics of a pyromaniac dwarf barbarian)
The Black Hand (adventurers turned pirate, the leader a wizard with a hand blackened by a curse)
Heroes of the Wood (a ranger-led group who worked for a druidic sect)

and several unnamed groups.


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## messy

the wandering fools.

still not sure if that was a joke...


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## TarionzCousin

buddhafrog said:


> I've never given a name to an party.  The game I'm running now, however needs a name.
> 
> The PC's party of 3 is playing in a world under gradual attack from the outside with the permission of the King and ruling class in exchange for keeping their ceremonial roles in the new kingdom to come.  The PC's oppose this, and have wrecked havoc across the land.  They have been chased into the last major city that is ruled by free and rebellious leaders.  When they enter the city, I want them to hear people whisper their party's name - a name that unbeknown to them, others have been spreading.



How about calling your group "Dogs of War"? From Shakespeare's phrase "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."



My 4E Group named themselves after they melted the ice-covered tower near the Forgotten Realms town of Loudwater. They are called "The Defrosters."


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## Marx420

I had one group named the Iron Imperators (commanders in ancient rome) consisting of gun wielding rogue/dread commando, Fighter/Exotic Weapon Master, and me the Marshal/Legendary Leader along with a never ending succession of part time player sword fodder.

No casters allowed! We'd seriously bust through like 3 full dungeon levels per 14 hour session, but this was a few years back when I had more time to play.


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## scruffygrognard

We went the stupid route and chose "_*The Electric Youth*_" as our group name.


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## TarionzCousin

Am I the only person who read the OP's user name as "Tyler Do'Urden"?


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## Dannyalcatraz

While we don't usually name our adventuring companies, our current group has kind of been named "*THEM!*" (accompanied by points and people running away).


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## The Little Raven

When I was younger, there was more of a tendency of naming our adventuring companies, but as I got older, it kinda faded into the background. We'd do it sometimes, but it wasn't really a priority.

The Champions of Baldwar Mountain - My first adventuring group, back when I was 7 years old. We defended a dwarven kingdom and its neighboring human ally from assaults by drow, duergar, orcs, goblins, evil wizards, undead, vengeful fey, evil cultists, and barbarian hordes. Very character-centric, with many sidetreks for personal reasons.

The House of Four - Retainers of a mysterious noble who delivered his orders through various intermediaries. We took on A-Team-style jobs while waiting for orders from the boss, with the campaign culminating in a strong arc featuring our master in person. Had a whole lot of politics and intrigue, along with some mass battle.

The Graveyard Shift - My friend ran a long undead-themed campaign back in high school, so we took this tongue-in-cheek name for ourselves. Very much beer and pretzels.

Scavenger Sons - The name my group took the last time I ran a mercenary themed campaign.


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