Hey readers. As we come up to the first year anniversary of Anaya the Seafarer, I thought I would share a little about the inspiration behind the story and where the term Perline came from.
If you've been reading the story, you've probably seen the term and understand it is the name of the race of Anaya, a cat-person. But, still, where did the name come from? If you are familiar with different fantasy genres and games, you probably have seen cat-people but haven't seen this name. That's because I made it up. When I began working on this story, I know I was going to need a name for Anaya's race and did some research.
I looked through the fantasy creature dictionary I have (yes, that's a thing and its an amazing book) and some role playing games (Anaya's inspiration was partially owed to an RPG) but wasn't having much luck. Most games used the names I've already used, cat-person or cat-people. Only one placed had an actual name for the race and that was Dungeons and Dragons Tabaxi.
So why did I not use that name? Well, because I only found the use of the word Tabaxi in D&D which suggests that it was a name of their own creation, not something widely found in other fantasy items like dragons, centaurs, and dwarfs are. So, if I had used that name, it would have linked my story to the world and property of D&D. Not wanting to tempt any issues with copyright, I decided not to use that name but wanted something funny than cat-person. So, I got creating.
I mean, if D&D can create a name for the cat-person race, why couldn't I? I started with taking two words and putting them together to create a new one. Taking the first part of that one and the last part of this one. Rearranging letters. In the end, I ended up liking what I have now, Perline, with is a combo of the first part of the word "person" with the last part of the word "feline" to create a name for my race.
And there you have it, what is a Perline (an anthropomorphic cat-person) and where did the name come from (I made it up). And that isn't the last time I messed with names and words to create something new for this world, but I'll share more on that in the future.
Want to know more behind the scenes knowledge of Anaya the Seafarer? Add a comment on something you'd like to see me answer and I just might add it in the future. Thanks for hanging out and happy reading. A new chapter for Anaya the Seafarer drops on March 27th!