NPC books

[teitan]

One of the things I hate most when designing adventures if building the enemies for my players. It gets kind of tedious and I don't have a lot of time in the day to get this done considering I work full time at one job and freelance as an illustrator as a side project making pocket change. At any rate, both are very time consuming and while I can create wonderful scenario ideas the act of actually creating the BBEG and his most trusted henchman annoys me to no end.

So what good NPC and organization books are out there for a man without time to use? I know Lords of Darkness is AWESOME, but what other books would be a nifty resource for these kinds of things?

Jason

 

[krichaiushii]

Uncommon Character from Atlas Games might help somewhat:

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG3219.html

 

[Hand of Evil]

You need to get your players to do homework, have them provide you your NPCs, just tell them to roll up one, make it X level, provide description, and a bit about personality, adjust as you see fit and place in a folder to be pulled when you need it.

There is also the Rogues Gallery here:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=19

 

[Psion]

I have a few NPC books. I think the two best are:

1000 Faces volume I: Villains & Scoundrels (actually 250 faces). Very compact, so you are more likely to find something to fit what you are doing.

Bonds of Magic has some nice, completely detailed characters, all spellslingers of some sort.


Of course, those are both 3.0.


A site called Black Falcon Aerie also has a nice selection of 3.0 characters in various shapes and sizes.

On the front page, you can find a link to an updated 3.5 version of NPCGen, which builds random characters to your specification, but you have to add equipment.

I'll also second the rogues gallery here. Lots of mineable threads in there.

 

[Ghostwind]

I like Denizens of Freeport (Green Ronin) for characters. They are original in their presentation and flavor. It's 3.0, but that really isn't all that hard to make modifications if you're running 3.5 if you feel you have too. Another good one is Villains (Bastion Press), which is being updated for 3.5 in pdf.

 

[diaglo]

i have a few:

Rogues Gallery for 1edADnD
AC1 The Shady Dragon Inn (btw..the worst RPG product i've ever purchased) for D&D
Villians Handbook for 2edADnD available as a free download from WotC

Lords of Darkness from WotC for FR
Enemies & Allies from WotC for 2000ed

Villians Design Handbook from KenzerCo for Kalamar edited name...


and dozens of adventures, magazines, modules, articles, and computer generated...

 

[blargney the second]

I picked up Green Ronin's Arcana: Societies of Magic the other week. It's really quite excellent for my purposes! I wanted a book that had groups of people that I could drop straight into my game that would provide challenges and interesting encounters for my players at all levels of play.

In a nutshell, there are 6 organizations:
- evil monks that work to become devils and bind outsiders into weapons
- an organized crime syndicate headed by a dragon
- a group who wants to restore the world to a pre-civilization state of natural chaos
- a tribunal of mages who adjudicate magical catastrophes
- a church that wants to restore its mostly-dead god
- a martial school founded by a ghost who seeks to re-establish a dead empire

I haven't started the game yet, but the opening scene will go like this: A body falls from the sky and splatters as it hits the ground in front of you. Shards of metal fly as a small blade shatters upon impact, a swirl of reddish smoke appears. A skull with bat wings on the side emerges from the vapours - roll for initiative, monkeyboy!

What's Going On: The Dragon Gang is moving into a new city, and trying to oust the thieves' guild that is already in place. The latter group has hired the Green Steel Monks to provide them with outsider weapons that will help them fend off the intruders. The body was a thief messenger who was intercepted by a drakeling - his outsider weapon contained a vargouille that was released when the sword broke. After the battle, the blood and gore will attract preternatural creatures from the nearby forest.

I'll introduce elements from three of the groups from the book in the first scene!
-blarg