I know it's been like 10 years but do you remember what inspired you to make the Word Eater from season 1 of FATT? I only started listening in 2021 and that shit's been stuck in my brain ever since
Oh this is actually really clear to me! I'd already figured out some stuff re: goblins because of Throndir's backstory. I knew that they weren't the sort of generic goblin thing, but like a lot of Hieron, I wanted to play with and deconstruct those tropes, not just invert them or try to erase them.
So I thought okay, they're probably not too dissimilar from the snow elves that they live near, let's emphasize the importance of that relationship--they're both just sorta good at all the classic 'wood elf' stuff, and they bonded over that, etc. And then something happened to split them apart and to lead Throndir's snow elves to disregard them and paint them as 'uncivilized' (even though their civilizations had been very closely interwoven!)
What I didn't have was what that thing was, but I found it in the monster section of the book. I've said this before, this isn't a revelation: Word Eaters are just Word Demons from Dungeon World but structured towards answering the above narrative dilemma. I changed where they came from and what their deal was, but relied heavily on their Instinct ("To further their word") and their two stated abilities ("Cast a spell related to their word" and "Bring their word into abundance")!
This is the thing about TTRPGs. You don't have to invent everything from whole cloth to irrevocably make it yours.
