Advice wise... one thing I do, and which might be the easiest for another person to do, is keep a list of names that catch my attention.

I started with a written list in a notebook, but now I just use the notes app on my phone. I do have the advantage of seeing hundreds of names a week in my job, but this works for anything. Books, tv shows, news articles, those kiosks that sell keychains with names etched in them... if the name sounds/looks pretty, the spelling is unusual, or I just like it for some reason, I write it down.

I actually don't end up using the list very often, but it's a good backup for when I get stumped, or for when I want something truly unusual. It's really great for main characters, actually, once you've built it up a bit.

I depend on the list a bit more for naming places, and I recently started keeping a list for potential surnames, which you may have noticed I don't use if I don't have to 😅

The maybe less easy advice I have is to play with common, everyday names, which is what I usually do. This way is faster than compiling a list of names, once you get the hang of it.

This might look like pulling up a list of names, or choosing a letter and thinking of every name you know that starts with that letter.

From there, you'd choose one you like as a base, then play with the spelling. I find that subbing in a y, doubling up a letter, or adding an h somewhere can have good results. Combining and/or splicing names is also an option.

Okay, so! Example time. I'll give you some names and walk you through how I came up with them 😊

Carr/Carrah was a modification from Kara, where I changed the first letter, doubled up that r, and added an h at the end.

Brant came from Brandon, shortened to Bran, but that was too game of thrones for me so I stuck a t on the end.

Nykim... probably came from Nick, but aside from adding the y, I honestly can't remember what weirdness I did to get from that to Nykim. Probably some kind of name splicing.

Riah, I wanted a name that ended in -ia, like Mia, but not that, so I ended up switching out the m for an r and added an h.

Quinten I just got lucky with. I knew a guy by that name way back when, and I thought it sounded cool and suitably fantasy-ish.

Resh is one of those names I came up with on the spot. Which is extremely unusual for me to do with a main character, but I had three days to start Hidden Depths for Whumptober and I needed a name stat o.o

Alaia, who is not (yet?) on tumblr, was a list name. I saw the name in one of those terribly bad shifter web novels and loved it. I loved it so much that I actually ended up changing her name to it and I had a lotttt of words written with her old name lol.

Most of my minor characters gain their names with minimal fuss. Like I'll be writing, get to a spot where I need a name, sift through some in my head, maybe type a couple out and adjust some stuff, and there we go. We have a Jense, Merie, Salma, Adan, and what have you.

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The first I'm going to generalize, bc it'd work the same across the board.

Are there rules about who can challenge other than they have to be pack? Like for instance can a packmate just graduated from vermin challenge? (If they can they prolly don’t cause it’s definitely suicide to do that) 

Hmm, aside from being pack, probably not really? Although there’s another layer of pack dynamics after the vermin. Vermin go through the selection process and if they pass are inducted into the pack. They then spend time in more advanced training before they get their training wheels taken off and are considered full packmembers. So, let's say they’d need to be a full packmember to challenge. 

It would still very likely be suicide to challenge freshly graduated, though. They aren't (usually) very experienced yet, and the packmaster is in that position for a reason.

Ideally, a challenger would need, at the very least, some support within the pack. Ideally, they'd win some of the betas over, too.

That support is important bc there is no rest period between challenges. So not only would the challenger need to beat the packmaster, they'd also need to win any subsequent challenges.

So, suffice to say, a challenge is not a lightly undertaken endeavor. It's serious fucking business.

Does Nykim kill all the people who challenge? If not, when they lose what happens to them? Are they kicked out of the pack? Or just demoted.

Yes, he killed them all 🤐

Did he have to? No, what's done with a failed challenger is up to personal preference.

Nykim is highly intolerant of insubordination or betrayal, though. For no specific reason, I'm sure. But also, let's consider that this person was trying to kill him and also knows a decent amount about the pack's inner workings.

Are all the bones in Nykim’s office from when he was a newer packmaster?

I highly doubt it. Gotta maintain a rep once you get it, after all. There's also no shortage of idiots in the world, even a fantasy one lol.

Also, I know the AU is an AU and all (and I don't know if you've read it either lol), but there were fresh bones being cleaned off in the Burrows when he interrogated Resh :)

Oh, and there's the bones that don't require death! Almost forgot those lol. I don't recommend fucking Nykim's pack over on business shit or being late with payments or whatever. Unless you want a finger in a garland or a rib on display in his office.

When was the last challenger before I-name-betrayer-bitch?

Hmm, I'm not sure if you mean before Shindra, or after her. I don't know before her, so let's go with after. Man, I am loving calling her betrayer-bitch though, heh.

I'm really not sure after her, either. Shit. I'm gonna speculate here.

We know the first year after he took over was fucking rough for him. He would've eliminated Shindra's crew of people ASAP, for personal reasons as well as safety reasons. I doubt many of them had the chance to challenge. Once things settled down and Nykim established his fucking brutal ass reputation, challenges would've happened very rarely. At the time of the story, there likely hasn't been a challenge for several years, if not more.

Can a rival pack master bribe some young desperate member of a target pack to challenge so if they win they can use that kid as like a puppet to control the target pack?

This is kind of what happened with Istin in Shattered. When we open the story, Nykim has been captured because of an assumed betrayal. And well, actually, the goal was to kill him outright and just take over the pack, bc he’s dangerous AF and Istin didn't especially want to be part of the bone collection in his office. 

The killing the packmaster method is frowned upon, I know, but in this case it probably would've been considered poetic justice since Nykim did the exact same thing to the previous packmaster lol. And also, Istin wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of winning a legitimate challenge XD

As a bit of an aside, I’m getting the feeling that Merrick got some hooks into Istin earlier on, bc he was a piece of work back in Hidden Depths. Like, it’s kinda weird Nykim would approve of someone like that as a beta, right? So it stands to reason he wasn’t always like that. 

So Merrick's probably been working on Istin for a bit. His goal was to get Nykim killed, not take over the pack, but he's also a beta in a rival pack and not the packmaster, so. It stands to reason he might've convinced Istin he was capable and all that without believing it at all, and Istin was dumb enough to fall for it. 

So dumb. Bc if Nykim had died, Istin would’ve had to claim the kill to take Nykim’s position, which he fully believes he deserves at this point. He has his support network in the pack and everything is shaky because Carr just left and Nykim’s second is off on an errand. 

Actually, y’know what, he might’ve been able to do it, if not for Quinten. But, well. Quinten would’ve immediately challenged him, and he would’ve won. Merrick would've been fine with that outcome. Loose end tied up and all that.

A different pack, though? Totally a viable option. (I answer the question at last 😅)