The "Gandalf" in your campaign

[fusangite]

Admit it, nearly every campaign world, novel, movie, and game has their wizened old sage. LOTR has Gandalf, Star Wars has Yoda, FR has Elminster, Camelot has Merlin, Harry Potter has Albus Dumbledore. How about in your own campain? Do you have that good willed, ancient wizard/sage/seer who walks the world with the greatest of respect? The one that may come to the aide of your PCs from time to time?

I only started doing this in my GMing career in 1998, after 13 years of doing without quite nicely. I only use this character in one (two depending on how you look at it) settings and I use him because the setting demands it. This particular setting is derived from a real world mythology of which he is an essential component but I've discovered one of my players really does read my ENWorld posts pretty reliably, even in the off-topic area.

Anyway, this guy never actually does stuff for the characters but he does give great advice.

 

[Nifft]

Archmage Guy Circet, a.k.a. Guy I, First of the Crown Arcane in year 1810 Post Occido.

He wrote a book of the Kingdom's history in 2001 PO.

I never said he was good.

-- N

 

[iwatt]

I stayed away from Sage NPCs the same way I stayed away from super powerful fighter NPCs. Thi is due to bad experience as a player in which the DMPCs always saved our bacon. :\

In my current Uthgardt Campaign (a FR Barbarian Tribe) one of the PCs, a Uthgardt Shaman wrote a mentor figure in his backstory. Here was born Lusark "Storming Rage" Blandark. He's old. I mean really old. Old in the sense that there is a reason why he never leaves his cave. But he's also a Shaman/Divine Oracle. And the Pcs are the only hope of Uthgardt survival against the coming horde. So I'm using Lusark as a dangler of plot hooks.

And when I finally get to kill Lusark, things will get hairy

 

[Ruined]

Yeah, I have one in the current campaign. Kelkarrin, a mage who isolated himself off in a tower away from humanity. The PCs had to seek him out, learn from him. Through the course of the campaign they've learned that he's a simulacrum that didn't die, and his originator is the lead wizard of the enemy army (Anteas for all you Scarred Lands fans). It was priceless when the PCs didn't know the truth and they spied him in an enemy command tent.

 

[Snowy]

A elderly halfling who sounds like my grandmother used to sound, full of commonsense advice and seemingly very distracted. Quite crotchety, dresses in rags. Seems almost senile sometimes.

My players have met one powerful and mysterious figure who they visited he gave them some directions to find the hydra they were after and answered some questions they wanted answered (eventually). He lived/lives in a shack in the edge of the mangrove swamp that edges the swamp that the city they live in (sorry lived in - its been totalled by some dragons).

He agreed to help them upon persuasion, he seemed very surprise that they'd come to see him already and he seemed to know far far to much about them and the future, including giving their reward for the service they were about to do for him before they had done it.

He then hurried them away before it got dark as "they don't want to be here as it gets dark" "you really don't".

When they returned the house was entirely bare apart from a table with three vials of clear liquid and a rune inscribed on it and a note. They read the note then as it directed poured some hydra blood into each vial and into the rune, which then vanished. The vials changed colour and they after working out which colour matched each of them drank them. Go funky magic powers for all four of them.

He will return (in fact possibly next session) he was a useful and flavourful way of givign them some funky abilities that are individual and unique to them, its been a while since we played i think they were, destroy water 1/day for the fire elemental bloodline desert half orc who hates water (potion was clear and odousless and dry to the touch!), frightful presence upon a charge 1/day for the frost giant bloodline hexblade (potion was freezing cold and blue), energy substitution 3/day for the brassdragon bloodline battle sorceror (think it was molten fire) and the celestial bloodline druids potion gave him... oh cack i cant remember, but it was muddy brown.

I need to stat him at some point soon cos now the worlds going into the apocalypse I have no idea which side the players are going to choose to fight on and thats gonna be very very important very soon.

In fact im off to post a thread asking for ideas for him, please come play.

 

[drothgery]

I've used NPCs that are generally helpful and substantially more powerful than the PCs, but they're not the uber-characters of the setting. Frex, an NPC Aes Sedai accompanied the PCs in my d20 Wheel of Time game for quite a while; she knew a lot that the PCs didn't, but she still made mistakes.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I don't normally use them, but sort of did in my last campaign. Had an elderly elven wizard - Jemina - she was a former mover and shaker in the Sensate community in Sigil. Retired to a backwater prime to take things easy.

Lived in an isolated house ruled by her cats. They met her while trying to identify some strange items they'd collected. Had a style of speech, dress and behaviour that bothered them a little. She was also somewhat insane (CN).

Her main contribution to the campaign was showing the PCs how to get into a demiplane in a bottle that they stole. And sending a half a dozen cows through first to see if it was safe.

She was exceptionally nosy and a skilled diviner, so they did tap her up for information now and again... as well as investing in a lead lined council room in their castle. Even got offered a piece of unsolicited help later in the game. But nothing to write home about.

Was designed to serve as an intro to Sigil, but the campaign headed in a different direction and wound up before that was needed.

 

[JimAde]

In my original AD&D campaign (many years ago) I had this legendary "wizard" who lived in a tower and was feared and respected by the masses, yada yada. The PCs eventually found out he was a 0-level guy from a high-tech interplanetary society who was stranded on their world. He had access to high-tech gadgets and eventually helped the PCs create a "spelljammer"-type ship that they sailed to Earth to stop a corporate takeover of their planet.

It was an odd campaign.

 

[sukael]

In my current steampunk camapign, Mycroft Holmes (genius brother of Sherlock Holmes--yes, he's mentioned in the stories).

 

[radferth]

I have a Galdalf-type in my old homebrew campaign. The characters had to go fetch him to help defend against an upcoming invasion. They had a bit of trouble with this, as he was a lich at that point and did not want to be disturbed.