http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadLibFantasyTitle

Farla, on this trope's usage in , on this trope's usage in Pokémon fan fiction "There are three hundred [stories on this site] with the word "chronicles", more if you include misspellings, almost as many with "begins" and "beginning", and god knows how many "Character Name"'s whatever. There are almost five hundred with "legend". There are over eight hundred with "journey", seven hundred and fifty with "story", two hundred with "quest", and nine hundred and fifty with "adventure". [...] What I'm getting at here is that you want to choose an original title that has to do with your story in particular, not something that indicates it's yet another story [...]."

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It's not easy coming up with a compelling title for a story, especially if you are trying to convey the idea that the story is big, somehow important. A title that is too blunt, à la Snakes on a Plane, might work for an action romp or a comedy, but for drama, high adventure, and anything that tries to be important, there needs to be something else. Something that sounds meaningful.

Time to put some Meaningless Meaningful Words in there.

You know the words. Eternal, Ever, Dark, Chronicles... those words. They are used an awful lot, especially in fantasy fiction. They are used so much that they have probably lost all meaning, partly due to being used way too much by internet people who are hung up on creating A Darker Me.

That doesn't stop people from using them anyway, to try to let everyone know that, yes, this particular adventure is indeed Epic, and you'd better know it. It doesn't mean that it's a bad story either, just that the author couldn't think of a name.

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Here's a challenge: Head to your local bookstore and try to find a book on the fantasy rack that doesn't use one of the following buzzwords in its title:

Metafictional descriptors aiming to present the book as something more epic: Chronicle, Saga, Legend, Tale, Fable, Song, Ballad, Memories Dramatic events: Adventure, Quest, Journey, Beginning, End, Rise, Fall, Conquest, War Bonus points for biblical references: Genesis, Testament, Exodus

Fantasy settings and locations: Castle, Fortress, Tower, Kingdom, Empire, Realm As well as the actual names of the locales in question

Stock character classes: Warrior, Assassin, Thief, Hunter, Knight, Mage/Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch/Magician/Warlock, etc. Also titles of authority: King, Prince, Lord, Queen

Supernatural creatures: God/Goddess, Demon, Dragon, Ghost, Phantom, Spirit

Weapons (Sword, Dagger, Blade) or other assorted MacGuffins (Ring, Crown, Amulet, Throne)

Gems and metals: Steel, Diamond, Gold, Mythril, Crystal

Mystical concepts: Dream, Spell, Curse, Chaos, Omen, Prophecy, Destiny, Oath

Time and space on a grand scale: Age, Eon, Epoch, Sun, Moon, Star, Infinity, Eternity

Extended table of magical elements: Fire, Air, Wind, Lightning, Stone, Ice, Light, Dark, Life, Death

Advertisement: Emotionally charged words: Heart, Soul, Tears, Sorrow, Wrath

Bonus points for finding a vampire series that doesn't have at least one volume with Blood, Night, or both . Ditto with werewolves and Moon.

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These have a tendency to get tossed willy-nilly into Character Name and the Noun Phrase or The X of Y naming schemes. Also very often overlaps with The Legend of X, Ballad of X, and The Title Saga. In extreme cases, may overlap with Word Salad Title or even Word Purée Title.

Incidentally, an easier way to come up with a title is "The Dark (Noun)". For instance: The Dark Cushion, The Dark Burrito, The Dark Tower, etc. Compare Mad Lib Thriller Title and Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death.

Due to the prevailing view that using English in the title is cool, fantasy mangaka find it difficult to not lean towards this trope.

Film adaptations of fantasy literature used to avert this trope for fear of "alienating mainstream audiences". Nowadays, they play it straight using the title of the original work, or even err in the opposite direction.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Comic Strips

Parodied in the print comic Hsu and Chan, in which Hsu and Chan created a wheel of words that could be strung together to make names for console RPGs. One possible option was Blood of the Blood Blood.

Fan Works

As Farla points out, this is very common in Pokémon fan fiction, with the words "Pokémon", "chronicles", "beginning", "Character Name'', "legend", "journey", "story", "quest", "adventure", "saga", "region", "champion" and the names of the series' regions all cropping up in hundreds of different fics.

Blood Omen

Films — Live-Action

Gamebooks

A good number of the book titles for the Lone Wolf series: Magical elements: Flight from the Dark, Fire on the Water, Shadow on the Sand, The Masters of Darkness, The Deathlord of Ixia Fantasy locations: The Caverns of Kalte, The Chasm of Doom, The Kingdoms of Terror, Castle Death, The Jungle of Horrors, The Cauldron of Fear, The Dungeons of Torgar Dramatic events: The Darke Crusade, Rune War Time and space: The Prisoners of Time Supernatural creatures: Dawn of the Dragons Mystical concepts: The Curse of Naar

Its spin-off World of Lone Wolf tends to have two-fer titles: Grey Star the Wizard (time and class), The Forbidden City (location), Beyond the Nightmare Gate (location and mystical concept), War of the Wizards (dramatic event and class).

Literature

Music

The song "Magic of the Wizard's Dream" by Rhapsody (aka Rhapsody of Fire) certainly counts. If the title itself wasn't enough, a solid three fourths of the lyrics (ab)use these buzzwords. Hell, you'd be hard pressed to find a Rhapsody of Fire album or song title that doesn't. Even more so, ridiculously many of them are in a "Noun Of Adjective Noun" format, with the nouns and adjectives seemingly randomly picked from the list. The band's name itself falls under this trope (especially the "of Fire" version).

Dragonforce's songs tend to embody this trope. Cracked has even made a word count chart for their album "Inhuman Rampage". They also had a similar chart for their first three albums on their Wikipedia page before it was taken down for being "original research".

Bal-Sagoth take this trope Up to Eleven with songs like "The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath the Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire, Part II: The Dark Liege of Chaos is Unleashed at the Ensorcelled Shrine of A'zura-Kai".

HIM had their fair share of song titles and lyrics that went like this, primarily performing songs about romance (though not necessarily love songs per se) while tying it into fantasy and occult themes; examples that spring to mind include "Join Me in Death", "Killing Loneliness", "In Joy and Sorrow", "Dark Light" note yes, it was a song on their album of the same name , "Venus Doom", "Vampire Heart", and "The Beginning of the End".

Tabletop Games

Toys

BIONICLE loves these. The three book series were called Bionicle Chronicles, Adventures and Legends. Notable individual titles include Reign of Shadows, Dark Destiny, Journey's End, The Yesterday Quest, The Legend Reborn, The Fall of Atero, The Mask of Light, Swamp of Secrets, The Mata Nui Saga, Sahmad's Tale, The Fall and Rise of the Skrall...

Video Games

Webcomics

Web Original