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Completely Unfathomable (DCC) provides a sandbox setting and underground cavern system that can provide months of adventures for a GM who does a bit of world building.
This version is designed for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG but will also work with various versions of Dungeons & Dragons. This month covers creating non-player characters to help build the world and bring it to life.
Completely Unfathomable includes a cavernous Underworld and an aboveground hex crawl of a recently thawed land previously covered by a glacier. A variety of weird beings covet control of both the land above and below. The PCs most likely arrive from the southern empire or other kingdoms and find themselves outside the gates of Fort Enterprise.
Will My Players Like My NPCs?
Player characters latch onto NPCs for inscrutable reasons sometimes. My players tend to like scoundrels who aren’t trying to dupe them but are trying to swindle others. But not always. Therefore I don’t try to create NPCs to be liked or not; I just try to bring them to life and let the PCs decide which ones they enjoy. Those NPCs get more development and more screen time.
For example, the Player-heroes in my The One Ring campaign met a married Ranger couple. The couple was keeping the wife’s pregnancy secret to both protect her and the baby from enemies finding out and out of an abundance of caution. The PCs didn’t like the Rangers not telling them they were expecting, whatever the reason, but they still liked the couple and became friends of sorts. Maybe more like respected professional colleagues. When I needed Rangers later to be in a colony in danger, it fit in perfectly to add in these married Rangers and their now young son. I might not have brought the Rangers back if they hadn’t resonated with my players.
How Do the PCs Find the NPCs?
Some are wandering around, and the PCs will bump into minor NPCs. For major NPCs, the PCs will either visit an establishment the NPC runs, or the PCs will hear a rumor about the NPC and seek them out. The PCs may also see the NPC going about their own personal business like seeing a wizard taking an expedition out of the Fort or the Governor on a personal inspection of the Fort with particular emphasis on the beer garden. What the PCs do next is up to them, of course.
How to Bring NPCs to Life:
I provide three details for most NPCs:
- What the PCs might want from them.
- A simple description, voice, and/or mannerism.
- Their reason why they are in the world which may very well conflict with 1.
Minor NPCs
While there are several important NPCs the player characters can meet and get quests from, the first few NPCs they meet at the Fort are likely minor players in the grand scheme of things. Thrux (he decides who gets into the Fort through the gate, sweats even when it is cold, mind-controlled to guard the gate) is a barbarian and gatemaster who greets visitors. He doesn’t particularly like non-humans, and that is likely the impression he’ll leave on the PCs. This discrimination comes from his superiors, who put humans first.
However, if they continue into the courtyard beyond, they find a more friendly guardsman named Belosc (free lichen ale, bloated and staggering, keep the good times rolling). He’s offering free samples of lichen ale and directions to the beer garden for follow-up drinks. The PCs won’t know it now, but this new beverage could lead to further adventures in the Underworld if they meet the seller of the ale, the slugman trader named Shooplah-plah who is doing market research to see who likes the Underworld ale.
Major NPC: Gleen
Gleen (knows where nearly anything can be found in the wilderness, including a vampire nest, wears a fantastic hat, always want to wheel and deal). He is the proprietor of Gleen’s Exchange which stocks all standard dungeon equipment and some unique items like his fabulous hat. Anyone cleaning out the vampires gets store credit if they bring proof (fangs work).
Major NPC: Yithreela
Yithreela (will trade spells with those she really trusts and needs help/muscle for research in the Fossil Forest, current purple and gold hairdo ensorceled to wave and dance about in a fabulous expression of personal style, studying practical applications of Chaos). She lives in the Wizards’ Dormitory and is also seeking human volunteers to receive Chaos implants in their brain tissue.
Major NPC: Galandigrius
Galandigrius (daughter Galariah currently exploring the buried Tower of Enlightenment of which he disapproves and would pay (up to 1000 gp) for information/extraction, hive hat (family tradition) houses a small swarm of hearty blue ice hornets he commands, consistently fails to complete a project to create hydroelectric power but plugs away regardless) is the Fort’s official vizier and second in command of Fort Enterprise.
Major NPC: Governor Krofax
Governor Krofax (the Underworld godling Sephilax MUST BE DESTROYED and is willing to empty the Fort’s depleted treasury to this end, former barbarian gone to lard, established and now runs Fort Enterprise under the Empire’s auspices) is utterly hopeless with money. Even with the stacks of cash passing through Fort Enterprise, he is in heavy tax debt with the Imperial government.
What’s Next?
Once the NPCs are created and placed in the world, they will be ready for the PCs to seek them out. However, NPCs should not be static. They attend to their own business, move around, and every once in a while, one might die, get killed, or be murdered or assassinated.
The repercussions of an NPC dying vary based on the importance of the NPC (both to the region and personally to the PCs) and how they died. If a PCs’ favorite guardsman gets knifed, the only real results may be other guardsmen looking for revenge as well as the PCs. If a powerful wizard dies, fingers will be pointed at rivals. The wizard’s room will be a target for thieves or rival wizards. Even the corpse and all its gear will be a target. Someone will want to steal the wizard’s research and maybe either take it over or shut it down.
To keep things simple, move an NPC around or have one complete a goal every session or so. Just one NPC will do. Have an NPC die more rarely, and be prepared that this may spark an adventure or two.
Design the NPCs, put them in motion living their lives, and see what they do when they bump into the PCs. Occasionally, put the NPC in danger or even kill them. The PCs might be nearby when the possible death is happening, in which case they can choose to act or not. Or the death may happen when the PCs are away attending to other business. The world continues to spin regardless of what the PCs do or do not do, and that will bring the world to life, make it feel lived in, and make it seem more real.
Picture credit: Pixabay
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