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3 Line NPCs Thread

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Krasimir Ling

Appearance:
Krasimir is very fit for a man in his fifties, modestly dressed with clothing kept in impeccable condition.
Portrayal: He often looks people deeply in the eye, as though reading their souls. Few can lock eyes with him without flinching. Note that this is Asian syntax making Krasimir his family name.
Hook: Krasimir is an extraordinary judge of a being's character, regardless of heritage. That makes him an important ally for heroes, but a potential enemy for murder hobos.
 
NPC Name & Role Austin the Barbarian
Appearance: Tall and lanky, looks like he can barely lift the great axe he is carrying
Portrayal:
Always on the lookout for something to do and someone to tell what that is.
Hook:
Single-minded and literal in instructions given. If the proper boundaries are not set in place he might do as told not as intended.
 
This is what I came up with during last night's workshop.

Voik
Appearance
- Well Dressed, Boggle Like Fae, Gaunt, Monocle
Portrayal - Scheming, excellent host, southern draw
Hook - A player in the Fae Markets, Merchant, Quest Giver
Creation - Boon - the fairy queen repaying a favor to the duke of the hunt created Voik
Pit - Made to do meaningless messenger work for centuries
Peak - Given his first items by a group of pixies, which he has used to trade up to where he is now with a prominent stall in the market
Now - Seeking those that can bring back important items from the mortal realms
 
Some great 3LNPCs from the Master of the 5 Room dungeon Workshop last night:

From Russ
Appearance: Beggar, large ugly head with pustules, nasty clothing
Portrayal: Toothy grin, showing as many teeth as he has left, gravelly voice
Hook: Ragged torn bag with patches sewn all over it, has all the information you could need (but can you trust it or is he just trying to get gold

From Carolyn
Appearance: Hacker, Many Ear Piercings, Clothing in Shades of Grey, Drinking an expensive Latte
Portrayal: Smert (smart + pert), Mistrustful, High thin voice
Hook: They have the data cube, they know who created the cube, avoiding the authorities.

From Ty
Appearance: Aristocrat + Angular features + Fancy + Gambler
Portrayal: Welcoming + Conniving + Dark and Gravely
Hook: Jewelry + Information + Betrayal + Scheduling new social contacts

From Smiling DM
Appearance: Young Guild Leader, too young for her role, dressed simply, looking for new members
Portrayal - Optimistic + Gets frustrated easily + whispy voice
Hook - Can provide room and board and adventure leads

From Michael
Appearance: dwarven miner, prospector, the right side of his head is glowing. The light looks really eerie shining out of his temples
body- his left hand has been cut off, he presently has a prosthetic which is a permanent chisel, dirty work clothes.
Portrayal: honest, suspicious, gravelly
Hook: can explain how come his head is glowing

From tas
Appearance: Bounty Hunter, Tall Feathered Cap, Lanky, Battered Leather Coat, Investigating marks on a tree
Portrayal: Optimistic, Interrupts, High Pitched
Hooks: Quest-Giver, Curse

From Nelson
Appearance: Lumberjack worker + Bushy beard with pink ribbons tied in + tattered leather tunic
Portrayal: Loyal + Deceitful + Stutters
Hook: Glowing Hatchet + Love interest + Romance

From Jessica
Appearance: Merchant, green hair, lithe body, fancy clothes, selling goods
Potrayal: keen eye for value (smart?), false niceness, sweet voice
Hook: has a lot of valuable/magical items, trying to catch a thief (Revenge)

From Silas
Appearance: Root-digger, shaggy, gangly, tattered, counting his coins
Portrayal: Sees through secrets, exposes secrets, whispery
Hook: goldmine of blackmail

From Kyle
Appearance: Middle-Aged Woman, Child-like Face, Haunted Eyes, Hunched Over Posture, Disheveled Clothing of Indeterminate Quality
Portrayal: Polite, Constantly Murmuring Gibberish,
Hook: Occasionally Mentions Names or Places Known by PCs, Currently Wandering the Streets and Slowly Going Insane

From Patrick
Appearance: Warehouse sweeper, pony-tail, burnt left arm, leathery reeking clothing, getting evicted
Portrayal: Curious, Coward, Coughing
Hook: Knows how to reach a place, Feels crappy in his role

From Matthew
Marvin Haavra
Appearance: Sr. Mage, well groomed white hair, tall & lean
Portrayal: Cooperative to magic users, politely dismissive to others, slow talker
Hook: Quest-giver: avoid calamity

From Karen Murphy
Appearance: Guildmember, bald with goatee, slim, dandy (gaudy), eating lunch outside
Portrayal: Obsessively clean, looks down at people, affected drawl
Hook: Has a tool (key), is a rival and has betrayed a PC.

From Nick
Appearance: Dornish bartender, various scars on arms and face, reddish nose from consumption
Portrayal: Affable, gracious, and keen-of-eye
Hook: Knows about the Drude-touched boar in the dark woods, the woods themselves, and has rooms to rent here in the wilderness

From Zachary
Appearance: Minotauresque Man with a thick, muscular neck and sharpened horns, studded leather armor
Portrayal: Hot tempered, very perceptive, gravelly voice
Hook: Survivor of some great tragedy, out for revenge, doing guard work to make ends meet

From Ray
Apperance: A beggar, wearing a sagging paper crown. Wearing a rotting leather gherkin. He is searching for scraps of food and muttering. Voice: Manic, high energy.
Portrayal: Helpful, hot-tempered.
Hook: Has a working(!) water dousing rod, is a witness, and may be cursed.

From derek
Emperor Darian has long, flowing blue hair that falls in gentle waves around his face and shoulders. It is often said to resemble a waterfall or a blue flame. His face is sharp and angular, with high cheekbones and a prominent nose. Darian has piercing green eyes that seem to glow with an otherworldly light.

Darian is wearing a long, flowing black cloak that reaches down to his ankles. The cloak is fastened at the neck with a silver clasp, and billows dramatically behind him as he moves. Underneath the cloak, he wears a form-fitting black tunic with silver edging.
Darian is holding a tome of ancient spells or a glowing crystal, studying it intently as he seeks to unlock its secrets.

Darian is highly intelligent and analytical, with a gift for strategy and tactics. He is a master of dark magic and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the arcane arts.

His voice is be deep and commanding. He speaks with a slow and deliberate cadence, drawing out each word for maximum impact.

His key possession is his knowledge of arcane rituals and his near limitless access to resources. He is working now to bring down an evil alien moon.
 
Note: instead of doing the breakdown, I did it in prose, which is an easier way of looking at things for me.

Giram is a pudgy, dour bald dwarf with a glorious braided beard. He wears ill fitting, food stained armor. He’s seen sitting on a stump, sharpening his runed axe in front of a fire at camp. He’s waiting for one of his “brothers in arms” to return with news of the war.

Giram is an exile from his clan and betrayed by his best friend, forced on the run due to finding out a secret that would overturn the dwarven matriarchy. His dourness is reinforced due to the fact that he misses his family, and feels he may never be able to see them again. Because he’s been on the move, he really hasn’t had time to take proper care of his health, eating unhealthily, and drinking heavily as that's all he could afford - at least until recently. He is currently a mercenary for a group of people that seeks to use the war to their advantage. Despite his slovenly appearance, he is a skilled warrior. But with enough battles under his belt, and gold in his purse, he may have the ability to go back and reveal the truth. Will the PCs help him or hinder him?

Questions arising from the character
1. What is the secret? Where was it discovered?
2. How long has the secret been a thing?
3 What would happen if it came out?
4. Does the matriarchy even know about the secret?
5. Who else knows about the secret? Was it his best friend?
6. What was his friend's betrayal?
7. What brought about the betrayal?
8. Why does he have this axe? What's special about it?
9. What's up with his beard? Why is it the only part of him he cares about?
10. Were there others involved in the betrayal?
11. What's this war?
12. Whose side are the PCs on? What could the PCs do to help/ hinder him?

(I may have missed some, but that's what I came up with)
 
@Taffer


Matthew Thanes
Captain General of the Blackmarsh Company of Adventurers

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Appearance: Towering figure, broad shoulders, muscular. Weathered face and hard stare. Rarely without armor on and his sword Sunstrike on his hip.

Portrayal: Seasoned veteran of numerous campaigns and battles. Confident, calm under pressure, and in control. He is shrewd and calculating, always looking out for his soldiers, even if that means putting clients and lords in their place. He has a strong dislike of merchants and considers then third-class thieves.

Hook: When the players first encounter Matthew Thanes, they find him in the midst of a heated negotiation with a group of merchants. The merchants are demanding exorbitant prices for supplies and equipment, and Thanes is refusing to pay. As the argument escalates, the merchants reveal that they are actually agents of a rival adventuring company, and they threaten to sabotage the Blackmarsh Company's upcoming expedition if Thanes doesn't comply with their demands. It's up to the players to help Thanes navigate this tricky situation and ensure that the Blackmarsh Company is able to complete their mission successfully.
 
@JohnnFour

Garrick "Smiley" Montalbán
Bandit Leader of the Downwinders

Appearance: Average height, and slender build. Sharp and pointed face, with shoulder length brown hair bound into a ponytail when he's on mission. A scar runs from the left side of his mouth to the middle of his left cheek, giving him an eternal smirk. Underneath his gambeson is a muscular body of tightly bound muscle that betrays his slender figure.

Portrayal: Garrick likes to portray himself as a mild-mannered and reasonable man so as to get his way during first encounters. In a way, Garrick is a modest man, concealing his strength and skill with his blade until the time arises. He is prone to violent outbursts if things do not go his way and he speaks with an accent that clearly demonstrates he is not from the area in and around Fairehill. He is power hungry and will do anything to not relinquish his leadership over his band of men, the Downwinders. In Garrick's off-time, he spends most of it reading literature, oftentimes re-reading his favorite book "Wings of The Wind". He takes great umbrage to the nickname "Smiley" and if he hears one of his men mention it, they might find their head on a stake. His goal is to re-form a secret society from centuries ago in his homeland, and the Downwinders are unknowingly just one arm of this new organization, the Jaar-Gilon.
Hook: The players first encounter Garrick Montalbán at the gates of the town Fairehill. He is being accosted by some guards, thinking he is some no good Downwinder. Through his smooth-talk and wit he navigates the conversation and walks free. Noticing the party of well-equipped adventurers, he attempts to tag along, asking many questions (gauging the party's strength and intentions in this region). Garrick is friendly and charming and should be able to get into the good graces of the party and offers to buy them a drink at the local watering hole. He does not reveal his true intentions and true position or membership in the Downwinders, often telling people he comes from a rich family from a far-off land and is just trying to help and make a name for himself in this land of opportunity. He offers a surprisingly large sum of coin to the party in exchange for driving off a rival gang. In reality, this rival "gang" is a small group of peasants and town guards who are fighting back against the Downwinders, but the PC's do not know this and could end up helping the Downwinders unknowingly at first.
 
I needed to feed a party rumours, once...

Traveller
  • Skin like leather. Speaks with with a strange drawl. Wears an unusual wide brimmed hat, course woollen poncho, and rides a donkey-drawn cart. Chews tobacco and spits a lot.
  • Inclined to tell stories about where he’s been and what he’s seen without much prompting. This makes him a great source of information.
  • Traveller doesn’t want much. A full mug of ale and hearty meal will make him happy. If the weather’s foul, a dry bed is appreciated although he doesn’t mind sleeping under the stars. A few pennies so he can refill his box of chewing tobacco won’t hurt, either.
 
Name: Derrinor Thistle

1. Appearance = Thief; pockmark skin, thin, conservative clothes; having a conversation
2. Portrayal = Polite; Paranoid; Accent
3. Hook = Value: Witness; Now = Amnesia

Creation = Cursed
Pit = Homeless
Peak = Won Award
Now = Addiction

Derrinor was born in Coth-Rom to a middle-class family. His father was a retired adventurer and very well-off. An only enemy from his Dad's adventuring days took revenge by cursing the family, when Derrinor was in his teens. Derrinor was afflicted with a wasting disease that left him pockmarked and emaciated and with disturbed speech. Derrinor witnessed the wizard's deeds. He was thrown into sudden total poverty, his parents driven insane/dead. He avoided the welfare officers and became a petty criminal. He was much better at con games than as a cutpurse, and soon worked his way into the administration of the Royal Guilde of Map Makers & Surveyors. Here, he was able to duplicate valuable maps, showing mineral deposits, and sell them on the black market. He soon became rich, and managed to buy back his family estate and rebuild his family mansion. Flush with cash but without anyone he could trust to have a relationship, and without a family, he became addicted to millweed. The intoxicating effects brings a curious calmness to his otherwise paranoid overactive mind, during which he has flashes of the face of the wizard who destroyed his life: who he now recognizes as the Wizard of the Realm.
 
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Karden – The Nightmare Guardian, Quest giver, Benefactor, Villain
Appearance:
Smart, loves to be very well dressed, shapeshifter, always has something pitch black and pure white (usually hair color or eyes). Often found disheveled, ragged, and beat up. Any wounds show up as nearly luminescent black and white scars.
Portrayal: (immortal & made of dream) Usually polite with a hint of honor, but also a variable personality depending on health. If heavily wounded: friendly, helpful, accommodating. If fully healed/unwounded: plotting something (likely evil). Obsessed with melee combat. Senses and mimics the prowess of opponents and likely to challenge melee fighters at first sight. Can't bleed and can't be knocked unconscious.
Hooks: Patches up a wounded party member (no payment necessary). Is desperate to find a way back into the land of dreams - Hires the party. Antagonizes melee party members. Or openly plots to destroy the party.
 
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