In Volo's Guide to Monsters, under the "Darkling" monster entry, it says that the seelie fey that betrayed the Summer Queen was known as "Dubh Catha" or "Dark Crow" in 'common'. I think some well-intentioned person at WotC may have done a quick wiki search on the legends of Badb and merged "Battle Crow" (Badb Catha) with the word for black in Irish (dubh).
I know this is nit-picking, but it looks like whoever at WotC responsible for creating the copy for the Darkling creature may not have taken into account word order. "Catha" (or "Cath") doesn't mean crow, it means battle. So, Dubh Catha actually conveys the meaning "Black Battle" (also a cool name, but not what they were going for according to their translation). It would be more accurate if they called this fictional fey creature something like "Préachán Dubh", (préachán is the Irish word for rook, or crow), or even Badb Dubh, rather than Dubh Catha.
I applaud WotC's willingness to draw from ancient myths from around the world to add depth to their monsters and stories, but they might benefit from running stuff like this by someone who is more familiar with the cultures from which they are drawing in the future.
I'm aware this is more of a WotC error, and not D&D Beyond, but I'm hoping the Beyond folks can pass this error onto the appropriate WotC folks too.
That is actually an impressive, insightful and informative analysis. I applaud you and hope you get some form of official answer from WotC. If I may, I'd suggest you to try and shoot a tweet to Jeremy Crawford on this, as he's extremely active and friendly on twitter, and might reply to you.
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
In Volo's Guide to Monsters, under the "Darkling" monster entry, it says that the seelie fey that betrayed the Summer Queen was known as "Dubh Catha" or "Dark Crow" in 'common'. I think some well-intentioned person at WotC may have done a quick wiki search on the legends of Badb and merged "Battle Crow" (Badb Catha) with the word for black in Irish (dubh).
I know this is nit-picking, but it looks like whoever at WotC responsible for creating the copy for the Darkling creature may not have taken into account word order. "Catha" (or "Cath") doesn't mean crow, it means battle. So, Dubh Catha actually conveys the meaning "Black Battle" (also a cool name, but not what they were going for according to their translation). It would be more accurate if they called this fictional fey creature something like "Préachán Dubh", (préachán is the Irish word for rook, or crow), or even Badb Dubh, rather than Dubh Catha.
I applaud WotC's willingness to draw from ancient myths from around the world to add depth to their monsters and stories, but they might benefit from running stuff like this by someone who is more familiar with the cultures from which they are drawing in the future.
I'm aware this is more of a WotC error, and not D&D Beyond, but I'm hoping the Beyond folks can pass this error onto the appropriate WotC folks too.
Thanks!
That is actually an impressive, insightful and informative analysis.
I applaud you and hope you get some form of official answer from WotC. If I may, I'd suggest you to try and shoot a tweet to Jeremy Crawford on this, as he's extremely active and friendly on twitter, and might reply to you.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Hey there ArwynPDX,
thank you for the information - I love to find out stuff like this!
I'm not sure on the best way to get this information to WotC - you could submit a ticket to the D&D team via their support website?
I'll ask Badeye as well next time we chat.
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