Help with npc's

[aigiovanni]

Hello I am posting this to get some help on an npc for a campaign I am about to run. The idea for the campaign is that the player characters all belong to a special group in their kingdoms army thats purpose is to prevent cults from causing trouble in this particular case a new cult called "The Sapphire Cult" has been causing a whole lot of commotion through riots, people dissapearing, mortal sacrifices, and the occassional assualts on random villages. The cult worships the (homebrew) dragon goddess named Neytiri Vorel Vrak but known as the Sapphire Mother to her cult members. Neytiri was originally a Very Old Blue Dragon with all 12 levels in the Dragon Ascendant prestige class before the cult transformed her into a demi-goddess, and she is slowly gaining strength and soon she will become a true goddess.

The help I am requesting here is to come up with ideas for her heralds aka children as these five members will be the leaders of the cult such as suggestions for feats, etc etc. Each of her hearlds are a child she has sired through taking her humanoind form before her god status. Her sons consist of a level 20 Half Blue Dragon Human fighter, a level 20 Half Blue Dragon Dwarf Cleric/Dracolyte, a level 20 Half Blue Dragon human rogue, and her daughters consist of a level 20 Half Blue dragon Elf Sorcerer, and a level 20 Half Blue Dragon Human Ranger.

Here is her diety profile since all of her children worship her as a goddess, and her eldest son is her primary cleric.

Deity Info:
Neytiri
The Sapphire Mother
Lesser Deity
Symbol: A blue dragon head and wings wrapped around a smooth egg shaped sapphire
Home plane: Material Plane
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Portfolio: Conquest, Dragonkind, Destuction
Worshipers: Dragonbloods, anyone looking for acceptance.
Cleric Alignment: LN, NE, LE
Domains Evil, Dragon, Destruction, Hatred, Strength
Favored Weapon: Scythe (Claws)

Obviously the players will not encounter her children for a while and deffinetly not all at the same time as that would be over kill so consider your suggestions for these npc's being met by themselves with only the ocassional minions.

[JeminiZero]

Use Warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) instead o Fighter.

Aside from that, I reckon her children would have children of their own, and their children may go on to have their own children... so that there would be a myriad of dragonblooded members withiin the cult. Look up the various Dragon-related books for monster ideas.
-Dragon Magic has Dragonblood race variants (although for some reason blue dragons are associated with hobgobs)
-Draconomicon has the Draconic Template, and the Dragonkin creature.
-Races of Dragon hasvarious feats, notably Dragonwings and Improved Dragonwings, if you want your Dragonblooded creatures to fly.

[aigiovanni]

Use Warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2) instead o Fighter.

Aside from that, I reckon her children would have children of their own, and their children may go on to have their own children... so that there would be a myriad of dragonblooded members withiin the cult. Look up the various Dragon-related books for monster ideas.
-Dragon Magic has Dragonblood race variants (although for some reason blue dragons are associated with hobgobs)
-Draconomicon has the Draconic Template, and the Dragonkin creature.
-Races of Dragon hasvarious feats, notably Dragonwings and Improved Dragonwings, if you want your Dragonblooded creatures to fly.

Warblade huh? Ok and while Im at it I can make the rogue into swordsage with the Shadow Hand style hmmmm. Yeah actually thats gonna be a major mechanic in this campaign is dragons.

The kingdom the player characters are from their national religion is the Church of Bahamut and their ranks consist of a Dragonborn Paladin, A Dragonborn Cleric, A Dragonscale Sorcerer, a Draconic Halfling Rogue, and a Draconic Elf Ranger Their all starting out at level 10.

Anyway back to the npcs any suggestions for feats, and what not?

[JeminiZero]

Anyway back to the npcs any suggestions for feats, and what not?



That depends on what they being built for. Melee Brutes need power attack, sneaky types need Darkstalker, Sorcerers need Versatile Spellcaster etc...

Another way to think about it: rather than building NPCs and having them cause a situation, imagine a situation, and then tailor the NPCs to specialize at it.

For example, inciting riots. How would an NPC do that? The quick simple way is magic (repeated castings of Mass Suggestion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/suggestionMass.htm)), but that limits you to smallish riots of 20+ people at most. Probably won't do a lot of damage, but it can help create kick start atmosphere of tension).

To get a whole city riled up the NPC is probably a great orator or something who can convince commoners to rise up (Diplomacy). Occasional acts of sabotage may also be necessary, followed by blaming the government (Bluff and Forgery). Obviously, the authorities would also want to get this guy, but he's managed to evade capture all this while (Disguise). And to be in a high position within the cult, he might be one of the Sapphire's descendants, so that implies the Draconic template.

[Runestar]

Finally, a dragon with less exotic tastes in mates. :smalltongue:

MM4 has the bluespawn godslayer, which can make good bodyguards for your lv20 fighter npc. They are each only cr10 though, so you may want to look at tacking on class lvs (a few lvs in warblade or crusader should work well here). A godslayer crusader8 (just for variety) would each be cr18. They are also monstrous humanoids, which allow them to qualify for the monster of legend (MM2) template (final cr20). 2 of these beasties, plus the herald, would make for a EL24 encounter.

I like to KISS (keep it simple, stupid), so the 'fighter' would be a human half-dragon warblade20/fighter1 (cr23, on paper at least). His feats would mostly be used to fill out the weapon supremacy feat tree (PHB2), leaving you with 4 other feats (spend on passives?). He already has enough combat options from his maneuvers, so I do not feel the need to further complicate him with complex feat choices. With a good enough attack rating, taking 10 should still allow him to auto-hit the players, which synergises well with his singular, powerful strikes.

Apart from this, I find half-dragon doesn't really do a lot for sorc and rogue. Will post more later when inspiration strikes me.

As for sorc, half-dragon personally doesn't do much for me, but I guess a half-dragon sorc21 would do. Take the thematic spellcasting feat (PGTF) to let you change your spells to give them a more blue-dragon themed appearance (at your discretion). For example, stoneskin might give you blue scales, fly causes blue dragon wings to sprout from your back, refluff the dragonshape spell (PHB2) to transform you into a blue dragon instead, etc. Take epic spellcasting, for your epic spells, choose epic mage armour and a custom spell granting +16 enhancement bonus to cha.