NPC concepts in a sentence. Or two.

[Sgt. Cookie]

As the title says really.

Sometimes, DMs need a helping hand. Other times you have a crazy idea that you just want out there. So, here's a thread for em all. Try to put something more than "A farmer" please.

Let's number em, 'cos, why not?

To start us off:

1. An awakened Bear with class levels in Barbarian with an awakened Squirrel cohort with class levels in rogue.

2. A Blacksmith with an uncanny, but unintentional, knack for adding some form of magic to anything he creates. Sometimes useful, sometimes not so.

3. A hyperactive Dwarf who has a habit of downing several pints in a few seconds.

4. A sorcerer who's hair lights on fire whenever he gets angry.

[kieza]

5. A goblin dressed as a halfling and a halfling dressed as a goblin for halloween. (Or a costume party)

6. An atheist (or nondenominational) lawful good fighter who subcontracts for an order of paladins.

7. A 7-foot tall, 350-pound, bushy-bearded boisterous bruiser in bavarian barding (full plate, but alliterative) with six different weapons and a degree in philosophy.

8. A frost wizard who keeps freezing to every metal object he touches.

9. A former adventurer working as a city guard because "the retirement plan's better."

[SamBurke]

10. A gnome/dwarf alchemist/artificer pair who argue about everything the other says, especially with regards to their item shop.

11. A half-orc monk who wields a greataxe.

[Hiro Protagonest]

7. A 7-foot tall, 350-pound, bushy-bearded boisterous bruiser in bavarian barding (full plate, but alliterative) with six different weapons and a degree in philosophy.

That's called a Genius Bruiser.

12. A dirt farmer.

13. A ventriloquist politician who insists that his dummy should get a vote.

[The Witch-King]

14. A sorcerer/cleric who's a pyromaniac and believes its her destiny to become a demigod of flame.

15. A half-drow witch who's patron spirit is a good spider spirit seeking to overturn the image of all spider spirits being evil and Lolth's servants.

16. A dwarf brewmaster who carries a portable still on his back everywhere he goes and who is traveling the world in search of new herbs, plants and recipes to make the ultimate beer. Adventuring is just how he pays the bills.

17. A halfling ranger bugbear-killer who's desperately trying to avenge the slaughter of her entire village by bugbears.

18. A human cleric who worships the concepts of architecture, carpentry and masonry as the highest aspirations of sentientkind.

19. A gnoll ambassador who genuinely believes the gnoll race can only be advanced by their learning to accept peace and settle down to develop a real civilization and not just be nomadic raiders.

20. The accidental pirates. The Viradan navy is known for its brutality towards common sailors as well as its practice of shanghaiing sailors. The captain and officers of a Viradan ship in foreign waters, used to dining all together, all died from food poisoning and when the crew brought the ship back to port, no one would believe they hadn't murdered the captain and officers (especially as the captain was widely known for being more strict than even the usual brutal Viradan CO) and they were declared pirates and run out of town...

[Wiwaxia]

21. A good or neutral lich serving as the sole librarian for an ancient library from a long-forgotten civilization. It is unclear whether or not he realizes that he is dead. Polite to a fault, and always reminds visitors to talk softly.

Small, round glasses with gold rims are optional, but recommended.

[Freelancer Jack]

22. An insane bandit leader in a top hat who speaks in a russian accent.

[DiBastet]

23 - A human ex-farmer turned ex-mercenary.

[The Reverend]

24. A tall illithid, he wears a tricorner hat, an eye patch, duel sabers, and upon his shoulder rests pet sea iguana. He rolls his s'sssssss instead of r's and goes by the name Gold Tooth.

25.He's a dwarf: he isn't Scottish, owns a palatial farm, doesn't drink, and isn't Scottish. But mess with his farm and you will find out he is a reformed 15th level rogue and will slit your throat and hang you from a tree.

[TheThan]

26. A gruff old soldier, survivor of a hundred battlefields, that’s a bard. (Inspire courage= war stories)
27. A mermaid wizard that rides around in her water elemental familiar
28. An orc barmaid, unarmed fighter (unarmed swordsage/monk gestalt)
39. A “wizard” that uses technology as magic (cone of cold becomes a fire extinguisher etc)
33. An orc male stripper (girls gotta have fun too)
31. A druid that’s turning over a new leaf

[Coidzor]

32. A necromancer that has a closely guarded secret, they aren't just pretending to be a gardener.

33. A fastidious undead goblin butler that has handled the day to day affairs of the royal household for generations and through the dynasties and is the only one who really knows where all of the bodies are buried.

34. A recovering alcoholic dwarven private investigator working out of a hole in the wall flat and bars throughout a port city where the sun never rises, so there's a lighthouse for that.

35. An undead wizard that has been embroiled in a cold war with the other curator of his hidden vault of lore both arcane and mundane that has split the library in half, literally, temporally, and on planar-lines.

36. The other curator, his wife and the only person who remembers why they divided the library in half in the first place 6 centuries ago.

37. A shapeshifter with an unfortunate tendency to turn into whatever hurt him last.

[Hiro Protagonest]

*sigh*

Please number your ideas.

[Admiral Squish]

38. Old man and his doq, who turns out to be a high-level ranger/beast heart adept and a blink dog.

[Thyrian]

39. A fortune Thief, those she touches lose a part of their fortune while she gains it e.g. she gets two rolls 2d20's and take the better while the touchee has to roll 2d20's and take the worse.

40. A dwarf with giantism...go on... tell him he's just a human... DO IT.

[Velaryon]

41. A pair of shopkeepers who maintain shops across the street from one another and absolutely hate each other. Smart customers can play off that hatred for some nice discounts.

42. An undead warrior who was once a mighty champion and defender of the city, but the people of the city would not let him die. They repaid his courage and valor by enslaving him after death as the city's eternal guardian.

43. The son of #42, trying to find a way to free his father from the curse of undeath and take revenge on the townspeople who enslaved him.

[Zale]

44. A primitive Wizard who uses his tribal tattoos as a spellbook.
45. A Dwarf Sorcerer who was raised by Gnomes and is a master illusionist. He doesn't have a beard.
46. A male Paladin who was transformed into a female dark elf by a vindictive archmage's dying curse.
47. An Awakened Whale ninja.

I love the idea of a Merfolk Wizard riding in her water elemental familiar.

[Sgt. Cookie]

It's what this thread's for.

48. A Silver dragon wyrmling who has a taste for pottery.

[Rakmakallan]

49. A mustachioed city guard with a strange accent who heckles and taunts people outside the walls.
50. A lame blind short over-inquisitive bridge keeper clad in leather and bearing a staff
51. A peasant who believes (falsely or not) that he lives in an autonomous collective and has strong anti-authoritarian feelings.

Oh, yes I did.

[Zale]

52. A Sorceress who uses endure elements to run around in slinky clothing.
53. A sanctified Succubus who wants to become a nun.
54. An old man who walks around with a staff and a talking raven. People think he's a wizard, when he's really just a rogue abusing UMD.
55. A halfling bard that the party always seems to run into a few days before the campaign takes a nosedive. See how long it takes them to connect the dots.

[Velaryon]

56. A gnome Diviner whose powers of foretelling the future are extremely accurate, but whose grammar constantly garbles past, present, and future tense, frequently multiple conflicting times in the same sentence. This often results in anyone who is trying to communicate with him (and as often as not, the DM trying to play him) developing a severe headache.

[Acidic_Cakes]

57. A carnivorous barbarian who wields a large roast ham as a club.

[Mono Vertigo]

58. An old man who constantly recruits adventurers and sends them on "important quests". In fact, he only recruits adventurers for his own amusement, and scries on them to see their shenanigans.

59. The old man's friend who bet his own party of adventurers would be much more amusing, and hired a bunch of Chaotic and Evil misfits to his ends.

[TechnoScrabble]

60. A ranger who fights from the back of their dire tiger companion.

61. A sociopathic rogue/wizard who uses his abilities to break into heavily guarded castles and steal obvious but inconsequential things.

[Wiwaxia]

39. A fortune Thief, those she touches loose a part of their fortune while she gains it e.g. she gets two rolls 2d20's and take the better while the touches has to roll 2d20's and take the worse.

Seems oddly familiar.
Uses d8 for every attack, perhaps?

62. A crow wizard with a human familiar.
63. Sweet little 14-ish girl with gold eyes and hair, found roaming the streets of a certain city. Is actually said city's ancient gold dragon guardian, polymorphed.
64. The one alchemist in a guild of nutcases who is actually in it for spiritual enrichment.
65. An assassin-in-training who wanted to be a bard, but wasn't accepted to the bardic college.
66. Awakened cuttlefish sorcerer fond of levitation and lightning powers.

[Coidzor]

67. A savage humanoid who has discovered a way to take another of his race as a familiar. He's trying to take advantage of this magical transformation to try to lift his species up to a higher level via a controlled breeding program.

[TheThan]

68. A pirate captain that has lost his ship, and needs to find it (if it’s destroyed, then he needs to find a new ship).

69. A monk that seeks to become the most formidable warrior in the world

70. An anemic vampire

71. A Dwarven rune smith (read wizard with crafting arms and armor feats)

72. An Elvish woodworker

73. A painter with a magical set of brushes; whatever he paints becomes reality. (make him insane for extra fun)

74. Halfling circus acrobats… triplets

75. A bartender that’s a former master spy; he knows all sorts of sensitive and secret information.

76. A succubus geisha

77. A fortune teller that tells disturbingly accurate fortunes

78. Barbi the barbarian (played this one... she didn't last long )

[Zale]

69: A Bard who only uses Preform (Bawdy Drinking Song).
70: A senile Arch-Mage with a raven familiar. The familiar pretends to interpret the will of the Arch-mage, so it can continue to rule the area with an iron fist.
71: An Awakened Clay Golem searching for his creator.
72: A Halfling Paladin with deep religious convictions against thievery.
73: A Pixie Barbarian that has taken over a Gnomish city.

[Dr.Epic]

A bartender who sold his soul to outsiders to learn how to make the world's best brew.

An orc scientist who experiments to make chickens more powerful.

[missmvicious]

76. (Actually used this one) A struggling L1 Bard who moonlights as a bisexual male prostitute to provide for his family in a caste system where the poor are sent of to fight a centuries old war.

77. (Been used against me in a campaign) A Druid who prefers to Summon Nature's... house pets- typically cats and lapdogs.

78. An Orc Bard who plays heavy metal guitar or drums. (Inspire Courage is a parody cover of Dethklok's theme: Do-o anything for Orc Bard, DO-O anything for Orc Bard. Orc bard, ORC BARD!

You're hearing the Orc Bard's theme in your head now, aren't you?

[eulmanis12]

79 A man who speaks only the ends of words

80, the most interesting NPC in the world:
He can speak gnomish, in dwarf
He is the life of parties he has never attended
His words carry a weight that would break a PC's jaw
His mother has a tatoo that reads "son"
He has won trophies for his game face alone
He won 3 winter olympic gold medals, in July
He doesn't always drink ale, but when he does he chooses Dos Equis.

81 Sparticus

82, a man who is not dead yet, (the PC's may remedy this)