Who's your Gandalf now, baby?

[Storyteller01]

Last campaign had a lephrechan that helped the party, much to their chargin. The party drunk was an especially appealing target...


In our current campaign, one of the players is a black dragon. His dad is the closest thing to a DM PC helper, but the help comes with a price. And it's one the dragon character always pays, even for other players.

 

[EvilGM]

Harold, Paragon Quickling Monk (Grandmaster of Flowers)

 

[Eosin the Red]

Iblis the Black was the most feared and black hearted wizard in Middea. The party managed to recognize his nearly destroyed body in a freak show as the "incredible melting man." By happen stance they rescued him so that they could finish a job well started... but then they listened to him and a dread crept up on them. Iblis opposed someone who was able to crush him without pause, as he could have done to the party. Now, they speak with him on occassion as they mount their efforts against someone who Iblis describes as an "evil that has no limits."

I rubs the party to know that they give succor to a mass murderer and that their need for his information is greater than their need for justice. Plus, he is impossible to intimidate since he is already 85% dead and in constant pain only his desire for revenge gives him the will to live.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

....ridule them, confuse them, and trick them.

Ridule?! Do you mean ridicule? If not, what does ridule mean?

 

[Kunimatyu]

I don't use Gandalf-figures, as they reek of DMPCitude. If the PCs want cryptic clues, they can track down the monastic leader of a githyanki sect in Kythri, or visit Fernia and negotiate for wishes with the efreeti nobility in exchange for tasks. If they're really desperate, they can go to the blackened tower of Khin-Oin on Mabar, the Endless Night, and speak to one of the yugoloth keepers of knowledge.

However, the last option is generally not something you want to do.

 

[arscott]

Does your campaign have a Gandalf? You know, the mysterious character who shows up to warn the PCs of a great danger threatening the land, or reveal their special destiny? Usually a Gandalf is disliked by respectable folk, often referred to as "that crazy old beggar" or "troublemaker." He may appear when least expected to offer cryptic advice or help the PCs out of a tough scrape.

I want to hear who your Gandalf is, and if you don't have one, do you have any other variant of the "DM Avatar" who serves to point the PCs toward the plot?

Well, Itohiro Nakami, head of the Hoffmann Agency, fits some of those parameters. He can be pretty mysterious, and he (and his agency) are considered to be crazy kooks by most mundane folk. He's the head of the institute, though, so the PCs don't really interact with him directly. The've just met him for the first time at the beginning of the current (on pause for summer break) adventure.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

No. I actually think they're kind of awful things to use in a game.

 

[reanjr]

One campaign (Planescape), the party gained a Pit Fiend as a patron early on. When they first met him, he was shapechanged into the form of a... I don't remember... who went by the name "Bob". After good work done, "Bob" continued to use the party due to their ill-defined moral standards and efficient work.

Not exactly a Gandalf character, but Bob certainly set alot of things in motion during the campaign. But the players never figured out what was going on, so most of it was lost on them. They ended up dying, being killed by a dragon. The last thing one of the players did was call on "Bob" (who owed them a favor) and had him wish her a two-handed sword +5 of red dragon slaying and attack (not wanting to try for anything more complicated or corruptable than that). She died the next round.

 

[Votan]

I had a Paladin/Sorcerer Lich who becomae a lich to escape the catastrophe that trashed his race and then tried to seek redemption. He was afraid of his own nature and relied on proxies to acoomplish things (of which the party was the most prominent). In the end he was killed and the party took over his old role as guardian of the free peoples.

 

[Nellisir]

I've got 3 at the moment. Cador the Sage is your typical sage; he's providing mundane knowledge for the moment, sufficient for a low-level party. The party also has an ally in a awakened golem-woman, a priestess of the Smith's Wife -- she's fed them some arcane knowledge and given them a task.

The most Gandalf-y character so far is Whisper, an archmage that's dropped them an anonymous cryptic note and might soon drop another one. Unfortunately, he's pretty darned evil, the PCs didn't bother figuring out his cryptic note, and he's just using them as tools anyways. He may need to get a little more direct in his directions.

In previous campaigns I've used living swan-ships and prophetic dreams as DM tools.