ParanoydStyle
Peace Among Worlds
As part of my "D&D Outside The Box" ongoing...idk what to call it? "Column"? Whatever, it's a thing I do sometimes on my blog. And when I do it, I stat things for D&D that are, you know, "outside the box", things you wouldn't necessarily expect to encounter in the high fantasy milieu of D&D but things that might be perfect if you're running an unusual, idiosyncratic campaign or you just want to try surprising the players with something different...yet familiar.
So far, I have statted Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost In The Shell, Agent 47 from the Hitman franchise, the Xenomorph from Alien(s), and the Predator, from Predator (that last one is Patrons only).
Today, I statted something (I guess technically "someone", I guess he was TECHNICALLY a person) much, much, much weirder.
I statted Nazi Reichsminister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
While Goebbels was certainly a monster in real life, I've statted him as an NPC, i.e. following the same general guidelines as PCs. Specifically he is a 13th level Mastermind Rogue.
Why would I take time to translate this awful, awful, awful person into D&D? Well I suppose, besides the always unstated Reason 0 of "I felt like it":
1) He is one of the most spot-on Lawful Evil, emphasis on the Evil, people to ever live. Ordinarily, human morality is much more nuanced than the D&D alignment system can represent, but LE tells you everything you need to know about Goebbels' character.
2) When I statted him for Resist & Remember, I felt like I'd already done most of the work of statting him for D&D 5th Edition due to the similarities between systems,
3) I want D&D players to have the satisfaction of killing him, whether it's with a Wizard's fireball, just a Rogue straight up wasting him with a really well aimed crossbow shot with sneak attack and/or assassinate (the classic "I waste it with my crossbow!" goto), a Sorcerer's phantasmal killer, a Good Cleric's flame strike, a Necromancer's finger of death, a raging Barbarian chopping his head in half with a war axe, anything else you can think of, or for perhaps maximum "hoist by own petard" points, cloudkill. (I am referencing Zyclon-B, tw: holocaust).
4) "Why Goebbels and not Hitler?"
A) D&D doesn't have stats for jetpacks, so he couldn't be Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
B) Obviously, Adolph is a little too memetic (meme-y) to take kinda seriously, see A.
C) I have always personally found Goebbels to be the most despicable of Hitler's inner circle (yes, even more than Himmler), because of his insidious use of Propaganda to essentially "sell" the whole Holocaust thing to the German people. Basically, Goebbels and I have exactly one thing in common, we're both at least somewhat gifted writers, and while I try to use my power of writing for good, I really do try, he used his power of writing to perpetrate history's greatest evil.
CLICK HERE FOR STAT BLOCK. (Fluff writeup on special request.)
Final notation: I did not give Goebbels any class features that are magical, quasi-magical, or just plain super powers in general. So no blindsense, no mimicry, etcetera.
* "Joey Gerbils"?
IDK, it's my little pet name for the bastard. Mainly because I like to think he would really, really hate it if his Nazi ass was still alive. It makes more sense if you know that, while Goebbels is pronounced with a hard G, the vowel combination "oe" in German is pronounced with an implied consonant, r, on the end of it. Hence Gurbils hence
-> Gerbils.
So far, I have statted Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost In The Shell, Agent 47 from the Hitman franchise, the Xenomorph from Alien(s), and the Predator, from Predator (that last one is Patrons only).
Today, I statted something (I guess technically "someone", I guess he was TECHNICALLY a person) much, much, much weirder.
I statted Nazi Reichsminister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
While Goebbels was certainly a monster in real life, I've statted him as an NPC, i.e. following the same general guidelines as PCs. Specifically he is a 13th level Mastermind Rogue.
Why would I take time to translate this awful, awful, awful person into D&D? Well I suppose, besides the always unstated Reason 0 of "I felt like it":
1) He is one of the most spot-on Lawful Evil, emphasis on the Evil, people to ever live. Ordinarily, human morality is much more nuanced than the D&D alignment system can represent, but LE tells you everything you need to know about Goebbels' character.
2) When I statted him for Resist & Remember, I felt like I'd already done most of the work of statting him for D&D 5th Edition due to the similarities between systems,
3) I want D&D players to have the satisfaction of killing him, whether it's with a Wizard's fireball, just a Rogue straight up wasting him with a really well aimed crossbow shot with sneak attack and/or assassinate (the classic "I waste it with my crossbow!" goto), a Sorcerer's phantasmal killer, a Good Cleric's flame strike, a Necromancer's finger of death, a raging Barbarian chopping his head in half with a war axe, anything else you can think of, or for perhaps maximum "hoist by own petard" points, cloudkill. (I am referencing Zyclon-B, tw: holocaust).
4) "Why Goebbels and not Hitler?"
A) D&D doesn't have stats for jetpacks, so he couldn't be Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
B) Obviously, Adolph is a little too memetic (meme-y) to take kinda seriously, see A.
C) I have always personally found Goebbels to be the most despicable of Hitler's inner circle (yes, even more than Himmler), because of his insidious use of Propaganda to essentially "sell" the whole Holocaust thing to the German people. Basically, Goebbels and I have exactly one thing in common, we're both at least somewhat gifted writers, and while I try to use my power of writing for good, I really do try, he used his power of writing to perpetrate history's greatest evil.
CLICK HERE FOR STAT BLOCK. (Fluff writeup on special request.)
Final notation: I did not give Goebbels any class features that are magical, quasi-magical, or just plain super powers in general. So no blindsense, no mimicry, etcetera.
* "Joey Gerbils"?
IDK, it's my little pet name for the bastard. Mainly because I like to think he would really, really hate it if his Nazi ass was still alive. It makes more sense if you know that, while Goebbels is pronounced with a hard G, the vowel combination "oe" in German is pronounced with an implied consonant, r, on the end of it. Hence Gurbils hence
-> Gerbils.