Our DM had this knight. Sir Lawrence. Basically a expy of one of those knights from ASOIAF or the Witcher, that is young and inexperienced and dies in a gruesome way. Except this guy *didn’t* . It wasn’t for lack of trying, hell, the first time he joined our party as a newly dubbed questing knight, all of the other npc party members got absolutely annihilated in the long dungeon delving expedition (highlights include a lockpicking rogue getting bit in two by a mimic, and a barbarian getting pincushioned by a kobold ambush set on fire and plummeting into the chasm below) This guy, through the grace of the dice and the DM playing him like an actual thinking person rather than a flesh sack resulted in this kid getting out of there by the skin of his teeth. We would meet up with him over the campaign again and again, doing other missions, and we would begin hearing of his deeds. “Some knight killed the Bugbear of mossy cobbles.” “The Brave Sir Lawrence slew the fearsome cockatrice of the fell marsh.” “Have you heard! Sir Lawrence has rescued the daughter of the Duke of Greentree from the clutches of the boglug giant clan!” “Ah, you are the ones I’m looking for. The “Ah! You are the ones I am looking for. Sir Lawrence cordially invites you to his wedding, to the lady Olvia. Ps, tell Torgud that beer will be free and plentiful.” “Remember, you need only hold the Orcs until the sword of the realm, Sir Lawrence arrives with the vanguard of the royal army” Lawrence you absolute madlad.
One time during a campaign, we were tasked by a village of druids to destroy an outpost of waspfolk (a homebrew race for the campaign). Most of us snuck in no problem... except for my dragonborn barbarian who tripped over all the furniture and bumped into one of the guards. Panicking, I did the first thing that came to mind and tried flirting with the guard... nat20... and since then, Beetrice the waspfolk warrior has been a love interest for my character and a favorite of the group ever since!
A bat. The party was seeking shelter in a cave and I had a cauldron of bats immediately leave when the players disturbed them. All but one, as I thought it would be fun flavour to leave one behind, soundly asleep. I had forgotten that the ranger had Speak with animals. I had also forgotten that her player LOVES bats... My second mistake was picking the most shrill and throat-cutting voice for it, as little did I know that this bat (named "Friend") would stay with this group to the end of the campaign. The players cried in the final episode when he flew back to his cave (I didn't want him to die in the upcoming boss fight against a white dragon). But he found his way back to them eventually because I'm not a monster.
Just want to take a moment the appreciate the Hollow Knight Greenpath OST playing in the background of the video. One of my favorite exploring tracks from a really great game
Yeah man, I love Hollow Knight. I wish I could pick more songs from games I absolutely love, but the music has to be pretty low-intensity, so a lot of the best OSTs are just plain out. Same with the ones that are more synth, like the VA-11 Hall-A OST. - The Editor
Grimbus Grimbul. Literally just the raccoon wizard holding a crystal ball meme. I sit there staring blankly into space and frantically wave my hands over a fake crystal ball. He talks way too fast to the point that I slip up and slur my words incredibly often. He is now canonically a practically omnipotent being that just shows up whenever to do whatever and then dip.
Larry Hopper. A human wizard who I just came up with on the fly as a pun. Turns out his nervous disposition and higher voice made him a crowd favorite.
From my Ghosts of Saltmarsh game: Krebb, a little fish man who was a purveyor of ill-gotten contraband. He would show up in Saltmarsh at the start of every mission with new, interesting and dangerous products. When it came time for the party to face down a Kraken that was fast approaching Saltmarsh, Krebb appeared one final time with his pièce de résistance; the *Kraken Buster* , a whale harpoon with a cavity drilled into the head that contained an entire Necklace of Fireballs hastily soldered into it with copper wire.
So, I started DMing a campaign for my wife and a few other friends who were new do D&D. I wanted the campaign to be light-hearted, simple and fun, with lots of chances for them to rp and explore their characters backstory, and not overcharge them too much with 'them annoying rules. Maybe because they were all new to the game, everyone made a martial class: a barbarian, two paladins and a rogue (who later had to leave cuz personal reasons, another friend joined in her place playing a druid). The campaign started with the group arriving at a small town called Uhnala, not too far away from the country's capital, and there was a festival going on. The first session would be just them roleplaying at the festival, interacting with NPCs and playing minigames, also getting to meet a few other adventurers that could help them in the future, all of them with different personalities and each of them able to help the party in a different way. By the end of the 1st session, there would be an attack and the governor's daughter would be abducted, and their first quest would be to investigate and rescue her. Because all of them were martials, I made lots of casters and utilitarian NPCs, a few examples being: Tulazi Whisperfall, the flirty, smart human bardess; Luna Ibar, the cruel, bitchy human sorceress; Olarion Greenleaf, the gentle, helpful half-elf ranger; or Manmorn Fapplebonk, the loudmouth, quack "arch"wizard gnome. This short description I just gave them was really about what each of them had, other than their sheets, all of them ranging from level 2 to level 5 (the party started at level 3). Tulazi Whisperfall was the 1st ever NPC they interacted with in the campaign! As soon as they arrived in the city, they saw her dancing and playing her violin to the public in the festival, she would dance around her audience, invite them to join her for a few minutes, flirt with them, then go to the next. When the group got closer, she did the same with the rogue. The group immediately took a liking to her bright personality and liked her even more when she started giving them all the information they couldn't get from their terrible Intelligence checks. Since she was a "local", she'd tell them about the local lore, guide them to wherever they needed to go in that first city (which they could've asked any other NPC, but they asked her) and, of course, she'd always poke fun at the party members by singing ridiculous songs about them, especially if it was to mock their romantic/sexual interests, like if they were all middle-schoolers or something. Lo and behold! 2 years since the start of the campaign, and Tulazi Whisperfall is still with them, at level 8. She grew on the party in a way I really never expected. She also fits in the team like a glove since she has all the Intelligence and Wisdom proficiencies (including Arcana expertise), control and healing spells that the party so sorely lacks, including being the only one with Counterspell in her arsenal. I even had to start writing a more concise backstory for Tulazi, who grew from "oh the flirty smart bardess who loves to joke around and plays a violin" to a full-fledged, deep character, with her own backstory and goals, and am even planning on a quest that will explore her backstory, together with one of the paladin's (both are related to dragons). Since she kinda became a permanent member of the team, and I didn't want her to be my DMPC nor to steal the spotlight from the players, I did ask them several times if I should find some way to remove her from the team or make her less constant, or if there was anything about her that bothered them or she should stop doing, but every time they say something along the lines of "WHAT???? NOOOOOO WE LOVE TULAZI YOU LEAVE OUR BARD ALONE 😡"
Cinder Summerpeak, my Fire Genasi Pugilist. I reworked her from an NPC, and her new background was basically 'an orphan raised by martial artist named Paul, and loves to fight/booze' and BOOM, and amazing player character who will now be an NPC with her own bar/grill in every one of my campaigns going forward lol
I sent a kobold to the Astral plane because I didn't feel like managing weight and handed my party bags of holding. They spent an actual hour trying to theorize how to get him out of there. The way I do the Astral plane is different than RAW, it's less of a sea and more of a vacuum that life can, inexplicably, survive in without food, water or air. There's no traction, so there's no way to move. This is why bags of holding work. They managed to get the kobold, but by the time they pulled him out, a subjective 1000 years had past for him, though he hadn't aged a day.
A little orphan who ran off into the woods to go hunting after being inspired by our party. Ended up being adopted by our second rogue, a grizzled war veteran who had previously lost his wife and unborn daughter in childbirth.
Galmar the human. His grandfather was an elf who married a human. His father was a half elf who married a human. Through sheer bad luck, he exclusively got human DNA from both parents. He’s middle aged at his grandfather’s tavern without any kind of magic, unlike the rest of his family. One of my players swore they’d find a headband of intellect and train him as an apprentice some day. That group’s storyline ended but some of those players are in my campaign reboot where everything the previous party did was still canon. Can’t wait for the old players to run into a traveling “human” named Galmar.
One of my characters met an orphan NPC in a game a friend of mine ran named Miriam. She was like six years old at the time of this game and the city our party was traveling through was in the middle of a massive war which had destroyed the district, Miriam getting lost in the chaos. My character wound up adopting her and raising her as his own, which the party hadn't expected really considering my character was a very stoic inquisitor. I basically modeled his attitude towards her off Gordon Ramsay when he deals with kids (goes from being deadly serious to genuinely kind.) The party was already enjoying the dynamic at first, but the DM and I decided to add a fun dynamic to it. She wound up becoming a witch as a first level adventurer in a campaign set ten years later. As a joke I mentioned that she was wearing my character's old inquisitor hat in lieu of the classic witch's cap, and the party friggin loved it. Been looking for a reason to break out Miriam as my PC ever since.
Ember Darkness was supposed to be a one-off goon for a larger boss fight. He was a MCR-coded emo tiefling wizard who had two katanas and a dark “mysterious” past (obviously a breakup that was his fault). The party had a short conversation with him, and the bard asked to roll an insight check because “It seems like he rules. Does he?” A Nat 1 Insight check resulted in “yeah dude, he rules,” and the party convinced him to come with them instead of doing his dumb job. He’s been with the party ever since 🤷♂️
I had an NPC Guard named "Charlie Grag." He was a human guarding the gate to a town with another guard. The BBEG of the story casted Sleep on them both and Waltzed on into town. When the party got there, they were asleep. Woke them up. Then sort of yelled at them. "Yeah... we're definitely getting fired." The next day, they're leaving. They only see Charlie. They ask what happened to the other dude. C: "He got fired." Player: "Wouldn't you both get fired?" DM: [Uh oh. Mistake on my part. Ill play into it.] C: "Oh. Right. I did get fired. Ill see you around" Charlie leaves and the players burst out laughing. They later find him wearing armour he can't properly move in at a trade post tower on a trade route. With a wooden plank he lowers to stop carts. They love seeing him again, and they convince him to join the party.
I got this fun one I did for a randomized one shot. The party was just doing some typical andventuing and exploring in one direction of a hub world style city. Outside the walls in one direction was a grim, gloomy, and ,how I imagine it, green-ish hued wasteland. Not too far from the city walls was a stable with an old, dilapidated house and a shed. On the porch was a skeleton just swaying in a rocking chair. I didn't give him a name, but he was once human and alive, but just was too lazy or comfortable to move from his chair and ended up just becoming a skeleton. I kinda gave him Futurama's Scruffy as a personality. Whem the party was looking for some sort of transport, he told him he had some horses for sale, but didnt exactly have skin... or organs. Because of that he let the party buy them at a discount. Since it was a one shot, they part basically recieved horses that would never tire for about 15 gold. Probably the deal of the century.
I had a stable hand just outside the main city in the world I built. The characters first arrived at the stables through a hidden hatch underneath the bin where the guard stored the horse poop awaiting to be shipped to the farms... for no reason whatsoever as soon as they came out of the poop bin, and were beginning to be questioned, our gnome rogue went "no time for questions, give me your shoes!" He passed the persuasion check, and the guard frantically took off his shoes, while the rogue gave the guard his... the gnome swims in the man's boots, while the man can't even stretch the gnome-sized boots enough to get his toes in. The party then convinced him that they needed the horses to save the world, and flashed a note from the captain of the guard saying any guardsmen must help the party save the world (designed to allow them to leave the city in a lockdown) As they rode off, they asked his name... I named him Niké, so when the referenced him I'd never forget they stole his shoes. Later they came back and needed horses again, the man pleaded saying he needed to protect the horses as he got reamed when the last ones went missing and didn't come back with the party. He wore the gnome boots with the shoelaces tied loosely around his neck. They gave him a potion they got from a dark source, and convinced him it would make him better at his job. He aged 6 years instantly... The third time they came to visit, he gave up and let them take/do whatever they wanted. He gave them a sob story about his kid who doesn't recognise him anymore, and they said they could help... immediatelt he broke down crying at the thought of them ruining the child's future. That time, they gave him a pair of Giant's boots. So now there's a rapidly aged guard, wandering around the horseless stables in boots that are much too big, with comically small boots worn as decoration who dreams of the life he's lost to the seemingly harmless shenanigans of the party. They still plan to see him when they visit the city in the next session or two.
I was running Curse of Straad with my friends, and we were at the old bone grinder windmill. They were a small party, and were 3rd level, so I got rid of two of the night hags. Our Druid had earlier gotten a bag of beans, so he decided to plant one on the top floor. It grew a hostile treant. The triant then broke through the floor and crushed half the party on the ground floor. Let’s just say we needed a few more character sheets after that…
Simon. Simeon Der Grunfell, or Simon, was an ancient Gnoll with dementia. The campaign was based on Irish and Scandinavian myths, and the party was looking for one of the Tuatha De Danann, and after making their way through a forest of deadly traps and monster dens they find a cabin with a senile old blind gnoll who couldn’t tell the difference between his own sword and a frying pan living there. I made him speak by flapping my cheeks, making him sound like a water logged engine with his nose plugged, and my party absolutely loved him. An old insane little goober that took care of his frying pan like it was a magic weapon, and had the attention span and memory of a gnat. I initially left things open ended as to weather or not he was Tuatha De Danann. One of the local mercenaries guild apparently took a liking to him, and had been protecting him from wayward adventurers, thus the traps, and built him a place to stay out there. He brought by food and stuff to make him comfortable every so often. But my party liked him so much that I ended up fleshing out his backstory, made it so that he really was Tuatha De Danann and giving him a supernaturally long life as a gift from the goddess Danu. So what started out as a red herring to distract the party, and an excuse for me to make a senile old gnoll. Ended up being a favorite NPC, and my party returned to that forest a number of times just to see how Simon was doing. I also gave my party the pleasure of watching Simon slap a rival tribe of gnolls around with his frying pan when said tribe invaded a city my party was protecting, they got a real kick out of that.
I came up with this NPC on the spot, as I needed someone selling potions and other magical doodads at a shop in a small town in the middle of nowhere, his name was Fikrov the human wizard. he was a carbon copy of your stereotypical wizard, purple robes big pointed magic hat. He did all the silly wizard things that wizards do, like making glitter shoot out from his hand or pulling gold pieces (your gold pieces) out from behind your ear and keeping them for himself. He sold a variety of different useless magical items like a magic stick that can expand into an oar on command. There was an item that one of my players really wanted but couldn't afford (I forgot what it was at this point) so I hastily made up a side quest for the party to do; they had to take back a special alchemy jug from an different Wizards business a few towns over upon retrieving this "alchemy jug" it was revealed to have only one use: and that was to make mayo for Fikrovs ham sandwiches Everything was made up on the spot and so everything that Fikrov did looked like he was making it up on the spot. my players loved him so much I decided to make him a reoccurring character through out the campaign. (and important character later on)
Mine was my PC half-orc Rogue. He was a joke character because I was a filler at the table, just playing while this other player was away for a couple of months. Kumo, the half-orc, was raised by a loving halfing family and being adopted by them made him specially dexterous with tiny objects, and once he reached the big city in his first adventure, the local thieves guild hired him as a bodyguard until they noticed he could be most excellent at lockpicking. The party really enjoyed Kumo because he was good-natured and often wrote home about his adventures. Since he wasn't good at writing, he would just draw the most recent events and label the characters portrayed. I would replicate every one of his drawings and share with the table.
As a DM, when I have an npc that is at least important enough to have a name, but not important enough to be more than just a name, I choose a BS name. Take, for example, the barge captain Harry Paratesticles. Zero thought, zero stats, zero personality, he's point A to point B travel. The party began to use him exclusively when traveling in that direction. They liked him. Before long, he's fighting beside them in defense of his barge. Someone asked about his level now that he's been fighting all these monsters. So I figured EXP. Anyway, to make a long story short, Harry Paratesticles went on to become a hero in his own right, and on his death, his son, Long took over the barge and became a hero as well. Thanks to that one party, there is now a legacy of heroes, operating the biggest barge company in the land, and the honorable Paratesticles family.
In the current campaign I'm in, I'm playing a homebrew warlock Kobold. He's quite literally insane and mostly screams about knives (the utensil and his patron) and currently, he's the glue holding most of the party together. They find him adorable when he waves knives around like a toddler with a stick
I'd say, Stuck. A hill giant that found his way trapped in a large chamber of an abandoned mine shaft, he fell in when he was young, and grew too large to escape. He had a cult of goblins that brought him food, but all he really wanted was to get out. The party slayed the goblins, found stuck and promised to find a way to get home put. Sadly they never got to because that game never continued.
In our Transformers TTRPG campaign, set on a post-war Cybertron where everyone os trying to coexist, the party went after Shockwave, former mad scientist for the Decepticons who was up to something. They brought Starscream along because they think he knows something about Shockwave's plans, and wanted to keep an eye on him. They split up, with Starscream and one player sneaking through the base while the others cause a distraction. Starscream saved that player several times and actually contributed to the fight. Now everyone loves him OoC, but IC they have to still hate him and distrust him. Of course, they're right to not trust him. It's Starscream. Scheming is his hobby. Even saving that player was part of his plan. They don't know that yet though. PS I think this counts because I didn't put much thought into Screamer, since, you know, he's already got a set character.
In a playthrough I watched on RUclips, the DM created this enemy Soldier Captain that was supposed to be a recurring character. Players killed him the first chance they got. In the same battle, there was a random grunt that the characters got attached to. One of the players named him Gary and they all did everything in their power to see that he survived the encounter, trying to get him promoted to captain. Later on in the campaign, an enemy cultist was about to flee with the magic horn they were after when Gary suddenly appears out of nowhere, shoots the cultist in the head with an arrow, nods, and rides away on a horse. The players were ecstatic. From then on, the party began referring to themselves as “Gary’s Angels”.
For my campaign, it was a copper dragon that would use polymorph to appear as various humans to travel around and generally be a pain in the ass to the local populace. Nothing malicious, just that guy who thinks he is hilarious to everyone that meets him and anyone who doesn't think he is gets an extra special dose of annoyingly funny attitude. Paldr (Paul-der) the Skinny One was a random helpful encounter for the group meant to be a one-time event. But for some reason, my bad impression of Eddie Murphy as Mushu ended up being a hit. He became a regular occurrence when the party needed a nudge in the right direction when they were lost and even went on a mission assisting one party member to deal with a Djinni that was rather hostile. It was fun to have him come by breaking up an otherwise somber campaign. He turned into my favorite by the end of the story.
Okay so I had a guild of mercenaries the players could recruit from at will, and they decided to hire a lizardman swordsman to accompany them named Garrion. Two players were talking, one of them IC and the other one not realizing he was being talked to IC. In response to some question, I think it was, "How many of us are there? Let's see, there's Garrion..." and the other player immediately piped in, "Garrion's not real." For laughs I had Garrion overhear and get paranoid, calling out, "I'm not real?" He had an existential breakdown then and there, and the rest of the party had to comfort him for a while. It became kind of an in-joke among my players. I try to work a reference into any campaign that involves said players.
In one of the first campaigns I was in, I played a young girl whose main gimmick was doll manipulation. She was heavily inspired by Alice Margatroid from Touhou. I was not used to roleplaying outside of text, and her backstory was also rather cliche. However, I had a lot of fun giving her dolls some personality. Though they never spoke, I would have them express themselves in many ways. "Doll shenanigans" had become somewhat of a meme within the group. Besides that, as the story continued and I grew more comfortable, I like to think I got better at developing the character. The party, myself included, actually started to care about her more.
a small flamboyant feathery messenger dragon i used to deliver the party member their mission descriptions and quest related items. he would randomly hop on their shoulders, accompany them sometimes to the quest ends, give them pointers and show them the way to the rewards once in a while. they somehow liked to roleplay to pet and feed him whenever he was with the party or visited them in the tavern.
The Lair! A human who was a compulsive liar. It was my first time being a player and I accidentally managed to get a +12 in deception which helped my character greatly
My players came into possession of a small rundown house that they repaired and sinked so much gold into as a goldsink. They accumulated land and made it into a minimal castle. They needed a steward and i rolled up Bartholomew Abrams and his daughter Sima Abrams. An old lovely coot with a cane and a busty daughter. Now if someone as much as glares at any of them they get to feel the wrath of a lvl 17 party of 5. One party member even went on a killing spree when a gang of thugs bumped into "B" in the market. They will do ANYTHING for those 2.
THIS is my DM son's time to shine. Covid was happening, and we ran a fairly long campaign {2+ years). Every Christmas there would be a "holiday special." The first year we fought and defeated Krampus in a large gingerbread house. My halfling arcane trickster was apparently not worthy of the magic weapons under the Christmas tree. Now you need to understand that I (in character) collected pets. What was under the tree for me was a mouse wearing a Santa hat. It turns out that my pet mouse wears hats. Hats that change with the landscape, change with the plot, etc. I crowdsourced what to name him, and the winner was Trogdor (RUclips it). Nobody ever knows what Trogdor is wearing until somebody asks. Trogdor is not a combatant, but by the end of the campaign we learned three things... 1. Trogdor is immortal. 2.We met a fey queen who was terrified of him and 3.He exists on every plane. The campaign ended when my son left for college, so I still have so many questions. Thankfully, I was allowed to transfer my character into a professional campaign and the DM loved the concept. Long live Trogdor (well... he is immortal)!
Now to be clear, the Npc i refer to in this is not one, but just the many which go by the same name and dependant on which is closest to my character at the time. My Necromancer in a pathfinder game has access to the create undead spell due to his archtype reanimator. Given that he has access to more unique types of undead, his main choice to create is a husk zombie which is a more intelligent and well preserved zombie akin to beef Jerky than rotting meat. The name came from jerky to be honest when trying to think of a name for a zombie, Jeffrey! Now Jeffrey applies to the closest zombie to my person, the others at the time referred to as not Jeffrey. Thus it almost has become a bragging topic which one is Jeffery at which point in time, which has gained much love to the ridiculous lengths the husk zombies will go to in order to be or not be "the Jeffery" depending on the situation. From rock paper scissors, to very slow "not its". For every need Lyle Evilman has, there's a Jeffrey to do it for them.
Old Dave. Even his name is the most simple in the entire campaign. The entire idea was an elderly and tidy hermit living off fish and his garden on the far corner of a pirate island. He can sell any service or good that could be sold at a shipyard. (He can sell cannons and ballistae). The only thing unique to him was that he could help repair a wrecked warship somewhere else on the island. My party came across a well-kept hut with an unusually large pier on the far side of the island. They smell something coming from the clearing near the hut... grilled salmon. First thing party asks is if they could have some. Old Dave, being the nice old man he is, points to the rack of drying fish and tells the players to throw another one on the grill. The players enjoy a pleasant lunch with the old man, talking about magical artifacts and buried treasure. They also discover that a more important NPC, Ragol Kraala, artillerist and brother of the "Pirate Queen", provides much of Old Dave's stock. The players, who also happen to like Ragol, only like Old Dave even more. I expect they'll be giving him more business throughout the campaign.
a spider found by a random perception check, and it wasn't even the first one, dammit! it was the second or third, the others i didn't succeed the animal handling check on i basically made it so that, when my wildfire druid did the wildfire spirit thing, it was ACTUALLY transforming the SPIDER into a MUCH BIGGER, FLAMEY SPIDER shenanigans ensued
Kermudgeon the kenku. A small kenku rogue who was sent to kill one of the party members. But when they caught him and questioned, the only words he could speak was SQUAK!!! KERMUDGEON!!!!
The Muscle Koi. It was just an ordinary fish that took offense to one of the players eying it as food. Leapt out of the water, knocked the character back. The character challenged the fish again, and lost. This is how the GM forced the session to move past the koi pond the entire party was watching for a literal hour. In the setting we play in, Muscle Koi exists in all reasonable places in all times. Occasionally has to smack hungry players.
Reginald, the group's batman, he was given to the group as a reward for saving the sons of a couple of nobles, my group are terrible at camp management so it's just easier to say that Reginald does everything, he's very much the uppercrust gent, knowledgable, remembers everything said within ear shot, apparently a bit of a cad in his youth, people know him or know of him and over time the group are convinced he's either the BBEG in disguise or their greatest ally the group absolutely love him, he is exactly what he says and is loyal to the group, a throwaway servant has become the only npc the group even cares about
mine was a blind cobbler with a harpy wife (tldr my campaign was a kind of variant of raven-loft but stuck to a town infested with demons under the well in the town center that only came to feed at night and wouldn't be able to brake in to the houses) after a few days of helping him with his craft they took a day to themselves and that night he didn't get home in time i thought oh theirs no worries but boy did they want to unalive all those demons
The party was chasing down an assassin who'd busted out a window and run away. The only witness was an old man in a rocking chair on his back porch. They asked him if he'd seen the assassin. "Eeyup." Did they run down that alley? "Mmnope." That other one?! "Eeyup." And off they ran. Then they came back and talked to him some more. His vocabulary never got any bigger, but they loved this guy. He didn't even have a name! At the end of the campaign I asked if they wanted to see anything in the next game and they said "More of that old guy in the rocking chair!"
I don’t have any experience with DnD, but me and some of my friends are starting a Percy Jackson inspired campaign. None of it was very serious, as can be seen from our character names alone. I was a son of Hades named Bentinio Swagolini, One of my friends was a child of Ares named Reace Tart, and my other friend was a son of Hephaestus named Etin Kabbaj. My character has a companion creature named Stevano. He is a rat who my character has trained to play music on a miniature piano soundboard that also has meme sounds. Name a better companion/bard.
I ran a 5e game for the first time. It was a colonial south america rip off meshed with my very patchy knowledge of Warhammer's Lustria. Anyway. The party arrived at the colonial capital and enter a tavern at the marketplace right behind the docks. It was called the Wooden Fish, since this whole place was built and populated mostly by seamen or lumberjacks, seeing it was a human/dwarven/halfling empire's first step to the new world and they had to fight the jungle and its inhabitants (trees ,snakes, crocs and very angry lizardmen and trees) every step of the way. I just threw in your regular mid fourties tavernkeep, gave him a northern german accent, some backstory on how he used to be a sailor and so on. They talked to him often when they arrived for breakfast or to drink after a long day. He was just a gap filler at first but turned into a staple of the setting. Then one time they arrived with a McGuffin they knew attracted Ankhegs (those burrowing maneating insect things from the MM). I have them so many hints about it being a time bomb (calling out the hours like on the series "24") They went for a Spa day. The insects attacked. They ha to battle to save the city but the dice were not always nice. The tavernkeep lost his left leg after his wife got eaten whole. The party slew the beasts but shared deeply in the poor man's depression. Later they met him again when tasked to escort some pilgrim's on their way to a new pious settlement where he looked for a fresh start and that was when real life ended the campaign.
A character in a sci-fi game I was dming for my siblings. The party had been sent to a remote mining outpost to find out why it had gone dark. They get to the station and find a bunch of people barricaded in the stations chapel. Braindead Bobby was a character I had intended to be mentioned in passing as the sole survivor of a massive shaft collapse a month prior and had only recently woken up from the resulting coma (hence the nickname) when the party asked for him to join them when they returned to the ship to report back to home I knew it would not end well. Then when the party decided to barricaded themselves in the only way off the station as a group of killer robots were cutting through the ships door I knew my plans for this being a 1 shot were done for. They ended up stranded on the station for a week waiting for a rescue fleet to arrive. During that time the party went on several recon and resource gathering expeditions and Bobby was their sniper of choice to accompany them and he saved their bacon several times. (I swear he crit more often than should be legal.)
Chirp & Phibula He was an old Goblin we found boozed up at the bar we needed information on a location of catacombs Since he now worked a tthe church as a cleric luckilly he had it. i dont fully remember the rest but i remeber he was boozed cuz he lost his daughter and got a messy divorce we just fell in love whit him we wanted only the best for him so we made him join us we also met Phibula, who is basically an oc i used to draw all the time the DM suddenly decied to plop into the story i was really happy since we only became two at one point we wanted to make Chirp and Phibs secondary characters so it would be a party of 4 unforfotunatly we never were able to continue the story Rip Chip the Boozy Cleric and Phibs the chaotic chaotic Blacksmith maybe one day you'll be seen again
So I wouldn't say love because it has only been one session so far. Basically an as of now unnamed NPC was in the tavern when word gets around of an expedition to a lost continent and I describe the reaction of a few NPCs. Fast forward to the party on the ship of said expedition and one of the players asks who else is there. So I select a couple of the aforementioned NPCs (most of them were about to die anyway) so I describe a skinny Lizardfolk fighter and a Gnomish artificer who is always tinkering with an unknown contraption. One of my players go "I want to talk to the gnome." (I did NOT name him Sam Smorkle) and decided to have a bit of fun by portraying this gnome as mildly crazy and unhinged spouting conspiracy theories about the lost continent and several other things including Hollow Earth. To mess with my players I decided that about 2/3 of what he actually said is right in some way or another (not the hollow earth part though). Of course the players don't know this (yet) and he just seems like a generic crazy person but I will probably have him make a return in some way because the players thought he was hilarious and I can't wait until come across the lost city of Sarrukh and realize he was right. I was completely honest with my players and they didn't even realize it. I even had the gnome exclaim "I'm not crazy! My mother had me tested!"
Blarney Killakalarney is a Folk Hero - his claim to fame is that one time a troll broke down the door of his favorite tavern, and in a drunken rage, Blarney punches his balls clean off, driving the troll away. A traveler witnessing this happened to be Master Jameson - who brought Blarney aboard Captain Morgan's boat - back to Al'chael isle, home the monks of the Drunken Fist. I play him with the most heinously exaggerated Irish accent, and I take a shot before he has to do any amount of speaking. He introduces himself as follows: "Me name's Blarney, Blarney Killakalarney! Nao who de fook do ya tink you are!?" Every DM I have exposed to this character has adopted him as an NPC for all of their games
This is one that is sad and horrifying. In cyberpunk 2020, I had a gang of drug dealers and human trafficker, each member of the gang was names after sweet food related things (like coco, tootsie roll, Betty Crocker, easy bake, ect). One of the gang members was a medtech named Dr. K (Special K) who was a monotone killjoy who would mentally abuse and torture people to turn them into play beings. In essence he is a bad and terrible person who I made to explain the terrible things that happen in night city and was suppose to be killed on the spot. The party loved him at first sight, and wanted to help him turn the population of night city into meat puppets. Thru the campaign I would have Dr.K do more and more unholy things (in sake of keeping things family friendly I will not state what thous things are) and yet the party would be in support of the actions even if it was counter productive to the parties goals. I later learned the main reason the party loved this monster was that I described him like a "tumbler sexy man" and one of the party members thought they could fix him. The rest of the party loved the ship so they went along with it, luckily for me I had to move so I no longer play with that party. On the bright side In cyberpunk red I tell his story as a Charles Manson/ Jim Jones like person, and the term "The Dr. K Special" means you are going to be brainwashed to do unspeakable things.
NPC in a Yugioh themed campaign.... I forget his name... lets call him LiL Piggy because he was a Bard who in univerde was flavored to use a Pig themed arctype. He wasnt the strongest duelest (fighter) but helped the group with his high analytical ability and drive to self improve putting himself throigh training regimens that made the rest of us wince One session weve gone off to raid one of the bases od the 7 Deity Kings (Co BBEGs of the campaign) when we came back we found our base trashed and no sign of Lil Piggy save for his blazer and duel disk after some investigation rolls found a recording of one of the other BBEG's raiding our base in turn (Said BBEG was the honorable warrior type) forcing Lil Piggy into a duel to spill what he knew about our plans...... The DM Roleplayed it as a Shadow Game (lose the duel, lose your soul) with some psychologocal horror extra element. Lil Piggy was getting his ass beat in the duel based on how the DM rolled the nice (no actual duel just rp based on dice rolls), with a lucky D20 landed a blow on the BBEG's lifepoints or health... It for better or worse earned the BBEG's respect for showing such valliant effort despite the difference in power..... he decided to unleach his ultimate combo with his ace monster which was basically a lv6 spell critting on a D20 in a lv 10 i believe campaign flavored as an epic card combo We were all furious and saddened as we saw the despair in our friend's eyes as he truly felt the difference in ability first hand as his life points aka hp hit 0 and his body (save the afformentioned blazer and duel disk) dissapear as particles of dark light that were sucked into the ground as if being drawn to hell. As his physical form evaporated, with the last of his strength he stared at the security camera "I'm sorry.... I guess I'll never be as strong as you guys afterall"
Gragnar the destroyer of worlds was a gnome cleric worshipping a homebrewed goddess known only as mother to the party oh and did i meantion noone knew he was a cleric. Gragnar was a retired adventurer who was meant to point the party in the direction of the base of operations of the bbeg but was so loved he became not only an honorary memeber of the party but became a minor diety himself through ALOT of shenanigans and sheer dumb luck. The whole deal as to why he was beloved was he would constantly be talking to mother but since the party was unaware of his clericness they just thought he was crazy and was also very humourous constantly mumbling about mother not liking someone or how he must ask mother for guidance eventually causing our whole party to adopt speaking with "mother" sarcastically until one day she answrred not only to threaten our entire party but then grant gragnar divine power beyond his wildest dreams turning him from a stammering funny lilttle gnome to the single most powerful being the party would ever encounter whose first action was superman flying through the torso of an ancient dragon while screaming "i am gragnar destroyer of worlds" i had to killl him off after a few sessions due to the parties bard and rogue duo constantly taunting his goddess with yo momma jokes throwing him into a rage and almost tpking them 3 different times
In my current campaign im playing a blight monk that can't talk proper common so he speaks like a mix of yoda and the treefolk from Lord of the rings so as his words may be confusing actions speed louder than words and with each kind act or anger for one of the other pcs wanting to make friends with every creature in the jungle continent we are on two sentences have stuck and will continue to be said "child stupid" referring to the pcs passifist actions and "jungle danger" referring to the jungle that everyone in the town said not to go into. So whenever anything dangerous happens jungle danger is repeated and if a bad decision is made child stupid is continously said over the next couple moments where it has come to everyone including g me wanting my charector to get a tattoo/engravings in the vines with those two phrases.
Not an npc, but I played a 4 year old goblin rouge named Eedatick. A very happy go lucky character, and very annoying. There were alot of odd stuff that this character did. Like for instance she won't steal your money, she'll steal your furniture and sell it for money. She had a little wagon with her to load the items. She also had a couldren (with eye holes) to sneak around the battlefield, and slash at people's Achilles tendons. She got adopted by the parties lesbian couple. We finished the campaign but Now when ever I do something remotely related to Eedatick the dm would say "shut up Eedatick " or when ever there is a situation that called for her I have to remind him that she's not here that's a different campagn.
Our DM had this knight. Sir Lawrence. Basically a expy of one of those knights from ASOIAF or the Witcher, that is young and inexperienced and dies in a gruesome way. Except this guy *didn’t* .
It wasn’t for lack of trying, hell, the first time he joined our party as a newly dubbed questing knight, all of the other npc party members got absolutely annihilated in the long dungeon delving expedition (highlights include a lockpicking rogue getting bit in two by a mimic, and a barbarian getting pincushioned by a kobold ambush set on fire and plummeting into the chasm below)
This guy, through the grace of the dice and the DM playing him like an actual thinking person rather than a flesh sack resulted in this kid getting out of there by the skin of his teeth. We would meet up with him over the campaign again and again, doing other missions, and we would begin hearing of his deeds.
“Some knight killed the Bugbear of mossy cobbles.”
“The Brave Sir Lawrence slew the fearsome cockatrice of the fell marsh.”
“Have you heard! Sir Lawrence has rescued the daughter of the Duke of Greentree from the clutches of the boglug giant clan!”
“Ah, you are the ones I’m looking for. The
“Ah! You are the ones I am looking for. Sir Lawrence cordially invites you to his wedding, to the lady Olvia. Ps, tell Torgud that beer will be free and plentiful.”
“Remember, you need only hold the Orcs until the sword of the realm, Sir Lawrence arrives with the vanguard of the royal army”
Lawrence you absolute madlad.
One time during a campaign, we were tasked by a village of druids to destroy an outpost of waspfolk (a homebrew race for the campaign). Most of us snuck in no problem... except for my dragonborn barbarian who tripped over all the furniture and bumped into one of the guards. Panicking, I did the first thing that came to mind and tried flirting with the guard... nat20... and since then, Beetrice the waspfolk warrior has been a love interest for my character and a favorite of the group ever since!
Did y’all destroy the outpost tho
@@Morbidity100 Yeah, our monk cast a spell similar to a kamehameha
@@CrazyHawkeComics and how did Beetrice feel about her outpost being destroyed T.T
@@Morbidity100 She hasn't figured out it was us yet
@@CrazyHawkeComicsShe better not figure it out unless you want to lose her, my man. She seems to be loved by everyone in your group. Lol.
A bat.
The party was seeking shelter in a cave and I had a cauldron of bats immediately leave when the players disturbed them. All but one, as I thought it would be fun flavour to leave one behind, soundly asleep. I had forgotten that the ranger had Speak with animals. I had also forgotten that her player LOVES bats... My second mistake was picking the most shrill and throat-cutting voice for it, as little did I know that this bat (named "Friend") would stay with this group to the end of the campaign. The players cried in the final episode when he flew back to his cave (I didn't want him to die in the upcoming boss fight against a white dragon). But he found his way back to them eventually because I'm not a monster.
Just want to take a moment the appreciate the Hollow Knight Greenpath OST playing in the background of the video. One of my favorite exploring tracks from a really great game
proud of myself for recognising it so quickly
Yeah man, I love Hollow Knight. I wish I could pick more songs from games I absolutely love, but the music has to be pretty low-intensity, so a lot of the best OSTs are just plain out. Same with the ones that are more synth, like the VA-11 Hall-A OST. - The Editor
Grimbus Grimbul. Literally just the raccoon wizard holding a crystal ball meme. I sit there staring blankly into space and frantically wave my hands over a fake crystal ball. He talks way too fast to the point that I slip up and slur my words incredibly often. He is now canonically a practically omnipotent being that just shows up whenever to do whatever and then dip.
You call it kidnapping, I call it forceful adoption
Larry Hopper. A human wizard who I just came up with on the fly as a pun. Turns out his nervous disposition and higher voice made him a crowd favorite.
From my Ghosts of Saltmarsh game: Krebb, a little fish man who was a purveyor of ill-gotten contraband. He would show up in Saltmarsh at the start of every mission with new, interesting and dangerous products. When it came time for the party to face down a Kraken that was fast approaching Saltmarsh, Krebb appeared one final time with his pièce de résistance; the *Kraken Buster* , a whale harpoon with a cavity drilled into the head that contained an entire Necklace of Fireballs hastily soldered into it with copper wire.
So, I started DMing a campaign for my wife and a few other friends who were new do D&D. I wanted the campaign to be light-hearted, simple and fun, with lots of chances for them to rp and explore their characters backstory, and not overcharge them too much with 'them annoying rules.
Maybe because they were all new to the game, everyone made a martial class: a barbarian, two paladins and a rogue (who later had to leave cuz personal reasons, another friend joined in her place playing a druid).
The campaign started with the group arriving at a small town called Uhnala, not too far away from the country's capital, and there was a festival going on. The first session would be just them roleplaying at the festival, interacting with NPCs and playing minigames, also getting to meet a few other adventurers that could help them in the future, all of them with different personalities and each of them able to help the party in a different way. By the end of the 1st session, there would be an attack and the governor's daughter would be abducted, and their first quest would be to investigate and rescue her.
Because all of them were martials, I made lots of casters and utilitarian NPCs, a few examples being: Tulazi Whisperfall, the flirty, smart human bardess; Luna Ibar, the cruel, bitchy human sorceress; Olarion Greenleaf, the gentle, helpful half-elf ranger; or Manmorn Fapplebonk, the loudmouth, quack "arch"wizard gnome. This short description I just gave them was really about what each of them had, other than their sheets, all of them ranging from level 2 to level 5 (the party started at level 3).
Tulazi Whisperfall was the 1st ever NPC they interacted with in the campaign! As soon as they arrived in the city, they saw her dancing and playing her violin to the public in the festival, she would dance around her audience, invite them to join her for a few minutes, flirt with them, then go to the next. When the group got closer, she did the same with the rogue. The group immediately took a liking to her bright personality and liked her even more when she started giving them all the information they couldn't get from their terrible Intelligence checks. Since she was a "local", she'd tell them about the local lore, guide them to wherever they needed to go in that first city (which they could've asked any other NPC, but they asked her) and, of course, she'd always poke fun at the party members by singing ridiculous songs about them, especially if it was to mock their romantic/sexual interests, like if they were all middle-schoolers or something.
Lo and behold! 2 years since the start of the campaign, and Tulazi Whisperfall is still with them, at level 8. She grew on the party in a way I really never expected. She also fits in the team like a glove since she has all the Intelligence and Wisdom proficiencies (including Arcana expertise), control and healing spells that the party so sorely lacks, including being the only one with Counterspell in her arsenal. I even had to start writing a more concise backstory for Tulazi, who grew from "oh the flirty smart bardess who loves to joke around and plays a violin" to a full-fledged, deep character, with her own backstory and goals, and am even planning on a quest that will explore her backstory, together with one of the paladin's (both are related to dragons). Since she kinda became a permanent member of the team, and I didn't want her to be my DMPC nor to steal the spotlight from the players, I did ask them several times if I should find some way to remove her from the team or make her less constant, or if there was anything about her that bothered them or she should stop doing, but every time they say something along the lines of "WHAT???? NOOOOOO WE LOVE TULAZI YOU LEAVE OUR BARD ALONE 😡"
Cinder Summerpeak, my Fire Genasi Pugilist. I reworked her from an NPC, and her new background was basically 'an orphan raised by martial artist named Paul, and loves to fight/booze' and BOOM, and amazing player character who will now be an NPC with her own bar/grill in every one of my campaigns going forward lol
I can recognize that Greenpath music anywhere.
I sent a kobold to the Astral plane because I didn't feel like managing weight and handed my party bags of holding. They spent an actual hour trying to theorize how to get him out of there. The way I do the Astral plane is different than RAW, it's less of a sea and more of a vacuum that life can, inexplicably, survive in without food, water or air. There's no traction, so there's no way to move. This is why bags of holding work. They managed to get the kobold, but by the time they pulled him out, a subjective 1000 years had past for him, though he hadn't aged a day.
A little orphan who ran off into the woods to go hunting after being inspired by our party. Ended up being adopted by our second rogue, a grizzled war veteran who had previously lost his wife and unborn daughter in childbirth.
Galmar the human.
His grandfather was an elf who married a human.
His father was a half elf who married a human.
Through sheer bad luck, he exclusively got human DNA from both parents.
He’s middle aged at his grandfather’s tavern without any kind of magic, unlike the rest of his family.
One of my players swore they’d find a headband of intellect and train him as an apprentice some day.
That group’s storyline ended but some of those players are in my campaign reboot where everything the previous party did was still canon.
Can’t wait for the old players to run into a traveling “human” named Galmar.
One of my characters met an orphan NPC in a game a friend of mine ran named Miriam. She was like six years old at the time of this game and the city our party was traveling through was in the middle of a massive war which had destroyed the district, Miriam getting lost in the chaos. My character wound up adopting her and raising her as his own, which the party hadn't expected really considering my character was a very stoic inquisitor. I basically modeled his attitude towards her off Gordon Ramsay when he deals with kids (goes from being deadly serious to genuinely kind.) The party was already enjoying the dynamic at first, but the DM and I decided to add a fun dynamic to it.
She wound up becoming a witch as a first level adventurer in a campaign set ten years later. As a joke I mentioned that she was wearing my character's old inquisitor hat in lieu of the classic witch's cap, and the party friggin loved it. Been looking for a reason to break out Miriam as my PC ever since.
Ember Darkness was supposed to be a one-off goon for a larger boss fight. He was a MCR-coded emo tiefling wizard who had two katanas and a dark “mysterious” past (obviously a breakup that was his fault). The party had a short conversation with him, and the bard asked to roll an insight check because “It seems like he rules. Does he?” A Nat 1 Insight check resulted in “yeah dude, he rules,” and the party convinced him to come with them instead of doing his dumb job. He’s been with the party ever since 🤷♂️
I had an NPC Guard named "Charlie Grag." He was a human guarding the gate to a town with another guard. The BBEG of the story casted Sleep on them both and Waltzed on into town. When the party got there, they were asleep. Woke them up. Then sort of yelled at them. "Yeah... we're definitely getting fired."
The next day, they're leaving. They only see Charlie. They ask what happened to the other dude.
C: "He got fired."
Player: "Wouldn't you both get fired?"
DM: [Uh oh. Mistake on my part. Ill play into it.]
C: "Oh. Right. I did get fired. Ill see you around"
Charlie leaves and the players burst out laughing.
They later find him wearing armour he can't properly move in at a trade post tower on a trade route. With a wooden plank he lowers to stop carts.
They love seeing him again, and they convince him to join the party.
I got this fun one I did for a randomized one shot. The party was just doing some typical andventuing and exploring in one direction of a hub world style city. Outside the walls in one direction was a grim, gloomy, and ,how I imagine it, green-ish hued wasteland. Not too far from the city walls was a stable with an old, dilapidated house and a shed. On the porch was a skeleton just swaying in a rocking chair. I didn't give him a name, but he was once human and alive, but just was too lazy or comfortable to move from his chair and ended up just becoming a skeleton. I kinda gave him Futurama's Scruffy as a personality. Whem the party was looking for some sort of transport, he told him he had some horses for sale, but didnt exactly have skin... or organs. Because of that he let the party buy them at a discount. Since it was a one shot, they part basically recieved horses that would never tire for about 15 gold. Probably the deal of the century.
I had a stable hand just outside the main city in the world I built. The characters first arrived at the stables through a hidden hatch underneath the bin where the guard stored the horse poop awaiting to be shipped to the farms... for no reason whatsoever as soon as they came out of the poop bin, and were beginning to be questioned, our gnome rogue went "no time for questions, give me your shoes!" He passed the persuasion check, and the guard frantically took off his shoes, while the rogue gave the guard his... the gnome swims in the man's boots, while the man can't even stretch the gnome-sized boots enough to get his toes in. The party then convinced him that they needed the horses to save the world, and flashed a note from the captain of the guard saying any guardsmen must help the party save the world (designed to allow them to leave the city in a lockdown) As they rode off, they asked his name... I named him Niké, so when the referenced him I'd never forget they stole his shoes.
Later they came back and needed horses again, the man pleaded saying he needed to protect the horses as he got reamed when the last ones went missing and didn't come back with the party. He wore the gnome boots with the shoelaces tied loosely around his neck. They gave him a potion they got from a dark source, and convinced him it would make him better at his job. He aged 6 years instantly...
The third time they came to visit, he gave up and let them take/do whatever they wanted. He gave them a sob story about his kid who doesn't recognise him anymore, and they said they could help... immediatelt he broke down crying at the thought of them ruining the child's future. That time, they gave him a pair of Giant's boots. So now there's a rapidly aged guard, wandering around the horseless stables in boots that are much too big, with comically small boots worn as decoration who dreams of the life he's lost to the seemingly harmless shenanigans of the party. They still plan to see him when they visit the city in the next session or two.
I was running Curse of Straad with my friends, and we were at the old bone grinder windmill. They were a small party, and were 3rd level, so I got rid of two of the night hags. Our Druid had earlier gotten a bag of beans, so he decided to plant one on the top floor. It grew a hostile treant. The triant then broke through the floor and crushed half the party on the ground floor. Let’s just say we needed a few more character sheets after that…
Simon.
Simeon Der Grunfell, or Simon, was an ancient Gnoll with dementia.
The campaign was based on Irish and Scandinavian myths, and the party was looking for one of the Tuatha De Danann, and after making their way through a forest of deadly traps and monster dens they find a cabin with a senile old blind gnoll who couldn’t tell the difference between his own sword and a frying pan living there.
I made him speak by flapping my cheeks, making him sound like a water logged engine with his nose plugged, and my party absolutely loved him.
An old insane little goober that took care of his frying pan like it was a magic weapon, and had the attention span and memory of a gnat.
I initially left things open ended as to weather or not he was Tuatha De Danann. One of the local mercenaries guild apparently took a liking to him, and had been protecting him from wayward adventurers, thus the traps, and built him a place to stay out there. He brought by food and stuff to make him comfortable every so often.
But my party liked him so much that I ended up fleshing out his backstory, made it so that he really was Tuatha De Danann and giving him a supernaturally long life as a gift from the goddess Danu.
So what started out as a red herring to distract the party, and an excuse for me to make a senile old gnoll. Ended up being a favorite NPC, and my party returned to that forest a number of times just to see how Simon was doing.
I also gave my party the pleasure of watching Simon slap a rival tribe of gnolls around with his frying pan when said tribe invaded a city my party was protecting, they got a real kick out of that.
My dm had a gunsmith dwarf who spoke like Dale from King of The Hill
I came up with this NPC on the spot, as I needed someone selling potions and other magical doodads at a shop in a small town in the middle of nowhere, his name was Fikrov the human wizard. he was a carbon copy of your stereotypical wizard, purple robes big pointed magic hat. He did all the silly wizard things that wizards do, like making glitter shoot out from his hand or pulling gold pieces (your gold pieces) out from behind your ear and keeping them for himself. He sold a variety of different useless magical items like a magic stick that can expand into an oar on command. There was an item that one of my players really wanted but couldn't afford (I forgot what it was at this point) so I hastily made up a side quest for the party to do; they had to take back a special alchemy jug from an different Wizards business a few towns over upon retrieving this "alchemy jug" it was revealed to have only one use: and that was to make mayo for Fikrovs ham sandwiches Everything was made up on the spot and so everything that Fikrov did looked like he was making it up on the spot. my players loved him so much I decided to make him a reoccurring character through out the campaign. (and important character later on)
Mine was my PC half-orc Rogue. He was a joke character because I was a filler at the table, just playing while this other player was away for a couple of months. Kumo, the half-orc, was raised by a loving halfing family and being adopted by them made him specially dexterous with tiny objects, and once he reached the big city in his first adventure, the local thieves guild hired him as a bodyguard until they noticed he could be most excellent at lockpicking.
The party really enjoyed Kumo because he was good-natured and often wrote home about his adventures. Since he wasn't good at writing, he would just draw the most recent events and label the characters portrayed. I would replicate every one of his drawings and share with the table.
As a DM, when I have an npc that is at least important enough to have a name, but not important enough to be more than just a name, I choose a BS name.
Take, for example, the barge captain Harry Paratesticles. Zero thought, zero stats, zero personality, he's point A to point B travel. The party began to use him exclusively when traveling in that direction. They liked him.
Before long, he's fighting beside them in defense of his barge. Someone asked about his level now that he's been fighting all these monsters. So I figured EXP.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Harry Paratesticles went on to become a hero in his own right, and on his death, his son, Long took over the barge and became a hero as well. Thanks to that one party, there is now a legacy of heroes, operating the biggest barge company in the land, and the honorable Paratesticles family.
Greenpath was a great music choice. Nice job, editor
In the current campaign I'm in, I'm playing a homebrew warlock Kobold. He's quite literally insane and mostly screams about knives (the utensil and his patron) and currently, he's the glue holding most of the party together.
They find him adorable when he waves knives around like a toddler with a stick
I'd say, Stuck. A hill giant that found his way trapped in a large chamber of an abandoned mine shaft, he fell in when he was young, and grew too large to escape. He had a cult of goblins that brought him food, but all he really wanted was to get out. The party slayed the goblins, found stuck and promised to find a way to get home put. Sadly they never got to because that game never continued.
In our Transformers TTRPG campaign, set on a post-war Cybertron where everyone os trying to coexist, the party went after Shockwave, former mad scientist for the Decepticons who was up to something. They brought Starscream along because they think he knows something about Shockwave's plans, and wanted to keep an eye on him.
They split up, with Starscream and one player sneaking through the base while the others cause a distraction. Starscream saved that player several times and actually contributed to the fight. Now everyone loves him OoC, but IC they have to still hate him and distrust him.
Of course, they're right to not trust him. It's Starscream. Scheming is his hobby. Even saving that player was part of his plan. They don't know that yet though.
PS I think this counts because I didn't put much thought into Screamer, since, you know, he's already got a set character.
In a playthrough I watched on RUclips, the DM created this enemy Soldier Captain that was supposed to be a recurring character. Players killed him the first chance they got.
In the same battle, there was a random grunt that the characters got attached to. One of the players named him Gary and they all did everything in their power to see that he survived the encounter, trying to get him promoted to captain.
Later on in the campaign, an enemy cultist was about to flee with the magic horn they were after when Gary suddenly appears out of nowhere, shoots the cultist in the head with an arrow, nods, and rides away on a horse. The players were ecstatic.
From then on, the party began referring to themselves as “Gary’s Angels”.
For my campaign, it was a copper dragon that would use polymorph to appear as various humans to travel around and generally be a pain in the ass to the local populace. Nothing malicious, just that guy who thinks he is hilarious to everyone that meets him and anyone who doesn't think he is gets an extra special dose of annoyingly funny attitude. Paldr (Paul-der) the Skinny One was a random helpful encounter for the group meant to be a one-time event. But for some reason, my bad impression of Eddie Murphy as Mushu ended up being a hit. He became a regular occurrence when the party needed a nudge in the right direction when they were lost and even went on a mission assisting one party member to deal with a Djinni that was rather hostile. It was fun to have him come by breaking up an otherwise somber campaign. He turned into my favorite by the end of the story.
Okay so I had a guild of mercenaries the players could recruit from at will, and they decided to hire a lizardman swordsman to accompany them named Garrion. Two players were talking, one of them IC and the other one not realizing he was being talked to IC. In response to some question, I think it was, "How many of us are there? Let's see, there's Garrion..." and the other player immediately piped in, "Garrion's not real." For laughs I had Garrion overhear and get paranoid, calling out, "I'm not real?" He had an existential breakdown then and there, and the rest of the party had to comfort him for a while. It became kind of an in-joke among my players. I try to work a reference into any campaign that involves said players.
In one of the first campaigns I was in, I played a young girl whose main gimmick was doll manipulation. She was heavily inspired by Alice Margatroid from Touhou. I was not used to roleplaying outside of text, and her backstory was also rather cliche. However, I had a lot of fun giving her dolls some personality. Though they never spoke, I would have them express themselves in many ways. "Doll shenanigans" had become somewhat of a meme within the group. Besides that, as the story continued and I grew more comfortable, I like to think I got better at developing the character. The party, myself included, actually started to care about her more.
PANR has tuned in.
a small flamboyant feathery messenger dragon i used to deliver the party member their mission descriptions and quest related items. he would randomly hop on their shoulders, accompany them sometimes to the quest ends, give them pointers and show them the way to the rewards once in a while. they somehow liked to roleplay to pet and feed him whenever he was with the party or visited them in the tavern.
The Lair! A human who was a compulsive liar. It was my first time being a player and I accidentally managed to get a +12 in deception which helped my character greatly
My players came into possession of a small rundown house that they repaired and sinked so much gold into as a goldsink. They accumulated land and made it into a minimal castle. They needed a steward and i rolled up Bartholomew Abrams and his daughter Sima Abrams. An old lovely coot with a cane and a busty daughter. Now if someone as much as glares at any of them they get to feel the wrath of a lvl 17 party of 5. One party member even went on a killing spree when a gang of thugs bumped into "B" in the market. They will do ANYTHING for those 2.
THIS is my DM son's time to shine. Covid was happening, and we ran a fairly long campaign {2+ years). Every Christmas there would be a "holiday special." The first year we fought and defeated Krampus in a large gingerbread house. My halfling arcane trickster was apparently not worthy of the magic weapons under the Christmas tree. Now you need to understand that I (in character) collected pets. What was under the tree for me was a mouse wearing a Santa hat. It turns out that my pet mouse wears hats. Hats that change with the landscape, change with the plot, etc. I crowdsourced what to name him, and the winner was Trogdor (RUclips it). Nobody ever knows what Trogdor is wearing until somebody asks. Trogdor is not a combatant, but by the end of the campaign we learned three things... 1. Trogdor is immortal. 2.We met a fey queen who was terrified of him and 3.He exists on every plane. The campaign ended when my son left for college, so I still have so many questions. Thankfully, I was allowed to transfer my character into a professional campaign and the DM loved the concept. Long live Trogdor (well... he is immortal)!
David the Goliath: he just appeared out of nowhere and the party decided he was one of us
Now to be clear, the Npc i refer to in this is not one, but just the many which go by the same name and dependant on which is closest to my character at the time. My Necromancer in a pathfinder game has access to the create undead spell due to his archtype reanimator. Given that he has access to more unique types of undead, his main choice to create is a husk zombie which is a more intelligent and well preserved zombie akin to beef Jerky than rotting meat. The name came from jerky to be honest when trying to think of a name for a zombie, Jeffrey! Now Jeffrey applies to the closest zombie to my person, the others at the time referred to as not Jeffrey. Thus it almost has become a bragging topic which one is Jeffery at which point in time, which has gained much love to the ridiculous lengths the husk zombies will go to in order to be or not be "the Jeffery" depending on the situation. From rock paper scissors, to very slow "not its". For every need Lyle Evilman has, there's a Jeffrey to do it for them.
Old Dave. Even his name is the most simple in the entire campaign. The entire idea was an elderly and tidy hermit living off fish and his garden on the far corner of a pirate island. He can sell any service or good that could be sold at a shipyard. (He can sell cannons and ballistae). The only thing unique to him was that he could help repair a wrecked warship somewhere else on the island.
My party came across a well-kept hut with an unusually large pier on the far side of the island. They smell something coming from the clearing near the hut... grilled salmon. First thing party asks is if they could have some.
Old Dave, being the nice old man he is, points to the rack of drying fish and tells the players to throw another one on the grill. The players enjoy a pleasant lunch with the old man, talking about magical artifacts and buried treasure. They also discover that a more important NPC, Ragol Kraala, artillerist and brother of the "Pirate Queen", provides much of Old Dave's stock.
The players, who also happen to like Ragol, only like Old Dave even more. I expect they'll be giving him more business throughout the campaign.
Ok... So basically a giant big Mac mimic that's vegan... That sounds kinda ironic...
a spider found by a random perception check, and it wasn't even the first one, dammit! it was the second or third, the others i didn't succeed the animal handling check on
i basically made it so that, when my wildfire druid did the wildfire spirit thing, it was ACTUALLY transforming the SPIDER into a MUCH BIGGER, FLAMEY SPIDER
shenanigans ensued
Kermudgeon the kenku. A small kenku rogue who was sent to kill one of the party members. But when they caught him and questioned, the only words he could speak was SQUAK!!! KERMUDGEON!!!!
The Muscle Koi.
It was just an ordinary fish that took offense to one of the players eying it as food. Leapt out of the water, knocked the character back. The character challenged the fish again, and lost. This is how the GM forced the session to move past the koi pond the entire party was watching for a literal hour.
In the setting we play in, Muscle Koi exists in all reasonable places in all times. Occasionally has to smack hungry players.
Reginald, the group's batman, he was given to the group as a reward for saving the sons of a couple of nobles, my group are terrible at camp management so it's just easier to say that Reginald does everything, he's very much the uppercrust gent, knowledgable, remembers everything said within ear shot, apparently a bit of a cad in his youth, people know him or know of him and over time the group are convinced he's either the BBEG in disguise or their greatest ally
the group absolutely love him, he is exactly what he says and is loyal to the group, a throwaway servant has become the only npc the group even cares about
Were Pink Dragons not brought forward from a little kbown publication by Dungeon Dad?
mine was a blind cobbler with a harpy wife (tldr my campaign was a kind of variant of raven-loft but stuck to a town infested with demons under the well in the town center that only came to feed at night and wouldn't be able to brake in to the houses) after a few days of helping him with his craft they took a day to themselves and that night he didn't get home in time i thought oh theirs no worries but boy did they want to unalive all those demons
HOLY SHIT GREENPATH MUSIC
The party was chasing down an assassin who'd busted out a window and run away. The only witness was an old man in a rocking chair on his back porch. They asked him if he'd seen the assassin. "Eeyup." Did they run down that alley? "Mmnope." That other one?! "Eeyup." And off they ran.
Then they came back and talked to him some more. His vocabulary never got any bigger, but they loved this guy. He didn't even have a name! At the end of the campaign I asked if they wanted to see anything in the next game and they said "More of that old guy in the rocking chair!"
I don’t have any experience with DnD, but me and some of my friends are starting a Percy Jackson inspired campaign. None of it was very serious, as can be seen from our character names alone. I was a son of Hades named Bentinio Swagolini, One of my friends was a child of Ares named Reace Tart, and my other friend was a son of Hephaestus named Etin Kabbaj. My character has a companion creature named Stevano. He is a rat who my character has trained to play music on a miniature piano soundboard that also has meme sounds. Name a better companion/bard.
I ran a 5e game for the first time. It was a colonial south america rip off meshed with my very patchy knowledge of Warhammer's Lustria. Anyway. The party arrived at the colonial capital and enter a tavern at the marketplace right behind the docks. It was called the Wooden Fish, since this whole place was built and populated mostly by seamen or lumberjacks, seeing it was a human/dwarven/halfling empire's first step to the new world and they had to fight the jungle and its inhabitants (trees ,snakes, crocs and very angry lizardmen and trees) every step of the way.
I just threw in your regular mid fourties tavernkeep, gave him a northern german accent, some backstory on how he used to be a sailor and so on. They talked to him often when they arrived for breakfast or to drink after a long day. He was just a gap filler at first but turned into a staple of the setting.
Then one time they arrived with a McGuffin they knew attracted Ankhegs (those burrowing maneating insect things from the MM). I have them so many hints about it being a time bomb (calling out the hours like on the series "24") They went for a Spa day. The insects attacked. They ha to battle to save the city but the dice were not always nice. The tavernkeep lost his left leg after his wife got eaten whole. The party slew the beasts but shared deeply in the poor man's depression.
Later they met him again when tasked to escort some pilgrim's on their way to a new pious settlement where he looked for a fresh start and that was when real life ended the campaign.
A character in a sci-fi game I was dming for my siblings. The party had been sent to a remote mining outpost to find out why it had gone dark. They get to the station and find a bunch of people barricaded in the stations chapel. Braindead Bobby was a character I had intended to be mentioned in passing as the sole survivor of a massive shaft collapse a month prior and had only recently woken up from the resulting coma (hence the nickname) when the party asked for him to join them when they returned to the ship to report back to home I knew it would not end well. Then when the party decided to barricaded themselves in the only way off the station as a group of killer robots were cutting through the ships door I knew my plans for this being a 1 shot were done for. They ended up stranded on the station for a week waiting for a rescue fleet to arrive. During that time the party went on several recon and resource gathering expeditions and Bobby was their sniper of choice to accompany them and he saved their bacon several times. (I swear he crit more often than should be legal.)
a random joke: the ad before this video was nestle telling a story about supporting children 😂🤣😭
Chirp & Phibula
He was an old Goblin we found boozed up at the bar
we needed information on a location of catacombs
Since he now worked a tthe church as a cleric luckilly he had it.
i dont fully remember the rest but i remeber he was boozed cuz he lost his daughter and got a messy divorce
we just fell in love whit him we wanted only the best for him so we made him join us
we also met Phibula, who is basically an oc i used to draw all the time the DM suddenly decied to plop into the story
i was really happy
since we only became two at one point we wanted to make Chirp and Phibs secondary characters so it would be a party of 4
unforfotunatly we never were able to continue the story
Rip Chip the Boozy Cleric and Phibs the chaotic chaotic Blacksmith maybe one day you'll be seen again
Response to the yokai girl story: always expect moe to always be accepted.
So I wouldn't say love because it has only been one session so far. Basically an as of now unnamed NPC was in the tavern when word gets around of an expedition to a lost continent and I describe the reaction of a few NPCs. Fast forward to the party on the ship of said expedition and one of the players asks who else is there. So I select a couple of the aforementioned NPCs (most of them were about to die anyway) so I describe a skinny Lizardfolk fighter and a Gnomish artificer who is always tinkering with an unknown contraption. One of my players go "I want to talk to the gnome." (I did NOT name him Sam Smorkle) and decided to have a bit of fun by portraying this gnome as mildly crazy and unhinged spouting conspiracy theories about the lost continent and several other things including Hollow Earth. To mess with my players I decided that about 2/3 of what he actually said is right in some way or another (not the hollow earth part though). Of course the players don't know this (yet) and he just seems like a generic crazy person but I will probably have him make a return in some way because the players thought he was hilarious and I can't wait until come across the lost city of Sarrukh and realize he was right. I was completely honest with my players and they didn't even realize it. I even had the gnome exclaim "I'm not crazy! My mother had me tested!"
Hey, editor, can you lower the volume of the beep/static sound around 0:10? It's a bit too loud compared to the rest of the video. Thanks, cheers.
Blarney Killakalarney is a Folk Hero - his claim to fame is that one time a troll broke down the door of his favorite tavern, and in a drunken rage, Blarney punches his balls clean off, driving the troll away. A traveler witnessing this happened to be Master Jameson - who brought Blarney aboard Captain Morgan's boat - back to Al'chael isle, home the monks of the Drunken Fist.
I play him with the most heinously exaggerated Irish accent, and I take a shot before he has to do any amount of speaking. He introduces himself as follows:
"Me name's Blarney, Blarney Killakalarney! Nao who de fook do ya tink you are!?"
Every DM I have exposed to this character has adopted him as an NPC for all of their games
Would be nice to make one
This is one that is sad and horrifying. In cyberpunk 2020, I had a gang of drug dealers and human trafficker, each member of the gang was names after sweet food related things (like coco, tootsie roll, Betty Crocker, easy bake, ect). One of the gang members was a medtech named Dr. K (Special K) who was a monotone killjoy who would mentally abuse and torture people to turn them into play beings. In essence he is a bad and terrible person who I made to explain the terrible things that happen in night city and was suppose to be killed on the spot. The party loved him at first sight, and wanted to help him turn the population of night city into meat puppets. Thru the campaign I would have Dr.K do more and more unholy things (in sake of keeping things family friendly I will not state what thous things are) and yet the party would be in support of the actions even if it was counter productive to the parties goals. I later learned the main reason the party loved this monster was that I described him like a "tumbler sexy man" and one of the party members thought they could fix him. The rest of the party loved the ship so they went along with it, luckily for me I had to move so I no longer play with that party. On the bright side In cyberpunk red I tell his story as a Charles Manson/ Jim Jones like person, and the term "The Dr. K Special" means you are going to be brainwashed to do unspeakable things.
NPC in a Yugioh themed campaign.... I forget his name... lets call him LiL Piggy because he was a Bard who in univerde was flavored to use a Pig themed arctype.
He wasnt the strongest duelest (fighter) but helped the group with his high analytical ability and drive to self improve putting himself throigh training regimens that made the rest of us wince
One session weve gone off to raid one of the bases od the 7 Deity Kings (Co BBEGs of the campaign) when we came back we found our base trashed and no sign of Lil Piggy save for his blazer and duel disk after some investigation rolls found a recording of one of the other BBEG's raiding our base in turn (Said BBEG was the honorable warrior type) forcing Lil Piggy into a duel to spill what he knew about our plans......
The DM Roleplayed it as a Shadow Game (lose the duel, lose your soul) with some psychologocal horror extra element.
Lil Piggy was getting his ass beat in the duel based on how the DM rolled the nice (no actual duel just rp based on dice rolls), with a lucky D20 landed a blow on the BBEG's lifepoints or health...
It for better or worse earned the BBEG's respect for showing such valliant effort despite the difference in power..... he decided to unleach his ultimate combo with his ace monster which was basically a lv6 spell critting on a D20 in a lv 10 i believe campaign flavored as an epic card combo
We were all furious and saddened as we saw the despair in our friend's eyes as he truly felt the difference in ability first hand as his life points aka hp hit 0 and his body (save the afformentioned blazer and duel disk) dissapear as particles of dark light that were sucked into the ground as if being drawn to hell.
As his physical form evaporated, with the last of his strength he stared at the security camera "I'm sorry.... I guess I'll never be as strong as you guys afterall"
JARNATHAN!!
Gragnar the destroyer of worlds was a gnome cleric worshipping a homebrewed goddess known only as mother to the party oh and did i meantion noone knew he was a cleric. Gragnar was a retired adventurer who was meant to point the party in the direction of the base of operations of the bbeg but was so loved he became not only an honorary memeber of the party but became a minor diety himself through ALOT of shenanigans and sheer dumb luck. The whole deal as to why he was beloved was he would constantly be talking to mother but since the party was unaware of his clericness they just thought he was crazy and was also very humourous constantly mumbling about mother not liking someone or how he must ask mother for guidance eventually causing our whole party to adopt speaking with "mother" sarcastically until one day she answrred not only to threaten our entire party but then grant gragnar divine power beyond his wildest dreams turning him from a stammering funny lilttle gnome to the single most powerful being the party would ever encounter whose first action was superman flying through the torso of an ancient dragon while screaming "i am gragnar destroyer of worlds" i had to killl him off after a few sessions due to the parties bard and rogue duo constantly taunting his goddess with yo momma jokes throwing him into a rage and almost tpking them 3 different times
…I swear the background music in this video is from Hollow Knight.
In my current campaign im playing a blight monk that can't talk proper common so he speaks like a mix of yoda and the treefolk from Lord of the rings so as his words may be confusing actions speed louder than words and with each kind act or anger for one of the other pcs wanting to make friends with every creature in the jungle continent we are on two sentences have stuck and will continue to be said "child stupid" referring to the pcs passifist actions and "jungle danger" referring to the jungle that everyone in the town said not to go into. So whenever anything dangerous happens jungle danger is repeated and if a bad decision is made child stupid is continously said over the next couple moments where it has come to everyone including g me wanting my charector to get a tattoo/engravings in the vines with those two phrases.
Not an npc, but I played a 4 year old goblin rouge named Eedatick. A very happy go lucky character, and very annoying. There were alot of odd stuff that this character did. Like for instance she won't steal your money, she'll steal your furniture and sell it for money. She had a little wagon with her to load the items. She also had a couldren (with eye holes) to sneak around the battlefield, and slash at people's Achilles tendons. She got adopted by the parties lesbian couple. We finished the campaign but Now when ever I do something remotely related to Eedatick the dm would say "shut up Eedatick " or when ever there is a situation that called for her I have to remind him that she's not here that's a different campagn.
Noice
Can't contribute to this video. I put little thought into 100% of my NPCs. Only the survivors get a backstory.