I find NPCs to be frustrating little bastards sometimes. You spend hours agonizing over Dread Lord Calamity and his place in the world and then the players want to know about Darryl the oat guard or whatever. My improv muscles are strong, but they are no ascetics. So, here's my latest method on making them on the fly. But first we have to discuss ancient Greek health philosophies.
The Four Humors
So, you've probably heard it before but there was a time where health in the human body was attributed to a balance of four fluids or humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. Pain and other sickness were due to an imbalance of these humors. This is broadly generalizing but it was also associated with four temperaments and the Victorians ate that shit up. If you had an excess of blood, usually from being born in the spring, you tended towards lively or aggressive or sanguine temperaments. An excess of black bile was melancholic a word more commonly in use today though I encourage you to describe your obsessive friends as choleric.
Taking this idea and running with it, I use playing cards to generate NPC quickly and co-opted it to this neat ancient article here.
Basically, draw cards for as much as you want to know about the NPC. The first draw's suite tells you their temperament: look at the suite:
- Hearts - Sanguine. Friendly, lively or temperamental
- Spades - Choleric. Bitter, short tempered or daring
- Clubs - Melancholiac. Lazy, fearful or sickly
- Diamonds - Phlegmatic. Low-spirited or forgetful
Increased in potency by face cards e.g. King of Hearts is especially friendly or especially temperamental.
Because my Heartbreaker mostly follows around dredges, wretches and urchins, have a nasty trait table. Just use the first card you drew for Temperament.
Nasty NPC Generator
Ace. Arrogant, in the worst way
2. Long filthy unclean nails
3. Nose constantly dripping snot
4. Careless with things; equipment, weapons, people, feelings
5. Exceedingly ignorant, no desire to learn
6. Lazy, lazier than you can imagine
7. Picks nose in public, eats it when they think no one is looking
8. Stares inappropriately; at women, in conversation, just all of the time
9. Greasy to the point of nauseousness; halitosis
10. Shallow and materialistic; always doing what's popular
Jack. Violent, temperamental, short fuse, quick to criticism
Queen. Borrows money but never gives it back, never follows through on anything actually
King. Has dreams, horrible horrible nasty aspirations
Example: Two of Clubs. Long filthy unclean nails due to laziness. Probably a real dirty kinda guy.
Example: Jack of Diamonds. Bit more complicated but inspiring. A real violent sort but forgetful and depressed. If you criticize them, especially about their memory, they only know how to answer with threats of violence and are perfectly happy to back it up.
If you want a bit more depth you could draw a second card and use the following model from the article...
"Hearts: The character embodies, enacts, or enforces the rule.
Diamonds: The character twists, alters, or avoids the rule.
Spades: The character’s life is altered (for good or bad) by the rule.
Clubs: The character breaks the rule."
...and combine it with a Culture Table. Here's mine:
Culture Table
Ace. Strangers are always welcome in homes and no questions may be asked of them until they have eaten
2. Fingernails given as part of an oath are unbreakable. It originates from dragons whose claws never grow back and were given to heroes of yore.
3. You may always challenge someone via the Rite of the Ancients to usurp their position if you can demonstrably show they are unfit for the position; usually used in armies in the form of duels for officership.
4. The trading of small permanent trinkets on first meetings is normal and expected. To do otherwise shows miserliness.
5. Swords are fashion statements
6. Enchantment magic is the vilest type of magic.
7. A man in red is considered courting
8. Roosters are holy creatures that ward off all manner of monster. To harm one is to court exile.
9. Purple is a color of mourning, though it is expensive so the mourning of a loved one may lead to further debt and grief.
10. Honorable duels are for wed nobility. Princes and princesses, however, may fight like swine.
Jack. The number of rings on one's fingers is a sign of status
Queen. The king commands the land and the land is one with him. If you are part of the land you are subject to his will.
King. Looking a man in the eyes is cloying, to see his true character, or at least deeply intimate and not to be done with strangers.
Example: Seven of Hearts. A man in red, courting a lover but hearts mean he embodies the rule. In red from head to toe and courting as many suitors as he can find. A dandy or perhaps, a slut.
Example: Six of Spades. Someone whose life has been altered by evil enchantment magic, perhaps under a geas or fighting for someone who is. I've also had a lot of success with using the suits as a determination of class in "medieval" settings or at least the wild west settings that pay homage to Fantasy Land.
Draw a third card. - Hearts - Bastards and Outlaws
- Diamonds - Nobility
- Clubs - Clergy
- Spades - Peasantry
Finally, inspired by a post I read
here, give them, if necessary, a means, motive and opportunity. Use the card from above or if you have time, draw three cards and mix and match the following list.
Motive/Means/Opportunity
Ace. Prevent Entrance to a Special Place/ A Handful of Useful Goons/ When under the Cover of Night
2. Acquire a Rare and Special Gem or Art Piece/ A Horrific Summons They Sic on Foes/ When the Guards aren't there
3. Remove or Install a Figure from or to a Place of Authority/ A Nasty and Dangerous Incantation/ When next the Moon is Full
4. Release or Catch a Demon for Personal Gain/ A Well-Fortified Castle/ After they acquire all the Necessary Equipment
5. Sack a Nearby Settlement/ A Single Favor from a Conniving Dragon/ When the Wretched Lot is Most Vulnerable
6. Steal a Relic from a Nearby Church/ Three Favors from a Powerful Faerie/ During a Tournament or Festival
7. Create or Destroy an Allyship or Rivalry with Another Faction/ An Unorganized Band of Raucous Goblins/ During A suspiciously Well-timed Invasion
8. Prevent an Heir from Ascending/ A Fry of Conniving and Clever Eel Men/ On the Nearest Solstice or Equinox
9. Kidnap the Fairest Prince or Princess in the Land/ A Strength Immense/ When they're Fucking Told To
10. Make Someone their Spouse/ A Book of Spells/ Before a natural (or Unnatural) Disaster Strikes
Jack. Revenge for a Wrong, Real or Perceived/ A Clever Plan to Frame Someone Else/ On the Holiest of Days
Queen. Protect Someone or Something from Harm/ The Law, on a Contentious Technicality/ When Everyone will be looking over Here
King. Have Something taken from them Returned/ A Deadly Knight/ When the Kaiju Wakes Up
Some Example NPCs (and adventure seeds)
Here's Three, Three Card Draws:
Thipking the Luxurious and his plan to steal a relic
1. Ten of Diamonds
2. Ace of Diamonds
3. Six of Diamonds
Phlegmatic. Shallow and materialistic.
Diamonds, means they twist the Culture Table Result. Strangers are always welcome in homes. I have ideas brewing.
Nobility. Steal a Relic. With Three Favors from a Faerie. During a Tournament or Festival.
Minor Lord Thipking the Luxurious is cool, calm and collected if a bit forgetful. He is also shallow, always chasing the wealth of the Major Houses and craves the finer things, emptying his coffers for flighty fashion statements like peacock head dresses and ambergris broaches. With little regard for hospitality, he invites any strangers, especially adventurers into his manor, where he feeds them fine food and drugged wine and then clubs them in their sleep, to rifle in their packs and pockets for gems, cloaks and jewelry.
However, in his lust for material gain he made a deal with and was later charmed by a local Faerie Lady. Fairies famously detest the Church and its iron bells that banish them, but the theft of an important relic, the fingerbone of St. Lorpmad the Beggar should remedy the power of the local parish. In order to achieve such a caper, the Lord has decided to throw a Tourney, inviting all local vassals to compete for some land on his property. While they tourney is going on he intends to use one favor to ensure he wins the tournament himself ("Give me the skills of a great knight fair Lady!") as well as one to ensure he can steal the relic ("Make me appear as Saint Lorpmad himself! Those ignorant peasants will fall for anything!"). It should be noted, both his sudden skill in horsemanship (Thipking is famously uncoordinated) and the appearance of long dead Saint (one wonders why he would steal his own fingerbone) would be considered strange by any but the foolhardiest peasants, to say nothing of the learned nobility or savvy knights, surely suspicious and vengeful after losing the tourney. Players can and should intervene at any point, assuming Thipking hasn't bludgeoned them to death yet.
~
Lady Mirkgust the Spiteful and her demon bride
1. Eight of Hearts
2. Jack of Diamonds
3. Four of Diamonds
Sanguine. Temperamental, more so than her age belies. Stares inappropriately.
Hearts mean they embody the Culture Table Result. Rings as a sign of status. Rings on every finger.
Nobility. Release or Catch a Demon for personal gain. A Well-Fortified Castle. After They've gathered the Necessary Equipment.
Another bastard noble, Lady Mirkgust the Spiteful is an "admirer" of youth and beauty though herself quite young, at 17. Ogling any fairer than she, her cheerful, vibrant vibe belies a sinister nature; she is the daughter of a medusa and when things do not go her way, she earns her epithet. Many have not expected the cruelty she is capable of. She favors taking the fingers of those who point rudely. She keeps the bloody rings, of which she has at least one, if not more on every finger.
At the end of her eighteenth summer, her heritage's blood will reveal itself, her hair falling out and the curse of stony eyes will begin to petrify all she meets the eyes of. She wishes to continue indulging her lavish noble lifestyle and hopes that by releasing and marrying a demon (a plan of her own devising) she can delay the curse of her heritage. She is correct, though Zanzilbreeze Slender-Legs, the demon in question, intends to indulge as well. She still needs to get the stallion for the summoning, of which the nearest can be either at a neighboring keep or perhaps lost or untamed in the woods, making for a stirring race with the players who catch wind of this. Should she be pursued or attacked, she has her fine castle to fall back on, where she intends to merry the loathsome demon, should she succeed. As such players have a few opportunities to thwart her. Make it a ball, players love crashing balls.
Slender-Legs
HD 4 [2 in the presence of horses]
AC Chain/Fast
Damage 2d6 slicing claws and 2d6 slavering maw
WANTS: to subjugate, to lounge,
NEEDS: to tear off limbs, to drink blood
AVOIDS: horses
DESTROYED: by trampling hooves
Slender-Legs can be summoned by the slaughtering of a white prized race stallion under a Dark Star Conjunction, any will do, after being fed a witch's brew of nettle, thistle and milk. It will rise from the beast's entrails, destroy the carcass in a fit of rage and take a tall, lanky, loathsome form.
It can be bound by bit and bridle of fine silver and leather, blessed by a saint, or at least a priest who has died. A trotted circle of hoof prints can also hold it and it cannot cross a horse's path.
It can be tormented by a riding crop in conjunction with the jangling sound of no less than a dozen horseshoes. It can be banished by being killed by the trampling of a hoofed animal, if it would reduce it to 0 HP. A riding horse usually does 2d6 damage trampling, while a war horse would do 3d6. Slender-Legs gets a save to avoid unless bound somehow.
She has all your favorite treasure plus a Ring of Iron Grip. While you wear it, your hand has the strength and qualities of iron or steel. With it you could grab red hot metals, use it to deflect a blade or pin someone or something with, you know, that kind of grip. She also possesses a Ring of Intimate Knowing, allowing you to be able to perceive everything within 10 ft. of you irrespective of line of sight. You could for example know what was in someone's pockets or be able to read the contents of a closed book. You could know if someone is hiding weapons in their boot or the color of their socks. You could not however look into a locked chest unless it was "open" somehow. A cinched bag is DM discretion as would be seeing inside of someone (sphincters and what not). You do not automatically know what is in these things, you must still spend time "looking".
The Unfortunate Fate of Father Hoolburn the Plotter
1. Six of Hearts
2. Two of Spades
3. Ten of Clubs
Sanguine. Friendly. Lazy, lazier than you can imagine.
Spades: The character’s life is altered (bad) by the rule. Fingernails given in an oath is a sign of an unbreakable oath.
Clergy. Wants to make someone their spouse. Has a book of spells. Trying to make it happen before an unnatural disaster occurs.
Father Hoolburn the Plotter, so named for measuring the plots of land his parish's church sits on, is a kind priest but his authority and knowledge of the scripture has made him unbelievably lazy, sending altar boys and acolytes out for all but the smallest errands. His father before him made a deal with a hag that he must give up his priesthood and marry before he turns 60 or else an unnatural flood of hag-water will rise to claim his parish. That's in about one week. Using a dusty tome found in the church's tiny catacombs, he intends to find himself a bride with surely terrible results.
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