K could be for Kara-Tur, but instead I’m going to do a short one on Krynn. Much is written on Dragonlance, so I’m just going to do briefly, the origin of the name of the world.

Krynn is not Tracy’s name for the campaign – he has tended to use the name Ansalon when talking about the location, which is the continent that contained the epic. And given the traverse of the original trilogy, its a perfect and applicable name and I use it myself but early on there was no name for the world itself.

The idea of having a planetary name and then a continental name probably goes back to Greyhawk (campaign) which was set in the Flaeness (continent) which is on Oerth (world). That would drive the Dragonlance (campaign)/Ansalon (continent)/Krynn (world) trichotomy, and later the Forgotten Realms (campaign)/Faerun (continent) /Abeir-Toril (world) arrangement.

But for the name itself? Well, my younger brother married a young woman named Corinne. Playing around with the word, changing the C to a K, collapsing it into one word, and swapping out a vowel, double a consonent, I get Krynn.

So that’s the secret origin of Krynn. My sister-in-law. Heck of an anniversary gift.

*Originally posted on Grubb Street, Jeff Grubb’s personal blog. Posted here with permission.