How do I pronounce the name of Ming I, the Queen of the Darkness Pagoda?
A. "Ming the First"
B. "Ming Eye"
C. "Ming Eee"
D. "Ming Yee"?
Very carefully. 
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lol nobody has ANY idea? I even sent an email to Robin Laws, but no response yet. 
Hmmm, I would go with 'Ming Eye' (pronunciation wise), easier for the players to remember.
You could also have some minion NPC mention it many games later if you want to change it....
"Hey, I've always wanted to ask, how come you guys never call her Majesty the Glorious Dark Emperor by the correct name? I mean, our Perfect and All-knowing Godness of the night had Mike sacrificed the other day just because he laid out the wrong spoon at that feast, and you guys have been saying the wrong name for weeks now..."
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My instinctive response was option C, "Ming Ee", but I'm no expert. Would be very surprised if it was option A, though!
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I'd always assumed this was Ming the First.
But now y'all got me wondering.
Turns out "Ming Yi" (the 36th I Ching hexagram) is sometimes translated as "Ming I". So if it's not Ming the First, I have to assume it's Ming Yee.
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I can't see The Queen Of The Darkness Pagoda ever accepting that there could be anyone succeeding her.
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Justin, that's perfect, thank you! I'll definitely pronounce it "Ming Yee".
My first thought was also "Ming the First", but on consideration I realized that "the First" is normally attached to a rulers name once there is a second ruler of that name.
For example, Queen Elizabeth I of England was known just as Queen Elizabeth until Queen Elizabeth II took the throne several centuries later. There are exceptions, but not many.
So probably not "the First" in this case.
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It's a quirk of the Wade-Giles romanization system. In Pinyin, it would be rendered "Yi" (pronounced "yee"). "I Ching" in Wade-Giles is "Yi Jing" in Pinyin, for instance.
Sort of extending beyond that, if you put all the Monarchs' names into Pinyin, they would be Ming Yi, Bi Dui, Huan Gen, and Li Ding. Obviously that's getting a bit deep in the weeds for Feng Shui, but I'm a language nerd and the thread got me wondering.
Relatedly, there's an inconsistency in the Feng Shui core book that's common to both editions. In the introduction, when it summarizes the factions, it gives "Pi Tui" as the Queen of the Ice Pagoda, but in the chapter on the factions in detail, it gives "Pui Ti." I think this also crops up in some other first edition material outside the core book (I don't have my full FS library to hand, alas). I stick with "Pi Tui" because "pui" isn't a syllable that occurs in Mandarin Chinese (can't speak definitively to the other dialects).
P.S. Their names read like given names (two character given names are common), assuming they aren't some type of alias. Presumably, being siblings, they all share a family name. I don't think there's a canonical answer to what that is, so there's some room to tie them in with characters as distant ancestors/cousins.
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Thanks so much Dan! That's the answer I was looking for, it puts the names into context. Thanks!
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I know that "Pui" is definitely something that occurs in Cantonese, due to the name of the Big Bad from A Better Tomorrow II, Ko Ying Pui. Don't really know what it would translate to in Mandarin.
The Mandarin of 高英培 would be Gao Yingpei.
培 puih/pei usually means grow or practice.
Amusingly, 英培 can also refer to an English teacher.
The Queen of the Ice Pagoda is named as Pi Tui on several Shadowfist cards, so that’s not 琣
Nice!