Did You Know?
- Root: The Roleplaying Game is Magpie Games' officially licensed adaptation of Leder Games' board game Root, recasting players as vagabonds tied to no faction.
- The corebook ships eight distinct playbooks, from the sword-and-shield Arbiter to the fast-talking Vagrant, each defining a completely different kind of outlaw.
- The Woodland's ruling factions are built on species: cats hold the Marquisate, birds the Eyrie Dynasties, and mice lead the rebel Woodland Alliance — but vagabonds answer to none of them.
Root borrows its whole aesthetic from storybook England, not high fantasy — a Woodland of hedgerows and rickety dens where a war between a fading monarchy, a militarized fur trade, and a rebel militia is being fought by mice, birds, and cats. Unlike a general fantasy character generator, this one is built entirely around Root's specific class-conflict logic: species signals allegiance, titles are rationed by faction, and vagabonds earn their names instead of inheriting them. Below are real characters pulled from Magpie Games' own published Root RPG quickstart adventures — not invented examples, but the actual Woodland cast.
Pregenerated Vagabonds
Every official Root RPG quickstart ships with a set of ready-to-play vagabonds. These twelve, from the free "Pellenicky Glade" and "Bertram's Cove" quickstarts, show the naming pattern at its clearest: a given name plus the playbook itself, worn almost like a title.
| Name | Species / role |
|---|---|
| Ellora the Arbiter | Badger warrior from Pellenicky Glade, devoted to her own sense of justice |
| Quinn the Ranger | Wolf, a former Eyrie soldier now living wild in the forest |
| Scratch the Scoundrel | Cat, a lucky arsonist searching Pellenicky Glade for a missing mentor |
| Nimble the Thief | Raccoon burglar on the run from the law across the Woodland |
| Keilee the Tinker | Beaver maker exiled from Pellenicky Glade for her radical ideas |
| Xander the Vagrant | Opossum con artist chasing a denizen he fell for on the road |
| Dara the Adventurer | Owl who travels the Woodland righting wrongs and making friends |
| Sherwin the Harrier | Squirrel who measures a vagabond's worth by their list of enemies |
| Clip the Ronin | Raccoon dog, a former spy who now serves no master but himself |
| Umberto the Raider | Mouse, a battle-scarred bandit who left his family's farm behind |
| Rattler the Pirate | Mouse, captain of the ship "Twice Sunk," sailing home to Bertram's Cove |
| Lucasta the Raconteur | Weasel born Jeyne Wheatly, now performing under the name Lucasta LaGrange |
The Goshawk Family and Eyrie Figures
Pellenicky Glade's central mystery is a murder inside one aristocratic bird family — a useful reference for how Root names formal, feudal characters.
| Name | Species / role |
|---|---|
| Alton Goshawk | Bird, the murdered Mayor of Pellenicky Glade whose death drives the mystery |
| Zale Goshawk | Bird, Alton's charming younger brother, campaigning for the vacant mayoralty |
| Ellerbee Goshawk | Bird, Alton's oldest daughter, who quietly assumed his office after his death |
| Callem Goshawk | Bird, Alton's son, returned from the road wearing Eyrie colors |
| Mina Goshawk | Bird, Alton's youngest daughter and a Woodland Alliance sympathizer |
| Count Dridge | Owl, an Eyrie diplomat maneuvering to bring the Glade back under Eyrie control |
| Pollyria Goshawk | Bird, the family's legendary ancestor, honored for valor in an old Eyrie battle |
Denizens of Pellenicky Glade
| Name | Species / role |
|---|---|
| Osha Rustle | Mouse, a radical Woodland Alliance dissident who wants the Goshawks gone |
| Jessamy Winn | Mouse, the pacifist owner and bartender of the Beerburrow tavern |
| Captain Wossey | Mouse, captain of Pellenicky Glade's guard, trying to hold the peace |
| The Silent Paw | Cat, a masked thief of uncertain loyalty blamed for crimes across the Glade |
The Bertram's Cove Cast
Bertram's Cove's quickstart runs on a different kind of naming trick: a rebel figurehead who isn't who the poster makes him out to be.
| Name | Species / role |
|---|---|
| Astrid Montague | Cat, the Marquisate commandant hunting the rebel pirate "Sparrowhawk" |
| Saffron Goodacre | Mouse, the town treasurer secretly leading the local Woodland Alliance |
| Aiden Birch | Mouse, an impulsive teenager desperate to prove his bravery |
| Kell Sweetgrass | Mouse, an ordinary fisherman recruited to play the masked "Captain Sparrowhawk" |
| Declan Sheehan | Mouse, Kell's betrothed, working every angle to bring him home safely |
| Maître Espion Dubois | Cat, the Marquisate fort's spymaster and party host |
| Michel Lambert | Mouse, an undercover Marquisate infiltrator posing as "Tomasy Goodtail" |
| Bill "Hookpaw" Hayward | Squirrel, a blunt Woodland Alliance enforcer loyal to Saffron Goodacre |
| Daisy Delaware | Mouse, Bertram's Cove's dockmaster and an information broker on the side |
Naming by Clan
The Woodland's factions are built on species, and each carries its own register — a name should tell you who someone answers to before they say a word.
Plain, warm, no titles — Osha Rustle and Jessamy Winn never needed one
- Osha Rustle
- Jessamy Winn
- Daisy Delaware
Archaic, titled, a monarchy clinging to formality
- Count Dridge
- Alton Goshawk, Mayor of Pellenicky Glade
- Pollyria Goshawk, honored for valor
Earned nicknames for outsiders, rank for occupiers
- Clip the Ronin
- Commandant Astrid Montague
- Maître Espion Dubois
An Alliance name stays plain because the Alliance's whole premise is that nobody should need a title to matter. A Marquisate officer's rank sits in front of the name because the occupation runs on hierarchy. And a vagabond's second name — the Arbiter, the Raider, the Raconteur — is the one thing nobody assigned them; it's earned on the road or claimed outright.
The most useful trick in the source material, though, is the double name. Kell Sweetgrass is an unremarkable mouse playing the masked rebel "Captain Sparrowhawk." Jeyne Wheatly reinvented herself as Lucasta LaGrange before that became "Lucasta the Raconteur." Michel Lambert works undercover as "Tomasy Goodtail." If your table wants a vagabond with a secret, give them two names and let the gap between them do the storytelling — nobody has to say out loud which one is real.
Most Root names sit close to the plain end — reserve titles for the Eyrie, Marquisate, and Arbiters who still carry an oath
Say the name out loud before you commit to it. Root moves fast in a chase or a scheme, and a name a GM has to stumble through slows down the exact beats that need momentum. If a vagabond's epithet takes two tries to say clean, trim it before session one.
Pair a character with the Woodland location they're passing through — Pellenicky Glade or Bertram's Cove, or a clearing of your own — and the roster starts to feel like a real map of clashing loyalties. If your table also needs names for the wider cast beyond Root's own conventions, our general character name generator covers ground this one deliberately narrows away from, and the animal name generator is useful for a mount, a hireling's pet, or a background critter that isn't a full vagabond.
Common Questions
What is Root: The Roleplaying Game?
Root RPG is Magpie Games' officially licensed tabletop adaptation of Leder Games' board game Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right. Where the board game puts players in charge of the Woodland's warring factions, the RPG puts them in the boots of vagabonds — individual outlaws who owe no faction their loyalty and whose choices ripple through the wider conflict.
What are the Root RPG playbooks?
The corebook ships eight vagabond playbooks: Arbiter, Harrier, Ranger, Ronin, Scoundrel, Thief, Tinker, and Vagrant. Expansions add more, including Adventurer, Raider, Pirate, and Raconteur — each defining a different kind of outlaw, from the honor-bound Arbiter to the fast-talking Vagrant, with its own moves and outlook on the Woodland's civil war.
Are the names in this article official Root canon?
Yes — every name in the tables above comes from Magpie Games' own free Root RPG quickstart booklets, "Pellenicky Glade" and "Bertram's Cove," both released for Free RPG Day. The names this generator produces for you, on the other hand, are new — built in Root's naming style but not pulled from any published book, so they're yours to use freely without treading on someone else's character.
Do these naming conventions work for the original Root board game too?
Yes. The board game's factions — the Marquise de Cat's Marquisate, the Eyrie Dynasties, and the Woodland Alliance — are the same species-based factions the RPG builds on, so the same species and clan logic applies whether you're naming a board game piece, a hireling, or a full RPG vagabond.
Sources
- Root: The Roleplaying Game — Magpie Games
- Root: The RPG — Pellenicky Glade Quickstart (Magpie Games, Free RPG Day)
- Root: The RPG — Bertram's Cove Quickstart (Magpie Games, Free RPG Day)
- Root (board game) — Wikipedia
Updated September 2026: added 32 canonical names from Magpie Games' published Root RPG quickstart adventures, added sources, trimmed essay.
