The Grand NPCs Topic!

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Nox
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The Grand NPCs Topic!

Post by Nox »

I dont know you, but I often find myself stuck in developing NPCs. And i'd like to see what kind of NPCs did you developed for your campaign.

Welcome to the
The Grand NPCs Topic!

How does this work?
Simple! If you are stuck with the development of any NPC of your own you can just post it here and ask for help!
You can also use this post to submit your own finished NPC.

Is there any rules?
Yes, of course. To do things with an orderly manner I will Post a preset format that you will use to ask for help in this thread.
Please follow the preset format. The preset format will be in the first comment to this thread.
If you post a finished NPC please state it at the beginning of your comment. Thanks in advance.

Preset Format Explanation:
NPC Name: Simply the name of the character.
NPC Story Role: What is the Role of this character? Note: A Character may have more than one role.
Roles:
Villain: the main enemies
Rivals: big PC competitor (could be same alignment as PC, or opposed alignment); Ex. Villain flunkies, Competing Party of NPC adventurers...
Major NPC: significant role in the story, they come in contact with PC enough that it's worth time to do some planning on them
Examples:
Minions
VIEW CONTENT:
Minions are the PCs' chief adversaries and liutenant of the villain. They are like mini-villains who have lieutenants, power bases and evil plan of their own.
Roleplaying Companions
VIEW CONTENT:
They might not be Major in sense of power or level, but they spend much time roleplaying with PC so they need good development, having an important role in the adventure or in the PC's lives.
Combat Companions
VIEW CONTENT:
They are NPC that takes part in the PCs' party, so they need a good developed Personality. Ex. Hirelings, Mercenaries and friends with martial goal in mind.
Guest Stars
VIEW CONTENT:
Famous character in the world who make an important appearance in your campaign. They should be brought to life and made memorable when they interact with PCs. Note: If the PCs dont get to fight or roleplay with them they should be demoted to Remote NPC status (see below)
Mentors
VIEW CONTENT:
Medium to long term NPCs who help guide, teach or train PCs.
Minor NPC: Minor role in the story, come in contact with the PC rarely and dont have much impact on overall campaign.
Examples
Flunkies
VIEW CONTENT:
Minor NPC who serve minions or villains.
Non-Aligned Foes
VIEW CONTENT:
Enemies who are not associated with any particular villain, minion or foe. Ex. Rand.om encounter.
Regulars: Characters the PCs regularly interact with. Examples: Bartender, Friends, etc.
Extras, Walk-Ons, Bit Parts: These characters appear for a moment in the story to provide atmosphere or to have some unplanned minor role.
Combat Constructs & Cannon Fodder: These NPCs fill dungeon, villainous armies, rioting mobs etc.
Remote NPCs: These NPCs are important character who never directly interact with PCs, yet they need to flash out for storytelling and campaign consistency purposes. Ex. Kings, historic characters etc.
Creatures: Animals, Monsters.
Item: Those are items who are important to your story, they can be intelligent or not.
Race: The race of the character.
Gender: The gender of the character.
Power Base: What kind of power the character has? Social power? Is it related to characteristic (Smart, strong, wise, charismatic)? to Feats(Ex. a wizard who can create magic item is equipping his minion with those items)? Spells? Wealth? Followers/Minions/Henchmen? Laws/Authority/Consent? Defenses (Some special immunity? Impregnable stronghold? Immortality? etc)? Equipment or Technology? Some special ability(Psionic, permanent magical effect, etc)?
Class & Level: Class and Level of the character.
Appearance: Appearance of the character.
History & Background: The history and background of the character, his motivations, his goals, home location, family members, distant relatives, friends, enemies, education, death, pets, chores, jobs, events.
Social Class & Society: The social class and/or the society of this character.
Alignment: Alignment.
Personality: Personality trait, quirks, fears, goals, motvies, interests, etc.
Relationships: Relationship with other NPCs or PCs.
Secrets: Any secret the character want to hide (from PCs or others).
Daily Life: What does this character do during his daily life? What is his job?
Wealth: Wealth of the character.
Equipment & Belongings: Equipment and Belonging of the character.

All those point are optional, depends on the situation, and how deep you want to develop your character. You can also add points to the list above.
If you dont want to fill some of those point please state it beside the point in question. You can put a "?" where you need help. if you leave a point blank just put a "-" beside it.

After you filled the points in the list you can add your questions, requests, add details, explain further or whatever you like, so others will be able to better answer and help you.
You can find the Preset Format in my next post.
Last edited by Nox on Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Nox
Evil Genius
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Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2015 2:28 am

Re: The Grand NPC Development Topic!

Post by Nox »

Copy/Paste this Preset Format:
[b][u]NPC Name[/u][/b]:
[b][u]NPC Story Role[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Race[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Gender[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Power Base[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Class & Level[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Appearance[/u][/b]:
[b][u]History & Background[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Social Class & Society[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Alignment[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Personality[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Relationships[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Secrets[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Daily Life[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Wealth[/u][/b]:
[b][u]Equipment & Belongings[/u][/b]:
User avatar
Nox
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2015 2:28 am

Re: The Grand NPC Development Topic!

Post by Nox »

Since I'm the creater I will add my personal help request:

NPC Name: Mr. Bones
NPC Story Role: Mentor, Guest Star.
Race: Intelligent Undead Human Child.
Gender: Male
Power Base: Immortality, magic ability (To be developed), smart and charismatic.
Class & Level: -
Appearance: A little skeleton of a human child dressed with a long black robe. He can be seen with various tools (usually tools that have something to do with graves, cemetery, night, darkness or collecting things).
History & Background: He died in young age, but had been reanimated as undead by Azalin. He's possibly one of the most powerful (if not The most powerful) creature of the demiplane. After his reanimation he worked for Azalin in various tasks. Initially he was nothing more than a slave, but slowly he became more and more powerful, at the point of becoming enough powerful to challenge Azalin, but he did not. Somehow he gained the simpaty of the Lich, no one knows how nor why, but he was finally set free by Azalin himself. From then on he went his own way, collecting every kind of things (especially bones). No one knows why he does it.
Social Class & Society: -
Alignment: Neutral - Advances as Lawful Neutral if he became the grim reaper.
Personality: He's totally neutral. He does not concernes about issues of humans, elfs, dwarfs, undeads, gods or darklords. He's an entity on himself. He just mind his own business. No one knows why he does what he does. He's overall a funny guy despite he's a dead bunch of bones in a black robe. He's not loyal to anyone, even if he nourishes some kind of respect for azalin (but he totally does not serve Azalin). His goals are unknown to everyone (even to the DM :lol: ). He likes bones, and collect them as much as he can. He uses his shovel to collect the most beautiful bones he can find. He looks like a human child skeleton, but his mind has grown and he talks and thinks as an adult, but he keeps some playful behavior like a child. He loves to set up jokes on mortals and scare the sh*t out of them.
Traits: independent, careless, smooth, funny. Fear: nothing. Interests (in order of importance): Bones, deads, death, humans (and other mortal beings).
Relationships: The only relation he has is with Azalin, his creator, but the two does not meet each other often at all.
Secrets: None and all. He knows a lot of things, but usually keep them for himself. He's too happy with his un-life to concern about other things.
Daily Life: -
Wealth: -
Equipment & Belongings: He owns a shovel, a lantern, his robe, and a sack full of many tools. All those items are magic. The sack is like a bag of holding with the following property: The volume and weight that can be contained in this bag is five time the one of the bag of holding IV. Creature could survive inside it provided they have the right amount of nuorishment with them (the sack has not a limited amount of air).
Need some help to develop the Robe, the shovel and the lanter. Any other item you could actually think off will be apreciated.

Powers and abilities:
This guy is immortal. He can easily be shattered with a Turn undead attempt or by any other mean. If he get destroyed his bones collapse to the floor and he stand up again the next turn. He will not fight back. No one knows if he let other destroy him just to have some fun looking at their faces, since he doesnt feel any pain from this process.
He can somehow travel wherever he wants in the lands (i'd like to add some canon material here to make him capable to travel like this).
He can disappear at will (not being invisible) just go away (teleport maybe).
He can sense the presence of bones in a radius of 72 meters. He's a bit lazy so if he sense a bone deep in the ground he probably will not bother to un-bury it.

In the future he will develop powers (each encounter with PCs they will feel his power growing). Among those powers:
He can polymorph to any creature he knows (but he does not gain any benefit from this polymorph. Ex. He cannot fly, spit fire or any other special quality.)
He can cast animate dead as a dread necromancer (Lvl 26+) but with an increased range. Even if he could raise an army, he does not do it, usually :azalin: .
I want to add more powers, could you give me some ideas? Special powers can be something unique or some spell like ability. The point of those powers should be playful, but fighting powers are fine also (you can express your powerplayer side here, since this character will not take part in any of the important fight of the campaign. He will just be a badass little skeleton who roam the world that cannot be beaten. He will join the players in a minor fight just to show them how badass he is).
I will show my player the full power of this character some day, but not yet. They will just understand he's not weak when they will try to kill him (cause i know they will. :lol: )

As you should've understood this character is not a creepy haunting presence (well maybe a little creepy). He's more like a funny badass character i will place around to smooth the tension in certain situations and eventually help the party a bit. He will befriend the PCs. Next session my player will be lost in the desert. they will start starving, suffering the big heat or the extreme cold of the night. This guy will show up and teach them a ritual to summon a creepy haunted safe-house (from my other post).
He will have many ritual like this one (sacrifice for benefits). Feel free to post any idea you have. He will help them, but he will always give some sinister kind of help.

He will eventually develop as The Grim Reaper (not sure yet if I should make this happens. For now he is just Mr bones). What you think?

I just need to add some motivation to his love for bones. In case i will follow the Grim Reaper plot maybe the bones could be used to develop his final body. Also I could make him capable of extractring magic essence from bones. let me know what you think and your ideas.
Attachments
Possible development
Possible development
reaper_by_doom156.jpg (60.15 KiB) Viewed 526 times
Another minis
Another minis
77195_P_Slashhamster__59280.jpg (56.48 KiB) Viewed 526 times
This is him
This is him
988dd1fca799c66f798a2f2383b36e1a.jpg (9.53 KiB) Viewed 526 times
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