Supporting Caste: Memorable NPCs

[AFGNCAAP]

Thanks for the replies! Keep `em coming!

I can think of a few NPCs which hung around for 1 reason or another in my games, as well as in games that I played. Here's some of the D&D ones:

* An orc paladin (back in the days of 2nd ed.).

* A group of 5 kids. All of them actually were powerful wizards who were stripped of their power and advanced age by a wicked rival. Our PCs pretty much were the guardians of these kids.

* A lone ranger who punched out one of the PCs for constantly leaving his tack & harness on his horse.

And there were a few NPCs from various superhero games I've ran:

* Caliber--imagine Destro (from G.I. Joe) with the powers to fly at sonic speed & transform intom organic steel. He was tough, ruthless, & the PCs absolutely dreaded fighting him.

* The Amazing Static Man (from Villains Unlimited)--this NPC from the Heroes Unlimited supplement was universally despised by the PCs, not because he was tough, but because he was overconfident and annoying. Many PCs went out of their way to get rid of him.

* Geiger--a radioactive alien with radiation control powers. Liked doing a lot of damage, and players hated the radiation poisoning risk he always presented just by being close to him.

There are more examples that escape me at the moment, but these are a few that have been quite memorable. I'm curious to see what NPCs may become memorable in future games.

 

[Fathead]

One associate of our group is the imp Chalakassen, who was the familiar of our wizard's now deceased mentor. He's actually fairly loyal and friendly to the group - well, as loyal as evil given fleshly form can be, anyway. He helps to run and keeps the books of an inn that two of the party members own in an Underdark city. I'm pretty certain he skims money off the profits, and we're pretty sure but can't prove that he's killed multiple people who have crossed him or the party. For the longest time, most of the party didn't even know he was an imp thanks to his magical disguise. What a guy.

Yay! Chalakassen receives mention on EnWorld!

Chalakassen is also fond of smiling at inopportune moments, while discussing something morbid (or when being questioned about a waitress from the inn that disappeared mysteriously). He has a constant, unnerving grin and laugh...which is great fun to roleplay...

 

[Henry]

Our group's favorite by far has been a caravan master in our old homebrew game I DM'ed, by the name of Patrick.

Patrick started life as filler (I needed a name, and used the name of an old gaming buddy of ours), and attained great fame when the caravan (party served as guards at the time) was attacked by a bulette.

The Bulette pounced, and patrick was certainly a goner, until a quick-thinking magic-user (that's how long ago it was) cast feather fall on the bulette in mid-air. Bulette failed his save, and Patrick, armed with a club, played Baseball.

Later, Patrick would show up at the strangest of times (like the time I had him pop up as a prisoner in a hobgoblin lair), and eventually, the group went into business with Patrick in a silver mine venture. (They, of course, were the silent partners who had to clean the vermin out, first...)

All the years Patrick lived, I never assigned him a single stat, a single hit point, or a single proficiency. I always had a vague idea he was a retired fighter...

 

[nimisgod]

The priestess of Song and Healing, Obenth. She helped the PCs and eve though I playd her to the hilt, I expected her to be forgotten like the rest. The player of the Paladin had a different idea and eventually, they were married.

 

[Eccles]

The game I'm currently running has the entire govenment of Dagger Falls trying very hard to be memorable.

The fact that Randall Morn is about 60, senile and something of a dribbling pederast confused a lot of them. Worse still is the head of the secret police, "Respen Moondown", and his magical filing cabinet of knowledge...

Nobody, however, tops Ruath, an elven 'companion' in a Warhammer game I played in years ago. He accompanied us for 2 years, sufffering unbelievably from the WFRP Insanity table.

For the last 6 months of our travelling with him, he was an evil, kleptomaniac who was pathologically incapable of telling the truth. All that time we were wondering what was happening to our equipment...

 

[mythago]

The Glorious Hugh. Short unofficial description: the NPC who does everything more beautifully than you. "The Glorious" was not actually part of his name, but that's the title the players bitterly gave him when they thought he wasn't around.

Hugh was not meant to be a big deal, just one of the NPC 'cousins.' I wrote up a Trump description at the last minute, containing lines like "His hair is of just the length that makes women want to run their fingers through it." All the male players rolled their eyes. The one female player looked intrigued.

No matter when they encountered Hugh, he did everything perfectly. They brought a grieving PC flowers; he brought an ikebana arrangement. They came out of a fight looking bruised; he looked roughed up in a heroic, yet strangely attractive way, that made women want to take care of him. They wanted to make witty conversation during a formal waltz; the lady had already promised that dance to Hugh. They sweated; Hugh glowed.

Never underestimate the value of giving players competition.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Hmm, I got two.

First is Andruar. The loveable young mage in training that set fire to the forest when they first met him. He ended up tagging along with PC's and was their mascot for a while. It was great fun when they found out he had taken credit for saving the city (which they did) in the wizards guild. They were not pleased to be upstaged by the teenager at all!

During one escapade though the PC's were done for. No way out, but the critter offered them a deal. Sacrifice one of their number and he would spare the rest.

None of the others stood forward. Not one of the PC's was willing to take one for the team. So up steps Andraur the NPC who saves their bacon. (I know, I know. But he wasn't uber and he wasn't there to do it. It just fit with the NPC's personality to do it when no one else would.)

So Andraur dies and every single one of the three ladies in the group looked at me horrified and said "You killed Andraur you big bully!" It was great! It got better when they took the evil necromantic artificat out of its dimensional cage to show to somebody. It had this nasty side effect of resurrecting nearby corpses. So when they find the body missing and they pieced together what actually happened ... ooh the shouts about my being a sneaky rotten so and so doing that to poor Andraur.

The second was Rask. The dwarven archmage that they found with his soul trapped inside a very valuable diamond. He was loud, he was obnoxious, and the well developed fighter decided to shut him up in the dungeon by sticking him down her cleavage. This led to an ongoing affair between the fighter and the dwarf that only got worse once he was finally freed from the gem and they found out he really WAS an archmage.

Things reached a boiling point when the PC's visited his clan and all of the dwarves referred to her as his betrothed. She fought, she railed, she threatend his life and his (ahem) manlyness. It was like watching an episode of Moonlighters at the table.

 

[diaglo]

in the current campaign i'm playing in it was:

Erland, an evil priest of Moander. we followed him around and around and around. but we never caught up to him. eventually we had a TPK.

a few sessions later the new PCs killed Erland. it was anticlimatic. none of them knew the backstory.

 

[Numion]

Mine would be Gimble Toefoot, A Watch Investigator

He was like a police detective in one town in my past campaign. He wasn't an enemy of the PCs, he was just doing his job. And always managed to surprise me how quickly the PCs could paint themselves in a corner when Gimble questioned them .. all the while the players sat in the same room and heard the other PCs excuses for this and that!

I never statted him, maybe he would've been an expert. I played him as a mix of all the TV-serie detectives I've seen: from Sherlock to Poirot.

My older Warhammer campaign also had some great characters, but those weren't created by me, but were from the stellar Enemy Within campaign.

 

[kigmatzomat]

NPCs are great when the players take a shine to them. Amazingly, my players are incredibly social. Currently in my campaign:

H'Orst an ogre was a minor lookout that the players captured and let go for virtually no reason at all. This contradicted everything he knew about Men and caused him to set out on his own. The PCs mostly by accident saved him and he has since been completely adopted now as part of the party and acquired his spurs as a Paladin.

Geist Winterhaven a zombie lord Paladin. Hard to explain.

Tiflan - an archmage from a bygone era they freed from a souljar. He is re-establishing his order and inducting PC mages into the group.

Baku, a 500yr old Draconian barbarian (int 9). Imagine Archie Bunker as a marine drill sargeant with the vague, innate racism of a species that considers most other creatures prey. When handed a fine elven wine by an elven bard Baku commented "Baku had drink like this at last good elven meal. Been long time since baku had proper elven food. You ever need elf disappeared you let Baku know." The players are alternately amused and horrified by him.

Grygak half-orc barbarian turned smith. He drinks like a fish and considers winging chunks of glowing metal at people high comedy. He's competitive with other smiths and somewhat egotistical. The players love him dearly.

Jurgan Tompkins - owner of Tompkin's Fest, their favorite inn. An inn named for a party is their perfect cup of tea.

Berron - a retired fighter become tradesman. Several PCs are silent partners in his business deals to the tune of nearly 50,000gp.

Nerissa - a 5,000yr old dryad. She's somewhere between a genius and a lunatic but she always means well. She's also the only dryad they've ever heard of that looks late-middle age (think Lauren Hutton). She can speak telepathically to Lorette and acts somewhat like her mother.

Lorette - a "young" dryad of 500 that the players saved from turning into a spell component. Imagine a 17-yr old girl that feels put upon by her mother.

Mishka Almerhaus - Mistress of a trading company that is a front for a psionicist guild trying to manipulate the future.

Lyzette - Mishka's sheltered aid and occasional escort to one of the PCs.


These are just the NPCs the players might decide to visit if they have some free time and in the mood to travel. There's a host of lesser NPCs out there from their favorite tailors, bartenders, and ship captains to the gamblers, pimps and prostitutes they occassionally frequent that I'll gloss over.