Even my Humakti wouldn't say such things. Death just is. No need to glorify it.
As for the rumanian, some readings about Dracula to prepare last Bacharach's LARP led me to believe peasants there call all such things "strigi" or "strigoi". It's almost the same word in italian for witch. A bad word everywhere.
Hervé
I'm sure there is an intentional juxtaposition of the root words for Life and Death in many Romance languages here, but I'm not sure that each half of the whole comes from the same language, or at least not 100% accurately.
"Viva" could be a Spanish exclamation, meaning "Long live", but I don't think "Mort" is Spanish for either death or dead, or the dead (though it works in French). I don't speak Spanish but I think it would come out more like Vivamuerte, which isn't as snappy.
I wondered also about Latin. It could almost be "Living Dead" (viva mors, or perhaps more correctly mors viva), or "The Life of Death" (Vita mortis, by analogy with rigor mortis) or "By living death" (viva morte, by analogy with viva voce). "Dead life" would be vita mortua. Though Vivamort sounds better than any of them.
Does anyone know how it would look in Italian, or Romanian? (The latter might be appropriate for this subject, given the importance of Transylvania to western vampire myths).
Alternatively maybe it is fitting that the word is half Spanish (or Latin?) and half French -- no good will ever come of it.
Richard Hayes
That's funny because I always thought that Vivamort was a French pun on "La vie et la mort" - life and death. /// Pun, or lucid parallel, or dark irony ?
That, and the burnt out Monkey Ruins (Ruin de Singe) were the only contributions of French punning to the world of Glorantha that I am aware of. /// You got me there. What's the pun on "Ruines du Singe" ?
The northern tribe of ice hockey playing ducks has never been discovered as far as I know (Canarda). /// The duck jokes are famous forever among french fans. "Ducks' favorite drink is COINtreau", because french ducks go "coin" instead of your "quack", and all that.
Just for the record, Sans Souffle doesn't sound scary in English, it sounds as if someone hasn't got their dessert. /// That's because you don't pronounce it the french way. That last "e" is mute. "Sans Souffl". But even then it lacks in Fear. I need to find something better.
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