Your favorite NPC ever.

[Doctor DM]

Hey everyone this is my first post. Yeah! (apologies if this subject has allready been posted)

Anyway, I was wondering who everyone's favorite NPC that they ever encountered was. It can be an official well known character, such as Mordenkainen or Drizzt, or just someone you or your DM created. I'll start it off:

Mine would have to be Lortes, the over eager party apprentice. His beginings were simple enough. I was running the adventure "Bloodlines" from Dungeon #94, and in it, the baron sends one of his men, Lortes, a good natured lad of 16, to guide the party to the ancient ruin. That was it. Nothing special, just a simple guide.

Well, as the party traveled they started talking with Lortes, and I played him as this wide eyed farm kid who was just in awe of the REAL LIFE adventureres, and just kind of clumsy and super eager to try and please the party so they would like him. And the party really took a liking to him. When the Baron turned out to be an evil wizard and the party killed him, Lortes had nowhere to go, so the party took him in as thier squire/intern type guy.

That was the begining of Lortes. He became a group favorite. Always doing whatever he could to impress the party, staying up late and being super intense on watch, doing all the hunting and cooking, throwing himself at monsters and villians he had no chance against, stuff like that. When one of the group got a much better weapon he gave his old +1 longsword to Lortes, who nearly wet his pants with happiness. He thought that sword was the greatest ever, and his battle cry became: "It's +1 Longsword Time!".

Lortes took quite a beating in his career. Far below the average party level, he never stood a chance against the challenges they faced. He couldn't hit the higher AC's of the opponents, and he was never attacked much (it was a big party, and he wasn't much of a threat) , but when he was he would drop like a sack of potatoes. I don't think he EVER made a save, and was constabtly being mind controlled, and villians would always try to hurt the party through Lortes. However, he was never down, and the few times he did manage to do a few points of damage, everyone would cheer. Once he even delivered the killing blow against an Ogre Mage! The party went nuts. We all loved him.

As time went on, Lortes gained feats that made sense: Weapon Focus and Specialization as he trained with his +1 Longsword, Improved Toughness as he grew accustomed to getting hit hard, and Alertness, as he was always so intense, along with others. At higher levels he even became a Kensai! (it made perfect sense, he had his signature weapon, and was devoted to the party). He even gained a small measure of fame himself, when you're the apprentice of 16th level character, you're gonna be pretty sweet yourself.

We've finished that campaign, but I've always wanted to bring Lortes back, this time as an epic leveled great hero to send the new characters on quests, or even have "Lortes's Longsword" as a legacy weapon or something.

Yeah, Lortes was the best...

 

[Aramax]

My favorite was Castle sort of a punisher rip off for D&D w/ a gun who turned out to be a silver Dragon

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Mine would be a villian I ran called Khubiakt. Khubiakt was a Goblin Sorcerer / Cleric, and a particularly evil one at that. Due to Plot Contrivances of the DM, Khubiakt was not a typical goblin, having figured out a way to torture and destroy the souls of the deceased in the after life. When the players tried to kill him, he was defeated, but he just would not quite die (the gods refusing to let him into the afterlife where he could do even more harm).

Anyway, in his 2nd appearance, he wanted vengeance upon the players. When they came upon him, he and a number of goblins were outside a farm house, and had tied the family posts (Mom, Dad + 4 or 5 children, all younger than 10) had piled some debris at their feet. He was in the process of gouging the fathers eyes out and was eating them in front of the rest of his family.

I wanted to monologe a bit, but the players were not about to listen to any of it. Their first action was to charge in. They were out numbered, and it was a tactically lousy decision. Their best bet would have been to use ranged combat. The players were determined to save this family.

Khubiakt's first action was to command his goblins to lite the family on fire.

Two of the goblins were killed but a 3rd picked up the torch and lit the fires. The fight was now a race to defeat the goblins before the entire family died in the fire. The party did win, but only the Mother and two children survived.

Of course though, the campaign fell apart a short time later due to work pressures, so I have no idea how far I might have been able to take Khubiakt.

Khubiakt was my most successful villian, in that he managed to motivate my players to undertake a recklessly heroic act through some inspired villiany, rather then simple vengeance.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Asmo]

I´ve a strong feeling that a certain kobold from The Sunless Citadel will be named here

Asmo

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

There was a 1st or 2nd ed module (I forget which). As a random encounter a dwarf with plate mail and a Dwarven Thrower hammer would just burrow from out of the ground, he would check the sun, check the wind and ask which way was east. He could not be bothered with introductions because he was in such a hurry. Then he would jump back into his hole like a Bugs Bunny cartoon never to be seen again. I ran the encounter exactly like that and the players were mildly amused and a bit confused.

Several sessions later they were in deep trouble. Several PCs were down and dying. The ones left standing were about to go down too. I had a thought. The ground burst open and out comes this dwarf in plate mail and a hammer. He looks at the enemy and says, "Please attack me all at once, it will save me time and I'm in a great hurry." The enemy was distracted by the dwarf and eventually the battle was won. The players loved that and thought I had been planning that encounter for a long time.

I did it a third time, but by then it got old, and the players started asking when is "I forgot his name gonna show?"

We all split up and went off to college soon after. I did not see any of them for five or six years. One holiday season we all got together again and played for nostalgia and old times sake. By this time D&D 3.0 had come out and we played by the new rules. They played the sons and daughters of their favorite old characters and the adventure began.

Somewhere around the 3rd or 4th encounter the ground started rumbling and a small dwarf, too young to grow a beard, wearing ill-fitting armor and holding a heavy hammer, came up out of the ground. He threw the hammer, killing the enemy, and then he called back into the hole "Got 'im Dad!" Then drops back into the hole.

It took the room 10 minutes to stop laughing.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I had a chaos mage named Malefactor. She was kind of the party's guide. She was a mean and creepy temptress who claimed to be a cleric of chaos and at times was more of a snake oil salesman(woman). One of her great claims to fame that my party still recalls from her 10 years later was her ability to trick the characters into doing dangerous stunts. For instance, one character was examining a pool with an unknown liquid. Another character with a long staff went over to look over the first guy's shoulder. Malefactor wanted to know what was in the pool so she yelled the guy's name who had the staff, he turns to look, his staff knocks the first guy in.

She also had an unusual healing power. She would touch two people. One would gain half as many points as the other guy lost.

She was also fond of pointlessly killing small animals when pissed off (which was often).

 

[Arkhandus]

......Oh.......the favorite NPC we've encountered, not the favorite one we've used.....? Sigh. None. The DMs I've played under either had no interest in any significant NPC interaction, or didn't run any funny NPCs, or just didn't run any particularly interesting/neat/funny NPCs.

I have a few NPCs of my own that I'm particularly fond of (and that my players really loved to hate; they got to trade barbs with the NPCs often, and played some pranks on the NPCs for revenge), but Tharion takes the cake. He was a blast to roleplay as an NPC, even though it was a one-shot game, and it was entirely ad-lib (I came up with his name, basic stats, and background on the fly, when a PC decided to interrupt him at a table and pick a fight with the guy). Tharion ended up humiliating the PC in a duel (who didn't take it seriously in the beginning), and was later convinced to help the PC on a quest with Tharions' superior fighting skills (the PC was a physically-buff Psion, focused on melee).

 

[Templetroll]

Different NPCs from different campaigns

Bill the Groom - We needed a guy to watch our horses while we were in the dungeon. We hired Bill. He hung through several levels and when we finally got a place of our own, we promoted Bill to tend to the place. The party even decided to leave it to him if we all died!

Rockefeller the Oyster - formerly a familiar that we found somewhere. He talked and had excellent sage ability, but it was best if you poured wine or beer on him! Then he would start telling all kinds of stories, usually ribald and often embarrassing to the person being talked aboout.

Idontaknow! - a bard. Yeah, it often seemed liked he said his own name way too often when you asked him a question. The DM was very jolly and exuberant whenever he played the NPC.

one I ran... Hombug - an ogre that had been given enough instruction about etiquette that when he belched or farted he would say, "...'scuse ME!" I'd do it in a funny voice; my wife thought he was cute.

 

[TroyXavier]

Zhanna was a mute female thief who still actually was quite verbal despite her disability. She had many interesting adventures with our group and retired with my wizard in a platonic relationship.

 

[was]

Timmy, the 10 year old 'street urchin' guide...he's taken out entire parties in his various incarnations.