trans mom, wife, composer. The now-retired speedrunner who asked the axiom verge dev "why?"

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in reply to @dog's post:

Per the article, "Rail" (レイル) is clipped from "Railroad" (レイロード) which is either picking a cool-sounding foreign word without much care for its meaning or (less likely) a joke about games that "railroad" the player. The other names seem to be generic fantasy fare, and the animals are based on onomatopoeia: "Minya" ミーニャ incorporates ニャ "meow"; "Kerorone" ケロロン incorporates ケロ "ribbit"; "Kokeko" コケッコ is clipped from コケコッコー "cock-a-doodle-doo" (compare "Cucco" コッコ in the Zelda games).

I think the TTRPG "railroading" term is a bit too new to show up here. From some quick searching it seems like early citations are around 2004, which is a decade too early for this, and I don't think English TTRPG terms would have been making it over to Japan outside the tiny TTRPG niche.

Haha, yeah, I'm genuinely wondering the same thing.

Edit: Also, this is the second RPG-ish character design I've seen named Rail? I wonder if there's any kind of common influence at play here or if it's a total coincidence