Gimme some!!!
What's the coolest NPC you've ever created?
Here's mine:
Wing Lang
Half-elf male 13th level warrior/kung-fu master
AC: 16
HP: 45
All: lawful evil
Martial arts: Four keys + Dragon kung-fu
Weapons of proficiency: jade dagger,hand crossbow + Bamboo stick
Non-weapon proficiencies: calligraphy,herbalism,fire building,cooking + riding
Appearance: Asian looking, short and scrawny. Always a jade green kung-fu suit. Long flowing white hair. Black, beady, intelligent eyes.
Magical items: Amulet of the Tiger
Hometown: Sing Pei
Allies: Hantori, annoying kung-fu trainee.
Personality: quiet- only speaks when spoken to. Usually comes up with a clever idea or plan. Has to meditate 2-3 hours per day. Very Charismatic. Good to have on one's side. Very superstitious. Loves to tell scary stories around the camp fire. Good NPC to create new adventures.
Ultimate goal: Looking for long lost brother Wu-Lung Lang
Special attacks: Dragon's tongue: a quick eye gouge that will cost you your eyes
(+ 4 rapid attack bonus), Dragon's tail: quick foot sweep (+2 surprise bonus).
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I don't think I know which is the "coolest" NPC I have ever created, but I can tell you my favorite: The Amazing Christopher, (fictitiously) Harry Houdini's cat in my third run of the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign for Call of Cthulhu.
I don't think I ever gave him any stats. In BRP, a cat hardly needs them anyway.
Why was he your favourite?
It was just a fun roleplaying experience to represent a cat who, like his master, was a talented escape artist (though lacking in any really anthropomorphic qualities except perhaps preternatural intelligence). I got the idea from one of my own cats who escaped from a room where the windows don't open and all the doors were locked; my wife later figured out how the cat had managed this, and like any magic trick, it's much less impressive if you know how it was done.
H.P. Lovecraft was a big fan of cats and was enough of a friend to Harry Houdini that they collaborated on a short story ("Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"); and cats play a somewhat significant, if minor, role in the overall campaign. Christopher was a great addition. First the party wanted to know why the cat was following them around, then they marveled at his uncanny ability to get out of lethal situations, and before long they valued him as an adjunct party member.
I have lots and lots of fun presenting NPCs, but I think Christopher was the most fun. The more I roleplay, the more I find that presenting a character with limitations is rewarding. I might have unintentionally played Christopher as a little too bright for a cat, but I did make an earnest attempt to portray him as just a cat despite his unusual ability to survive. It's rare that my players unanimously like any NPC, but Christopher was an exception. The players liked the idea just as much as I did.
My favorite NPC of all time was Max Ernst, a mean spirited thug that ended up being quite the assassin. He's an NPC from the Enemy Within campaign (WFRP). He plays a very very small role in the campaign itself (one tiny insignifigant encounter right near the beginning of the whole story, to be precise), but there was something about the way that I played him the second time I ran that campaign that made the players involved just hate his guts. I was in a bad mood that night, and I guess it played quite heavily on the way I presented him as an NPC. I started having him pop up at the most inopurtune times, making their lives miserable.
As sometimes happens with long pre-published campaigns, the group moved away from the main story, and I abandoned the published material in favor of other story elements. In the end, Max was never the main villain, but he was the one they hated the most throughout the entire thing. What made him really shine as a villain was that he was the first NPC that I had advance in power due to his own affairs that took place when he wasn't around.
There's never been a villain quite like him since.
I've played the Forgotten Realms Oriental adventures quite a lot, but always seem to moveaway from the material. Anyway in th Ronin Challenge, the PC's enter a martial arts competition. They didn't win, though, they got beat up pretty badly. But for their courageous performances the received a magic chicken from th Emperor: Sihira.
She has to be looked after very well, otherwise she will not lay the magic eggs.
I made my own list of the kind of eggs. Roll 1d12 and check the colour and type of egg. Only one egg per day, provided she's cared for.
PC's are not told what the eggs do. They have figure it out for themselves.
1. Jade coloured egg = dust grenade, 1d4 damage and gives the PC's a chance to escape.
2. Turqouise coloured egg=contains a small chrystal, actually a prediction ( PC's are not told, they're simply given the chrystal and have to figure it out themselves)
You can have great fun this way. Believe me, Sihira is treated very well. Sihira got stolen once and one of the girls started crying! You can create a whole adventure around her. She's pretty cool!
I'd have to say that my fav NPC of all time was Gabriel. He was a young adult silver dragon who shapchanged himself into an elf so that he could travel with a party of humans in order to learn more about the race.
Even though I decided to let him keep his dragon strength and armour (AC for D&D or DR for Gurps), his appetite, mass, love of treasure and other "dragon" qualities, the players in two groups never caught on that he was a dragon until the very end of the three and a half year campaign!
Elves in my world are rare and the players thought that all elves acted the way that Gabriel did and could do the sames things. Even after living in an Elven valley for three months!
What made Gabriel so much fun is that he was completely innocent and completely literal. He didn't understand slang at all and never got jokes. He was incapable of lying, which got the group into trouble a couple of times, and never volunteered information. The players tried four different times to get into a tower and finally succeeded, when Gabriel knew the password the whole time.
One of the characters, a mercenary with some spells named Shakura, even developed a love interest with Gabriel (he did have feelings and cared deeply for his companions, he just didn't know how to show it) and slept with him the night before the final battle on a lost island.
The next day he changed back into dragon form in front of the players and they realized (finally) who he was. Imagine the Shakura's shock.
During the finale, the lovers battled the Dark General on his Ancient Red Dragon. They killed the red dragon and probably the general. Unfortuantely Gabriel died later from his wounds.
Shakura later discovered that she was pregnant and retired to raise their child.
We're still debating what the child is. Half human and half dragon? Half Elven? Half human and quarter each dragon and elven? He was a dragon polymorphed or shapshifted into an elf. What does that do to sperm, DNA, and the like?
"I'd rather have one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand than an eternity without it. One."
If I was to line up my NPCs along some imaginary wall to judge their individual worth, I would be challenged to choose. But one NPC has lasted for so long, been in so many stories, killed so many players and spared so many more. Only one NPC brings that look of fear, that real-world fear, into the eyes of my players at the very moment he whispers.
The NPC is known worldly as 'Wolf Renard', the bounty hunting vampire. In his life time he was the elven Head of Ormayus (The Elf King's twelve guard who do not ever leave sight of him, not during love making, bathing, sleep anything...ever) for the corupted elven king 'Whay-lheedar'. Whay was the king of the drow when drow were still as white as any High-elf (over 130,000 years ago)and was in communication with the evil goddess Dhay'lahnee, goddess of lawful-darkness and war without mercy, and decided to sell the souls of all his people to her. The souls of thousands of drow were sold to the goddess in return for three favors.
Whay-lheedar wanted immortality for both himself and his Ormayus head of guard. Eternity to rule with his trusted soilder by his side.
And...He wanted power beyound power for himself. He also asked that the Ormayus guard be granted the ability to battle better then any living man, and the ability to bring death to those in his path.
In return for the souls of the good race of Drow, the goddess rewarded Whay'lheedar great power, becoming the head of Dhay'lahnee's church, becoming both immortal and of the level 25. The god then locked him up in an iron mask that was shackled to statues of his people, deep in a tomb, for over 25 thousand years. The god decided that this time would be used to think over the power. 25 thousand years to consider what he wanted to do with his new levels and clerical ability. Dhay'lahnee chuckled at her trick as she closed the vualt door...
As for the Ormayus guard? He was granted a horrible gift. Eternal life unchallenged by age or mortal death...becuase he had become death in its worst form. The guard had become the first vampire of the realm. The vampire was filled with rage and disgust for his new form. All living things cuased him to wretch in revulsion, even his beloved wife, even the sight of his children, cuased him violent pain and disgust. Plants now died at his cold touch, and death seemed to be the only thing of passion that could calm him, or bring him pleasure.
The creature travled through history as the elven hunter "Wolf Renard" (an adopted name from human tongue). His ability to track and sluaghter most mortals was amazing. The years produced many stories of the devil known as Wolf Renard, who for a price would return any man (dead) to any paying customer.
The price was half a king's treasury, and the customers were often kings or powerful men of blue-blood wealth.The bounty hunter returned all contracted bodies back to all who had the riches to spare. King's paid to kill other kings, Lovers lost cities to kill the rich men who owned cities close by.
The Wolf had become imfamous.
Those who delt with, did so knowing their very soul was on the line. But there was always some man who could meet the hate and wealth needed to summon the vampire.
During one game the King of a very wealthy nation hired Wolf to kill the entire player group, and he hunted them throughout the weeks of play. He never go them all, but more then half fell to his skills as a hunter over the years. The hunt went on and on, and the surviving players retired as powerful lords or dukes eventually, insuring them that they wouldn't simply die from the DM saying "that PC you retired? Died...wolf got him"
fast forward 3000 years worth of in-game play.
Future PCs learn that all the players in my game are simply reincarnated forms of the players who Wolf was first hired to kill (Science of the land had proven this through physics and meta-physics, and Wolf eventually heard of the find). Wolf's contract to kill players from over 3000 years ago was STILL active, and by his own observation he knew that the contract was still active for all these reincarnated players.
The contract said that the Lorrocks (the world's term for super hero-ish scions who rise to great levels)must be killed. And that means ALL lorrocks. At the time of the contracts birth, Wolf had no idea that Lorrocks would appear throughout history time and time again, he simply agreed to kill the FIRST lorrocks (or lorical beings) without knowing that the future would bring many new lorrocks.
Since this understanding of the contracts loop-hole, the vampire has spent the 3000 years trying to locate all lorical beings and destroy them. He has met many of them face to face in battle, always resulting in the death of the PC, cept for the one time they almost destroyed him on the deck of a vast ship (another great adventure in itself)...
It turns out that Wolf had signed the contract under an oath-geni, and to break the contract of hunting lorical entitys has passed over to also include all lorrocks that seem to come when the world needs heros. The Vampire hates them all for this endless quest, this endless hunt.