D&D General We Hardly Knew Ye: NPCs in your campaigns that were gone too soon

[TravDoc42]

As a GM, I tend to put a lot of thought into the motivations of my NPCs, especially villains! I love creating nuance and reasoning to their actions, which makes them more than just a stat block.

Unfortunately (?), villainous NPCs tend to die fighting. I'm still fairly new to running my games, so sometimes an NPC who has a lot of backstory will die really quickly.

One example of this is Madame Petresa Polidori, a vampirate captain from a Spelljammer campaign I've been running for teens! I've been waiting for find an excuse to use her in a game for a while, and she finally made her triumphant appearance... only to be turned into a javelin pincushion. Staking the vampire is a classic trope, and the kids had a blast, so I'm not complaining, but it got me thinking: this has to have happened to other GMs!

So, what NPCs of yours died before their time was through?

 

[DragonLancer]

It wasn't D&D but a Rolemaster campaign a friend ran in the early 90s. First session he introduced the campaign villain on a balcony doing his evil monologue. The halfling ranger in the party decided to chance it and throw his bolas, critical hitted and killed the villain within the first 10 minutes.

 

[TravDoc42]

It wasn't D&D but a Rolemaster campaign a friend ran in the early 90s. First session he introduced the campaign villain on a balcony doing his evil monologue. The halfling ranger in the party decided to chance it and throw his bolas, critical hitted and killed the villain within the first 10 minutes.

That's brutal!

 

[DragonLancer]

It was but it was hilarious. I don't think I've ever had a GM be completely speechless before.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Not sure if it counted as properly "before their time" but I had a fellow named Danson the Sea-Raven who was meant to be a potentially long-term hassle for the PCs as an officer on the ship they were privateering aboard. After a few increasingly hostile confrontations with the guy about (mis)treatment of captured sailors and hostages, half the PCs surprised me by deciding to ambush him during a night watch. They caught him by surprise, silencing the scuffle magically and locking several manacles on him along with enough weighted chain to make swimming impossible before shoving him overboard while out at sea. He drowned, as you'd expect, and the rest of the cruise went much more smoothly (and with fewer ethical challenges) with Danson gone.

Problem is, he was wearing a Ring of the Sea-Spouse when he drowned, and followed the ship for weeks till it reached port, at which point he beached himself and suffocated in fish form to regain human form. Danson then recruited some local bully-boys and went after the two PCs whose faces he'd seen during the ambush for revenge and to find out who'd paid them to attack him (he was assuming one or more of the other ship's officers had funded an assassination attempt - it was that kind of command structure). He jumped them on shore after they'd been partying (and doing some opportunistic thievery) but because he only knew about three assailants (one just a masked figure) he misjudged the odds and the four other PCs came to the rescue and ultimately finished him off for good along with most of his random thugs.

So Danson did die (twice, even) instead of being a mid-to-long term hassle as hoped, but his sudden reappearance had the players paranoid for ages and the second fight where they chopped him to pieces was secretly witnessed by another sailor from their ship who managed to anonymously blackmail them over it for months. They never did quite work out exactly what the weird magic ring they looted from Danson did, eventually deciding it was some kind of "get out of going overboard free" charm and that was how Danson had survived to come hunting them down. After carrying it around for months they wound up selling it two sessions before the guy who had been holding on to the ring drowned in a flooding room trap, which was a nice bit of irony.

 

[Croesus]

Brother Donovan, NPC cleric in Princes of the Apocalypse campaign. Level 5 party. A fight with fire temple agents leaves Donovan dead, the rest of the party fleeing. They come back the next day and retrieve his body, hoping to find a way to raise him that doesn't bankrupt the party. I saw this as an opportunity to add a side quest to the campaign, so...

Another NPC suggests her father, a merchant prince in Waterdeep, might be persuaded to help. They travel all the way to Waterdeep and approach the father. He agrees, but requires the party to perform a 'minor' task for him. (Though they didn't know it, he wanted them to steal some merchandise from a rival merchant house.)

The players all look at one another, suddenly realizing they don't really like Donovan that much. The next day, they drop his body off with his religious order so he can be buried and leave town.

To this day we laugh about how the party was so intent on helping a fallen comrade, only to abruptly decide "You know what, I'm sure he'd rather be laid to rest with his order. Yeah, that's the ticket."

Never trust players to do what one expects.

 

[aco175]

I try to not give the NPCs much until after they survive their first encounter with the PCs. Sometimes I have to make up stuff on the fly though.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I ran a d20 Conan game that took place in a giant prison city. The characters were facing against a gang of deadly children called the Skullboys. They wound up negotiating and made allies with the leader, Marrow. He was like one of Peter Pan's Lost Boys but with the creepiness dial turned up to 11... this preteen gang leader who spoke only in whispers and commanded a team of silent children assassins. The group liked Marrow very much.

The characters organized a meeting of the leaders of the lesser gangs, and secretly I planned for an assassination attempt by one of the more powerful gangs. I told the players I was going to roll randomly to see which gang leader was killed... and of course the dice decided on Marrow!

Gone too soon, King.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I recently had an vampiric villain get staked. Not completely unexpected.

The PCs had encountered her a few times and had just foiled her plan to mind control the Lord Mayor. Somewhat to my surprise they then decided she had to die. This struck me as odd as she herself hadn't done anything more heinous than dodgy urban renewal in a poor neighbourhood. But PCs gonna murder.

Killing her took some effort, she "lived" in a mansion with high security. But they managed to pull it off and staked her in her coffin.

My vamp's name was Theresa Polidori. Seems we have similar inspirations for our vampires, @TravDoc42.

 

[Longspeak]

Recently, to tie in an event to the larger world, I crafted an NPC. She worked in the relevant field, had relevant knowledge to share, and even - I thought - an interesting hook.

But she didn't immediately begin to spout everything she knew so the PCs left and went to ask the butcher instead.