NPC Thread

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>>53262632

>Innocuous rug merchant
>Always doing the "Well, what is it?"
>NO INDOOR VOICE
>Voice like Dr.Teeth. Cyril Sneer and Rick Sanchez's love child
>Mole for organized crime ring
>Unexpected ally of the heroes

Not that good at making well-liked NPCs, but Ziggy left quite the impression.

Ancient powerful wizard, lives in a crooked tower that can teleport anywhere in my multieverse An expert at illusion spells, uses said spells to make himself appear as a handsome young man, as well as make the interior of his tower into anything he desires. [Spoiler] A shameless gm insert, like to meddle with adventurers for his own mysterious goals Have never used him twice with the same group, but he has appeared in multiple campaigns with different groups.

>>53262632
From a Player's perspective, the best NPC I've dealt with was a random shopkeep that was an owl shaman in Shadowrun. She hit it off with my character, a (at the time) mundane man that was wowed by her ability to tell so much about him with a glance due to astral perception. When she warned him he would wake up soon, he assumed from a tranquilizer he was injected with to avoid a panic attack earlier. He didn't think she meant he had magic within him.

After he awoken, he returned to the shop to see her and eventually she took him under her wing and trained him for five years on the Adept dos and don'ts. Eventually she became a sort of mother/older sister figure to my character, despite her being about five years his junior.

Though she still gets annoyed that he calls her 'sug' instead of 'teacher' or 'master' usually.

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>>53262632
Valarius Screwturner.

Secretly an influential (but unwitting) member of the Cold-Trade community who sells trinkets and collectables in a small shop on Port Wander.
Buys from workers, sells to princes. Has an impressive collection of holographic collectable cards of members of the Imperial Navy and Heroes of the Imperium.

Has a penchant for Eldar items... And secretly sells "full" Soul-Stones to the Dark Eldar. But really only has the gall to hold for himself a couple of spoons and a hair-pin, which he sleeps with under his bed.

Under investigation by the Inquisition because of the Heresy, protected by the Dark Eldar because of the Soul-Stones, hunted by the Eldar because of the Soul-Stones, desired by Rogue Traders for his contacts, and hated by the Navy because he's a bit of a shithead.

The amount of clashes that go on over him that he's entirely, blissfully unaware of boggle the mind. Which means ultimately he's a favored unwitting Pawn of Tzeentch.

Gnish, was a random ass goblin the heroes spared in their first encounter, they brought him back to town & the wizard taught him to blacksmith. Later he sacrificed himself to help the party. Hands down my best Npc. I usually dust him off & stick him into my other campaigns now. I usually have him being the only good goblin Hero-god. He wears armor & wilds a great sword (sized down)

Sheepbiter
Young Bronze dragon, just learning about the world, thinks like an 8-12 year old. He finds his dragon name complicated, & the monks/abbots who look after him always get on to him for eating their flock

The last one I really like is actually a young kid of one of my PC's who is playing an alchemist/shopowner/housewife with a mom bag full of explosives & acids. She took the retainers feature which gives her servants (which are her kids) the adventure started with some raiders attacking the players' village, the alchemist was drawn into it because her youngest son, 8yrs old, was being surrounded by bandits & threatening them with a toy wooden sword. (He dreams of being a paladin one day) The mom saves the kid & starts fighting the bandits. Towards the end of the encounter the last bandit only had 1hp left & she didn't have much left either, so fearing losing a PC to the first encounter I decided to have her kid swing at a disadvantage to see if he could at least distract the guy from killing his mom. He rolled incredibly high twice & dealt 1 damage with his toy wooden sword. I figure it couldn't be anymore lethal than 1 damage. Stabs the fucker in the chest & said "Stay away from my mommy!" Needless to say I'm making sure the kid gets a awesome future in my game's lore

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>>53262632
<-- him
The players didn't know the setting but where aware that he was the protagonist of the novels. That guy was about to 'going for the protagonist kill', the others were expecting a DMPC mary sue nanny.

Results? They were really surprised of liking him as companion: powerful but hesitant, witty but jaded, etc...

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>>53262632
Cheria. Kind of a DM plot device, but ended up being one of my players' favorite.

>Local Lord is basically trying to bring peace and stability to a city under his rule.
>Lord is basically hiring people to deal with criminals, monster infestations, and similar issues plaguing the city.
>Players have proven capable enough that they're allowed to apply, but the Lord doesn't deal with them personally.
>Players are instead put under the supervision of Cheria, the Lord's spymaster.
>Cheria is... initially kind of a bitch. Acts haughty and condescending around the players, and basically treats them like disposable muscle (which to be fair, they are).
>Players HATE her. Get ragey, tell her she can't do the things they do and basically threaten that they can kick her ass.
>Cheria knows they won't murder her just cos they're pissed though, and basically laughs, says she doesn't need to be able to fight when she's so clever and charming and stealthy ect. ect. and says the brains of an operation never fights anyway.
>Player rage rising, but they swallow it and do some assignments anyway because the pay is good.
>Players gets mission to reclaim a military fort that had been taken over by defectors who were basically using as a base to kidnap travelers and commit banditry.
>Party sets up camp to scout out the base from a distance.
>Despite having kept a watch all night, when they party wakes up in the morning, they find a satchel in their camp that wasn't there before.
>Satchel is filled with potions... and a note from Cheria teasing them for having not noticed her drop it off.

In that moment Cheria went from a character who made the players rage because she hadn't fellated their egos right off the bat to someone who's respect they were starting to earn, even if she hadn't shown it until now. Basically "I know I give you guys alot of shit, but you did good and I want you to keep doing good."

According to my players she's one of the best NPCs I've ever run.

A depressed guard that was drinking all day to forgot that adventurers killed his wife
At first it was just a joke but my PC took him with them to show him the beauty of the world

Then he died in a trap
RIP Abdel-Akhim

>>53262632
As a DM I am kind of a maniac with NPCs. My current campaign has 154, all completed with backgrounds, so I could give to the player an actual underground society to play in with all the parts needed to make it work and make it three dimensional.

So it's hard to pick my favourite in all the games I've lead.

The first that comes to mind is Barnabé Vilebrequin in Changeling.

>A very busy business man, CEO of his company and very cocky
>Heavily misogynistic but it was the twenties so it was the norm
>Is kind of an asshole anyway since he cheats on his wife and treats her like garbage (as well as most people since he thinks he is better thant them)
>One day a gorgeous woman becomes his new secretary and of course he wants to hit that
>On a work trip, he gets her in his room and starts romancing like a madman
>Turns out it's a True Fae disguised as a hot woman
>True Fae has kind of a Crazy Fairy Godmother thing so wants to teach the guy a lesson about humility and respect to women
>Brings him to Arcadia and gives him the body of a woman (a gorgeous, sexy, frail woman)
>Lets him have his overly manly voice
>He escapes with some of his friends and founds a Community of Changeling in a French city
>Becomes the King of the Autumn Court

My players all hated him because he sounded so arrogant and they all thought he was a tyrant. But at the same time he was scary because he spent years learning all he could about the 'hidden world' and that made him dangerous.

But he was actually just an arrogant person who could not hide it but only wanted the best for his Community. He ended up banned from the City based on false evidence (brought to the light by the unsuspecting players) and in love with a terrorrist bu that's another story.

>>53265264
The most memorable NPC in my real life didn't actually appear in the game at all, my character was a thief and like all good thieves he knew a guy who would buy stolen goods, a guy named Nicky Pickett. He talked about Nicky a lot, but without fail everytime he was mentioned someone would ask "Why do they call him Nicky Pickett?" to which the answer was always "Because he's a fence."

In my online group the most memorable NPC was meant to just be a weapon merchent in the starting village, but she quite sadly told us how her store was losing money due to the peace time and we all started to take a shine to her. Months later was found her in another village, absolutely off her face and excitedly telling us that she had put a large bet on us to win in a gladatorial combat event, with 40:1 odds.

We are now very wealthy men.

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>>53265264
>Favorite NPC story has to do with gender-changing and treating women like garbage.

>>53265371
Don't forget gayness. The terrorist was a wacky harmless looking dude that seduced him with freedom, power and revenge.

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>>53262632
>Necromancer hired by cloak & dagger guild
>Supposed to track and capture party-friendly informant in town x
>Resurrects towns founder that went missing but was not confirmed dead
>Puts makeup on him, hires an 'interpreter' to speak for him
>PuppetRegime.mp4
>Rather than fighting him one of the party befriends him
>Captures and tortures the shit out of the informant with the aid of party friend
>party cleric dies defending informant
>Rest of the party is ambivalent
>Uses control of town to offer free housing and discounted goods

Then everyone liked Gary a lot

>>53262790
>Dogs_in_the_Vineyard.jpg

Robert Murdoch, just another run of the mill cop, but extremely competent to his job due to extremely good rolls.
He was really supposed to be just an NPC with a name, but he refused to fail at anything he did, resulting in the players hating him so much because he always had their trail and ruined their plans once because of that. It also helped he wasn't the most polite person on the planet by a long shot.

To this day, they all remember him and nobody else in the game.