Interesting NPCs

Veeky Forums what are the best npcs or minor villians that have shown up in your campaigns?

I'll start
>/k/ blind fiancee guy
>Rogue that showed up and took our stuff so we went on a hunt for him where we learned he was a plot hook
>Goblin who decided we seemed fun to party with
>Explosive building Wizard who regularly borrowed the barbarian for experiments
>Lizardfolk bard who was named slash that had an aussie accent and frequently asked for yogurt to eat

olly, molly, trai'g, and org: members of an orc bard band who travel and randomly run into the party

I've always thought it would be cute to have a blind gf

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.

The inactivity of this topic while shitposts get 300 replies in a hour proves that hardly anyone on Veeky Forums actually plays games.

Mainly just a bump for interest though.

Pick, Veeky Forums:
>The half-drow princess
>Her dragonborn bodyguard
>Virtually unkillable vampire swordsman
>Archer samurai with a bottomless stomach
>Hardass not!Crane samurai rival archetype
>Martial Arts Training ninja lady
I have more, but that's just off the top of my head

I once had an enemy who was a Wight and a DJ. The party were tasked with killing him because he was on Death's list of people who had gotten out of hell and for one reason or another needed to go back. When they found him and started to fight/talk to him at the same time, the players asked me if they really had to kill him. They wanted to keep a Wight as a pet and have him come with them on their journey.

Their attitudes changed when he and two of his reverent fans nearly stat drained the party to death and held one of them hostage.

>spoiler
I play a lot, we just never have memorable NPCs because our games are shit

He-who-mangles was a tribal whose preferred method of execution was the breaking wheel. His tribe had been offered a chance to be absorbed into a major warlords burgeoning empire. Despite being a cannibalistic savage he actually sat the party members down and returned a rival tribes princess, as he didn't believe in taking hostages, and had the men responsible for it broken upon the wheel

>He-who-mangles
Ambitious parents.

Waifu-tier

>He-who-mangles
Chose his adult name to reflect his secret ambition to run a laundry...

Meta: a Goddess of space, diemensions and knowledge (every player is a god btw.)

every player (Meta is about the same powerlevel) has an "opus": a spell, ability what so ever they self designed.

Meta´s opus is what her name says. She has complete knowledge over anything the Gamemaster knows. Therefor she is aware, that she is an NPC in a game, while also being inside someones mind. Players are the only beeings she can´t predict. She isn´t perfect though, just pretty damn unfair. She knows that her existance ends if there are no players.

forgot to send pic

Jacoby Briar

Basically this dude was a pirate captain with a small fleet of vessels and considerable territory, and kind of a recurring villain early on in the campaign. He, himself, wasn't very intimidating, in fact he was kind of sleezy coward, the type who would only ever show up at a fight when he was 100% certain it was won... but he was a very good with money and politics. All his crew followed him because he made them money, and being a member of his crew was a high life of raiding and partying, rinse and repeat.

Anyway way later on in the campaign, we're put in charge of a small nation, and a rival nation is kicking our asses because they have a better navy. We're retreating from one of these losing naval battles and basically get surrounded by his ships. We're all pissed off, because of this spineless asshole would attack us NOW, and we say as much. He laughs in our faces, saying how "we know him well" and how it's "flattering".

Well fuck, now he's either gonna ransom us back to our country that's already losing a war, or kill us because we've foiled his schemes in the past. Except he does neither.

"Let's play nice while I tell you a story about how economics work. See, it's not good for business for one country to control that much of the sea, especially when that country doesn't work with us. You're obviously rubbish at this whole this whole seafraing thing and lost too many ships already, but I just so happen to have a fleet of ships and the kind of experience you lack. How about we be friends for awhile? It'll be less ships for you to deal with, and we just so happen to need customers for all the weapons and other war supplies we'll be plundering."

In retrospect I guess that's pretty much how privateering worked in the real world, but it was still pretty cool.

My party is currently working with a frost giant who is in cahoots with their rivals. This temporary alliance spawned because a dragon is threatening to destroy a town unless he gets a treasure that was stolen from him a long time ago.

The party has the treasure, as they found the thief's ship. But it's in a box, magically locked. The frost giant has the key.

They agreed to her temporary alliance, the terms of which were that she gets the treasure afterwards (this treasure being an oversized chalice).

Her name is Urgura, she's a smooth talker, leads a pack of Worgs, and has a laissez-faire attitude with the party. She's endeared herself to a few of the party members too.

Which will make it hurt all the more when she uses the Chalice to induce psychosis in the dragon, then flee with it, leaving the party to deal with a panicking dragon before he tears down his own lair on top of them.

I'd like to hear about the archer and the not!Crane.

The blind fiancee guy was a favorite of the party for sometime and the players spent a lot of time trying to help them out since they basically were prisoners of war but got freed when the party led a liberation force into a town while investigating for psychics

My party for a magical girl game got really attached to a younger magical girl NPC I threw at them, purely because she was all a giant reference to classical metal music.

It helped they tried to help her with her own issues like they all had, and that she had her own strife within the party - most of the PCs were snooty rich girls while she had come from a struggling household. Them getting past that was... entertaining, to say the least. That and how they put so much effort into keeping her alive.

Had a Lizardfolk captain who the players nicknamed "Mr Shiny", since the warriors of this tribe would pierce themselves with assorted golden knick-knacks and jewelry to represent rank.
>Party makes an Alamo-style last stand in a barricated, ruined warehouse to fight off two raiding parties.
>Last ones standing are Mr Shiny and the highly mobile monk of the party. Latter tries to lure him away, but the Lizardfolk threatens to kill one of his knocked-out companions.
>Later, while captured, heroes secretly parlay with Mr Shiny, as he's the only one who speaks Common around and has been open to diplomacy during the fight. Come to an agreement to instigate a coup against the Shaman who rules over their society
>Turns out the guy is surprisingly well-traveled, and might have been something of an adventurer a while back. An avid reader, he enjoys learning the histories of old kingdoms, and secretly dreams of power himself.
It was quite fun having this guy going from nameless cannon fodder to surpringly central character to the plot.

it's something of a tradition that my friends and i started, that the barkeep in the first tavern that we stumble upon is always a bald, fat, one-handed guy named hank. not a pleasant fellow but still liked by the party.

Bump, this is good stuff

Lem. Wyvern Racer and Tour Guide

>players visit new town
>They eventually run into Lem who races his wyvern mount named Tex in the arena and jousts occasionally
>Lem basically shows party around the city and gives them a safe house in the slums
>players ask around about Lem and found out he was an urchin and got his name from selling lemons and lemon based potions to people
>later find out that Lem raised Tex from a small gecko and eventually started racing him as a way to make money for his family and friends in the slums
>Lem later is killed and party goes on a hunt to bring his killer to justice

Most of my games feature a traveling merchant in a wagon without any horses that just shows up. He sells equipment that's better than what the players can normally get, but comes with an appropriately large pricetag and usually comes with a drawback of some sort [ie; first time you'd drop to 0hp in a fight, drop to 1hp instead; so long as you're at 1hp you're immune to statuses]. But no worries, he's always willing to cut a price in half if you're willing to do an unspecified favor at an unspecified point in the future. Totally not shady and going to put you in a shitty situation to nab him a super shitty cursed artifact.

My players are pretty sure that I'm doing some Sanderson-esque multiverse plot and he's a connecting thread, but really I just threw him out there one session because I needed an NPC merchant and went with a Poe Salesman vibe.

>first time you'd drop to 0hp in a fight, drop to 1hp instead; so long as you're at 1hp you're immune to statuses
What's the drawback?

My favorite NPC in the campaign I'm currently playing is an old woman who's taken us (bunch of orphan spellcasters trying to survive the shitshow that is the Spellplague) in and gives us soup and bedding in between our outings to investigate the apocalypse and get shit settled. Points a big ass crossbow at anyone who comes near her house, calls everyone swine (especially the clerics of her former temple) and has an owlbear for a pet.

Oh, shit, I didn't see this.
>Archer
He wasn't super relevant to the story, mostly to one character's character development. The PC in question was a chef and servant of the Not!Crane. Her whole deal was that she wanted to become the personal chef of the Imperial family due to the prestige and opportunities it would grant her. There were two ways she could do this: Ensure the not!Crane won the tournament for the Princess's hand (that didn't work out for a couple of reasons) or make such a good impression on the future Empress that she got rehired.
So she got her Veeky Forums on, which is where the archer came in. He was a gigantic fan of duck and a good hunter (he even knew how to cook the bird pretty well due to his experience and because it was his favorite food). She was a world-class chef who needed some duck, so he got some for her for free under the condition he would get first dibs at it.
Being a cheerful and enthusiastic man who wasn't stupid but wasn't exactly the brightest either, he was pretty endearing, and became the chef PC's go-to man when she needed a favor done or food tested. He also taught her to improve her archery, as he was an expert archer and she was pretty skilled herself.
Being a man primarily ruled by his stomach, this arrangement eventually caused him to fall in love with the chef PC, though it was mostly her cooking he was in love with. She turned him down (she actually had to have his affections pointed out to her by another NPC), but he got over it pretty fast. He was sort of a side character that took on a life of his own, even though he didn't add any sort of grand weight to the story.

>(Continuing with the not!Crane in next post)

>not!Crane
What you have to understand is that this guy was designed to be an asshole. He was set up as the douchebag rival character that would hopefully be defeated. 105% ''Muh pride", "Muh honor", "Muh training". His backstory was basically that his dad killed a particularly powerful oni and then died of his wounds, and he was raised by his hysterical, overprotective mother. The result was this incredibly uptight, incredibly focused, incredibly assholish dude. Unfortunately for the people that hated him, he was still a very skilled paladin/fighter with an artistic streak, and he had few overt weaknesses. His main problems were exactly what you might expect of a not!Crane: He was aggressively arrogant, picky, and had problems with women.

He did have a couple of saving graces, namely that he was pretty honorable, appreciated the chef PC's help when she worked for him, and he was still more reasonable than his mother. Of all the NPCs, he probably got the most character development, learning to cool his jets a bit and, when he got called out for being an asshole or overstepping his limits, he backed off somewhat. He still hated the monk PC, his main romantic rival, as he aspired to become the Emperor, more for ideological reasons than romantic ones.

He was basically a slightly-less mouthy Vegeta: That asshole everyone tolerates because he's really good at what he does. He threw himself into combat completely against major enemies, fighting beside his rival with little hesitation and even healing the guy when he went down after a major attack. Nobody would be beating the rival until he did at the tournament- which never happened due to the crisis at hand. One of the other scenes I remember the best for him was when a PC who had specced into social manipulation rogue basically seduced him and he started acting like the flustered fool with no experience that he was. It was sort of cringy, but the fact that it was sold how emotionally inept he really was.

Urban dog shaman in a Hunter game. Might have been just a drunk hobo, or might have actually held mystical insight. Possibly knew how to shapeshift into a dog.
From the same game there was also an old Jew book collector who was actually a changeling who didn't want no trabble and was a suspect pedo (actually he fed on the anxiety of the parents) and a loyalist of Thule based on a poem by David Mason.
In my current 4e game there is a changeling spy who managed to escape twice already from the party. She's setting up to become a recurring villain.

I'm a sucker for hardass NPCs who secretly wish the best for the PCs. Too bad they ardly ever survive long enough to show the latter.

Is that due to the players killing them, or due to them fighting along side the players and dying because they're combat min-maxed as the players?

*not as combat min-maxed

>Elias
>Formerly an Ares wage slave child we framed for a wetwork job. Instead of rolling over and dying, somehow fought his way out of a truly shitty situation we locked him in, raised hell for several weeks trying to prove his innocence and after that game crashed and burned showed up in following Shadowrun games as a gun for hire we occasionally run into.
There's more but that's a memorable one because it was a direct consequence of something stupid we did and had long ass lasting consequences. and it was a fucking trip when we sat his ass down and talked to him a bit and saw how badly we fucking ruined his life and derailed his future.

Little bit of both, depending on how murderhobo-y the party is. They tend to either shank them outright, or have them act as sad little meatshields no one will miss. It's kinda depressing how they treat anyone they don't immediately endear themselves to.

>Too bad they hardly ever survive long enough to show the latter

You're doing it wrong. This is supposed to be the moments the players show up and save said NPC from something truly dangerous and her "hardass" side melts away to show a moment of vulnerability and genuine life-fearing teary-eyed thanks to have been saved and still be alive.

Gawd, I am weeaboo trash.

Milo Tenpenny, the halfling who goes from rags to riches to rags to riches to rags again.

First time we ran across this son of a bitch, he was stuck in a cage that we found in a giant's bag. Motherfucker was a trader that got caught by the giant and stuffed in there for his personal amusement. He was incredibly happy to see us, swore he'd repay our kindness some day, and went on his merry way.

The next time we found him, he was at a bazaar, apparently having gotten right back on his feet and entered the business of selling chickens after having lost everything. He was, again, incredibly pleased to see us and gave us a dozen eggs as a small gesture of his gratitude. Later, in that same town, we found him chained to a wall in a vampire's lair. Apparently, he was going to end up being a juicebox until we rolled through and saved him.

Then we found him in the heart of a dwarven hall, selling non-dwarven beers and ales by the flagon. His chicken business had apparently floundered after his near-death experience in the last town, so he moved here and was doing quite well for himself. He gave us a round of ales on the house and introduced us to the dwarven captain of the guard, who we had been looking for. Later, we found him beaten and bloodied in a pool of his own alcohol, apparently victimized by a dwarven mafia of sorts that didn't like how he was selling humanmade booze on their turf.

After we ruined the dwarf mafia with fire and vengeance and ill-advised shaving of some wiseguys and a few sessions later, we were after a mindflayer. And wouldn't you know it? There was Milo, in the thrall of the monster. He was the one left guarding us when we fell into a pit trap that led to a cell full of skellingtons whose skulls were very pointedly punctured.

And wouldn't you know it? The little bastard finally came through for us, snapping out of his enthralled state after some reminders of who we were and how badly we needed his help right then.

Fucking Milo.