make some one minute NPCs

[Kaibis]

Need some practice making NPCs on the fly?I do! Nothing like a game to help practice.

Read the most recent scenario in the thread... Once you have read it, the clock starts ticking. You have 10 seconds to begin typing, and your description has to be finished in under a minute (no one is timing you, it's honour amongst thieves). And you are very welcome to reply to your own threads - knock yourself out!! Like keeping track? Give yourself 10XP for every attempt that you make (halved if you go over time or edit your post), feel free to brag about this in garish colours at the bottom of your post!!

Your response should contain the description, plus a scenario for the next player:
Name:
Age:
Physical Description (including race if applicable):
Personality:
One extra bit of information:

Bonus information:

Scenario for the next player: An NPC working at a market stall, double XP for including details about the stall.

[Kaibis]

Scenario for the next player: An NPC working at a market stall, double XP for including details about the stall.

Name: Matilda Luggins
Age: 30s
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Stout, frumpish human, dark hair, wears purple pants
Personality:
Bored of her job. Thinks she is better than this, doesn't know how to make more of herself (never will).
One extra bit of information:
Feeds the cat that visits her stall.

Bonus information: She sells pots and pans.


Scenario for the next player: An NPC looking for help hunting a dragon. Bonus information, description of his past deed.

[JNAProductions]

Scenario for the next player: An NPC looking for help hunting a dragon. Bonus information, description of his past deed.

Name: Dale Everfrost
Age: 38
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Half-elf with ice in his blood (literally), blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, very cold to the touch.
Personality: Surprisingly warm and friendly, but with passions that run deep. If he loves you, he loves you hard, but if he hates you, he hates you just as hard.
One extra bit of information: Was not born Everfrost. Had an... Incident, involving ice and magic, early in his life.

Bonus information: Slayed a young white dragon, using his resistance to cold to his advantage. Now has this dragon's mother after him, and needs help making sure he's not the dead one when all's said and done.



Scenario for the next player: An alchemist who really, REALLY wants a bit of your blood.

[Kaibis]

Scenario for the next player: An alchemist who really, REALLY wants a bit of your blood.

Name: Zandaria Deýalga
Age: 25
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Pale looking human. Dressed in basic clothes. Has not brushed his hair in a very long time, doies not seem to have showered either.
Personality: Obsessive. Doesn't have a great deal of common sense. He is totally sucked into the cult-like beliefs of other followers of Strahd.
One extra bit of information: He is trying to summon Strahd, this is his first attempt at doing so. You are his first victim.

Bonus information: He is living out of a cave, drinking the blood of rats before eating them.

Scenario for the next player: The mayor of a small town that has recently had a bumper harvest. Bonus information: There was something mysterious about the harvest.

[Kaibis]

Scenario for the next player: The mayor of a small town that has recently had a bumper harvest. Bonus information: There was something mysterious about the harvest.

Name: Loralio Camberbridge
Age: 52
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Tall, strong looking woman. It is clear that she has worked for a living. She dresses neatly in sturdy pants, and a plain shirt - clothes that could pass in an office or a field. She has long wavy hair, tied back in a loose bun. Her face seems friendly.
Personality: Friendly, but too busy to take anyone's stupidity. She has worked hard for a living, and has no time for anyone that doesn't at least try!
One extra bit of information: She married very young, to one of the previous mayors. He died mysteriously after only a year, she was happy in way, because he was a bit of a douche. Her second marriage was to a farmer, and she enjoyed years of working the land. Only recently did she become mayor.

Bonus information: The previous three mayors all died after only a few years in office, and the death was always preceded by a bumper harvest. This year has been a bumper harvest.

Scenario for the next player: An NPC walks into the city with a huge beast in tow. Bonus information: Describe the beast.

[Personification]

Name: .

Scenario for the next player: An NPC walks into the city with a huge beast in tow. Bonus information: Describe the beast.

Name: Steve
Age:42
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Looks like Stephen Colbert
Personality: Acts like Stephen Colbert's identical twin cousin Stephen Colbert, nut replace "America" with "Bryn Shander" and replace "Eagle" with "Cold Bear"
One extra bit of information: He is actually a powerful druid, and the beast with him is an awakened Cold Bear, which is a rare subspecies of owlbear where the bear part is a polar bear and instead of an owl it is part penguin

Bonus information: the coldbear has a ribbon, it just won first prize in a dogshow, and they are now trying to find a celebratory seal to eat.

Next scenario: there is a mysterious homeless man who lives under a bridge near the entrance to town, EVERY town.

Bonus: describe the invisible friend he talks to when not giving cryptic advice to adventurers, include the invisible friend's appearance.

[Knaight]

Scenario for the next player: An NPC walks into the city with a huge beast in tow. Bonus information: Describe the beast.

Name: Everett Black
Age: 38
Physical Description (including race if applicable): A tall, weedy man in old glasses, wearing practical but distinctly out of style traveling clothes. Carries field binoculars and a guidebook. Human.
Personality: Very job focused, with a job that is also a passion. A bit of a thrill seeker, and very much the dedicated adventuring academic.
One extra bit of information: The huge beast is the Ortitian Land Jellyfish, a massive jellyfish with overdeveloped tentacles that can only live on planets with very dense atmospheres.

Scenario for the next player: An obvious aristocrat in their fanciest clothes is face down in an alleyway holding an empty bottle of incredibly cheap booze, sleeping off its effects. Who are they?

[JNAProductions]

Scenario for the next player: An obvious aristocrat in their fanciest clothes is face down in an alleyway holding an empty bottle of incredibly cheap booze, sleeping off its effects. Who are they?

Name: Jeverian The Fourth Of Octin
Age: 58
Physical Description (including race if applicable): A young elf, with straight blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Has several piercings in his ears and on his face, each one earned via combat.
Personality: A loud-mouth who loves a good fight, but knows enough to keep quiet when the more polite nobles are talking.
One extra bit of information: He lost his first fight ever yesterday. And HOO BOY, he is NOT taking it well.

Scenario for the next player: A simple potato farmer.

[Kaibis]

Scenario for the next player: A simple potato farmer.

Name: Manuel Tate
Age: Past their prime in life, maybe 50s, 60s, who knows.
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Weathered, leathery skin that has been exposed to years of outdoor work. Hands are rough and calloused. They are not as tough and wiry as you might expect of a young farmhand, they are old enough to be well-fed. Thick, curly brown hair, that is untamed. They are constantly chewing something, probably just a bit of grass.
Personality: They are lovely and charming and yet it always comes back to potatoes. Surprisingly they are able to make potatoes seem interesting, if you spend any length of time with them you come away knowing more about potatoes then you ever thought you might... but no free potatoes.... That is their livelihood.
One extra bit of information: They buried their partner just two years ago. The joy of life has gone a little.


Scenario for the next player: The armorer in a small town.

[Personification]

I don't know how this should be played out, but I Shadowmonked someone, and the "next situation" I suggested (there is a mysterious homeless man who lives under a bridge near the entrance to town, EVERY town) got ignored. Would it be too much to ask if the next person to answer would use this as their next scenario?

[Knaight]

I don't know how this should be played out, but I Shadowmonked someone, and the "next situation" I suggested (there is a mysterious homeless man who lives under a bridge near the entrance to town, EVERY town) got ignored. Would it be too much to ask if the next person to answer would use this as their next scenario?

I Shadowmonked you, so:

Name: Vorai the Manyfaced
Age: Seemingly eternal.
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Depending on who describes them Vorai is anywhere from 1.7 to 1.8 meters tall. They have a husky voice, and skin that varies from deep brown to black depending on the description - but their masks are always the same, eight different faces each taking up the eighth of one composite face.
Personality: Vorai is garrulous in the extreme, the one foible of a religious mendicant and monk who otherwise lives in austerity under every bridge. They love to spend their time in idle chat, which often seems to grant great wisdom. Beyond that their one distinguishing feature is their generosity; they'll give you the shirt off their back, if not the mask off their face.
One extra bit of information: Vorai isn't just one person - they're an organization with strict standards on appearance pretending to be one person, and they're probably the best spy network the world has ever seen.

Bonus information: The invisible friend is the eight faced god, a totally fictitious creature like eight humans in a circle with their matching limbs merged together. Vorai technically worships them, but they've talked so much that their conversations are casual.

Scenario for the next player: N/A

[Kaibis]

Oh awesome response. Love it. You deserve to add a scenario, forget mine way back. It was boring!! :D :D :D

[NRSASD]

Scenario for the next player: The armorer in a small town.

Name:Vonion
Age:Mid 30's
Physical Description:Tall, swarthy, dark haired, bowlegged. Lanky and wiry strong.
Personality:Very cheerful, loud, and extremely superstitious. Will always be polite and respectful (in a very gruff way), especially to "unusual" races, on the off chance they might be more than they seem.

One extra bit of information:Vonion was a nomadic tribal horseman until he ran afoul of the Fey and was cursed to never ride again for being disrespectful to a mysterious stranger. He misses his old way of life dearly, but is too afraid of the Fey to try to get the curse lifted. By becoming a blacksmith, he's ensured that he'll always have some cold iron on hand in case the Fey come again.

Scenario for Next Player: An intercity messenger in a big city

Knaight, go ahead and post a new scenario if you'd like!

[Knaight]

Knaight, go ahead and post a new scenario if you'd like!

I think the best proceduring for ninjaing somebody is probably to have somebody respond to their next poster, but end with an N/A as I did. The thread forks, and this quickly ends the abandoned thread instead of continuing it. We don't need a dozen of these running in parallel.

Plus, for posting a new scenario we can always just grab on to the main thread again.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Scenario for Next Player: An intercity messenger in a big city

An old Sorcerer without legs called Boyer Rousset, entombed within an ornate Large steel structure that traps most of his body leaving only his human face and Construct arms poking out. He usually surrounds it with an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere when it isn't slowly floating through the streets. He claims to be more than three hundred years old, even though his face doesn't look a day older than fourty.
If paid he'll use high-level spells to convey even seemingly trivial messages, all for a very good rate. But in exchange he demands odd things like a single truthful answer to a question, news of a seemingly unimportant place or for the client to carry an item with his Arcana Mark upon it for a few weeks.
He refuses to explain why he is asking. If confronted, he will simply avoid combat and prove almost impossible to actually kill or capture despite his low number of offensive spells.

Note: His demands are there purely to freak the players out, or to get news of old friends or past lovers. He's ultimately harmless.

Scenario for next player: An off-the-books healer who'll heal anyone no questions asked, fully confidentially.

[Knaight]

Scenario for next player: An off-the-books healer who'll heal anyone no questions asked, fully confidentially.

Name: Dr. Doom, MD
Age: 57
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Dr. Doom is a large, physically imposing man with a bald head and a long salt and pepper goatee. He's also very calm, and his hands are incredibly steady.
Personality: There are two facets to Dr. Doom - the sober surgeon, a very competent medical professional who takes pride in their work, and the mad scientist, a cackling genius obsessed with biological bomb production.
One extra bit of information: Dr. Doom is a supervillain. He usually just heals people, but if they're likely to be somewhere sensitive he'll give them a blood transfusion with his special mixture, which will build a biological bomb inside their skeleton. If he gives the word every single one of these people blows up at the same time, taking everyone in their immediate area with them.

Bonus information: Dr. Doom has a teenage daughter named Valerie Doom, a.k.a Short Circuit. She's currently in full teenage rebellion mode, and is acting as a superhero.

Scenario for the next player: A fisherman comes into town with the skeleton carcass of a fish bigger than the boat strapped to the side of it. Who are they?

[graymagiker]

Scenario for the next player: A fisherman comes into town with the skeleton carcass of a fish bigger than the boat strapped to the side of it. Who are they?

Name: Mar'ack
Age: 243
Physical Description (including race if applicable):An elf that looks older than he is. His skin has a dusky appearance to it, his grey hair is matted and damp from being at sea.
Personality: Somber and subdued, nothing seems to get a rise out of him and no one can remember a time when he raised his voice
One extra bit of information: Mar'ack is a warlock, but regrets the pact he made to get his power so rarely if ever uses his abilities.

Bonus information: The fish carcass is a species of good aligned intelligent sea life and Mar'ack is investigating its death.

Scenario for the next player:Corrupt captain of the guard.

[braveheart]

Name: Gregar Grimvon
Age:104
Physical description: a dwarf standing at 4'5" (tall for a dwarf), was plate mail while on patrol, and doesn't bother removing the legs of the armor while he is doing office work. His beard is light brown with a little red in it as well as a few strands of Grey hair. His nose has been broken several times.
Psrsonality: unexpectedly friendly, he greets everyone who steps into his office cheerfully unless he is upset, in which case his temper flames, often for days at a time
Additional:his daughter is his world and the only reason he takes bribes is so so he can provide more for his daughter



Situation: a shopkeeper who specializes in something odd

[Personification]

Situation: a shopkeeper who specializes in something odd

Name:Sharon Smithereens (adopted by tieflings, who gave her a human name)
Age: 666
Physical Description (including race if applicable): Half eladrin, half shadar-kai elf. Her skin is very pail, and she has hair that looks like glowing gold through a slightly white and mostly transparent filter. She looks about mid-forties in human years.
Personality: Her two halves give her a mixture of somber dryness and mischievous excited anergy that really just boils down to a constant stream of deadpan snarky comments.
One extra bit of information: The odd items she specializes in are working dream catchers as well as powerful illusions. If you buy a dream catcher and use it as directed, you will have no dreams, and faintly glowing beads will appear. She will later buy the dreamcatcher plus beads back from you at a higher price, and can turn the beads into powerful potions that, when used, will trap the person they are used on inside of a vivid, and not always lucid dream.
Bonus information: She often analyzes the dreams to learn information, and shares this with the Vorai.

Scenario for the next player: A tall man with a tall suit and a tall hat and a tall head and no face is sometimes seen talking to the Vorai, Who is he?

Bonus: What is under his hat? (head doesn't count)

I am officially trying to build a campaign setting, or at least a possible interwoven story, with these, centered around the Vorai. Please help by linking your NPCs. (And maybe someone could start writing a plot)

[NRSASD]

Scenario for the next player: A tall man with a tall suit and a tall hat and a tall head and no face is sometimes seen talking to the Vorai, Who is he?

I am officially trying to build a campaign setting, or at least a possible interwoven story, with these, centered around the Vorai. Please help by linking your NPCs. (And maybe someone could start writing a plot)

If you'd like help building a campaign setting, I'd suggest starting a thread dedicated to that. I'd prefer we keep the NPCs system and genre neutral so all of us can tweak/steal them for ourselves. That being said...

Name: Lord Featheringshade
Age: Old? Young? Too burned to tell
Physical Description: Dresses entirely in dark blue silk, with a dusky blue waistcoat shot through with silver threads that glint in the streetlamps. His top hat is impeccably tailored and always seems to be at a jaunty angle (note: no one sees it at the same angle). Does he have hair? He might have, once. His face and hands are covered with a mask and gloves, but the few bits of flesh that have been seen are burned beyond recognition. How did this happen to him? How did he survive? No one knows for sure, but it is the subject of much speculation and rumor.
Personality: He rarely stops to talk to us humans, but when he does he always look past us, through us, at things that don't exist. At least, we hope they don't. Trying to engage him in conversation is both frustrating and terrifying, because the longer you talk to him, the more you begin to realize you can see flashes of what he sees. Motion, just at the edge of your vision; sounds, just at the edge of hearing. No one can claim that they've talked to him for long, but those brave few who've tried say he's polite but bemused by it. He seems to view us the same way we view being greeted by a ventriloquist puppet; a bit creepy but clearly not real, just a joke at his expense.
Extra Snippet: People frequently meet Lord Featheringshade on the street, or see him step out from buildings, but none can remember seeing him inside. Ever.
Bonus Answer:What's under his hat? Now that's a very interesting question. Some say a diamond the size of your fist. Some believe it's just a lidless, unblinking eye. But I have to wonder... is that even the right question? Is there even an "under" his hat?

Scenario for the Next Player: A contestant in a fairy tale tournament, trying to win the Prince/Princess' hand.

P.S. Errrr... What are the Vorai?

[Personification]

P.S. Errrr... What are the Vorai?
I don't really want to make a campaign setting, I just saw an example so cool that I felt it needed a world based around it, and I thought that it might be interesting if at least some of the NPCs on this thread were linked together. The Vorai was/were the NPC(s) given in answer to "there is a mysterious homeless man who lives under a bridge near the entrance to town, EVERY town" by Kaibis. It is post #11.

[Knaight]

I don't really want to make a campaign setting, I just saw an example so cool that I felt it needed a world based around it, and I thought that it might be interesting if at least some of the NPCs on this thread were linked together. The Vorai was/were the NPC(s) given in answer to "there is a mysterious homeless man who lives under a bridge near the entrance to town, EVERY town" by Kaibis. It is post #11.

Technically it was Vorai the Manyfaced, and the answer was by me, not Kaibis.

[kraftcheese]

If you'd like help building a campaign setting, I'd suggest starting a thread dedicated to that. I'd prefer we keep the NPCs system and genre neutral so all of us can tweak/steal them for ourselves. That being said...

Name: Lord Featheringshade
Age: Old? Young? Too burned to tell
Physical Description: Dresses entirely in dark blue silk, with a dusky blue waistcoat shot through with silver threads that glint in the streetlamps. His top hat is impeccably tailored and always seems to be at a jaunty angle (note: no one sees it at the same angle). Does he have hair? He might have, once. His face and hands are covered with a mask and gloves, but the few bits of flesh that have been seen are burned beyond recognition. How did this happen to him? How did he survive? No one knows for sure, but it is the subject of much speculation and rumor.
Personality: He rarely stops to talk to us humans, but when he does he always look past us, through us, at things that don't exist. At least, we hope they don't. Trying to engage him in conversation is both frustrating and terrifying, because the longer you talk to him, the more you begin to realize you can see flashes of what he sees. Motion, just at the edge of your vision; sounds, just at the edge of hearing. No one can claim that they've talked to him for long, but those brave few who've tried say he's polite but bemused by it. He seems to view us the same way we view being greeted by a ventriloquist puppet; a bit creepy but clearly not real, just a joke at his expense.
Extra Snippet: People frequently meet Lord Featheringshade on the street, or see him step out from buildings, but none can remember seeing him inside. Ever.
Bonus Answer:What's under his hat? Now that's a very interesting question. Some say a diamond the size of your fist. Some believe it's just a lidless, unblinking eye. But I have to wonder... is that even the right question? Is there even an "under" his hat?

Scenario for the Next Player: A contestant in a fairy tale tournament, trying to win the Prince/Princess' hand.

P.S. Errrr... What are the Vorai?

Name: The Grey Lord

Age: 24

Physical Description (including race if applicable): A mysterious competitor that refuses to leave their horse or take off their helmet; is secretly a centaur under an illusion spell, from a wandering clan that happens to be nearby when the tourney starts.

Personality: Standoffish, but only because they're afraid someone will find out their true identity. Will not compete in melees, only mounted events.

One extra bit of information: Is the secret lover of the prince/princess and has hatched a plan with them to rig the tourney.

Bonus information: Wants to win the tournament honourably, feels guilty that their beloved has rigged it for them.

NEXT:
A travelling salesperson that keeps looking over at the PCs surreptitiously in an open-air market.

[Concrete]

A travelling salesperson that keeps looking over at the PCs surreptitiously in an open-air market.
Name: Rackh Tag Ohly

Age: 16/17/18

Physical Description (including race if applicable): Looks like a huge, slightly obese human male with an eerily child-like face wearing a shapeless floor length overcoat. Sells reasonably priced, tasty smoked sausage of questionable origin.

Personality: Has a tendency to speak to himself, and is very indecisive. Easily distracted and jittery. Generous with samples.

One extra bit of information:
These three ratfolk are using a swarm of normal rats to help fill out the trenchcoat they are all currently occupying, and only a Hat of Human Guise is making the illusion in any way believable.

Bonus information: Tag, the middle ratfolk, dreams about being the top one, and thinks she'd be a way better salesman than Rackh.
Rackh, the top one, feels obligated to play the face as he is the oldest, but is terrified of crowds. Ohly really doesn't mind being the feet, as it gives him time to look at the shoes of passers by, and dreaming of one day having a pair of his own.

NEXT: The athlete exercising in the park.