The story does sound like it could've (and maybe should've) went a way where Chunky and Theo end up as companions in a sort of hate "The only one who's allowed to kill you is me" sorta relationship XD
Rigor mortis, an undead shopkeeper designed around ammunition and cursed items. The shops name was "curios,cursed and crap I found on corpses" he became so important to the team they made a magic pact with him to be able to call him with a spell every time they wanted to shop
Let me tell you the story of Beggis. I had a magic item shop in a major city the party was headquartered in toward the end of the campaign. That magic item shop was called "The Third Eye." Ordinarily, I honestly don't put too much thought into building the shops in my world, but this one was special. You see, the Third Eye was run by a cyclops named Beggis. Though his speech patterns were rather childlike, he was actually extremely intelligent and kind. He had been driven out of his tribe for his magic and his hatred of violence, so he became a simple merchant, plying his wares among the people. Most were hesitant to do trade with a cyclops, so he countered with competitive prices and an aggressive advertising campaign, until he eventually became a well-known, respected magic item merchant. The party LOVED Beggis. It didn't matter how big a jackass you were playing, you still loved Beggis. And if anybody even looked at him sideways, they were ready to make you bleed. One time--ONE TIME--Beggis got targeted by a Rakshasa during a demonic invasion. The party's monk proceeded to race to his shop in less than two minutes, then present said rakshasa with the most hate-fueled, bare-knuckled clock-cleaning I have EVER witnessed from ANY player. I mean, he killed it singlehandedly within two rounds, and the damn thing didn't so much as move. That was the last time anybody EVER messed with Beggis. He survived the rest of the campaign, and even gave the party some items to use in the final battle, free of charge.
I made a kenku bard named Thunk ( the sound of someone getting hit over the head with a 2 by 4) for a AP English class I just made him for an example for the assignment to help the class understand how to build DND characters I flavored him as being able to planeshift with a goal to own every liquor establishment in every universe now whenever my players walk into a bar they look for thunk if he isn't already behind the bar itself. He is now essentially the God of taverns and bars throughout all of my campaigns!
Oh, that's beautiful. I have Clunk, the Human Bard. He is formerly Jerrick Seaworthy, but lost all of his memories when his ship crashed and he was the only survivor. He named himself after the only thing he remembers before his memory cuts out: the sound of his head colliding with a board of the ship. He is severely mentally handicapped now, and has knows only three things: Protect hat, put food in mouth, protect friends. He also only has one song. "Clunk has good friends, Clunk has best friends, Clunk not friends not good. Cluuuunk." So far, he ate a squirrel alive, ate a portable hole to prove that you can have a hole on a hole, bothered some poor old woman about... idk, and insulted a duck monster by saying he "looks like Blackjack's back." Blackjack is a 93 year old human monk alcoholic. Both the duck monster and Blackjack took damage from that vicious mockery.
A wolf used as a guard dog by some goblins. The mage rolled an absurdly high Animal Handling, making them all aid us in the fight against the goblin's boss (a Bugbear and his direwolf companion), and once all that ended, a shewolf decided to stay as the Mage's pet. She proved to be very helpful in battle as the team only consistent of said Mage, a Fighter and a Cleric (who was by all accounts, THE powerhouse of the party), which meant our front line was a bit lacking, but with the help of our fluffy friend, said line never waived. Some sessions go by, and we find an ancient long sword, so old not even our Mage Sage could discern its story. However, no one in the party used swords, and the village was too poor to buy such a thing. So, the Mage, again out of a whim, suggested the Wolf to take it, as she liked to collect the weapons of fallen foes as trophies. She took it on her mouth and received a proper name that day. From then on, she was known as Lady Sif. We asked the DM if Sif could actually make use of the sword in combat, to which he replied that only once she went through a training arc and pull out a certain amount of high roles. Two high roles and a Crit later, she was swinging that thing around like no one's business. Eventually, and in acknowledgment of her hard work, the DM allow her to "evolve" into a dire wolf, becoming the defacto wall of most of our strategies (we also retrofited some horeshoes of speed for her paws, giving her a whaping 60 movement total), even if we were ambushed by some miracle, the instant her turn come around, she just "blinked" infront of the enemy. As victories increased, so did her ego, which also come with some care and pride on her own image, it was a daily event to see her dip into water and taking proper care of her main, which she often adorned with flowers. Our Cleric loved helping her on her rutine. Then the campaign come to an end, with her delivering the finishing blow to the BBEG, twice (regular and second form), add that the fact she was never defeated, you can guess how much of an ego boost that was for her. Again, rewarding her for her efforts, the DM granted her a human form, with a bit of Cleric's magic and thinkering from an Artifiser. Now we are in a new campaing, and you bet she has joined the group to fight momnsters and woe some ladies... and I do mean it, she just started her own harem, despite having a -2 to charsima. How? Because she is goddamned Laidy Sif.
Man, all you need now is Knight Artorias to either cameo or straight up be a party member. Or… if the DM wants to break some hearts… encounter him corrupted by the Abyss.
@@V-Oblivion I'm playing through that campaign and the bit about the bugbear and his direwolf stuck out to me as something that we've experienced. Plus, The Lost Mines of Phandelver is a common starting point for a lot of new players. 🙂
Simon Laughingsteel. A human warrior that was presented as a mercenary for the tank-lacking party. He ended up getting a full personality, backstory, and special abilities. Some reason he kept criting when in water, so he gained swimming speed equal to his walking speed. He was amazingly handsome but completely asexual through sheer ignorance like an anime protagonist who doesn't notice anything. It was never clear if he was babysitting the group or if they were babysitting him.
A shadow demon called "The Ferryman". He just flies airships from place to place and speaks quickly. In the few sessions he's appeared he's been somewhat comedic with the cast.
Larry Hopper, a human warlock. Gave him a high-pitched voice and a nervous disposition, and boom. The table loved him. I had to make up pages more of backstory because they wanted to know EVERYTHING about him. Made me happy in a way.
Terry: crazy old coot of an alchemist, he's around seventy, silver hair that's clearly singed, he wears glasses that sit crooked and are clearly cracked. He's missing two fingers on his left hand. Their first interaction was them walking into a potion shop, the shop seems unattended except for a slightly ajar near the back. Once they notice the door slams open with a Fwoosh sound and they hear Terry just start screaming expletives as he walks out part of his hair on fire. He as the party talked with him about what happened they Learn he's researching ways to flavor healing potions so they don't taste like shit, his research generally results in explosions.
I was testing out a DnD app so I made a character to see how it worked, it was a dragon born named George and he wasn't planned to be mentioned in the campaign at all, but my group of friends saw him and they started praising him, now I'm adding him to another campaign.
I threw in a headless horseman for the Halloween special a few months back. I basically roleplay him like papyrus from Undertale, always rushing in solo after screaming his catchphrase "I HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!" He's kind of a joke version of a more serious undead general that I have as the party's nemesis. I expected him to die within the first half episode, but my party has come up with the plan to get him to think that he's actually the hero he believes he is by faking their deaths at his hands. He showed up in the last episode and they shortly teamed up to fight a behir, and unbelievably, he rolled 3 nat 20s in a row, landing the finishing blow on the thing, slicing its head clean off and kicking it into a pit below. My players love him, and it seems that his superiors are going to actually question if he should be promoted or not lol
The Giant outsider moth who were guardians of their temple. the players liked them enough to help that faction be the second most popular deity of the campaign world. huge sized neutral good beings who helped decent people.
Definitely Samuel, he was a cashier at the magical IKEA the campaign took place in, he was supposed to just appear on every level and sell them items, they ended up taking him with them, he now has an entire backstory and is the son of the bbeg
@@FizzieWebb actually no, it was 10000x worse, it wasn’t just a massive ikea, it also had multiple floors, has hell itself inside it, had portals across all realities, elder gods, great old ones, Outer gods, Supreme beings and even an American military base
I have three. 1: Gizmo Booplesnoot. He's a kobold battle smith who is mentally incapable of seeing evil in people. He always gets introduced by a small explosion, which the other party members investigate, only to find a little blue kobold covered in soot. i first used him in CoS, and the moment he spoke the first time, everybody fell in love with him because of the voice I gave him, being a soft, squeaky voice with a slight shake in his tone. He carries around small marble-sized constructs that perform his skill checks for him as flavor (for reference, they look exactly like Bakugan) and his steel defender is a black metal wolf named Ebonfang. he almost died in death house (spoilers for the death house) because the barbarian scooped him up into her backpack and threw him through the door blades. they rolled a nat 1 and Gizmo got sliced to hell and back, resulting on him having only one death save to roll. everybody began to panic because they'd grown so attached to him in such a short amount of time. He'd become the party's beacon of hope and joy that kept everyone going. 2: Professor Cornflakes, the kobold wild magic sorcerer. his gimmic was simple: an egergetic kobold that could get excited over something as mundane as taking out the trash. He didn't last very long when I used him. In the middle of combat, he decided to run into a pack of enemies Leeroy Jenkins style and cast a spell. the wild magic table resulted in a self-centered fireball. Professor Cornflakes immediately got vaporized by his own fireball, while every enemy in range succeeded their saves. we all died laughing, and that's when I let everyone known that Professor Cornflakes wasn't a Professor. that was just his name. 3: Scrap, the kobold-shaped warforged. I created this one for a cyberpunk-themed desert campaign. His memory was wiped prior to the campaign, so he knows very little about his origins or his previous owner. All he knows is that he's a "Mk. 5 Rotilian Multipurpose Android" and has many modifications to his build, such as mounting bars, slots, and a retracting shield in his left arm. He acts as an assistant to other party members, as he claims that is what he was programmed for. He's become the party's own R2D2 in a sense, and everybody seems to like having him around.
Oggo the Kobold Scale Sorcerer. He was just meant to be a way to convey to the players there was a threat in the dungeon they were in, but now the party has adopted his entire tribe of kobolds and him after accidentally destroying their dungeon.
My russian irl friends are new to dnd. They never played it before but i told them all a lot about it so i was happily surprised when they approached me this autumn and asked to dm a oneshot for a group of 6. Its going great tho due to sanctions and lack of translation alongside my habits from english games i run and system learning curve of these guys oneshot stretched out to 3 sessions. They are liking the game and custom setting and i adore their characters so we are resuming the game and i gotta write rest of the world. Anyways during previous session they visited one very weird shop trying to learn more about an occult dagger for plot reasons. I described how this lad seems to talk to sword with a cartoony face before throwing it into the backroom when he spots the party. After some roleplaying and learning of plot things they questioned the shop owner about that talking sword. I was ready for this (as i thought) so brought a pre-made short narrative explaining that this man is no artisan but a druid and he imbues objects with spirits’ life essence so they become alive and tell him about everything that there is regarding an object. Party pressed forward trying to learn a story of this particular sword and not only requested to talk to it but invited it to their party! I was startled and in panicked confusion made up a rogue fey that refuses to leave the sword and likes it’s life as a weapon more. Party loved the funny talking sword and here i am after the session writing the custom sheet for Kelvin the happiness fey living as a sword… i am really bad with names when i panic lol
Ray, the rock candy man. Sells plastic baggies of “fun dip” that acts as a stimulant to increase strength for a short time. First found him in a tavern in a shady corner, then after a few real weeks we got imprisoned and encountered him in a jail cell, we gave him a Bag of fun dip he sold us and he helped us break out.
A half troll bouncer at the local pub named Avalor. He was just created as a side character but was written a little too stupid. So stupid the party assumed he had a curse on him. The party ended up stopping a troll invasion with diplomacy, the princess took a likening to Avalor. Well I decided to add information about Avalor’s curse. However my plan was quickly unraveled and the offending party was eliminated. This caused Avalor to suddenly go from having an intelligence of 4 to having an intelligence of 18 (nice work RNG gods). I was so shocked the party thought Avalor was about to die. I then start laughing. Suddenly Avalor turns to one of the party members and asks. “Why are we celebrating?” Since he had never really spoke besides some grunts and hand gestures, the party lost their minds. The party caught Avalor up on all that had happened. Avalor looks at the Troll princess and asks who that beautiful lady was. The Bard of the party says “Good sir that is your wife” Avalor looks in shock at the bard. “WHAT?!?” The bard smiles and says “It get’s better, she is a princess” Avalor is dumb struck. The princess walks over to Avalor gives him the sweetest kiss ever. Avalor starts to cry and thanks the whole party. There wasn’t a dry eye at the table as this guy had saved them multiple times due to crazy things that had happened and he got his fairy tale ending.
A hobgoblin paladin who I played became not only a beloved pc but the best pc I've played as so far, because despite being unjustly turned into a death knight, he never stopped being the heroic and honorable man he was
my favorite 'little thought' npc i put into my campaign was a 'dead' gnome named Tom. How he ended up being a permanent ally to the players was sheer, stupid coincidence due to shennenigans. It was a campaign in which one of the goals was for all players to have their characters ascend to Demi-Godhood, something which in that setting is rather common, if only also very difficult. due to circumstances, one player ended up ramancing the goddess of death of that world (a nat 20 persuasion/intimidation not sure which one anymore, good rp in telling off said overly attached romantically deprived and desperate goddess can go a long way) and since at the start of the campaign we had discussed that 'adult interactions' between players and npcs we permitted, but would take place in seperate sessions if others weren't comfortable being around them... so said player had an 'ahem' spicy encounter with her lover goddess that ended up killing her... three times (did i mention the goddess was desperate and deprived) after several failed constitution saves and had to take a spot in the queue of the realm of the goddess... so basically spirit got yeeted to the line while her body stopped doing anything. At some point, a gnome just behind her in line spoke up asking why there was such a line for people to get to the afterlife at which said Goddess came stomping up to the queue and dragged her character back... only for the gnome to ask if she had even realized her partner died to get to the line. As 'thanks' for reminding the goddess of death to actually do her job, the gnome, Tom, was told to scurry off while the goddess sent the player back to the realm of the living via a special altar in the players' residence... only Tom was caught in the spell that sent the player back (rolled for it because of how close he was standing to the situation as it played out). When Tom spoke up about the player not being dressed, she exclaimed that there was a peeping Tom in the mansion only for him to reply 'Well, i ain't peepin' but m'name is Tom.' after which he became a permanent supporting character to help in intelligence gathering. Seeing the Goddess of death's blunder, Tom could exist as neither living, nor dead, and not even undead. his soul had basically been erased from all ledgers of 'anyone' so to say, he tachnically did not exist anymore, could no be reborn, nor ressurected with magic. in return, he always had a max-hp of 1 and upon taking any damage he just turned to dust and reappeared at the shrine at which he first became who he now was. a character that on the fly almost became a comedic relief joke ended up being a huge support for gathering information for the players because he, quite simply, was neither living, nor ghost, nor zombie... he had the 'best of both worlds'... minus the extremely fragile health pool.
One of the shop keeps I run in all of my campaigns is a wild magic enchanter. One of the effects is that it's always snowing in his shop, as such one of the players decided to make a snow man in the shop while the other players where getting their items enchanted. I decided to have a little fun and explained that the enchanter made a tiny snowman on their desk and it became animated. The players fell in love with the tiny snowman and he has now become the shops mascot, his name is Plof.
Tom, he was a joke npc, he was a cab driver in a medieval setting, so he just had a carriage. The party hired him to help them get to a location. On the way the party both literally and figuratively fell in love with him. We spent an hour of real time with 3 of the players trying to flirt with him and fighting each other over him
The Bar Goblin and Gregor the Test Bird. Gregor is just an eagle token i use to test lighting on roll 20. I leave him in the dungeons time to time as players like him. Now the Bar Goblin. was watching a less than legally available episode of Bar Rescue where the scene was flipped and the speed increased to avoid copyright bots. The voice was so funny i made him a goblin that ran drinks at the local bar. my players absolutely love him. he calls everything beer so when he brings food its jus "NYAAAAH, HERE'S YOUR CHICKEN BEEEEEEER" when he wasnt around in the morning (hes nocturnal) i could feel the whole party staring daggers at me through my computer. the sigh of relief after reveling he's nocturnal was intense lol. Had to make up on the spot that he was adopted by the last group of adventurers who abandoned him after they finished their adventuring.
Made a pyromaniac engineer Goblin named Boblin. Specifically because I saw a meme about it. Fast forward 40 sessions and he’s an injured war hero, half the party’s favorite character, running for mayor and the inventor of the modern Tank (sorta). I had him leave after losing the election , and the party pouted for months… but what they don’t know is that he’ll be making a return at the head of a goblin skyfleet during the final battle, having invented the helicopter off screen.
A few years ago one my friends made a fairy barbarian for a one-shot who just randomly put it together before the session. That fairy ended up smashing the undead daylights out of the lord of vampires in the big final battle. She enjoyed it so much that she swapped the character with her old into our main campaign.
I was knew to a table that had been playing in a homebrew setting for a campaign or two already. I learned as much as I could but knew I was still ignorant of the world so I played a lizardfolk so I could play a character with the same base knowledge as me. His complete ignorance of the world ending up being adorable and the party taught him many words like adoption and marriage that he completely misunderstood the concept of. (I miss referring to theft or pawning stuff off on people as adoption)
Skreetch the Kobold. He believes that he is a veloceraptor, has glued every feather he can find to himself, and wants to make "THA BIGGEST, BESTEST FAMILY REUNION EVAR!" Through druidic means, effectively starting the Jurrassic Park Apocalypse.
Gary (Gariothrax) the Young Bronze Dragon runaway. I was running a seafaring campaign and was using prepublished encounter tables, and eventually the party rolled into "Young Bronze Dragon". Intead of a semi-tragic battle (Bronze Dragons are typically Good, and honestly would've been a bloodbath either way) I decided to make it more of a social encounter instead and described how the party spied a tiny one-person rowboat off in the distance out in the open sea. As they approached, they found a young boy that was either a tall eight year old or a scrawny ten year old boy, suspiciously out on his lonesome. After demanding to know if they were pirates (they technically were) they told him they were not, and Gary, the "child" was super disappointed since he wanted to fight some. Instead, the party ended up getting wrapped up in a game of riddles with the kid, where they would become Gary's "Best Friend" for a week if they won, or they'd hand over half their treasure if they lost. They won the game of riddles. Pretty handily. They still had no idea that he was a dragon at the time, but they quickly realized that, for that next week, they just... stopped having combat encounters at sea. Birds avoided them, fish got spooked and didn't go anywhere near their boat, and not a single monster dared approach. At the end of the week Gary decided that these were pretty fun people and decided to become a semi-regular NPC they'd run into from time to time. Eventually they even got him a new lair and a bunch of treasure all his own so he'd stop helping himself to the dragon's share of their loot. A while later, they eventually ran into his mother disguised poorly disguising herself as a human who they inadvertently sold Gary out to (for a LOT of gold). After being warned she was on the way, he immediately had to run screaming from their neck of the sea before he got caught and grounded for leaving the nest too soon. Good Kid. Ate a god.
We were playing Star Wars WEG 2nd edition and it was my daughters first ttrpg. To make sure they could call in their ship I created Uncle Bert, a former rebel pilot and adopted uncle of one of the characters. That was all the backstory, not even a physical description. Well, the campaign went on for nearly 4 years and every single player loved Uncle Bert. He was like a father figure to most of the characters and was respected by all. He saved their bacon more times than I care to count, even though all the actions he took were at the request of one of more of the characters. I certainly didn't need anyone else to keep track of. They players would make plans and Uncle Bert would always be figured in. They would actively change plans or redirect conversations based on how Uncle Bert might react or be impacted. Finally, we were nearing the grand finale and I needed the characters to make a decision but they absolutely refused to do so. So, for the first and only time I had Uncle Bert make a decision on his own. He began a charge and successfully managed to create a gap for the party to escape. All was going well until a character rolled a critical failure. To dance that character's life, Uncle Bert made the ultimate sacrifice. His loss devastated the party and lit the fire they needed to finally go after and defeat the BBEG.
Make an organization with an acronym. For example, they hear whispers of a secret organization called the feared. Only to find out later, it's actually the FEARD ( the Faerun Exploration and Advanced Reconnaissance Division)
Mine was an innkeeper named Raina. When I first created her, she was just a nameless innkeeper, someone to serve the party and push the plot along. That changed when the soulknife rogue, Gwenn, asked for her name (I had to make it up on the spot.) See, in the homebrew world I'd made, there was no currency. Everything was done through barter. One of the things you could barter was services, such as working a shift in a store you wanted to buy from, so Gwenn had decided that she'd pay for her room and food by helping Raina with cleaning up the inn after it closed for the day. Given how Gwenn's a VERY flirty rogue, one thing led to another and they ended up sleeping together. And Gwenn wouldn't leave. The village that inn was in ended up as the base of operations, with Gwenn moving in with Raina. Now that there's a next generation game, Gwenn's now retired from adventuring and works in the inn with her wife and one of their three children thanks to a special potion I made up. And all this because Raina was nice to the rogue
A little purple kobold. She was only meant to appear once. once! She is now a recurring disciple of Bananamut and even has earned the right to act as the rest for the canaries. In the latest campaign, I raised this little purple 'bold into angelic levels, so she can serve her lord forever as the dragon angel Aasterinian. Thats correct, i as the dm used this event to bring Aasterinian into my homebrew world and immortalized the adorable purple kobold who could only speak in the third person. Her name was Kaasha, because Kaasha is Kaasha.
A random disposable npc Merc kept surviving everything to the point that he reached the end of the adventure so he became the BBeg revealing he was effectively using the party as a meat shield to complete his goals whilst playing the role of a cockney hick
I have one who died last session. He was a half orc tempest cleric. He was wise, a little smart mouthed here and there, and unlucky. He got possessed by part of a god (it had been split into 3 parts prior to that), contracted lycanthrope, and was not shy about throwing out destructive spells. He fell in battle against an archfey who hit him with power word kill after he alhad taken massive damage from other spells. He is now being honoured by having a tavern or inn named for him and is to have a large portrait of him above the hearth. A tradition is being introduced where the first time one drinks there, they raise their glass, say his name and drink.
Mop the Mopping guy He's our ships one man cleaning crew, he's small he's purple he's indestructible his name is Mop and he mops, only a single word leaves his mouth "Mop". This middle aged guy is the heart of our group and I came up with his whole concept under a minute
Doing my first campaign, and this recently happened. Backstory: The campaign takes places mid 80s in a liminal space called the subliminal. The liminal space acts as a purgatory for those who have died, and the players are fighting bosses that each represent a stage of grief. The most recent npc which was a slow burn boss. The Npc is "The Hatter" (not his real name), a summer Eladrin trapped as a kid because he himself is effectively immortal due to a homebrew rune (one of the players has the ability to use the rune as well). The Hatter is the anger stage boss, being an Artificer/ wild magic Barbarian multiclass. The party loved him so much that even after he tricked them and ended up killing a party member, they trusted him until the end. Even after his death they are searching for his body to give him a true memorial. He had an adopted tabaxi son named Lovren who the party also lived to death. The Hatter's ideology was flawed and tried to kill the party multiple times inconspicuously. Even after betrayal they still mourn him.
Big Tex, a merchant with an over exaggerated Texan accent who sells magic items and BBQ. Our dm made him, I assume, on a whim because he needed a shopkeeper and the party loved him immediately.
Sticks. A talking cat that’s the leader of a group of talking animals that live on the florest. I honestly just created him as a Revenant Hill reference(y’know, Twigs the cat). but everyone ended up loving him so much i decided to give him a more active role in the history, so now he has actual backstory, lore, and is one of the main “quest-givers” of the party.
I have two of these characters. The first one is called Bobby Gallo, an Aberrant Mind human sorcerer who looks like a fisherman and was inspired by one of my real life friends. He was a character for a Session 0 one-shot and I recently informed my friend that his alter ego became a legend in my D&D narrative world. The second one is a homebrew race illusionist wizard called Bloop, he is not able to speak but has got a sort of telepathy abiity. One player fell in love with this character and wanted to adopt him as she found Bloop to be an orphan (she only finds her mother instinct with the creepiest aberrations). Bloop also was a one-shot NPC.
Timmy. The stereotypical lost boy appearing in every town playing with the characters or actually being lost. Was just a way to add flavor to the towns and stuff; eventually every town had a Timmy walking around. Timmy started as a meme being an annoying kid and ended up learning carpentry and eventually was a craftsman that happens to be in every town the party arrives in.
Currently for me, it’s a blood hunter called Werven. All he did was tell us about some runes in an abandoned house and ask us to join him. Over time, my character (Mori, also a blood hunter) and him got each other through the house and we all managed to survive. When we got back to the city we were staying at, he went off to the tavern to read a book he got from the house. Next day, we wake up to him screaming and just finishing a Crimson Rite. We take the book off him for a bit and let him tag along with us on some errands. I had the idea of taking him to the healer’s house to get him rested up. Also I hugged him cuz I felt bad, man. God I fucking appreciate Werven.
Rufus, a random Lycan that I literally only described as a soldier trying to run away from a necromancer who got tackled and adopted by the party who now feed him potions and call him “their son”, he is very depressed
Bob the Magnificent. He is a self proclaimed wizard but was nothing more than a street magician in the world of a magic. He amazed a pixie player by asking if it was her card.
Oh, we encountered an orc chimichanga vendor. Our DM didn’t plan on us getting as attached to him as we did, so didn’t have a name. Somehow he got the name Cookie, and eventually he wound up getting a job as a cook in our “hometown”.
I was DMing a campaign where one session revolved around the players visiting a circus whose claim to fame was that they had tamed many giant insects and used them for the majority of their shows and games. At a point where the players had been roped into the main event of the night and were told their task was to tame an Antlion. At the time, the antlion was just there to pad the circus quest a little bit before they fought the ringmaster boss. However, the players, instead of just fighting it like I had intended, recruited it to their side and immediately made it their mascot. It became one of the most important characters in the campaign and at the end killed the BBEG in a single hit. The Antlion has now featured in every game since.
My players fell in love with a kobold while they were hunting giant rats in the sewers at low level. I think the ting that got them was that he kept referring to the giant rats as "Squeak squeaks"
I have an NPC in the current campaign i'm running who basically acts like an over the top lawful good stereotype hero named "THE GREAT GALE, THE WINDS OF JUSTICE!!". Think Undertale's Papyrus meets Mr. Satan. I intended for him to just be a random goofy encounter in a town who mistakes the party for bandits, but the party loved him so much I had him randomly mentioned showing up in a different place, where they immediately flocked to him. I kept having him randomly showing up in places the party was at, no matter how improbable. He's basically the unspoken 7th party member at this point.
Galeb Duhr the Galeb Duhr was playing with his wizard friend who melted him into the wall for a lark. After laughing for several hours the wizard was called out of the room before he could countercharm the spell. The wizard was murdered in battle along with everyone else in the keep. The party found and rescued Galeb. 2000 years later! He isn’t quite sa be, but he’s very happy to have friends who talk back again.
Urruturu was a zombie who roamed the salt flats of Athas. For a few drops of your blood he would reveal your future. The thing is that he didn't have any divination powers, he just said what he thought the PCs wanted to hear. The PCs eventually called him out, but they were understanding.
DU723 or Dusty. Originally at a shortened warforged gunslinger, he talked with a southern drawl. I eventually gave him a Yosemite Sam personality after he sensed an ambush about to happen in a swamp, and he yelled out, threatening to "shoot their dicks off" if they don't come out. That quickly became his quirk, and everyone couldn't help but laugh at when I went on a tangent. Only ever used him once for the one shot, but I hope to bring him back some day, but as a gunslinger autonome. Basically a Yosemite Sam/ clank
Munchkin Smalls is an ancestral barbarian common goblin whose life purpose is to fight anything that is giant or taller and protect anything smaller than him (he is 2 feet tall). He carries a hammer he named "smashy sledge" and does NOT like short jokes. When he was introduced, he was fighting an adult chromatic dragon. He won by hitting it really hard (nat 20) and crushing their skull. He left the party after they poisoned a town of small mushrooms and made a stew out of them
My DM had a noble with a Distinctive Emerald colored robe show up as a Prelude to a Horror-themed session he'd set up. I forget the Noble's name but that session left its mark. So when I ran a spin-off short campaign, I had the same noble be the one contracting the party to their adventure. Ever since, he's grown more mysterious, showing up in settings outside the original and almost always, his presence is a prelude to something strange, important, or terrifying happening. It was later implied he's actually a lesser god who works to keep order in the higher planes, but myself and the rest of the players always have an "oh shit" moment when we meet a noble described as wearing "strange, emerald colored robes"
My DM just has us meet Stan Lee in what ever setting we play. Shadowrun? He's there working as a barber and can even give you more hair! D&D 5e? He's working in the library arranging spell scrolls! Star Wars? He's working as the best bartender in a casino spaceship!
Random coachman named Beaf Makker. He loves sandwiches and drives the getaway coach. Been killed twice and resurrected now. Named because one of my players had been hunger and gotten ubereats, lol.
Basically made a Walking Bag of Holding with an infinite holding limit(DM said it was fine since all my character was good for was holding Party's items or gear) He was a home-brew imp race with a couple of features, one was making his body like rubber letting the little imp being stretched and immune to Bludgeoning attacks. This little imp was greedy and saw anything not tied down to the floor to be his, so when he was damaged the little imp had the chance to puke out good gear or whatever trash he ate. There was a time our Barbarian forgot he put his battle-axe in the Imp, so when they got into combat he had to pull it out but didn't get a good roll...So only the wooden handle came out the imp, but this didn't stop the Barbarian from using the Imp as a temporary weapon.
Salty Dan. Older deckhand in a years long pirate campaign. He was like a piece of furniture you can't part with. 3 years irl game and he took a cannonball in the chest to save the captain. They never forgave me for that.
Dr. Irving Stevenson. In my game magical beasts and plants are appearing across Earth. Irving is a member of a zoological group trying to study and categorize these new beings. He was intended just to show up and help the players out of a very sticky situation due to horrendous luck. He carries a large amount of paper and graphite, talks with an Australian accent, and likes to say “Crikey that’s a beauty!” I am still amused no one immediately caught on that I literally just dropped Steve Irwin on them to save them from a hill giant. 🤷♀️
This happened in a campaign I joined but before i joined. It was Tyranny of Dragons. The party wound up befriending a young dragon that they named Samuel L. Jackson. The players were still talking about him at the end. The DM had him lead a group to help in the assault at the end. Bob. Gundarr accidentally solved a riddle. Yes, the 5 int Fighter. He gained the staff of the wizard that made people solve a riddle to get down a hallway. The staff was actually an enslaved ancient gold dragon that is afraid of combat. Since then Bob has been revealed to be a trickster god from a universe that was destroyed by a war between the gods. He saved Gundarr and they journey through different realities.
Poor John - a homeless guy who clocked the party enter the village in the second session then look away. This guy was only supposed to be a bit of decoration but the party wouldn't leave him alone so I turned him into a way of shadow monk and the local Batman who gave the party missions in the third session
Toby the Tiefling Boyscout. I saw that there was a Pathfinder subclass for the rogue called "scout," and naturally, tieflings are great rogues. I decided it would be funny to play a character archetype that's normally super edgy, but subvert it by making him a literal Boyscout (badge sash and everything). He was lawful good to the hilt, helping old ladies cross the street and providing first aid to anyone who was injured, including enemies. It was my first time with that group, and they all groaned when they heard I'd made a tiefling rogue, only to break down in laughter when they saw the subversion. He was an instant hit and served as the moral compass of the party. The closest thing he ever got to doing something wrong was to steal a weapon from the black market, and only so that he could present it to the city guard as proof that the criminals had been robbing the royal armory. In the end, he was chosen by Erastil (Pathfinder's LG God of the hunt) to be his personal scion, and eventually retired and gave his role to Toby.
I am running an SCP-themed campaign. Some of the PCs work for the Foundation, and two are D-class. In order to introduce one of the D-Class PCs to the party before the facility they were in went under attack, I created a basic gruff guard named Greg to be escorting him between his cell and an interrogation room. I figured Greg would die in the chaos of rampant anomalies that the party would be forced to escape. Not only did Greg survive the attack, but he went on to join the party to become an MTF (think special-ops group) for their next mission, where I had him get non-lethally injured because one of my PCs became so attached to him that I worried about what would happen if Greg died.
Super M.O.D. a mace of disruption with a bandit mask a superman cape and a cheesy colonel mustard mustache made out of rope. the Bard could wield it with his mind so he puppeteered it and it basically became a part of the party eventually gaining sentience.
I'm running a rules-light version of Zweihander for my nephews' pirate game. I started them off with a crew whose names didn't matter much since they were meant to be killed off to start their own adventure. They fought every step of the way with the two points of authority on deck: The captain (named) and the quartermaster (unnamed). This was either through passive aggression, physical aggression, or petty theft. When I finally killed them all off, they were trying desperately to find the quartermaster in the wreckage, and even tried to find him among the hallucinatory spirits one of them was experiencing shortly afterwards. I asked why they were so obsessed with this character they've been fighting against nonstop since meeting him and they just tell me "Quarty is our favorite character."
A funny wizard named The Great Disappearino. Think of a mixture between Waluigi and The Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons with the voice of Xavier Renegade Angel. He was a weird, but very charismatic wizard who performed illusions for the party in the middle of a trade road. He threw smoke bombs three times, two of which he pretended to die afterwards before running away after the third. The party was so obsessed with him that he shows up every major city and offers the party a bit of lore and his charisma.
For a tales from the loop game I made a punk girl named mekenzie mcduckett that worked at a chuckie cheese kind of arcade pizzeria as a chicken mascott. My players dubbed her mcnugget and she carried over into the other mysteries as a reoccuring character and ended up in a relationship with one of the players. She had a band with three people named Mike (Michael, Marvin Ike and Mikaela, all shortened to Mike) and they even showed up in the final battle against an eldrich horror... good times
Lord Ambassador Archibald Melonswoggle III A Gif Swashbuckler Fighter with a Ship Cannon (4 levels lower than the party) that effectively has the personality of an old English Safari Man, but unfortunately has the duty of being an Ambassador from a Desert Kingdom, so he wants to live vicariously through the party. The instant I said his name out loud some of my players instantly loved him.
In one of my sessions was Oggo the half orc NPC. Was a lovable oaf who was working every possible job in the city. Bouncer, carage driver, barkeep, town guard. Mainly due to having little time to prepare npcs and decided to make it a gag. The party loved him. Even when they got to the bbeg oggo was one of their henchman. After causing a cave in at the lair they decided to save oggo. I wanted to kill him to make an impactful ending. They used all of their spells and rolled so well that no matter what i did they managed to pull off some ridiculous tactic
Running a pirate campaign, the party happened across a scottish drunkard human named Dingy. They attempted to deceive him into believing they were independent police and adopt him into the crew. Pains my heart but towards the end of the session I had to have him axed. There was much mourning.
Okay, I got one for you. During a pathfinder gestalt game (a relic from the 3.5e UA where you smash together two classes), i put together a kobold who was good at one thing: Punching. I put as much of my minmaxing experience i could into making that little munchkin and did pretty good (could punch 5 times in a turn for 11+1d6). What i did after all the minmaxing is i looked though the alternate racial traits and found scale color as an optional thing, it gave some bonuses, but i couldn't pass up this opportunity for what i chose. The character also couldn't speak many languages, just common and draconic. When all was put together i ended up with Vhilrag (vil-raag), the Kobold Brawler. He his scales were pink and chose to only speak in draconic save for a few words in common every so often, usually when someone was looking for an answer to something. while playing in the downtime, he spent most of his time fishing. When he caught a fish, he would run up to the nearest other player and say "Xeeva!" (mean fish) while holding out the fish for them to take. once it was taken, he would scurry back to his fishing spot and continue to fish. Everyone just adored the little munchkin just running around just giving poeple the fish he cause that that basically became his identity, which was so far from what i had created but very welcome.
Gate sergeant Barry... It was the first campaign I ran, in Pathfinder. The players were on a remote island in the middle of the ocean (some there by choice some not...). As a group of adventurers, they had to report to the town guard as they returned, I had a random "gate sgt" for them to talk to and they asked his name... When put on the spot I called him Barry, and thus Gate sergeant Barry was born! The gnome sorcerer of the party (who happened to be an atheist, yes an atheist in a world where the gods actually appeared and interacted with people) decided that he was doing to get a high five from the gate sgt, so every interaction he tried and mostly failed... The amount of theories they came up with about GSB were hilarious, one was that he was actually the BBEG of the campaign, so the party often went out of their way to interact with him.
Reminds me of a gag character I had used to insert some plot devices on a small campaign our usual forever DM let me run so he could play. It was an undead oriented campaign that I had set up to cater a bit to our murder hobo players as much as our story driven players. The BBEG was a lich that was working with a pair of other liches. They were running all kinds of undead experiments and running manufacturing of all kinds of things using undead labor. Catch was that they had cornered a few towns, set up an actual stereotypical dungeon, and were baiting/forcing the local populace into sending in fresh bodies to try and deal with it to obtain their undead research materials. The opening method I used to get the party on the same track was using the local government to jail them for some trumped up charges, set them with some cursed manacles that would be removed when they accomplished their task, and were dropped at the gate of this massive graveyard dungeon to get it done. They ran through most of the place like champs but only found a few of the secret stuff I had set aside including a few joke characters and puns, but later managed to bumble their way through the experimentation crypts that were on site. Enter Johnny "used to be" Walker. He was a rerere animated zombie experiment that the lich was using to see how many times he could bring back a body from death. As one should be able to tell from the name, he was also a joke character. He had been reanimated and with so much experimental methods so many times that he had gained full sentience again. Unfortunately, this didn't sit well with the lich as Johnny had continually tried to escape because he only wanted to live out his life in peace at that point. I was expecting the party to clear the place and move on but after clearing the place for the first time they decided to rescue Johnny out of pity. They strapped him to the tank's back and hauled him back to town. Out of curiosity I decided to roll with it and see what they were going to do. So they managed to get the manacles removed and convinced the major to let Johnny set up and run a bar. Johnny was given a suit for the remainder of his body, set up on a brass and wood kind of wheel chair on runners so he could scoot himself around the bar, and ran the Dead Man's Drink. The party loved him and due to other circumstances that happened, Johnny was allowed to set up multiple bars around the world using some rather expensive portal tech that they had lifted from the liches. So for the rest of the run they'd constantly be looking for a Dead Man's Drink at any town or city they came to so they could meet up with Johnny and maybe pick up some side quests from him. One of the antics that they managed to finagle with one of the cities was that the death row executions would instead be fed to Johnny and the remains burned so that Johnny could try and sustain himself as well as try to put more of a body back together eventually.
We have... Little Jimmy. He is a Gray Slime that I made a sperate level mechanic for. Little Jimmy can eat 1d4 times a day. When he eats a creature, he gets a point in that creature's highest stat. When he hits five in one stat it goes up one point. The (now not involved) Cleric rolled high to get the slime to follow him. When he stopped playing, the Ranger npc adopted him. Little Jimmy is the most dangerous party member, he has never rolled lower than a 15 on an attack roll.
Wasn't my NPC, but a 'set' made by a GM. We had gone to planet to find some muggufin in a spelljammer game, only to find the place was basically a Drow society during their version of the 80's (electricity was becoming commonplace, the men had recently been given Rights, neon and rock metal was new and in fashion). Me and the other players immediately latched on to it, after only really being 2-to-1 at best on favouring something prior.
Lobsnot. So, back in 2E, the party was lost in a series of caves, playing yo mama Marco Polo style with their encounter, a war party of 30 WFRP Snotlings I had added. Just to be silly, I had one "cheeky little bastard" shout out "lobsnot!" When they finally met up, the Snotlings formed what they considered a battle line. The party broke marching order and dropped to formation. A few more yo mama's later when everyone was picking up initiative dice, one of the wizards, Pandora, a wild mage, says, "Wait, which one of you keeps shouting lobsnot?" I roll my initiative for the snotlings, "huh?". I had done that on a whim, I mean, it was just funny, zero thought in this whatsoever. Pandora prompted me again. Suddenly, a word became a face. What the hell, I had one snotling step forward and declare, "Dat me, I Lobsnot! Dat my war cry! Lobsnot! Oh, an dat also what I do. I da best ever! Lobsnot!" Instantly, all three women looked at us guys with that "he's so cute, can we keep him" look. And us guys put down our dice. We knew what had begun as a random encounter (loved the Dungeneer's Survival Guide), and a whim on top of that just turned into a role-playing encounter. By the time the encounter was done, with Pandora as the spokeswoman, they had created a noble quest to lead these Snotlings in revolt against "Da Queen" and free their tribe from the oppression of the evil wizard who calls herself Queen. As it worked out, Pandora was installed as their new Queen, Lobsnot was knighted sir Lobsnot, and Lobber as the party called him, joined the party becoming Pandoras companion. He also had deadly accuracy when flicking boogers on the BBEG, usually during his evil monologue, "And so, this is why the kingdom must come to ruin... did you just flick a booger on me?" Lobsnot lived to a healthy ripe old age, passing peacefully in his sleep but living forever in our hearts. The ladies had had the Snotlings moved to a sanctuary cave, where the tribe lived in peace and contentment, with each Snotling given the opportunity to achieve their potential in whatever they wished to pursue. To them, he is St Lobsnot, patron of snot lobbers. It's a Snotling thing, I don't know...
Not DND but I had this character in rdr2 rp named Kit Adler. Originally a throw away character to die once he completed his one and only accomplishment. He was a young 18 year old kid who was very stupid, didn’t know how to read, barely knew how to hold his iron. But he was a very good kid never doing wrong and always being kind to everyone even if they were rude to him. And everyone loved him.I gave him a high pitch voice and he stuttered all the time. Very shy but never raised his voice. He had so many friends and kind people to him But his father left him and his mother when he was still an infant which eventually caused the death of his mother. Kit always hated his father and that’s all he really ever knew. But eventually his father did show up. Basically they grew a great relationship over a week of irl time. They had father and son bonding it was great. His father then asked him to return to England with him but kit had to pay for his own ticket. Long story short his dad was a conman and took kits money and planned to leave with out him. Kit decided to rush to the docks and find him before he left. Kit never have even raised his gun at another person and infront of all of his friends he’s gained over 5 months or so shot all 6 shots into the head of his father killing him. A sheriff was there and arrested kit but the sheriff just said “from what I saw.. it was self defense my friend. You’re free to go.” Then proceeded to console kit and let him know it was gonna be ok. As did everyone waiting outside. It is by far my favorite character I’ve ever made and I will forever remember Kit Asker.
I made a adult pink dragon by the name of "Gil" I got the idea of said dragon from a RUclipsr "dungeondad". Anyway Gil would fly town to town and do stand up comedy at whatever the most populated tavern was and specialized in dad jokes. I usually kept a packet of them on my should Gil ever make an appearance. We had 2 bards in the game that would role play a competitive Dad joke off with Gil whenever they encountered him and always turned into the highlight of the session. Gil would sometimes even help them out on missions or tasks of they could out dad joke him, in combat I homebrewed viscous mockery and would have damage be based on the reaction from the table. Was always a fun time, years after the campaign finished, the players still talk about him and hope i bring him back in some way in whatever campaign we are playing
A travelling merchant with a New York accent who is a terrible alcoholic because his wife got eaten by crag cats. He always finds himself in precarious places, and may be a powerful magic item dealer.
I always use an information broker called Phil. He is usually at the pub, just drinking and and selling information. He would say things like "I don't know anything. I don't even know my own name." Then would motion for some money, and once given would give some information, then would stop, playing dumb again later in the conversation, and comment "My throat's dry. I can't talk, even if I knew what it is you're asking me." Then when given a drink, he would tell more. I know that in a DC comics RP, there were some interesting stories. One player kept going to hang out with him, go regularly to him for info, even taking him out to brunch, a manly ritual that both the player character and Phil get choked up about. Phil actually is more willing to give him information, for a lot less money. Another player was playing an Amazonian, and even he called her some misogynistic things like "Toots", trying to pick her up, but failing and returning his focus to answering and avoiding to finish questions. The Amazonian picked him up, tossed him around and threatened for the information that he had, and he gave it up. Unfortunately for her, the villains learned about her identity, where she lived and everything, because he willingly sold it. Why? Because he is also an extremely adept spy, and learns a lot of information. He also helps out when I need to bridge the players into a plot hook, and the mild railroading if everyone is stumped as to what to do next. And speaking of DC comics RP, I was asked to put together a blue lantern, so I decided, since the red lanterns have a cat, I'll create a dog, who started out as a therapy dog. He had a very sad backstory, dealing with a girl with cancer who died, then he was rehomed to a home with a troubled boy who was getting caught up in gang activity, in the end, brushing off the dog, and who treated him with ill intent, then the dog followed him to the gang fight, and when a gangster was about to shoot the kid, the dog took the bullet for the boy, who was shocked that the dog he treated badly would willingly, without a second thought take a bullet for him. As the dog was dying, a blue light came down and healed the dog, choosing him as a blue lantern. His first act was to use one of the primary abilities to heal the emotional wounds that is keeping the person from growing as a person, on all the teens and gangsters present, to stop the fighting, and the next day, the teens would go back to school, or help out in some way trying to clean up the neighbourhood, leaving behind the gang life, which everyone found odd. Even Batman, for a long time, couldn't figure out what happened. And that's the origin story of Rover, the Blue Lantern therapy dog. (The dog's more of a husky mix.) Because of the ring, he does have a bit more comprehension, like a mild enhanced intelligence, but not enough to truly be human. Some of his comprehension skills require some figuring out by everyone else, because he is trying to apply how a dog perceives the world. One friend actually introduced him to a lantern party which had one "that guy" who chose a member of the squirrel alien race, and minmaxed and was a total douche about him. The first introduction essentially had Hal Jordan telling him vague directions, like "Up." "Left". The character didn't understand and was told to make an initiative save against Rover who won the intiative roll, then succeeded with the grapple check, because he caught and had the squirrel in his mouth. He tried to blast out, but because of the metaphysics, Green Rings make Blue Rings stronger, because of Will and Hope. Hal had to coax Rover in dropping the player, who wasn't impressed with nearly getting eaten.
Mip (Like Boo's sound in Baldur's gate). Imagine a weird, furless rodent... thing that fits in the palm of your hand. With a little elephant trunk, little grubby paws... It was the result of decades of discarded potions in the sewers mutating mice and rats. Anyways. The oddity was, this thing could talk. I gave it the highest, squeakiest voice I could muster. It wasn't very bright, but the players loved that little critter.
In one campaign, the PCs were in a guild of mercenaries. While the party was basically the a-team of the guild, there was also an enthusiastic young recruit named Barley. Barley was a lower level than the party and they took it upon themselves to train him. They never took him on any of their missions because they were so afraid of him being hurt, but they would train him when they were back at the guild hall. When the party got more recruits into their guild, Barley became the leader of the b-team. I encouraged my players to take Barley into the final gauntlet of the campaign. They were prepared for their little cinnamon roll to die. Wrong. They didn't realize that their training turned him into a tanky juggernaut who was capable of taking a few hits from dragons and mindflayers. By my players' demand, the Barley archetype was been established. It is a lower-leveled character that exists to be trained by the party. They will never (or very rarely) take Barley out on missions because of the immense guilt they would feel for his death (death in my games is a lot more permanent than just snorting some diamond dust with a cleric nearby). Despite their reluctance to get him into deadly situations, they will train him to be a bona fide wrecking ball. Once his training is complete, the PCs will take him into the final boss battle, where he tends to prove himself to be the most capable member of the team.
Dr. Leonore Von Cocceji - A Human Artificer that was created for a D&D Isekai’d session where Leonore is summoned in to a new world as a teenager (originally being in her late forties) with four others, basically her character was: *What if a villain realized how messed up they are and try to do good now*. The funny thing with Leonore was that she had a… tendency to *adopt* orphans or kids her party had unfortunately killed the parents of. Leading her to rebuild an old castle and its golems/automatrons to help her take care of the kids. At first it was a joke, but then it evolved onto one of the kids accidentally summoning a basilisk king (which was on par with a dragon) and having to fight it. Everyone loved it so much that when we did a new session, we just used the kids that Leonore ended up saving. Also, 47 was number of kids saved.
STEEB! Steeb is a goblin. The last surviving goblin in an ambush party that hit my players when they were level 3. After they chase this goblin of a tree that was on fire (My players thought it was a good idea to catch the trees on fire to help them fight, that's another story), Steeb took one heroic last stand. Just for fun, I decided to play eye of the tiger as I narrated the brave last survivor throwing a rock heroically at the dragonborn barbarian in the party. It critted, and thus a legend was born. The raging barbarian still had plenty of health left and it ended up only doing like four damage to him, and as far as combat statistics goes, was a meaningless gesture. My entire party lost it as they found that to be the most hilarious badass thing they had ever seen, and they worked hard to make sure they capture the goblin alive. Afterwards, the party board bribed the goblin with The promise of feeding them all they could want in order to switch sides and join the party. I am terrible with coming up with names, so I told them that the goblin would agree to go by whatever name they decided to give him, because he didn't particularly care for his goblin name. They spent the entire week between that session and the next debating what name they should give this now very important NPC. They were ultimately stuck between Steeb and Gordo, and it came down to a coin flip. That is how this goblin got his name. Four levels later, and Steeb is the official mascot of the party. He was their herald and messenger who delivered their challenge to the goblin King. The party split itself two ways in our last session so that three of them could go transfer this prisoners to the capital after they were done interrogating it and the other three could take Steeb with them as they intervene in the succession crisis among the goblins. I fully expect in the next two or three sessions that King Steeb the goblin bread-tyrant will be leading all of Goblin kinds and a softer, gentler, and more bread loving direction.
Clef Khimarim, a Yuan Ti pureblood Circle of Dreams druid who simply was a house agent who acted almost as an investigator for his grove, by searching people’s dreams for answers. For some reason the players and 2 spectators (we are always on discord calls so some people who aren’t part of the game watch and listen) immediately loved the character (probably my fault because he had a mask but still) and 1 of them who draws a lot decided to give me a free commission. All of this because I decided to take what I thought was the hardest background to fit with a druid and this was the first time I played after being a forever dm. :\
Karamine (karma) bard student who had to drop out of bard school after a bully was unalived by bad karma build up and she was the only one around. The party, namely the party’s bard has taken her in and learned that the nicer they are to her, the more good things happen, meanwhile a goblin threw a rock at her and a meteorite took the goblins head.
Currently running two characters each in seprate games that are basic and just growing slowly. First and easiest to summarize. Boom the Kobold Alchemist (Pathfinder 1e) while intelligent is naive, almost completely lacks object permancy, and is now Red Green color blind. No idea what color he is but is god is Michel Bay. And Jim Beam, combat medic (basically soldier and cleric multiclass Starfinder) has grown from simple concept to, well players wanting to be from his homeworld, so far two players have lost or retired their characters and made a human from Rusty Waters. You can have the coolest or stupidest character concept ever. The only thing that really matters is how hard you RP them.
I'm in the party that encountered Chunky! Every time we encountered Chunky the entire party went wild and burst out laughing.
Can confirm!
The story does sound like it could've (and maybe should've) went a way where Chunky and Theo end up as companions in a sort of hate "The only one who's allowed to kill you is me" sorta relationship XD
Rigor mortis, an undead shopkeeper designed around ammunition and cursed items. The shops name was "curios,cursed and crap I found on corpses" he became so important to the team they made a magic pact with him to be able to call him with a spell every time they wanted to shop
This is a good one
Let me tell you the story of Beggis.
I had a magic item shop in a major city the party was headquartered in toward the end of the campaign. That magic item shop was called "The Third Eye." Ordinarily, I honestly don't put too much thought into building the shops in my world, but this one was special.
You see, the Third Eye was run by a cyclops named Beggis. Though his speech patterns were rather childlike, he was actually extremely intelligent and kind. He had been driven out of his tribe for his magic and his hatred of violence, so he became a simple merchant, plying his wares among the people. Most were hesitant to do trade with a cyclops, so he countered with competitive prices and an aggressive advertising campaign, until he eventually became a well-known, respected magic item merchant.
The party LOVED Beggis. It didn't matter how big a jackass you were playing, you still loved Beggis. And if anybody even looked at him sideways, they were ready to make you bleed.
One time--ONE TIME--Beggis got targeted by a Rakshasa during a demonic invasion. The party's monk proceeded to race to his shop in less than two minutes, then present said rakshasa with the most hate-fueled, bare-knuckled clock-cleaning I have EVER witnessed from ANY player. I mean, he killed it singlehandedly within two rounds, and the damn thing didn't so much as move.
That was the last time anybody EVER messed with Beggis. He survived the rest of the campaign, and even gave the party some items to use in the final battle, free of charge.
I made a kenku bard named Thunk ( the sound of someone getting hit over the head with a 2 by 4) for a AP English class I just made him for an example for the assignment to help the class understand how to build DND characters I flavored him as being able to planeshift with a goal to own every liquor establishment in every universe now whenever my players walk into a bar they look for thunk if he isn't already behind the bar itself. He is now essentially the God of taverns and bars throughout all of my campaigns!
Oh, that's beautiful. I have Clunk, the Human Bard. He is formerly Jerrick Seaworthy, but lost all of his memories when his ship crashed and he was the only survivor. He named himself after the only thing he remembers before his memory cuts out: the sound of his head colliding with a board of the ship.
He is severely mentally handicapped now, and has knows only three things: Protect hat, put food in mouth, protect friends. He also only has one song. "Clunk has good friends, Clunk has best friends, Clunk not friends not good. Cluuuunk." So far, he ate a squirrel alive, ate a portable hole to prove that you can have a hole on a hole, bothered some poor old woman about... idk, and insulted a duck monster by saying he "looks like Blackjack's back." Blackjack is a 93 year old human monk alcoholic. Both the duck monster and Blackjack took damage from that vicious mockery.
A wolf used as a guard dog by some goblins.
The mage rolled an absurdly high Animal Handling, making them all aid us in the fight against the goblin's boss (a Bugbear and his direwolf companion), and once all that ended, a shewolf decided to stay as the Mage's pet. She proved to be very helpful in battle as the team only consistent of said Mage, a Fighter and a Cleric (who was by all accounts, THE powerhouse of the party), which meant our front line was a bit lacking, but with the help of our fluffy friend, said line never waived.
Some sessions go by, and we find an ancient long sword, so old not even our Mage Sage could discern its story. However, no one in the party used swords, and the village was too poor to buy such a thing. So, the Mage, again out of a whim, suggested the Wolf to take it, as she liked to collect the weapons of fallen foes as trophies. She took it on her mouth and received a proper name that day.
From then on, she was known as Lady Sif.
We asked the DM if Sif could actually make use of the sword in combat, to which he replied that only once she went through a training arc and pull out a certain amount of high roles.
Two high roles and a Crit later, she was swinging that thing around like no one's business.
Eventually, and in acknowledgment of her hard work, the DM allow her to "evolve" into a dire wolf, becoming the defacto wall of most of our strategies (we also retrofited some horeshoes of speed for her paws, giving her a whaping 60 movement total), even if we were ambushed by some miracle, the instant her turn come around, she just "blinked" infront of the enemy.
As victories increased, so did her ego, which also come with some care and pride on her own image, it was a daily event to see her dip into water and taking proper care of her main, which she often adorned with flowers. Our Cleric loved helping her on her rutine.
Then the campaign come to an end, with her delivering the finishing blow to the BBEG, twice (regular and second form), add that the fact she was never defeated, you can guess how much of an ego boost that was for her. Again, rewarding her for her efforts, the DM granted her a human form, with a bit of Cleric's magic and thinkering from an Artifiser. Now we are in a new campaing, and you bet she has joined the group to fight momnsters and woe some ladies... and I do mean it, she just started her own harem, despite having a -2 to charsima. How? Because she is goddamned Laidy Sif.
Man, all you need now is Knight Artorias to either cameo or straight up be a party member. Or… if the DM wants to break some hearts… encounter him corrupted by the Abyss.
Did your campaign start with The Lost Mines of Phandelver, by any chance?
@@Nosmo90 What give it away?
@@V-Oblivion I'm playing through that campaign and the bit about the bugbear and his direwolf stuck out to me as something that we've experienced.
Plus, The Lost Mines of Phandelver is a common starting point for a lot of new players. 🙂
@@Nosmo90 I would have expected to find more wolves in caves, but still, pretty sharp of you. Enjoy the campaign.
Simon Laughingsteel. A human warrior that was presented as a mercenary for the tank-lacking party. He ended up getting a full personality, backstory, and special abilities. Some reason he kept criting when in water, so he gained swimming speed equal to his walking speed. He was amazingly handsome but completely asexual through sheer ignorance like an anime protagonist who doesn't notice anything. It was never clear if he was babysitting the group or if they were babysitting him.
A shadow demon called "The Ferryman". He just flies airships from place to place and speaks quickly. In the few sessions he's appeared he's been somewhat comedic with the cast.
Chunky and Theo are a legendary rivalry.
Larry Hopper, a human warlock. Gave him a high-pitched voice and a nervous disposition, and boom. The table loved him. I had to make up pages more of backstory because they wanted to know EVERYTHING about him. Made me happy in a way.
Terry: crazy old coot of an alchemist, he's around seventy, silver hair that's clearly singed, he wears glasses that sit crooked and are clearly cracked. He's missing two fingers on his left hand. Their first interaction was them walking into a potion shop, the shop seems unattended except for a slightly ajar near the back. Once they notice the door slams open with a Fwoosh sound and they hear Terry just start screaming expletives as he walks out part of his hair on fire. He as the party talked with him about what happened they Learn he's researching ways to flavor healing potions so they don't taste like shit, his research generally results in explosions.
I was testing out a DnD app so I made a character to see how it worked, it was a dragon born named George and he wasn't planned to be mentioned in the campaign at all, but my group of friends saw him and they started praising him, now I'm adding him to another campaign.
I threw in a headless horseman for the Halloween special a few months back. I basically roleplay him like papyrus from Undertale, always rushing in solo after screaming his catchphrase "I HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!" He's kind of a joke version of a more serious undead general that I have as the party's nemesis. I expected him to die within the first half episode, but my party has come up with the plan to get him to think that he's actually the hero he believes he is by faking their deaths at his hands. He showed up in the last episode and they shortly teamed up to fight a behir, and unbelievably, he rolled 3 nat 20s in a row, landing the finishing blow on the thing, slicing its head clean off and kicking it into a pit below. My players love him, and it seems that his superiors are going to actually question if he should be promoted or not lol
The Giant outsider moth who were guardians of their temple. the players liked them enough to help that faction be the second most popular deity of the campaign world. huge sized neutral good beings who helped decent people.
Definitely Samuel, he was a cashier at the magical IKEA the campaign took place in, he was supposed to just appear on every level and sell them items, they ended up taking him with them, he now has an entire backstory and is the son of the bbeg
Ah, the neverending Ikea scp
@@FizzieWebb actually no, it was 10000x worse, it wasn’t just a massive ikea, it also had multiple floors, has hell itself inside it, had portals across all realities, elder gods, great old ones, Outer gods, Supreme beings and even an American military base
I have three.
1: Gizmo Booplesnoot. He's a kobold battle smith who is mentally incapable of seeing evil in people. He always gets introduced by a small explosion, which the other party members investigate, only to find a little blue kobold covered in soot. i first used him in CoS, and the moment he spoke the first time, everybody fell in love with him because of the voice I gave him, being a soft, squeaky voice with a slight shake in his tone. He carries around small marble-sized constructs that perform his skill checks for him as flavor (for reference, they look exactly like Bakugan) and his steel defender is a black metal wolf named Ebonfang. he almost died in death house (spoilers for the death house) because the barbarian scooped him up into her backpack and threw him through the door blades. they rolled a nat 1 and Gizmo got sliced to hell and back, resulting on him having only one death save to roll. everybody began to panic because they'd grown so attached to him in such a short amount of time. He'd become the party's beacon of hope and joy that kept everyone going.
2: Professor Cornflakes, the kobold wild magic sorcerer. his gimmic was simple: an egergetic kobold that could get excited over something as mundane as taking out the trash. He didn't last very long when I used him. In the middle of combat, he decided to run into a pack of enemies Leeroy Jenkins style and cast a spell. the wild magic table resulted in a self-centered fireball. Professor Cornflakes immediately got vaporized by his own fireball, while every enemy in range succeeded their saves. we all died laughing, and that's when I let everyone known that Professor Cornflakes wasn't a Professor. that was just his name.
3: Scrap, the kobold-shaped warforged. I created this one for a cyberpunk-themed desert campaign. His memory was wiped prior to the campaign, so he knows very little about his origins or his previous owner. All he knows is that he's a "Mk. 5 Rotilian Multipurpose Android" and has many modifications to his build, such as mounting bars, slots, and a retracting shield in his left arm. He acts as an assistant to other party members, as he claims that is what he was programmed for. He's become the party's own R2D2 in a sense, and everybody seems to like having him around.
Oggo the Kobold Scale Sorcerer. He was just meant to be a way to convey to the players there was a threat in the dungeon they were in, but now the party has adopted his entire tribe of kobolds and him after accidentally destroying their dungeon.
My russian irl friends are new to dnd. They never played it before but i told them all a lot about it so i was happily surprised when they approached me this autumn and asked to dm a oneshot for a group of 6. Its going great tho due to sanctions and lack of translation alongside my habits from english games i run and system learning curve of these guys oneshot stretched out to 3 sessions. They are liking the game and custom setting and i adore their characters so we are resuming the game and i gotta write rest of the world. Anyways during previous session they visited one very weird shop trying to learn more about an occult dagger for plot reasons. I described how this lad seems to talk to sword with a cartoony face before throwing it into the backroom when he spots the party. After some roleplaying and learning of plot things they questioned the shop owner about that talking sword. I was ready for this (as i thought) so brought a pre-made short narrative explaining that this man is no artisan but a druid and he imbues objects with spirits’ life essence so they become alive and tell him about everything that there is regarding an object. Party pressed forward trying to learn a story of this particular sword and not only requested to talk to it but invited it to their party! I was startled and in panicked confusion made up a rogue fey that refuses to leave the sword and likes it’s life as a weapon more. Party loved the funny talking sword and here i am after the session writing the custom sheet for Kelvin the happiness fey living as a sword… i am really bad with names when i panic lol
Ray, the rock candy man. Sells plastic baggies of “fun dip” that acts as a stimulant to increase strength for a short time. First found him in a tavern in a shady corner, then after a few real weeks we got imprisoned and encountered him in a jail cell, we gave him a Bag of fun dip he sold us and he helped us break out.
A half troll bouncer at the local pub named Avalor. He was just created as a side character but was written a little too stupid. So stupid the party assumed he had a curse on him. The party ended up stopping a troll invasion with diplomacy, the princess took a likening to Avalor. Well I decided to add information about Avalor’s curse. However my plan was quickly unraveled and the offending party was eliminated. This caused Avalor to suddenly go from having an intelligence of 4 to having an intelligence of 18 (nice work RNG gods). I was so shocked the party thought Avalor was about to die. I then start laughing. Suddenly Avalor turns to one of the party members and asks. “Why are we celebrating?” Since he had never really spoke besides some grunts and hand gestures, the party lost their minds. The party caught Avalor up on all that had happened. Avalor looks at the Troll princess and asks who that beautiful lady was. The Bard of the party says “Good sir that is your wife” Avalor looks in shock at the bard. “WHAT?!?” The bard smiles and says “It get’s better, she is a princess” Avalor is dumb struck. The princess walks over to Avalor gives him the sweetest kiss ever. Avalor starts to cry and thanks the whole party. There wasn’t a dry eye at the table as this guy had saved them multiple times due to crazy things that had happened and he got his fairy tale ending.
A hobgoblin paladin who I played became not only a beloved pc but the best pc I've played as so far, because despite being unjustly turned into a death knight, he never stopped being the heroic and honorable man he was
I kind of feel like the story behind the death night thing would be interesting since you said it was unjust
my favorite 'little thought' npc i put into my campaign was a 'dead' gnome named Tom. How he ended up being a permanent ally to the players was sheer, stupid coincidence due to shennenigans.
It was a campaign in which one of the goals was for all players to have their characters ascend to Demi-Godhood, something which in that setting is rather common, if only also very difficult. due to circumstances, one player ended up ramancing the goddess of death of that world (a nat 20 persuasion/intimidation not sure which one anymore, good rp in telling off said overly attached romantically deprived and desperate goddess can go a long way) and since at the start of the campaign we had discussed that 'adult interactions' between players and npcs we permitted, but would take place in seperate sessions if others weren't comfortable being around them... so said player had an 'ahem' spicy encounter with her lover goddess that ended up killing her... three times (did i mention the goddess was desperate and deprived) after several failed constitution saves and had to take a spot in the queue of the realm of the goddess... so basically spirit got yeeted to the line while her body stopped doing anything.
At some point, a gnome just behind her in line spoke up asking why there was such a line for people to get to the afterlife at which said Goddess came stomping up to the queue and dragged her character back... only for the gnome to ask if she had even realized her partner died to get to the line.
As 'thanks' for reminding the goddess of death to actually do her job, the gnome, Tom, was told to scurry off while the goddess sent the player back to the realm of the living via a special altar in the players' residence... only Tom was caught in the spell that sent the player back (rolled for it because of how close he was standing to the situation as it played out).
When Tom spoke up about the player not being dressed, she exclaimed that there was a peeping Tom in the mansion only for him to reply 'Well, i ain't peepin' but m'name is Tom.' after which he became a permanent supporting character to help in intelligence gathering.
Seeing the Goddess of death's blunder, Tom could exist as neither living, nor dead, and not even undead. his soul had basically been erased from all ledgers of 'anyone' so to say, he tachnically did not exist anymore, could no be reborn, nor ressurected with magic. in return, he always had a max-hp of 1 and upon taking any damage he just turned to dust and reappeared at the shrine at which he first became who he now was.
a character that on the fly almost became a comedic relief joke ended up being a huge support for gathering information for the players because he, quite simply, was neither living, nor ghost, nor zombie... he had the 'best of both worlds'... minus the extremely fragile health pool.
One of the shop keeps I run in all of my campaigns is a wild magic enchanter. One of the effects is that it's always snowing in his shop, as such one of the players decided to make a snow man in the shop while the other players where getting their items enchanted. I decided to have a little fun and explained that the enchanter made a tiny snowman on their desk and it became animated. The players fell in love with the tiny snowman and he has now become the shops mascot, his name is Plof.
Tom, he was a joke npc, he was a cab driver in a medieval setting, so he just had a carriage. The party hired him to help them get to a location. On the way the party both literally and figuratively fell in love with him. We spent an hour of real time with 3 of the players trying to flirt with him and fighting each other over him
The Bar Goblin and Gregor the Test Bird. Gregor is just an eagle token i use to test lighting on roll 20. I leave him in the dungeons time to time as players like him.
Now the Bar Goblin. was watching a less than legally available episode of Bar Rescue where the scene was flipped and the speed increased to avoid copyright bots. The voice was so funny i made him a goblin that ran drinks at the local bar. my players absolutely love him. he calls everything beer so when he brings food its jus "NYAAAAH, HERE'S YOUR CHICKEN BEEEEEEER" when he wasnt around in the morning (hes nocturnal) i could feel the whole party staring daggers at me through my computer. the sigh of relief after reveling he's nocturnal was intense lol.
Had to make up on the spot that he was adopted by the last group of adventurers who abandoned him after they finished their adventuring.
Made a pyromaniac engineer Goblin named Boblin. Specifically because I saw a meme about it.
Fast forward 40 sessions and he’s an injured war hero, half the party’s favorite character, running for mayor and the inventor of the modern Tank (sorta). I had him leave after losing the election , and the party pouted for months… but what they don’t know is that he’ll be making a return at the head of a goblin skyfleet during the final battle, having invented the helicopter off screen.
A few years ago one my friends made a fairy barbarian for a one-shot who just randomly put it together before the session. That fairy ended up smashing the undead daylights out of the lord of vampires in the big final battle. She enjoyed it so much that she swapped the character with her old into our main campaign.
sounds like inspiration might almost have been taken from titania in warframe... freaking flying pixy destroyer that is
@@alyssavanderklift9296 nope. She just randomly rolled a number for each option and went with that for race, class, subclass, etc.
@@stevenjohnson6962nice, it still reminded me of the character so, could work in a character personality-esque way, but cool nontheless
I was knew to a table that had been playing in a homebrew setting for a campaign or two already. I learned as much as I could but knew I was still ignorant of the world so I played a lizardfolk so I could play a character with the same base knowledge as me. His complete ignorance of the world ending up being adorable and the party taught him many words like adoption and marriage that he completely misunderstood the concept of. (I miss referring to theft or pawning stuff off on people as adoption)
Skreetch the Kobold.
He believes that he is a veloceraptor, has glued every feather he can find to himself, and wants to make "THA BIGGEST, BESTEST FAMILY REUNION EVAR!" Through druidic means, effectively starting the Jurrassic Park Apocalypse.
Gary (Gariothrax) the Young Bronze Dragon runaway. I was running a seafaring campaign and was using prepublished encounter tables, and eventually the party rolled into "Young Bronze Dragon". Intead of a semi-tragic battle (Bronze Dragons are typically Good, and honestly would've been a bloodbath either way) I decided to make it more of a social encounter instead and described how the party spied a tiny one-person rowboat off in the distance out in the open sea. As they approached, they found a young boy that was either a tall eight year old or a scrawny ten year old boy, suspiciously out on his lonesome. After demanding to know if they were pirates (they technically were) they told him they were not, and Gary, the "child" was super disappointed since he wanted to fight some. Instead, the party ended up getting wrapped up in a game of riddles with the kid, where they would become Gary's "Best Friend" for a week if they won, or they'd hand over half their treasure if they lost. They won the game of riddles. Pretty handily. They still had no idea that he was a dragon at the time, but they quickly realized that, for that next week, they just... stopped having combat encounters at sea. Birds avoided them, fish got spooked and didn't go anywhere near their boat, and not a single monster dared approach. At the end of the week Gary decided that these were pretty fun people and decided to become a semi-regular NPC they'd run into from time to time. Eventually they even got him a new lair and a bunch of treasure all his own so he'd stop helping himself to the dragon's share of their loot. A while later, they eventually ran into his mother disguised poorly disguising herself as a human who they inadvertently sold Gary out to (for a LOT of gold). After being warned she was on the way, he immediately had to run screaming from their neck of the sea before he got caught and grounded for leaving the nest too soon. Good Kid. Ate a god.
We were playing Star Wars WEG 2nd edition and it was my daughters first ttrpg. To make sure they could call in their ship I created Uncle Bert, a former rebel pilot and adopted uncle of one of the characters. That was all the backstory, not even a physical description. Well, the campaign went on for nearly 4 years and every single player loved Uncle Bert. He was like a father figure to most of the characters and was respected by all. He saved their bacon more times than I care to count, even though all the actions he took were at the request of one of more of the characters. I certainly didn't need anyone else to keep track of. They players would make plans and Uncle Bert would always be figured in. They would actively change plans or redirect conversations based on how Uncle Bert might react or be impacted. Finally, we were nearing the grand finale and I needed the characters to make a decision but they absolutely refused to do so. So, for the first and only time I had Uncle Bert make a decision on his own. He began a charge and successfully managed to create a gap for the party to escape. All was going well until a character rolled a critical failure. To dance that character's life, Uncle Bert made the ultimate sacrifice. His loss devastated the party and lit the fire they needed to finally go after and defeat the BBEG.
Make an organization with an acronym. For example, they hear whispers of a secret organization called the feared. Only to find out later, it's actually the FEARD ( the Faerun Exploration and Advanced Reconnaissance Division)
Brian Von VA, the MVP🎉
Mine was an innkeeper named Raina. When I first created her, she was just a nameless innkeeper, someone to serve the party and push the plot along. That changed when the soulknife rogue, Gwenn, asked for her name (I had to make it up on the spot.) See, in the homebrew world I'd made, there was no currency. Everything was done through barter. One of the things you could barter was services, such as working a shift in a store you wanted to buy from, so Gwenn had decided that she'd pay for her room and food by helping Raina with cleaning up the inn after it closed for the day. Given how Gwenn's a VERY flirty rogue, one thing led to another and they ended up sleeping together. And Gwenn wouldn't leave. The village that inn was in ended up as the base of operations, with Gwenn moving in with Raina. Now that there's a next generation game, Gwenn's now retired from adventuring and works in the inn with her wife and one of their three children thanks to a special potion I made up. And all this because Raina was nice to the rogue
A little purple kobold. She was only meant to appear once.
once!
She is now a recurring disciple of Bananamut and even has earned the right to act as the rest for the canaries. In the latest campaign, I raised this little purple 'bold into angelic levels, so she can serve her lord forever as the dragon angel Aasterinian.
Thats correct, i as the dm used this event to bring Aasterinian into my homebrew world and immortalized the adorable purple kobold who could only speak in the third person.
Her name was Kaasha, because Kaasha is Kaasha.
A random disposable npc Merc kept surviving everything to the point that he reached the end of the adventure so he became the BBeg revealing he was effectively using the party as a meat shield to complete his goals whilst playing the role of a cockney hick
I have one who died last session. He was a half orc tempest cleric. He was wise, a little smart mouthed here and there, and unlucky. He got possessed by part of a god (it had been split into 3 parts prior to that), contracted lycanthrope, and was not shy about throwing out destructive spells.
He fell in battle against an archfey who hit him with power word kill after he alhad taken massive damage from other spells. He is now being honoured by having a tavern or inn named for him and is to have a large portrait of him above the hearth. A tradition is being introduced where the first time one drinks there, they raise their glass, say his name and drink.
Mop the Mopping guy
He's our ships one man cleaning crew, he's small he's purple he's indestructible his name is Mop and he mops, only a single word leaves his mouth "Mop". This middle aged guy is the heart of our group and I came up with his whole concept under a minute
I can just imagine chunky doing training over the rocky song.
Doing my first campaign, and this recently happened. Backstory: The campaign takes places mid 80s in a liminal space called the subliminal. The liminal space acts as a purgatory for those who have died, and the players are fighting bosses that each represent a stage of grief. The most recent npc which was a slow burn boss. The Npc is "The Hatter" (not his real name), a summer Eladrin trapped as a kid because he himself is effectively immortal due to a homebrew rune (one of the players has the ability to use the rune as well). The Hatter is the anger stage boss, being an Artificer/ wild magic Barbarian multiclass. The party loved him so much that even after he tricked them and ended up killing a party member, they trusted him until the end. Even after his death they are searching for his body to give him a true memorial. He had an adopted tabaxi son named Lovren who the party also lived to death. The Hatter's ideology was flawed and tried to kill the party multiple times inconspicuously. Even after betrayal they still mourn him.
Big Tex, a merchant with an over exaggerated Texan accent who sells magic items and BBQ. Our dm made him, I assume, on a whim because he needed a shopkeeper and the party loved him immediately.
Chunky's back and he's thicker than before
Sticks. A talking cat that’s the leader of a group of talking animals that live on the florest. I honestly just created him as a Revenant Hill reference(y’know, Twigs the cat). but everyone ended up loving him so much i decided to give him a more active role in the history, so now he has actual backstory, lore, and is one of the main “quest-givers” of the party.
Nozzle, A kobold barbarian with a heart of gold and a stomach of diamond.
I have two of these characters.
The first one is called Bobby Gallo, an Aberrant Mind human sorcerer who looks like a fisherman and was inspired by one of my real life friends. He was a character for a Session 0 one-shot and I recently informed my friend that his alter ego became a legend in my D&D narrative world.
The second one is a homebrew race illusionist wizard called Bloop, he is not able to speak but has got a sort of telepathy abiity. One player fell in love with this character and wanted to adopt him as she found Bloop to be an orphan (she only finds her mother instinct with the creepiest aberrations). Bloop also was a one-shot NPC.
Timmy. The stereotypical lost boy appearing in every town playing with the characters or actually being lost. Was just a way to add flavor to the towns and stuff; eventually every town had a Timmy walking around. Timmy started as a meme being an annoying kid and ended up learning carpentry and eventually was a craftsman that happens to be in every town the party arrives in.
A goblin named Hugh Johnson. He was supposed to be a snobby goblin but the party hired him to make suits for them and he follows them around now.
Currently for me, it’s a blood hunter called Werven.
All he did was tell us about some runes in an abandoned house and ask us to join him. Over time, my character (Mori, also a blood hunter) and him got each other through the house and we all managed to survive. When we got back to the city we were staying at, he went off to the tavern to read a book he got from the house. Next day, we wake up to him screaming and just finishing a Crimson Rite. We take the book off him for a bit and let him tag along with us on some errands. I had the idea of taking him to the healer’s house to get him rested up. Also I hugged him cuz I felt bad, man.
God I fucking appreciate Werven.
One of the three-headed corgis that roamed the world of the dead until the party adopted it. They named him "Drei" (German for "three").
that is a cool name
Rufus, a random Lycan that I literally only described as a soldier trying to run away from a necromancer who got tackled and adopted by the party who now feed him potions and call him “their son”, he is very depressed
Bob the Magnificent. He is a self proclaimed wizard but was nothing more than a street magician in the world of a magic. He amazed a pixie player by asking if it was her card.
Mr. Frog. Giant frog we found in a cave. Served no story purpose, was probably meant to be fought. He goes with us everywhere now.
In my campaign we have a funny character we met in a prison(was a gaurd) he was named gronk and we all love him
Oh, we encountered an orc chimichanga vendor. Our DM didn’t plan on us getting as attached to him as we did, so didn’t have a name. Somehow he got the name Cookie, and eventually he wound up getting a job as a cook in our “hometown”.
I was DMing a campaign where one session revolved around the players visiting a circus whose claim to fame was that they had tamed many giant insects and used them for the majority of their shows and games. At a point where the players had been roped into the main event of the night and were told their task was to tame an Antlion. At the time, the antlion was just there to pad the circus quest a little bit before they fought the ringmaster boss. However, the players, instead of just fighting it like I had intended, recruited it to their side and immediately made it their mascot. It became one of the most important characters in the campaign and at the end killed the BBEG in a single hit. The Antlion has now featured in every game since.
These are my favorite NPCs
My players fell in love with a kobold while they were hunting giant rats in the sewers at low level.
I think the ting that got them was that he kept referring to the giant rats as "Squeak squeaks"
I have an NPC in the current campaign i'm running who basically acts like an over the top lawful good stereotype hero named "THE GREAT GALE, THE WINDS OF JUSTICE!!". Think Undertale's Papyrus meets Mr. Satan. I intended for him to just be a random goofy encounter in a town who mistakes the party for bandits, but the party loved him so much I had him randomly mentioned showing up in a different place, where they immediately flocked to him. I kept having him randomly showing up in places the party was at, no matter how improbable. He's basically the unspoken 7th party member at this point.
Galeb Duhr the Galeb Duhr was playing with his wizard friend who melted him into the wall for a lark. After laughing for several hours the wizard was called out of the room before he could countercharm the spell. The wizard was murdered in battle along with everyone else in the keep. The party found and rescued Galeb. 2000 years later! He isn’t quite sa be, but he’s very happy to have friends who talk back again.
Urruturu was a zombie who roamed the salt flats of Athas. For a few drops of your blood he would reveal your future. The thing is that he didn't have any divination powers, he just said what he thought the PCs wanted to hear.
The PCs eventually called him out, but they were understanding.
DU723 or Dusty. Originally at a shortened warforged gunslinger, he talked with a southern drawl. I eventually gave him a Yosemite Sam personality after he sensed an ambush about to happen in a swamp, and he yelled out, threatening to "shoot their dicks off" if they don't come out. That quickly became his quirk, and everyone couldn't help but laugh at when I went on a tangent. Only ever used him once for the one shot, but I hope to bring him back some day, but as a gunslinger autonome. Basically a Yosemite Sam/ clank
Munchkin Smalls is an ancestral barbarian common goblin whose life purpose is to fight anything that is giant or taller and protect anything smaller than him (he is 2 feet tall). He carries a hammer he named "smashy sledge" and does NOT like short jokes. When he was introduced, he was fighting an adult chromatic dragon. He won by hitting it really hard (nat 20) and crushing their skull. He left the party after they poisoned a town of small mushrooms and made a stew out of them
My DM had a noble with a Distinctive Emerald colored robe show up as a Prelude to a Horror-themed session he'd set up. I forget the Noble's name but that session left its mark. So when I ran a spin-off short campaign, I had the same noble be the one contracting the party to their adventure. Ever since, he's grown more mysterious, showing up in settings outside the original and almost always, his presence is a prelude to something strange, important, or terrifying happening. It was later implied he's actually a lesser god who works to keep order in the higher planes, but myself and the rest of the players always have an "oh shit" moment when we meet a noble described as wearing "strange, emerald colored robes"
My DM just has us meet Stan Lee in what ever setting we play. Shadowrun? He's there working as a barber and can even give you more hair! D&D 5e? He's working in the library arranging spell scrolls! Star Wars? He's working as the best bartender in a casino spaceship!
Random coachman named Beaf Makker. He loves sandwiches and drives the getaway coach. Been killed twice and resurrected now. Named because one of my players had been hunger and gotten ubereats, lol.
Basically made a Walking Bag of Holding with an infinite holding limit(DM said it was fine since all my character was good for was holding Party's items or gear) He was a home-brew imp race with a couple of features, one was making his body like rubber letting the little imp being stretched and immune to Bludgeoning attacks. This little imp was greedy and saw anything not tied down to the floor to be his, so when he was damaged the little imp had the chance to puke out good gear or whatever trash he ate. There was a time our Barbarian forgot he put his battle-axe in the Imp, so when they got into combat he had to pull it out but didn't get a good roll...So only the wooden handle came out the imp, but this didn't stop the Barbarian from using the Imp as a temporary weapon.
Salty Dan. Older deckhand in a years long pirate campaign. He was like a piece of furniture you can't part with. 3 years irl game and he took a cannonball in the chest to save the captain. They never forgave me for that.
Dr. Irving Stevenson. In my game magical beasts and plants are appearing across Earth. Irving is a member of a zoological group trying to study and categorize these new beings. He was intended just to show up and help the players out of a very sticky situation due to horrendous luck. He carries a large amount of paper and graphite, talks with an Australian accent, and likes to say “Crikey that’s a beauty!”
I am still amused no one immediately caught on that I literally just dropped Steve Irwin on them to save them from a hill giant. 🤷♀️
Tessex the pack donkey, he has now been in literally every single campaign I have run, which is a lot.
This happened in a campaign I joined but before i joined. It was Tyranny of Dragons. The party wound up befriending a young dragon that they named Samuel L. Jackson. The players were still talking about him at the end. The DM had him lead a group to help in the assault at the end.
Bob.
Gundarr accidentally solved a riddle. Yes, the 5 int Fighter. He gained the staff of the wizard that made people solve a riddle to get down a hallway. The staff was actually an enslaved ancient gold dragon that is afraid of combat. Since then Bob has been revealed to be a trickster god from a universe that was destroyed by a war between the gods. He saved Gundarr and they journey through different realities.
Poor John - a homeless guy who clocked the party enter the village in the second session then look away. This guy was only supposed to be a bit of decoration but the party wouldn't leave him alone so I turned him into a way of shadow monk and the local Batman who gave the party missions in the third session
Toby the Tiefling Boyscout. I saw that there was a Pathfinder subclass for the rogue called "scout," and naturally, tieflings are great rogues. I decided it would be funny to play a character archetype that's normally super edgy, but subvert it by making him a literal Boyscout (badge sash and everything). He was lawful good to the hilt, helping old ladies cross the street and providing first aid to anyone who was injured, including enemies.
It was my first time with that group, and they all groaned when they heard I'd made a tiefling rogue, only to break down in laughter when they saw the subversion. He was an instant hit and served as the moral compass of the party. The closest thing he ever got to doing something wrong was to steal a weapon from the black market, and only so that he could present it to the city guard as proof that the criminals had been robbing the royal armory. In the end, he was chosen by Erastil (Pathfinder's LG God of the hunt) to be his personal scion, and eventually retired and gave his role to Toby.
I am running an SCP-themed campaign. Some of the PCs work for the Foundation, and two are D-class. In order to introduce one of the D-Class PCs to the party before the facility they were in went under attack, I created a basic gruff guard named Greg to be escorting him between his cell and an interrogation room. I figured Greg would die in the chaos of rampant anomalies that the party would be forced to escape. Not only did Greg survive the attack, but he went on to join the party to become an MTF (think special-ops group) for their next mission, where I had him get non-lethally injured because one of my PCs became so attached to him that I worried about what would happen if Greg died.
PANR has tuned in.
Super M.O.D. a mace of disruption with a bandit mask a superman cape and a cheesy colonel mustard mustache made out of rope. the Bard could wield it with his mind so he puppeteered it and it basically became a part of the party eventually gaining sentience.
I'm running a rules-light version of Zweihander for my nephews' pirate game. I started them off with a crew whose names didn't matter much since they were meant to be killed off to start their own adventure. They fought every step of the way with the two points of authority on deck: The captain (named) and the quartermaster (unnamed). This was either through passive aggression, physical aggression, or petty theft. When I finally killed them all off, they were trying desperately to find the quartermaster in the wreckage, and even tried to find him among the hallucinatory spirits one of them was experiencing shortly afterwards. I asked why they were so obsessed with this character they've been fighting against nonstop since meeting him and they just tell me "Quarty is our favorite character."
A funny wizard named The Great Disappearino. Think of a mixture between Waluigi and The Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons with the voice of Xavier Renegade Angel. He was a weird, but very charismatic wizard who performed illusions for the party in the middle of a trade road. He threw smoke bombs three times, two of which he pretended to die afterwards before running away after the third. The party was so obsessed with him that he shows up every major city and offers the party a bit of lore and his charisma.
For a tales from the loop game I made a punk girl named mekenzie mcduckett that worked at a chuckie cheese kind of arcade pizzeria as a chicken mascott. My players dubbed her mcnugget and she carried over into the other mysteries as a reoccuring character and ended up in a relationship with one of the players. She had a band with three people named Mike (Michael, Marvin Ike and Mikaela, all shortened to Mike) and they even showed up in the final battle against an eldrich horror... good times
Did you know a 7 year old has 243 bones?
I'm not allowed to go to the playground anymore 😢
Lord Ambassador Archibald Melonswoggle III
A Gif Swashbuckler Fighter with a Ship Cannon (4 levels lower than the party) that effectively has the personality of an old English Safari Man, but unfortunately has the duty of being an Ambassador from a Desert Kingdom, so he wants to live vicariously through the party. The instant I said his name out loud some of my players instantly loved him.
In one of my sessions was Oggo the half orc NPC. Was a lovable oaf who was working every possible job in the city. Bouncer, carage driver, barkeep, town guard. Mainly due to having little time to prepare npcs and decided to make it a gag. The party loved him. Even when they got to the bbeg oggo was one of their henchman. After causing a cave in at the lair they decided to save oggo. I wanted to kill him to make an impactful ending. They used all of their spells and rolled so well that no matter what i did they managed to pull off some ridiculous tactic
My Tempest cleric would occasionally animate dead. Our zombies were named either Frankie after Dr Frankenstein or Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's
Running a pirate campaign, the party happened across a scottish drunkard human named Dingy. They attempted to deceive him into believing they were independent police and adopt him into the crew. Pains my heart but towards the end of the session I had to have him axed. There was much mourning.
The kobold that smelled like garbage. One of the best beloved nose blind characters loved by all.
"Stinky the unruly"
Okay, I got one for you. During a pathfinder gestalt game (a relic from the 3.5e UA where you smash together two classes), i put together a kobold who was good at one thing: Punching. I put as much of my minmaxing experience i could into making that little munchkin and did pretty good (could punch 5 times in a turn for 11+1d6). What i did after all the minmaxing is i looked though the alternate racial traits and found scale color as an optional thing, it gave some bonuses, but i couldn't pass up this opportunity for what i chose. The character also couldn't speak many languages, just common and draconic. When all was put together i ended up with Vhilrag (vil-raag), the Kobold Brawler. He his scales were pink and chose to only speak in draconic save for a few words in common every so often, usually when someone was looking for an answer to something. while playing in the downtime, he spent most of his time fishing. When he caught a fish, he would run up to the nearest other player and say "Xeeva!" (mean fish) while holding out the fish for them to take. once it was taken, he would scurry back to his fishing spot and continue to fish. Everyone just adored the little munchkin just running around just giving poeple the fish he cause that that basically became his identity, which was so far from what i had created but very welcome.
Gate sergeant Barry...
It was the first campaign I ran, in Pathfinder. The players were on a remote island in the middle of the ocean (some there by choice some not...). As a group of adventurers, they had to report to the town guard as they returned, I had a random "gate sgt" for them to talk to and they asked his name... When put on the spot I called him Barry, and thus Gate sergeant Barry was born!
The gnome sorcerer of the party (who happened to be an atheist, yes an atheist in a world where the gods actually appeared and interacted with people) decided that he was doing to get a high five from the gate sgt, so every interaction he tried and mostly failed...
The amount of theories they came up with about GSB were hilarious, one was that he was actually the BBEG of the campaign, so the party often went out of their way to interact with him.
Reminds me of a gag character I had used to insert some plot devices on a small campaign our usual forever DM let me run so he could play. It was an undead oriented campaign that I had set up to cater a bit to our murder hobo players as much as our story driven players. The BBEG was a lich that was working with a pair of other liches. They were running all kinds of undead experiments and running manufacturing of all kinds of things using undead labor. Catch was that they had cornered a few towns, set up an actual stereotypical dungeon, and were baiting/forcing the local populace into sending in fresh bodies to try and deal with it to obtain their undead research materials. The opening method I used to get the party on the same track was using the local government to jail them for some trumped up charges, set them with some cursed manacles that would be removed when they accomplished their task, and were dropped at the gate of this massive graveyard dungeon to get it done. They ran through most of the place like champs but only found a few of the secret stuff I had set aside including a few joke characters and puns, but later managed to bumble their way through the experimentation crypts that were on site.
Enter Johnny "used to be" Walker. He was a rerere animated zombie experiment that the lich was using to see how many times he could bring back a body from death. As one should be able to tell from the name, he was also a joke character. He had been reanimated and with so much experimental methods so many times that he had gained full sentience again. Unfortunately, this didn't sit well with the lich as Johnny had continually tried to escape because he only wanted to live out his life in peace at that point. I was expecting the party to clear the place and move on but after clearing the place for the first time they decided to rescue Johnny out of pity. They strapped him to the tank's back and hauled him back to town. Out of curiosity I decided to roll with it and see what they were going to do. So they managed to get the manacles removed and convinced the major to let Johnny set up and run a bar. Johnny was given a suit for the remainder of his body, set up on a brass and wood kind of wheel chair on runners so he could scoot himself around the bar, and ran the Dead Man's Drink. The party loved him and due to other circumstances that happened, Johnny was allowed to set up multiple bars around the world using some rather expensive portal tech that they had lifted from the liches. So for the rest of the run they'd constantly be looking for a Dead Man's Drink at any town or city they came to so they could meet up with Johnny and maybe pick up some side quests from him.
One of the antics that they managed to finagle with one of the cities was that the death row executions would instead be fed to Johnny and the remains burned so that Johnny could try and sustain himself as well as try to put more of a body back together eventually.
We have... Little Jimmy. He is a Gray Slime that I made a sperate level mechanic for. Little Jimmy can eat 1d4 times a day. When he eats a creature, he gets a point in that creature's highest stat. When he hits five in one stat it goes up one point.
The (now not involved) Cleric rolled high to get the slime to follow him. When he stopped playing, the Ranger npc adopted him. Little Jimmy is the most dangerous party member, he has never rolled lower than a 15 on an attack roll.
Wasn't my NPC, but a 'set' made by a GM. We had gone to planet to find some muggufin in a spelljammer game, only to find the place was basically a Drow society during their version of the 80's (electricity was becoming commonplace, the men had recently been given Rights, neon and rock metal was new and in fashion). Me and the other players immediately latched on to it, after only really being 2-to-1 at best on favouring something prior.
Lobsnot. So, back in 2E, the party was lost in a series of caves, playing yo mama Marco Polo style with their encounter, a war party of 30 WFRP Snotlings I had added. Just to be silly, I had one "cheeky little bastard" shout out "lobsnot!"
When they finally met up, the Snotlings formed what they considered a battle line. The party broke marching order and dropped to formation. A few more yo mama's later when everyone was picking up initiative dice, one of the wizards, Pandora, a wild mage, says, "Wait, which one of you keeps shouting lobsnot?"
I roll my initiative for the snotlings, "huh?". I had done that on a whim, I mean, it was just funny, zero thought in this whatsoever. Pandora prompted me again. Suddenly, a word became a face.
What the hell, I had one snotling step forward and declare, "Dat me, I Lobsnot! Dat my war cry! Lobsnot! Oh, an dat also what I do. I da best ever! Lobsnot!"
Instantly, all three women looked at us guys with that "he's so cute, can we keep him" look.
And us guys put down our dice. We knew what had begun as a random encounter (loved the Dungeneer's Survival Guide), and a whim on top of that just turned into a role-playing encounter.
By the time the encounter was done, with Pandora as the spokeswoman, they had created a noble quest to lead these Snotlings in revolt against "Da Queen" and free their tribe from the oppression of the evil wizard who calls herself Queen.
As it worked out, Pandora was installed as their new Queen, Lobsnot was knighted sir Lobsnot, and Lobber as the party called him, joined the party becoming Pandoras companion.
He also had deadly accuracy when flicking boogers on the BBEG, usually during his evil monologue, "And so, this is why the kingdom must come to ruin... did you just flick a booger on me?"
Lobsnot lived to a healthy ripe old age, passing peacefully in his sleep but living forever in our hearts.
The ladies had had the Snotlings moved to a sanctuary cave, where the tribe lived in peace and contentment, with each Snotling given the opportunity to achieve their potential in whatever they wished to pursue. To them, he is St Lobsnot, patron of snot lobbers. It's a Snotling thing, I don't know...
Not DND but I had this character in rdr2 rp named Kit Adler. Originally a throw away character to die once he completed his one and only accomplishment. He was a young 18 year old kid who was very stupid, didn’t know how to read, barely knew how to hold his iron. But he was a very good kid never doing wrong and always being kind to everyone even if they were rude to him. And everyone loved him.I gave him a high pitch voice and he stuttered all the time. Very shy but never raised his voice. He had so many friends and kind people to him But his father left him and his mother when he was still an infant which eventually caused the death of his mother. Kit always hated his father and that’s all he really ever knew. But eventually his father did show up. Basically they grew a great relationship over a week of irl time. They had father and son bonding it was great. His father then asked him to return to England with him but kit had to pay for his own ticket. Long story short his dad was a conman and took kits money and planned to leave with out him. Kit decided to rush to the docks and find him before he left. Kit never have even raised his gun at another person and infront of all of his friends he’s gained over 5 months or so shot all 6 shots into the head of his father killing him. A sheriff was there and arrested kit but the sheriff just said “from what I saw.. it was self defense my friend. You’re free to go.” Then proceeded to console kit and let him know it was gonna be ok. As did everyone waiting outside. It is by far my favorite character I’ve ever made and I will forever remember Kit Asker.
I made a adult pink dragon by the name of "Gil" I got the idea of said dragon from a RUclipsr "dungeondad". Anyway Gil would fly town to town and do stand up comedy at whatever the most populated tavern was and specialized in dad jokes. I usually kept a packet of them on my should Gil ever make an appearance. We had 2 bards in the game that would role play a competitive Dad joke off with Gil whenever they encountered him and always turned into the highlight of the session. Gil would sometimes even help them out on missions or tasks of they could out dad joke him, in combat I homebrewed viscous mockery and would have damage be based on the reaction from the table. Was always a fun time, years after the campaign finished, the players still talk about him and hope i bring him back in some way in whatever campaign we are playing
A travelling merchant with a New York accent who is a terrible alcoholic because his wife got eaten by crag cats. He always finds himself in precarious places, and may be a powerful magic item dealer.
I always use an information broker called Phil. He is usually at the pub, just drinking and and selling information. He would say things like "I don't know anything. I don't even know my own name." Then would motion for some money, and once given would give some information, then would stop, playing dumb again later in the conversation, and comment "My throat's dry. I can't talk, even if I knew what it is you're asking me." Then when given a drink, he would tell more.
I know that in a DC comics RP, there were some interesting stories. One player kept going to hang out with him, go regularly to him for info, even taking him out to brunch, a manly ritual that both the player character and Phil get choked up about. Phil actually is more willing to give him information, for a lot less money.
Another player was playing an Amazonian, and even he called her some misogynistic things like "Toots", trying to pick her up, but failing and returning his focus to answering and avoiding to finish questions. The Amazonian picked him up, tossed him around and threatened for the information that he had, and he gave it up. Unfortunately for her, the villains learned about her identity, where she lived and everything, because he willingly sold it. Why? Because he is also an extremely adept spy, and learns a lot of information.
He also helps out when I need to bridge the players into a plot hook, and the mild railroading if everyone is stumped as to what to do next.
And speaking of DC comics RP, I was asked to put together a blue lantern, so I decided, since the red lanterns have a cat, I'll create a dog, who started out as a therapy dog. He had a very sad backstory, dealing with a girl with cancer who died, then he was rehomed to a home with a troubled boy who was getting caught up in gang activity, in the end, brushing off the dog, and who treated him with ill intent, then the dog followed him to the gang fight, and when a gangster was about to shoot the kid, the dog took the bullet for the boy, who was shocked that the dog he treated badly would willingly, without a second thought take a bullet for him. As the dog was dying, a blue light came down and healed the dog, choosing him as a blue lantern. His first act was to use one of the primary abilities to heal the emotional wounds that is keeping the person from growing as a person, on all the teens and gangsters present, to stop the fighting, and the next day, the teens would go back to school, or help out in some way trying to clean up the neighbourhood, leaving behind the gang life, which everyone found odd. Even Batman, for a long time, couldn't figure out what happened.
And that's the origin story of Rover, the Blue Lantern therapy dog. (The dog's more of a husky mix.) Because of the ring, he does have a bit more comprehension, like a mild enhanced intelligence, but not enough to truly be human. Some of his comprehension skills require some figuring out by everyone else, because he is trying to apply how a dog perceives the world. One friend actually introduced him to a lantern party which had one "that guy" who chose a member of the squirrel alien race, and minmaxed and was a total douche about him. The first introduction essentially had Hal Jordan telling him vague directions, like "Up." "Left". The character didn't understand and was told to make an initiative save against Rover who won the intiative roll, then succeeded with the grapple check, because he caught and had the squirrel in his mouth. He tried to blast out, but because of the metaphysics, Green Rings make Blue Rings stronger, because of Will and Hope. Hal had to coax Rover in dropping the player, who wasn't impressed with nearly getting eaten.
Mip (Like Boo's sound in Baldur's gate). Imagine a weird, furless rodent... thing that fits in the palm of your hand. With a little elephant trunk, little grubby paws... It was the result of decades of discarded potions in the sewers mutating mice and rats. Anyways. The oddity was, this thing could talk. I gave it the highest, squeakiest voice I could muster. It wasn't very bright, but the players loved that little critter.
In one campaign, the PCs were in a guild of mercenaries. While the party was basically the a-team of the guild, there was also an enthusiastic young recruit named Barley. Barley was a lower level than the party and they took it upon themselves to train him. They never took him on any of their missions because they were so afraid of him being hurt, but they would train him when they were back at the guild hall. When the party got more recruits into their guild, Barley became the leader of the b-team. I encouraged my players to take Barley into the final gauntlet of the campaign. They were prepared for their little cinnamon roll to die. Wrong. They didn't realize that their training turned him into a tanky juggernaut who was capable of taking a few hits from dragons and mindflayers.
By my players' demand, the Barley archetype was been established. It is a lower-leveled character that exists to be trained by the party. They will never (or very rarely) take Barley out on missions because of the immense guilt they would feel for his death (death in my games is a lot more permanent than just snorting some diamond dust with a cleric nearby). Despite their reluctance to get him into deadly situations, they will train him to be a bona fide wrecking ball. Once his training is complete, the PCs will take him into the final boss battle, where he tends to prove himself to be the most capable member of the team.
Dr. Leonore Von Cocceji - A Human Artificer that was created for a D&D Isekai’d session where Leonore is summoned in to a new world as a teenager (originally being in her late forties) with four others, basically her character was: *What if a villain realized how messed up they are and try to do good now*.
The funny thing with Leonore was that she had a… tendency to *adopt* orphans or kids her party had unfortunately killed the parents of. Leading her to rebuild an old castle and its golems/automatrons to help her take care of the kids.
At first it was a joke, but then it evolved onto one of the kids accidentally summoning a basilisk king (which was on par with a dragon) and having to fight it. Everyone loved it so much that when we did a new session, we just used the kids that Leonore ended up saving.
Also, 47 was number of kids saved.
STEEB! Steeb is a goblin. The last surviving goblin in an ambush party that hit my players when they were level 3. After they chase this goblin of a tree that was on fire (My players thought it was a good idea to catch the trees on fire to help them fight, that's another story), Steeb took one heroic last stand. Just for fun, I decided to play eye of the tiger as I narrated the brave last survivor throwing a rock heroically at the dragonborn barbarian in the party. It critted, and thus a legend was born.
The raging barbarian still had plenty of health left and it ended up only doing like four damage to him, and as far as combat statistics goes, was a meaningless gesture.
My entire party lost it as they found that to be the most hilarious badass thing they had ever seen, and they worked hard to make sure they capture the goblin alive.
Afterwards, the party board bribed the goblin with The promise of feeding them all they could want in order to switch sides and join the party.
I am terrible with coming up with names, so I told them that the goblin would agree to go by whatever name they decided to give him, because he didn't particularly care for his goblin name.
They spent the entire week between that session and the next debating what name they should give this now very important NPC.
They were ultimately stuck between Steeb and Gordo, and it came down to a coin flip. That is how this goblin got his name.
Four levels later, and Steeb is the official mascot of the party. He was their herald and messenger who delivered their challenge to the goblin King. The party split itself two ways in our last session so that three of them could go transfer this prisoners to the capital after they were done interrogating it and the other three could take Steeb with them as they intervene in the succession crisis among the goblins.
I fully expect in the next two or three sessions that King Steeb the goblin bread-tyrant will be leading all of Goblin kinds and a softer, gentler, and more bread loving direction.
Clef Khimarim, a Yuan Ti pureblood Circle of Dreams druid who simply was a house agent who acted almost as an investigator for his grove, by searching people’s dreams for answers. For some reason the players and 2 spectators (we are always on discord calls so some people who aren’t part of the game watch and listen) immediately loved the character (probably my fault because he had a mask but still) and 1 of them who draws a lot decided to give me a free commission.
All of this because I decided to take what I thought was the hardest background to fit with a druid and this was the first time I played after being a forever dm. :\
Karamine (karma) bard student who had to drop out of bard school after a bully was unalived by bad karma build up and she was the only one around. The party, namely the party’s bard has taken her in and learned that the nicer they are to her, the more good things happen, meanwhile a goblin threw a rock at her and a meteorite took the goblins head.
Currently running two characters each in seprate games that are basic and just growing slowly.
First and easiest to summarize.
Boom the Kobold Alchemist (Pathfinder 1e) while intelligent is naive, almost completely lacks object permancy, and is now Red Green color blind. No idea what color he is but is god is Michel Bay.
And
Jim Beam, combat medic (basically soldier and cleric multiclass Starfinder) has grown from simple concept to, well players wanting to be from his homeworld, so far two players have lost or retired their characters and made a human from Rusty Waters.
You can have the coolest or stupidest character concept ever. The only thing that really matters is how hard you RP them.