#npc ideas

Post offices. Wild, I know. But give me the unhinged kind. Pingeons and little postal dragons all over the place. You enter. The most disgusting smell fucking assaults your nostrils. You know what it is. Letter in hand, you go up to the counter. The postal worker is just a slightly bigger pigeon. You shed a tear.

PLAYGROUNDS!! Create the most dangerous kinds of playgrounds, the ones suburban moms would TRIP if they ever saw one. Monkey bars that are way too tall, swings that go full circle... The metal slide stays the same, it's already painful enough.

PARKS!! MAKE IT ALIVE!! Show people going on walks, reading beneath trees. C'mon most of them are already hundred years old (And are going to die after that CR 15 creature wrecks the town) anyways!! Show couples and picnics, show a family enjoying the sunday, give me someone picking flowers for their loved ones.

A bakery! Do you know how much these places are underrated? And do you know how much plot potential they have? Every good story starts with food poisoning or granny's recipe! Give me a place your players/readers are going to treat like home and, for once, it's not a tavern or a guild.

Government buildings! Give me a town hall that has a kilometric line in front of it. Give me a registry that is as old as this town. Give me police stations! Give me courtrooms! Make one of your players get arrested and now all of the party has to go through burocracy like a bunch of normal people!

(Who am I kidding? You don't need to make them get arrested. They are going to do that for you.)

Touristic attractions! Give me a full-on statue of the country's leader! Give me museums! Give me streets, ruins and whatnot that attract thousands of tourists everyday! Give me an annoying city guide that tries to get the party's attention everytime!

Magazine stands! Magazines don't exist? Newspaper stands! From the Queen's Journal to the most questionable new piece of Fox's Tailtracker, you have it all! Make your players doubt what's actually happening, sprinkle a little fake news... Or is it fake at all?

...Toy stores. OK HEAR ME OUT. Make magic toys; miniature skyships that actually fly, metal toy dragons that expel fire, little wands that make little light spells, wooden creatures that can move and make noises... Make children happy! And your players too because they will waste their money on these stuff.

Instrument store!! Make your bards happy with special instruments or just weird ones! Give me a battle in one of those that is just filled with funny noises and the worst battle soundtrack ever!!

Not exactly a place but... Cleaning carts!!! Show me people cleaning the streets, picking up the trash, cutting trees!! Make the town look clean!! Give me an old man that is really proud of his work!!!

so far, this is what i’ve got:

he’s a human. a city-born, self-made man.

he has had dealings with devils, and currently has a moderate cohort of fiends at his disposal (imps and spined devils and such).

he is in cahoots with the ancient wizard responsible for the rifts that brought the eldritch beings to faerûn, though their alliance is one of convenience and mutual need. he sort of has the wizard on a leash, though the wizard isn't submissive.

he truly believes he can make the world a better place by ruling it. he won't kill people just for not liking him, but he will not hesitate to take out anyone he sees as a threat to his power. that being said, he always tries first to persuade powerful people to his cause.

The Party You’ll Love to Hate: The Mighty Oaf

I needed a rival adventuring company for my campaign that wasn’t "evil," but was absolutely infuriating. Enter The Mighty Oaf.

Their vibe? “We get results... and bodybags.” They are a party of eight with collectively terrible judgment (average Wisdom is a 7, folks) led by a dwarf who is so charismatic you almost forget he’s leading you into a meat grinder.

The Leadership (The Disaster Trio)

Tormin Keg (The Face): A Dwarf Fighter with CHA 16 / WIS 4. He is bald, bearded, and catastrophically confident. He doesn't lie; he genuinely believes his terrible plans are genius. He was exiled from his clan for "creative interpretation of mining safety protocols."

Signature Move: Slams his enchanted, never-empty tankard down and shouts "I've spoken!"

Tirolas (The Manipulator): An Elf Bard who treats the world like a stage and hirelings like "narrative sacrifices." He’s the one who writes the ballads that make their disasters sound like heroic victories.

Ludwig Fallowfield (The Brain): The only one with common sense (WIS 14) and absolutely zero power to use it. He keeps a waterproof journal of "Lessons Learned (Ignored)." He’s the one you’ll want to rescue.

The Muscle & The Zealots

Pete the Butcher: A Half-orc who treats combat like meat processing. Practical, smells like rendered fat, and will explain the best way to cut a troll while he’s killing it.

Brother Gordon Fullbright: A Priest of Zeus with WIS 5. He performs mental gymnastics to prove that sending hirelings into trap-filled rooms is actually "holy martyrdom."

Hendricks the Bloody-Handed: A Priest of Ares who is actually very honest about his love for war. He views deaths as offerings. Simple. Honest. Terrifying.

The Wildcards

Sully (The Addict): A human Thief and former navy sailor with WIS 5 and CHA 6 who says “Watch this” right before doing something that should definitely kill him. He’s the group’s "trap finder" (mostly by walking into them).

Shine the Bold: A Wizard with INT 10 / WIS 4. He named himself "The Bold" and yells spell names like "SHINE’S SPECTRAL SPHERE OF SEARING SUPERIORITY" just to cast a single Magic Missile.

Why they’re the perfect rivals:

The Hireling Problem: They don’t murder people; they just have "high mortality rates" due to incompetence. It makes for incredible moral dilemmas when your PCs find an Oaf hireling abandoned in a dungeon.

The Success: Somehow, they still have more gold than the PCs. They spend it all at the Brazen Strumpet and brag about "prior discovery" on dungeons the PCs actually cleared.

The Damage: They aren't trying to destroy the world; they're just making all adventurers look like reckless idiots.

Other portrait packs also available but not pictured

11 - Equine Kin

12 - Celestial Children

13 - Dwarves

14 - Changelings

And two more packs are in progress now (Dragonfolk and Vampire Bitten)

Each pack comes with 6-8 high quality character portraits, plus ready-to-go tokens and icons and a limited license for using the portraits in your streamed games!

Find them all here

*Party fights through a dungeon considered impossible to cross by the locals in order to reach the towns separated from the rest of the kingdom by an impassable mountain range*

Merchant: Well meet, brave heroes! You liked my kpashka soup when we met in in Ldranatt; may I now entice you with some seared grwolth leg?

Party: ...