I'm naming my NPCs from my spam.

[Dirigible]

Adventure idea:

The thieve's guild's Minister of Tricksters gets ahold of a Wand of Sending with infinite charges. Being a cunning git, he devises a plan to exploit it...

The leader of every major adventuring party, guild, merchant house and principality in the setting starts receiving Sendings from the lord of a border barony. Over... and over... and over... This lord claims that his land has been overrun by orcs, and he has resolved to flee. However, he needs someone to help store his vast personal treasury until he can hire mercenaries to wage a war of liberation, and promises to share a portion of his wealth with anyone that opens their vaults and ledgers to his treasure porters. Who are,naturally, Covert Item Relocation Professionals. If the PCs are too bright to fall for this, there are plenty who aren't, and may want their help for revenge... or the local archmage wants the PCs to go to the barony and stop this infernal aetheric white noise.

Or: Corrupt druid gets a similar wand, and begins offering cheap herbal remedies that will make you 'virile as an orc'! Or targetted potions of giant growth.

 

[HellHound]

Dirigible, consider that whole premise snagged for my TankGirl 1066 High Fantasy campaign.

 

[NeuroZombie]

I worked at a worker's comp insurance company for three years and I would always write down interesting names from the injured (man, need to find that list!). Anyway, I found the mother (no pun intended) of all names:

Mamadou B. Balde

I kid you not, that is an actual name from an actual client. I ROTFLMAO when I heard that one!

 

[diaglo]

titles of typical spam i get

Here's a list of the spam i got from this morning:

Valium $69.95, Cialis $89.9... 3 Days Left for your Refill 05:51:35 AM 49 KB

Wilma Some good news for you! 12:48:52 AM 7 KB

snofrk197 Specal offer for Acrobat 6 Professional 02:04:47 AM 29 KB

Factually K. Recruitment Well well! 03/02/2005 1 KB

Savannah Chu Re: Pretty boy wants to meet a girl 03/02/2005 22 KB

Laura Dawn, MoveOn PAC

 

[Buttercup]

Adventure idea:

The thieve's guild's Minister of Tricksters gets ahold of a Wand of Sending with infinite charges. Being a cunning git, he devises a plan to exploit it...

The leader of every major adventuring party, guild, merchant house and principality in the setting starts receiving Sendings from the lord of a border barony. Over... and over... and over... This lord claims that his land has been overrun by orcs, and he has resolved to flee. However, he needs someone to help store his vast personal treasury until he can hire mercenaries to wage a war of liberation, and promises to share a portion of his wealth with anyone that opens their vaults and ledgers to his treasure porters. Who are,naturally, Covert Item Relocation Professionals. If the PCs are too bright to fall for this, there are plenty who aren't, and may want their help for revenge... or the local archmage wants the PCs to go to the barony and stop this infernal aetheric white noise.

Or: Corrupt druid gets a similar wand, and begins offering cheap herbal remedies that will make you 'virile as an orc'! Or targetted potions of giant growth.

I worship you. Why? Because my players recently exploded the campaign plot so badly that I was thinking I'd have to manufacture a TPK. Well, I've found an even better way to pay them back!

You sir, are a god.

 

[Buttercup]

Here's a list of the spam i got from this morning:

Let's see what we can do with that list.

Snofrk
Misunderstood Goblin Florist
Expert 2

Factually K. Recruitment
Gnome Cartographer, Notary and Wedding Invitation Designer
Ranger 1/Expert 2

Savannah Chu Re
Whirling Bot o' Death
Monk 6

 

[nakia]

Rel here on ENWorld has been doing this since early last year.

Does Rel also put "Lonley Housewives" in his game?

How about:
Nolan Epps
Juilo Tate
Doctor Worley (now there's a mad scientist name!)
Anastasia Beard
Sammy Garl

I could go on; the university's spam filter puts most of my spam in a mailbox for me, where it stays until I delete it. I never thought to use it as a gaming resource.

And Dirigible, that wand of sending idea is great!

 

[xrpsuzi]

Adventure idea:

The thieve's guild's Minister of Tricksters gets ahold of a Wand of Sending with infinite charges. Being a cunning git, he devises a plan to exploit it...

The leader of every major adventuring party, guild, merchant house and principality in the setting starts receiving Sendings from the lord of a border barony. Over... and over... and over... This lord claims that his land has been overrun by orcs, and he has resolved to flee. However, he needs someone to help store his vast personal treasury until he can hire mercenaries to wage a war of liberation, and promises to share a portion of his wealth with anyone that opens their vaults and ledgers to his treasure porters. Who are,naturally, Covert Item Relocation Professionals. If the PCs are too bright to fall for this, there are plenty who aren't, and may want their help for revenge... or the local archmage wants the PCs to go to the barony and stop this infernal aetheric white noise.

Or: Corrupt druid gets a similar wand, and begins offering cheap herbal remedies that will make you 'virile as an orc'! Or targetted potions of giant growth.

You know, the sad thing is that my group wold fall for. Hook, line, and sinker.... Funny how dressed up spam doesn't register on their radar....

You know, you can also get "character portraits" to go with the names from spam....

 

[Nifft]

By the teeth of Juiblex!
Such cunning genius!
I love you people.

There should be a more general "Classic Cons" for tricks like this to pull on PCs.

Thanks, -- N

 

[MetalBard]

Adventure idea:

The thieve's guild's Minister of Tricksters gets ahold of a Wand of Sending with infinite charges. Being a cunning git, he devises a plan to exploit it...

The leader of every major adventuring party, guild, merchant house and principality in the setting starts receiving Sendings from the lord of a border barony. Over... and over... and over... This lord claims that his land has been overrun by orcs, and he has resolved to flee. However, he needs someone to help store his vast personal treasury until he can hire mercenaries to wage a war of liberation, and promises to share a portion of his wealth with anyone that opens their vaults and ledgers to his treasure porters. Who are,naturally, Covert Item Relocation Professionals. If the PCs are too bright to fall for this, there are plenty who aren't, and may want their help for revenge... or the local archmage wants the PCs to go to the barony and stop this infernal aetheric white noise.

Or: Corrupt druid gets a similar wand, and begins offering cheap herbal remedies that will make you 'virile as an orc'! Or targetted potions of giant growth.

This is so totally sweet. The druid one might be a bit too obvious, but the first one is pure gold.

You could always have the rogue be a recurring villain too. Maybe the PCs find out the plot and know to stop the "treasure porters" but they cannot find where the Sendings are coming from. Eventually they stop. The heroes go on their merry way, thinking that by stopping the "treasure porters" the villain has given up, believing that no one will fall for the ploy again. Not so! The villain has actually gone mad from the massive amounts of replies he has received in his head from the Sendings. Now he's a complete lunatic who's hunting down every person who replied and killing them because "he can't stop their voices from ringing in his head." Queue heroic PCs unaware of the impending danger, because they also replied to the Sending. DMs doing this should be prepared to use the PCs' own smart-mouthed remarks against them when the lunatic villain comes calling in their town.

Dirigible, that was an awesome idea that has inspired me to no end!