Help!

[katikat]

Folks, does the English word "baruchies" mean anything at all? It's from "Exile" by R. A. Salvatore:

"Baruchies, also known as crimson spitters, are fungi that glow cherry red. If disturbed, they release a cloud of deadly spores that kill almost any creature except for the wormlike grubbers that feed on them."

I don't know if there is a way to translate it or not. I surfed the net but didn't come across anything that would explain its meaning :(

Comments

[sharona1x2.livejournal.com]

I wish I could help, but I've never heard of that word.

[katikat.livejournal.com]

That's actually good. It means that it's not a real word and I can simply make it sound Czech and that's it :)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think I know all the various folklore creatures that could possibly be the source of this 'monster.' It may be something he made up, or something in the Forgotten Realms shared universe (if you know anything about D&D, FR is an offshoot of that RPG game world system, with points and levels and monsters etc). If there's no similar beastie in your folklore, do you just keep the original word?

Try searching for any Forgotten Realms monster compendiums, or see if it's been used in any other Forgotten Realms novel already translated. Sorry I'm not much help but hopefully the D&D avenue will give you more ideas!

[(Anonymous)]

I forgot to mention, the 'common' characters (meaning: found in several other FR books, not counting Drizzt himself) are the Harpers (Storm and friends) so other novels that mention the Harpers might help? No... that's a pretty long shot that a random monster would feature again.

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Yup, I found the word in a Guide Through the Underdark or something like that. In the end, I just made the word sound Czech. I turned "baruchies" into "baruchy" which would be the Czech plural to "barucha" and that's it :)

Thank you for your help! :)

[kwycksylver.livejournal.com]

It's a made up word so there wouldn't be a translation for it. I would imagine that baruchies are based on puffballs, which are a type of mushroom like fungi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffball

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I needed to know if it's something English or a made-up word :)