Nëndheu: the world beneath the earth

Nëndheu is an Albanian word meaning "beneath the earth": the underground. It gave our game its name. Here is what the word means, the lower world that appears in Balkan folk tales, and why we chose it.

What the word means

The word is built from two parts: nën, "under", and dhe, "earth" or "soil". Together they mean what lies beneath the earth. In everyday Albanian, nëndheu is a plain, practical word: you will find it in talk of mining and of what lies under the ground. We liked that. It is not a mystical name. It simply says where you are going: down.

The lower world in folk tales

Many folk tales across the Balkans and the rest of Europe describe a world below our own, reached through a deep well, a pit or a cave. Its outline is familiar across many versions: a hero is lowered or falls into the world below, finds that a monster there is holding back the water or holding someone captive, defeats it, and then has to find a way back to the surface. In many versions that way back is an eagle, which the hero feeds on the long flight up, in some tellings with flesh from his own body.

The details change from teller to teller, and so do the monsters, but the shape stays the same: a descent, a fight in the dark, and a hard road home.

Why we named the game Nendheu

That shape is exactly the shape of a roguelike. In Nendheu, the kulshedra has dragged the mountain springs down into the world beneath the earth, and Arbër, a dragua, has to go down after her. Each run is a descent. When you fall, you start again from the surface, and the way down is never quite the same.

For the title we dropped the ë, writing Nendheu, so the name is easy to type and search for in any language. In the game's world, and in Albanian, the place itself keeps its proper spelling: Nëndheu.