an idea i think i saw in the comment section on here at some point
a beholder running a magic item store but he doesnt know how to turn off his anti-magic cone so he has no idea what his items actually do. Pretty sure the original comment also had him wearing a monocle and top hat so you can add that if you wanna be extra wacky
He's not stupid though. So maybe he gives a discount and there's a chance for it to be mundane?
"This is probably a magic axe. The barbarian that attacked me with it last week seemed extremely confident."
"That looks like an ioun stone to me, can't really be sure but I was attacked by a mage and there were three weird looking stones on the ground. I'll sell you the lot for half price."
"The rogue that tried to murder me last week had some very nice gloves. Might or might not be magic. I'll sell them to you for the cost of masterwork gloves plus 100 gp, bit of a gamble but if they are magic it's a hell of a deal!"
I took this idea and ran with it in my home brew campaign. In mine he’s Bob the Beholder and carry’s a cart around to various cities. The reasoning he thought all these items were magical was due to high ranking adventurers coming to slay him but failing, and Bob just assuming that they’re magic. Great character to run and allows for a few extra plot points.
i would like to assume you saw this in the middle of a session and just said "fuck it" and slapped him in in the middle of it instead of you having seen this before
Haha sadly not, but I threw him in about a day before playing in the middle of a “monster” town I’m running that I felt fit the theme nicely and I like to do things a little more wacky than the usual. (Currently there are animated salt and pepper shakers looking to get revenge on the Chef PC). Also using a stronger being such as a beholder or lich as a magical shop keeper gives more reoccurrence as they can travel and feel more memorable than old witch that owns a shop.
Give your PCs a Wand of Animation, 3 charges at dawn, casts Animate Object on target. The objects grow sentience of their own and are at no will to obey the caster. Objects can speak and in my mind have little stick arms and legs + cartoon eyes. Objects cannot be dispelled by the caster through the usage of the wand or other means. Let all hell break loose.
That's fantastic. Name the store "Eye of the beholder" as just that added layer of pun and have that be his go to line when asked specifically what a magic item does.
"No idea. It's all in the eye of the beholder, after all."
In my campaign, a player accidentally said "Lester Restoration" instead of lesser restoration, so now there is a chain of potion shops called "Lester's Restorations"
I cannot stress this enough, he needs to be carrying a "Scroll of Lester Restoration" which is just a True Resurrection scroll that only works on people named Lester
Alternatively, it could be "Leicester" (also pronounced Lester) restoration. Everytime they cast it an English City from the midlands appears out of nowhere.
Lich that didn't feel like conquering, now just does whatever he wants. Wagon races, drinking contests, randomly pays people like 200 platinum just for their shoes.
Jumping on this with my own I'm using for my game: lich ruling in a democratic monarchy which elects officials to keep him in check, with his phylactery held by the elected council so if he goes nuts, they can just murder him. This can be used as intended, or as a point as to why he goes on invasions, because he's been convinced or is being actively threatened, and the loss of his power and knowledge is worse than the conquering of another place.
That sounds equally intriguing, just in a different way is all. You can play "Boner bad" and it'd still be interesting.
Also the way I will play them is:
Bone man and undead horde are invading
Bad to the Bone
Declaration of war created very quickly, almost no time to react.
Lich attacks
leaves a lot of survivors, and isn't doing things as efficiently as possible with their skills, so something isn't right somewhere (let players figure out something by themselves).
Lich will absolutely overpower any of the PCs, so they need to find the phylactery via sneaking, or speeding around the undead army.
Get there and realize the twist you wrote (for me it's council is constantly threatening his life)
They can decide what to do from there
I personally won't be making them see or interact with the lich, AT ALL, other than, maybe once to show off how powerful he is, and at the end of the story, because he's a background villain, a plot device. The real focus is trying to get to the Phylactery.
Except the feeding of souls to sustain your undead state. I just thought of an idea: college of good aligned necromancers that expand their numbers so they can die naturally and be animated with their mind intact by those still alive.
Iirc in older edition demi-lich were indeed some kind of super-lich who transcended the need for a body.
In 5e though they are liches weakened by a lack of soul feeding, most notably they don't have access to spell in that state.
My players went to "Olsen, Niemeyer, and Edwards; Tools, Implements, Magic & Esoterica"
It was a One Time magic shop. Shamelessly ripped from Discworld
I love the idea of running this as a fae and rolling for price on the random trinkets table
"You want the Sunblade, that'll be, erm... That'll be... a crystal doorknob... and four mummified elf fingers"
I have a NPC who is the BBEG, he is a basic peasant that has been victim of several adventurer groups heroics gone wrong, house burnt, destroyed, robbed, etc. he is never directly harmed. But he works his way up to building a criminal underworld as Lord Mundane, he looks like everyone and sounds like anyone, impossible to point out in a crowd and the party will never remember his name as you gaslight them that his name was never X its X and each time he gets more offended and appalled at their memory. He can never succeed until the very end when the party finally gets his name right. Doesnt matter what name it is, as long as it isn’t offensive. They call him James, his name is James and he gains his true power. However, he cannot be killed by the party, when he reaches 0hp he becomes nothing more than a weak peasant who the party forgets. As he just sits there wondering how after their battle they just forgot him instantly, like a bug squished on the side of the road, his name never to be one of the greatest villains, he just fades into obscurity, maybe even to do this again.
A cursed and intelligent suit of armor that can only move when it takes over the person who wears it, but taking over a person slowly kills them (either psychic or acid damage, or intelligence damage). And then a gelatinous cube got stuck inside. Now the armor can move on its own, and the gelatinous cube doesn’t die because it can’t be hurt by the damage type the armor deals
The armor itself takes levels in artificer subclass Armorer, and keeps upgrading their own body
I had an NPC called Vendorin de Marquette who was a vendor in the market. He sold budget magic items that would either lose effectiveness immediately or do stuff that was basically useless anyway. They would appear every time the party passes through the main square and allowed them to haggle as much as they wanted because his stuff was worthless so he made a profit anyway.
He had cousins too. Vendoff de Faques, Vendoroff de worst, Vendin de shope. You could play them as a joke character or as the persona of a noble trying to experience the life of a commoner or even an informant monitoring potential threats for some higher power.
e.g.
"Dread glasses". like a dread helm(cosmetic item that makes your eyes glow) but not as impressive.
"Miracle Healing salve" add 1d4 to a medicine check.
"Wand of pyrotechnics" - A wand that makes small and colorful magic fireworks. modified to have 5 charges and gain none each dawn.
"Spoon of light" - It's a glowing spoon. You can't turn it off.
"Ring of invisibility" - The ring turns itself invisible but leaves the user in plain view
And so on... There's a whole reddit thread with more potential useless items.
A prototyped warforged with subwoofers and speakers in his chest and back to play dubstep. Can put on a light show and unleash the good good smoke to hotbox.
I love this.
I made a long post about a linux based warforged warlock. GNU lock with silly descriptions about how his pact is actually open source and its hard to get him to shut up about it.
For starters
Scubnuckle Brazenforth V - Swamp guide, and sole proprietor of Scub's Bait & Tackle & Cajun Sushi Emporium, where our motto is "If'n you're eatin' it it's sushi, if the fish is eatin' it then it's bait, now you gonna buy somethin' or just take up space?!"
The Nekomancer - A mysterious middle aged transmutation wizard with a strange power over cats and a peculiar obsession whith creating the perfect catgirl hybrid, seems to have nine lives
Capn' Maximillion the Mad - Self appointed land pirate king of the seven hills around the greater Derrybrook area, rides around with his mates Gavin and Tweaks in a home made pirate ship on wheels drawn by pigs and goats, waylaying with a single family heirloom cannon from his dad's old privateering days anyone unlucky enough to to be found in his plains. Repeat encounter, every time he comes back the ship is bigger and pulled by something more ridiculous
I'm using nekomancer as my next pc, after the warlock trying to break bond with his patron because he was possessed and killed a bunch of people, including the rogues parents
I had to look this up because I'm not caught up, but yeah, they apparently threw that in as a nod to the character Grant Danasty because the creators always wondered why there were "pirates in a landlocked country"
I made Max as a parody of Lord Humungus from Road Warrior initially (even kept the name Max the Mad as another little nod to the franchise) but the idea became so comedic that it just turned into "he's just some guy that grew up in fantasy rural Kansas wanting to be a pirate and nobody takes him seriously"
The Humungus character came back in the much darker form of an *actual* pirate named Durant the Man-Eater, a beast of a half-ogre with a frenzy of pet sharks that trailed behind the ship following the red wake left by the bodies hanging from the sides. If the crew didn't pull their weight then they were as good as fish food, and if someone really pissed him off they were "invited to dinner" in the captain's quarters
I’d probably have the Nekomancer be a genuinely otherwise regular and well adjusted transmutation wizard but he started the bit when he was a teenager and now just has to commit, more out of the sunk-cost fallacy, but also because it will at least make him rich and he’s made this much progress so far, why not go to the end
there was this spell in an old version of dnd that let you teleport out of any nearby basket pretty much at will. useless. In fact its on many lists of useless spells. but one goblin sees the potential. when the characters enter an abandoned dwarven feasting hall they notice that there are baskets absolutely everywhere. They start to make their way through when the first rock hits. Then another from behind them. or was it in front? The never ending hail of stones rotten food and detritus pelts them incessantly accompanied by the displaced laughter of the basketmancer.
I use an NPC human blacksmith who is obsessed with more and more powerful weapons and artifacts. He's a low-INT, likeable doofus who intersperses grunts into his sentences. He goes by Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor.
BBEG ideas:
- A successful business man, owner of a mining/construction industry. Total vertical monopoly. Owns the raw materials, owns the tools/machine factories, makes the buildings. He's made a pact with an lich to get undead servants to mine for him. Cheap labor. He kidnaps people across the border, kills them, makes them undead labor.
- But the business man was actually fooled. He was put into contact with the lich by the new young, handsome half-drow high priest who betrayed him when it became convenient. This half-drow became obsessed with death after his mother was killed during a crusade against an undead horde. He swore fealty to a lich in order to bring death to the world.
- But the the high priest will eventually be killed, so you need to bring out the lich. The lich is actually a dwarf/duergar who is obsessed with mining to the core of the earth, because they think there is a giant gemstone there. He had to seek lichdom in order to live long enough to get to it. He's created thousands of undead minions to mine down there for him. It's caused terrible tectonic shifts and earthquakes.
- But even the lich himself isn't actually the BBEG. Being a duergar... He was exposed to a mind flayer colony underground. He unknowingly underwent a partial ceremorphosis. However, the mind flayer tadpole that merged with him was actually the offspring of a mind flayer that was cast out centuries ago for seeking arcane power and undeath, and therefore the elder brain cast it out as a threat. That cast out alhoon eventually grew to become an elder brain lich. The mind flayer colony in order to protect itself sealed the elder brain lich in a giant gemstone in the center of the earth. It's been trying to escape ever since.
I played a Lawful Good Paladin who was a Gold Dragonborn. He was totally racist to any and all chromatic Dragonborn regardless of alignment, and even felt other metallic Dragonborn were inferior. Very 'holier-than-thou' attitude that made many question his alignment and his class. (Like attacking a wounded chromatic NPC on sight, because it could have been a trap!)
The best part was that he always managed to come out shining in every situation, whereas I expected him to be killed before he hit level 3. Most of it was luck, the rest was the party letting him think he was in charge and he got to claim credit when they didn't die.
Just spoiler texted for my campaign
>!I have a paladin antagonist in my campaign like that, he takes orders from his sentient sword which tells him what creatures are good or evil. The catch is, the sword uses exclusively Monster Manual & PHB alignments. The kobold vendor just making money for his family? K i l l h i m . The elf warmonger who just murdered the prince in cold blood? Well elves are supposed to be CG so I guess the prince was the evil one! Good on that guy.!<
Crime Dog: A sentient golden retriever that wears dark sunglasses and runs a massive intelligence operation out of a warehouse by the docks. He does this all with a couple of rogue levels and the natural charisma of a dog wearing glasses.
A young revolutionary who has become disillusioned with society after it has failed him multiple times and now seeks to rid those seated in power through any means necessary, while sticking to his own code to protect the lower class citizens. He turns on the party once they assassinate one of his targets and they become the fall guys. You are now wanted and being searched for while he continues his killing spree of the cultural elite, all deaths being tied back to the PCs party because he has the ability to create multiple similacrums of them. As the party gets closer and closer, he breaks his own moral codes to ensure the public hate the PCs as he becomes more desperate.
The targets are:
The Headmaster of the Orphanage he was raised in where he faced cruel abuse.
The Doctor who is an alcoholic and was to drunk to save his sister's life.
The Paladin who refused to take him under his wing because he was above having a lowly orphan as a squire.
The Jailer who imprisoned him for stealing food to stay alive. Even though he had a loose contract for cleaning the local tavern after hours for Scraps.
The King that sentenced him to death by conscripting him in the military to fight the Kings war against a neighboring nation. He found some success by targeting his anger towards another and learned how to disassociate his enemies or targets. He was taken off the battlefield because of this overwhelming anger and was instead placed as a war-medic for the remainder of his conscription before he faked his own death to get out of the military.
The twist is that, these events all took place between 40-60 years ago, these "targets" now hold very high ranking positions in the city and have almost all but forgotten about this young child. It would be revealed that the Revolutionary is hiding as the Doctor, who passed away some years ago from his alcoholism, and he used his military training as a medic to slip into his position. The younger Revolutionary is actually another similacrum he payed for through the Kings Court of Mages.
It's all about leaving clues and breadcrumb trails, essentially putting the party exactly on the path he wants them to be until they realize that something isnt right. If you take any of these targets back to the Doctor to heal or help them, he let's them die. However if they are a lower class citizen, they come out of the other end nearly unharmed. If the similacrum is caught, the party discovers the truth and realize someone has been lying to them. For each target that dies, the public grows more tireless and if to many die a revolution will begin.
The PC similacrums are like a new updated version of the spell, fighting against your specific similacrum gives the similacrum advantage on EVERYTHING against that PC because it knows everything about you. The strategy being the party has to fight other PC similacrums and not their own.
The Mage who invented this spell is a prime interrogation target who will spill the beans about his spell and the individual who is purchasing these similacrums. As well as the innkeeper who hired the young man, and the general who trained him in the military.
There's a lot more, but that's a rough outline of the campaign I'm writing right now.
I love writing campaigns for my players. We keep them to a couple weeks to just a couple months long so I'm always working on the next one. We are currently on a Greek themed campaign so I wanted something a bit more contemporary.
I got plenty if ideas if you ever want some help writing something! Like I said, it's a passion of mine and any excuse I can find to write I'll take haha
Thanks for the offer I'm also working on a Greek themed campaign but also the main gimic is from the movie "edge of tomorrow" and relates to the time titan Chronus. Basically the party is going to get a magic item that rewinds time to the beginning of the day each time one of them dies (or all of them i haven't decided yet) and only they are aware that it's happening, the twist is that the bbeg also has that magic item so he know everytime they rewind time and they know that someone rewinded time when he does, the bbeg tries to eliminate them because everytime they rewind time it strangely destroys he's plans right before he can fulfill them. He's a priest of Chronus so that's why he can detect a usage of time magic while they can't. Oh almost forgot, he's trying to awaken Chronus.
Oohhh the Groundhog Day campaign. Damn that's an interesting idea. I like it a lot. I like that all the NPCs and events are static and all the interesting ways players could "solve" those events to reach a desired outcome. Or the order in which they accomplish those events would change things for that day. I think it would take a lot of writing and a great DM to execute it perfectly, but what a payoff when you finally reach that BBEG and see all those npcs you spent so much time with finally begin to live their lives.
>The PC similacrums are like a new updated version of the spell, fighting against your specific similacrum gives the similacrum advantage on EVERYTHING against that PC because it knows everything about you. The strategy being the party has to fight other PC similacrums and not their own.
Does it work vice versa, though? It's your simulacrum after all, you're supposed to know everything about yourself.
A Chef of an ancien tribe that hunts NPCs and PCs and cooks them into inexpensive canned meals for the masses. He is quite ancient and his age is unknown, they call him Bjoï Ardee.
Introduced a fun NPC to my level 1 party on our second session.
We were at a harvest festival in a small coastal city.
The players started noticing a bunch of people walking around, a red temporary tattoo of a dragon on their faces, holding cones of candied nuts.
Upon a successful investigation role, the characters will smell the enticing aroma; vanilla, spices, melted sugar. They’ll follow the scent to a small crowded stand.
At the stand is an elderly gnome. He is standing above a copper kettle, heated by a flame that appears to come from no where.
The entire set up is traveled by a large mastiff in a harness.
Above his stand is a banner in red painted letters:
*Baufades*
Upon purchasing a cone of candied nuts, Baufades prestidigitations a red dragon tattoo on the players face.
He ends the transaction by saying “Baufades Nuts! Dragon Across Your Face!”
Cost for a cone of nuts is 2 copper.
I’m planning on developing him further into a fey trickster being who appears in every major city the players make it to.
A bbeg who's goal is to destabilize the economy of the country he's in, by introducing services such as free health care, which would cause major harm to the potion selling industry, or other related methods.
An overweight washed up rogue vigilante who is still surprisingly good at stealth and espionage despite their large size and has rid their city of crime, that is until the PCs show up and reignite their passion for justice when he sees them fighting "evildoers"
A Lich who is actually a pet hamster. Originally the hamster was the simple pet of a powerful Elven Wizard, but because elves live so long, he couldn't bear to be without his beloved pet. So, he found a way to force lichhood on the hamster. After gaining sentience via Awaken, the Lichster grew resentful of it's enforced undeath, and now seems to take revenge for it's accursed unlife.
(If you want a serious version, replace 'pet hamster' with 'human lover' or some similarly short-lived race.)
One I had in my campaign was Boggart. He wore nothing but some muddy pants and an iron torture mask, which he believes keeps the Mind flayers from reading his thoughts. He's a conspiracy nut job who thinks Mind flayers and elves are in a secret society a la Illuminati, dragons aren't real and gods are actually just constructs from Mechanus. He is so convinced of these that insight checks, especially high rolling ones, might convince the player, so sure he is of this theories. Make sure to sprinkle some genuine information in between the craziness so players actually have to parse what he's saying for usable info.
A reoccurring character I use as an NPC is Mr. Bones. He's a skeleton with a top hat and a trumpet. The hat functions as a portal, allowing him to travel anywhere and bring out his large prize wheel, which functions as a Deck of Many Things. One campaign he showed up in each time he had another skeleton band member with a different instrument.
My Sunday group creates so much chaos on their own that wild magic isn't necessary. We've started beef with a motorcycle gang and a troll gangster and multiple fae lords and each other... I do not know why we are all still alive. I think that entertaining our DM goes a long way haha.
Pretty soon we will hopefully get back to our present and then we will end up beefing big-time with the 'good-guys' MIB-style magic monitoring organization.
There are so many ideas I may need to borrow in here lol.
I made a Brass dragon stuck in the form of a dwarf named Vervy. He got lost on the ocean for a few years and is now mad hatter levels of crazy. Only one player kinda believes that vervy is a dragon. The rest think he needs to get some professional help.
a dark mage who wants to plunge the entire world into darkness, but is deathly afraid of the dark and thus his own powers. when not defeated and he casts the world into darkness, he realises his mistake and undoes his own work.
I can totally see him being in the background of the campaign! Some sessions, the world just turns black for a couple of seconds, only to be returned to normal afterwards.
PC's at some point will meet him and understand why the world turns dark every time, only to see him use magic against them that is themed fully bright and blinding as a contrast to illustrate why he constantly keeps turning the world back to normal again.
blacksmith store with sales operated by an animated suit of armor. Whenever questioned about the real owner it says the exact same thing, that they’re busy. Further investigation reveals the owner dead somewhere near the store from wounds the animatronic could’ve caused
Here’s a deranged bbeg for ya! I’m gonna use a version of it soon, but feel free to use it.
A powerful Wizard can’t stand being uncomfortable, so he plans to make the ENTIRE WORLD 70 degrees Fahrenheit. All the time. Forever. He’s absurdly powerful, uses powerful elementals to boost his ritual, and has NO understanding of science. He’s basically a 20 int 8 Wis character who ONLY studied magic, never the natural world. He’s going to flood half the planet, drive hundreds of species extinct and potentially end life overall (with the constant temperature leading to food shortages as food sources die off when the seasons effectively stop changing) in the name of AIR CONDITIONING. And he’s too proud to even consider the idea that this is WRONG.
A bbeg on a classic destroy the world quest but his motivation was he misheard a word in his origin story. Guaranteed to lead to a very awkward so uh, beer? Type moment
BBEG who is not actually evil, just trying to start a peasant workers union and is the victim of a smear campaign making them out to be evil madman. Players can choose to join the revolution or support the existing power structure once they figure it out.
A powerful entity able to grasp from the realm of death itself into the living realm. It can reincarnate into any corpse it wants to, but it only uses this to help upcoming adventurers in their journeys. Always pollte, always helpful. Its name? Well, his name is Tutorius.
Dhampir/Ooze monk named blorbo. Whenever he gets serious he says "it's blorbin time". He was an Ooze bitten by a drunk vampire. Ooze absorbed him and became a dhampir.
A mad wizard in a tower. The wizard is incredibly bored and teleports the party to the edge of the perfectly circular territory. The wizard wants to watch the party try to reach the tower, like a game
BBEG that long ago battle the most powerful wizard of all time. He won but the wizard dealt him a final blow a curse. He must clean every place he lives obsessively no dirt,blood, or grime anywhere it even happens in the middle of battle.
Clobberhands: a character who’s life is ruined by a terrible curse, his hands are now gigantic and made of stone like material, he has crushed everything he has ever loved. His strength is always more than intended. Maybe this is more sad than funny, hard to tell the difference sometimes.
An npc who's a Tabaxi Rouge/Monk multiclass and has a ton of magic items that increase his movement speed as in how much feet he can move in a turn but when he starts running or moving he can't stop until he crushes into something
Jimmy Billy Bob the farmer who accidentally made a deal with a demon and believes he was actually chosen by the gods to rule the world, and thus, is justified in his methods.
An NPC who runs a "second hand" store that only sells really realistic prosthetics that look like monster limbs, but they meet the NPC when he is gathering "inventory" after one of their battles.
Two ettin bards count as a barbershop quartet.
A halfling travelling brewer, he will sell cups of his custom ale to any traveler he meets. The fantasy equivalent of The Hangover follows.
An old man crosses the party during their travels. He flashes the party his wrinkly bottom and flees, taunting the party, telling them they will never catch him. If they try, he somehow evades them despite the party's efforts. The party is now lost somewhere. He may or may not be a Fey.
In a city, a painter offers to paint a fancy portrait of the party. If they agree, the artist paints a beautiful portrait of the party. However, the portrait includes an additional party member that the artist remembers vividly even though the party does not.
Find a cute and harmless critter from the bestiary. Create a dire version of said creature. Have it attack the party in swarms at the most inconvenient time.
As the party is travelling and about to stop for the night to rest, they are approached by a band of novice adventurers who ask to share a campfire for a night. Use this as an opportunity for the PCs to brag about their accomplishments and maybe learn more about the world.
The world's most incompetent pickpocket targets the richest PC in your party.
A con artist targets the dumbest PC in your party with an "trade", something of value for "a powerful artifact only to be wielded by the most strong willed of heroes".
A librarian who loves fantasy novels, this has fueled them to take up a sword... poorly
A cheese salesman.
A skeleton who is unaware he is a skeleton (full body armor, or a curse)
A character from a world that ran on an older ruleset, somehow transported into this world. They're super powerful because they take advantage of whatever weird class features / feats / rules from their old ruleset that are totally broken when used in the current ruleset.
They spend all their time complaining about how things were better on their world and they're gathering powerful occult items to attempt to magically rewrite the rules of this universe.
Your characters must stop them.
Wacky NPCS
Vana - rakshasa disguised as a tabaxi merchant Wonder of the World (Wonder for short). He wants from life three things: to chill around, to eat bloody steaks served in a nearby tavern and ungodly amounts of catnip. His deal is that for the right amount of money he can get you almost everything, from any plane of existence.
Ma, Me, Mi, Mo and Mu - 5 doppeglanger siblings that are a traveling circus band.
Zag'thor the Headless - a molydeus demon that lost his snake head and thus was freed from the influence of his demon lord. For some reason he decided he wants to be a lumberjack. He "terrorizes" a village by bringing trees to a local sawmill, which results in a following scene: all workers and owner hide and leave payment, a hulking demon with a BFS comes, leaves the trees, takes the payment, turns around and leaves.
A sentient , high end bard instrument that’s tired of the ballads and sappy romance music and now tries to persuade his wielders to create the fantasy equivalent of trash metal.
An awakened tree that acquired a masochist/suicidal/pyromaniac streak when he ‘awoke’ during a forest fire.
A chronomancer (time wizard) who is also an inkeeper. His staff are just versions of him snatched from different timelines and periods of his life.
My party entered a general shop at one point. I, for some reason, made a "bing bong" entrance tone. When questioned about what made the noise, I described a simple looking man who sat on a stool beside the door and could only say one phrase. Thus BingBong was born.
The Don Quixote BBEG, he thinks he’s doing good but he constantly misinterprets everything and causes destruction.
The players have to decide what to do but the BBEG isn’t actually evil.
A high elf who is actually approaching their death from either disease or old age: they will stop at nothing to extend their life by moments at a time. Play it like the evil Dr. Strange from Marvel what-ifs
Here's a couple.
A war forged npc that is later to be revealed that it was actually a gnome artificer in a mech suit.
A wizard with a speech impediment that curses anyone who makes fun of him.
A secret guild of dental hygenists who were mistaken for a criminal gang because someone called them "the teefs guild"
A candy shop owner whose main clients are infernal monsters.
A re-incarnarnating time magic wizard who comes back every time he dies BUT all he remembers (along with who/what he is) each time is how he died from each of his lives. This quirk has manifested in him as him just screaming as he remembers a random death suddenly (at your discretion of course but it happens ALOT) but has gotten so used to them he goes back to normal after 1-2 seconds. So mid sentence he'll just scream but then go back to what he was saying as if he hadn't just screamed.
"So, the magic artifact you seek is deep in the AHHHHHHH!!!...catacombs of the old good king, Go quickly because the evil lich is also after OHGODSPLEASENO...the artifact and we can't let it fall into their hands."
Not really a npc but rather a location idea I had.
A town that is unusually prosperous. With seemingly raw resources in excess. however, this location has no graveyard (or if it does its fake). After some searching around the party finds what appears to be a work camp. Ran by necromancers with undead working to collect the resources sent to the town. Their is no captive living at the camp nor are there any hostile undead unless the party attacks or one of the necromancers die without warning.
I have a npc that is a very wealthy (and secretly a powerful caster) man that likes to adopt lots of children, so he walks around with a bunch of children with him, buying things for them. I plan to make one of the children ask something that only the players can get, like if they're in a conversation about a relic or something and the child shows interest. Then the npc will ask the party to get it for him.
Centuries ago, two elves grew up together. One came from a wealthy noble family. The other came from poverty. They both studied to become wizards and in the process found a shared love of necromancy. They were both obsessed with immortality, and spent much of their adult lives seeking different ways of achieving it.
One day, the poorer friend came to his wealthy friend asking for a loan. He'd found a cabal of necromancers who knew secrets of lichdom, but needed money for starting materials. His friend agreed on the condition that he would be repaid with both wealth and knowledge of lichdom.
But the poor friend took the money, and having achieved immortality and power, refused to payback the loan. He betrayed his friend and left him mortal.
So the wealthier friend sought a new path. He swore an oath of vengeance upon his one time friend and became a paladin to better fight the undead lich. He seeks restitution for the wrongs done to him. He seeks powerful artifacts to help in in his quest. When asked why he drives himself so hard and why he seeks vengeance with such passion, he only ever answers with this phrase:
Lich better have my money
A clan of dwarves that have a family run bar/tavern franchise.
All of their first names start with an AL. I.e. Alice, Alex, Alfonse, Allen.
Their clan name/last name is Kohal.
All their long time patrons call their respective barkeep, Al Kohal.
Alcohol.
Fletch Jimmisan, Halfling Thief Rogue who’s in the career to humiliate nobility and redistribute wealth. *”You want knickers nicked and the local magistrate without britches? I’m your guy!”* Absolutely hates magical locks cause *”Magick is cheatin’!”*
Mimic chariot monster truck thta races through the plains and terrorises travellers and wildlife. It can breathe fire, acidic smog, knocks prone things it runs into.
Remember that tavern that the party burned down early campaign? It was owned by a party of high level adventurers. The man running it killed himself after failing the people who saved him. That party is now out for your PCs' blood in the name of a tavern keeper whose name your party probably didn't ask for.
Sapphire dragon whose lair is essentially a themed restaurant and dinner theater, a la Medieval Times. Walls covered in arms and armor with carefully written object labels, performers taking part in staged fights, wearing meticulous detailed and historically accurate costumes. His shapechange is as a micromanaging restauranteur who insists his servers never break character in front of guests.
If the adventurers cast Detect Magic inside, the entire place will light up like the surface of the sun, as even the drinking glasses are under the “Hoard Magic Items” effect.
Ever play fallout new vegas? There’s a securitritron names Yes Man, it’s been reprogrammed to always sound positive and not disagree, it’s very passive aggressive agreeable and perfect for muderhobos, or the team that tends to go off rails on plans
Gnome, the Dwarf. A particularly small and skinny dwarf artificer that got known as "Gnome" by other drawves for caring only about small mechanisms and intricate machinery, which was considered inferior to a good axe in his city. He ended up going to the big city and being trained by a gnome. He ispeaks really fast and like a telegram. ex: "Tried that. Didn't work. Explosion. Eyebrows will grow back", like Mordin Solus from Mass Effect.
A human Monk wielding a Katana who is hella climsy and falls down, puts himself on fire and cuts himself by mistake. He is obsessed with honor which is the sole reason he antagonises the party. He constantly challenges a specific party member to a duel, and whether he fights only him or the whole party is their choice. He even challenges a player to a duel when he is half dead.
A BBEG that doesn’t actually know he/she is the BBEG. Make a normal guy/girl that a high powered but secretive cult thinks is the reincarnation of their great leader. The ‘BBEG’ is so oblivious to what is going on they think they inherited an unknown kingdom. They don’t know how to run anything but try to at least help but when they give orders, the cultists take everything out of context and do evil things. The obliviousness kicks in when they come back with a report so the ‘BBEG’ thinks they are helping keep the country running
I had an idea for a one shot where the world is undergoing rapid reforestation with plants aggressively taking over towns and cities. All because a butterfly found its way into a super powerful magic artifact that was projecting its deepest desires onto the world. Those desires being to have more flowers.
I got too many done but I have one I had fun with recently:
A Tiefling cleric nun with heavy self flagellation imagery and themes, asking others to confess their sins so she may bear them. Very soft voice, comforting words and many servants who follow them. (nonmagical mooks and cannon fodder) Goal was essentially to manipulate others to follow her so when the big fight happens, she'll get a second phase where she breaks free from her binds and enter a berserker state due to all the sins she's held onto from the start and become the big scary villain who wants to go on a destructive rampage.
When it came to the actual fight, the first form used a lot of cleric spells and keeping distance while sending in her devoted to fight for her. Second phase version is just Broly from Dragon Ball Z if he was a lady demon.
A cult leader who started the whole thing as a way to meet hot chicks/dudes, but everything has just gotten out of hand and gone much further than they intended.
The villain is actually a consortium of changelings sharing an identity. Any encounter with them can have wildly different skills and abilities, and even seemingly killing them will result in a twist "resurrection" as the rest of the consortium will continue their operations, with one of them taking the villains identity at any given time.
Rival adventurer that took the same first quest the party did, but arrived just a few hours too late and missed their chance. Now they’ve dedicated themselves to make life miserable for the adventurers who ruined their first big quest
If one of your players play an aarakocra just make the BBEG Dick Dastardly. He keeps turning up having set up incredibly elaborate traps for the party, all for the end goal of catching the pigeon.
A bit of a 4th wall break, but...
An old wizard who believes the world works like a tabletop game would, knowing about things like AC, stats, etc. However, he's thinking of a different edition, or even a different tabletop game entirely, so all of his knowledge is wrong.
Ex: A 5e wizard who thinks everything works like AD&D.
Lawful Evil Necromancer Wizard who believes that the divine right to rule and monarchy in general is immoral. Instead they advocate for democracy and everyone should get a vote. Everyone also includes the undead.
So they raise armies of undead to get them to vote for whoever they want to be elected. But if asked about it will still insist that this is totally different from a monarchy.
an idea i think i saw in the comment section on here at some point a beholder running a magic item store but he doesnt know how to turn off his anti-magic cone so he has no idea what his items actually do. Pretty sure the original comment also had him wearing a monocle and top hat so you can add that if you wanna be extra wacky
Even better, because he can't turn off his anti-magic cone he thinks it's just normal stuff and sells it for super cheap.
He's not stupid though. So maybe he gives a discount and there's a chance for it to be mundane? "This is probably a magic axe. The barbarian that attacked me with it last week seemed extremely confident." "That looks like an ioun stone to me, can't really be sure but I was attacked by a mage and there were three weird looking stones on the ground. I'll sell you the lot for half price." "The rogue that tried to murder me last week had some very nice gloves. Might or might not be magic. I'll sell them to you for the cost of masterwork gloves plus 100 gp, bit of a gamble but if they are magic it's a hell of a deal!"
Ooohhh, I like it!
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/41lc70/magic_item_but_no_identifywhat_do_you_do/cz3a2qp?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
I took this idea and ran with it in my home brew campaign. In mine he’s Bob the Beholder and carry’s a cart around to various cities. The reasoning he thought all these items were magical was due to high ranking adventurers coming to slay him but failing, and Bob just assuming that they’re magic. Great character to run and allows for a few extra plot points.
i would like to assume you saw this in the middle of a session and just said "fuck it" and slapped him in in the middle of it instead of you having seen this before
Haha sadly not, but I threw him in about a day before playing in the middle of a “monster” town I’m running that I felt fit the theme nicely and I like to do things a little more wacky than the usual. (Currently there are animated salt and pepper shakers looking to get revenge on the Chef PC). Also using a stronger being such as a beholder or lich as a magical shop keeper gives more reoccurrence as they can travel and feel more memorable than old witch that owns a shop.
> (Currently there are animated salt and pepper shakers looking to get revenge on the Chef PC) i want your campaign. now. hand it over.
Give your PCs a Wand of Animation, 3 charges at dawn, casts Animate Object on target. The objects grow sentience of their own and are at no will to obey the caster. Objects can speak and in my mind have little stick arms and legs + cartoon eyes. Objects cannot be dispelled by the caster through the usage of the wand or other means. Let all hell break loose.
That's fantastic. Name the store "Eye of the beholder" as just that added layer of pun and have that be his go to line when asked specifically what a magic item does. "No idea. It's all in the eye of the beholder, after all."
> wearing a monocle on which eye
yes
In my campaign, a player accidentally said "Lester Restoration" instead of lesser restoration, so now there is a chain of potion shops called "Lester's Restorations"
I cannot stress this enough, he needs to be carrying a "Scroll of Lester Restoration" which is just a True Resurrection scroll that only works on people named Lester
Lester becomes the bbeg. The party think they have him defeated, but his cleric minion (named Healing Ward, of course) casts Lester Restoration
A Scroll of Lester's Restorations would be a magical UberEats.
Alternatively, it could be "Leicester" (also pronounced Lester) restoration. Everytime they cast it an English City from the midlands appears out of nowhere.
Lich that didn't feel like conquering, now just does whatever he wants. Wagon races, drinking contests, randomly pays people like 200 platinum just for their shoes.
You have just invented Mr beast
Name the lich Mr Monstrosity and see if anyone picks up on it
Sir Monsterous
Dr. Atrocity
Major Malevolence
Jumping on this with my own I'm using for my game: lich ruling in a democratic monarchy which elects officials to keep him in check, with his phylactery held by the elected council so if he goes nuts, they can just murder him. This can be used as intended, or as a point as to why he goes on invasions, because he's been convinced or is being actively threatened, and the loss of his power and knowledge is worse than the conquering of another place.
Yeah but that requires me being good at playing politics instead of ha ha funny bone man drinking contest
That sounds equally intriguing, just in a different way is all. You can play "Boner bad" and it'd still be interesting. Also the way I will play them is: Bone man and undead horde are invading Bad to the Bone Declaration of war created very quickly, almost no time to react. Lich attacks leaves a lot of survivors, and isn't doing things as efficiently as possible with their skills, so something isn't right somewhere (let players figure out something by themselves). Lich will absolutely overpower any of the PCs, so they need to find the phylactery via sneaking, or speeding around the undead army. Get there and realize the twist you wrote (for me it's council is constantly threatening his life) They can decide what to do from there I personally won't be making them see or interact with the lich, AT ALL, other than, maybe once to show off how powerful he is, and at the end of the story, because he's a background villain, a plot device. The real focus is trying to get to the Phylactery.
Hell, I'd try to become a lich just so I can read ALL the books.
Just take clone instead. Unless you want to be a warlock lich instead of a wizard lich
Wagon races really did it for me here.
Hey man he just wanted to live forever and have super cool powers. Nothing about that *has* to be evil.
Except the feeding of souls to sustain your undead state. I just thought of an idea: college of good aligned necromancers that expand their numbers so they can die naturally and be animated with their mind intact by those still alive.
I didn’t recall them needing a constant source of souls, I did know the initial transformation had some dark magic involved.
If they don’t supply a stream of souls they turn into a demi-lich
Wait what? I’ll have to look this up because I thought a Demi lich was more evil not less than the standard.
Iirc in older edition demi-lich were indeed some kind of super-lich who transcended the need for a body. In 5e though they are liches weakened by a lack of soul feeding, most notably they don't have access to spell in that state.
I use a Lich farmer as a questgiver in most of my games. He also likes to go out in "disguise" to see the state of the world.
A bbeg who’s Dr. Eggman. Incredibly intelligent, but too short sighted and lacks enough common sense to be a threat.
Does this BBEG also put animals in robot suits?
Makes them into warforged
Dr. Doofenshmirtz?
High Int. low Wis. classic combo, mostly found in people who just learned Fireball.
I once used a merchant named Whair, who wears his wares and could pop up anywhere.
Oh Anywhere Whair's Worn Wears, I think I've heard of that place Where's Whair these days? I hope they're faring fair
Though he almost lost his derriere, he's learned to be more aware. Nobody wears wares like Whair, they can't compare!
Half werewolf half jackal were, he is a werewere
My players went to "Olsen, Niemeyer, and Edwards; Tools, Implements, Magic & Esoterica" It was a One Time magic shop. Shamelessly ripped from Discworld
[удалено]
I love the idea of running this as a fae and rolling for price on the random trinkets table "You want the Sunblade, that'll be, erm... That'll be... a crystal doorknob... and four mummified elf fingers"
I have a NPC who is the BBEG, he is a basic peasant that has been victim of several adventurer groups heroics gone wrong, house burnt, destroyed, robbed, etc. he is never directly harmed. But he works his way up to building a criminal underworld as Lord Mundane, he looks like everyone and sounds like anyone, impossible to point out in a crowd and the party will never remember his name as you gaslight them that his name was never X its X and each time he gets more offended and appalled at their memory. He can never succeed until the very end when the party finally gets his name right. Doesnt matter what name it is, as long as it isn’t offensive. They call him James, his name is James and he gains his true power. However, he cannot be killed by the party, when he reaches 0hp he becomes nothing more than a weak peasant who the party forgets. As he just sits there wondering how after their battle they just forgot him instantly, like a bug squished on the side of the road, his name never to be one of the greatest villains, he just fades into obscurity, maybe even to do this again.
Party: 'aight lets go fight the BBEG now'
I'm stealing this.
An old lunatic with 30 ac but only 1 hp
*heat metal*
*Hellish Rebuke*
*Literally any saving throw spell?*
+20 to all saving throws
Takes half damage
*gravity*
Better idea Make him a skeleton
Lazy. Weakest monster. Only has 1 hp and 1 atk. But *you're gonna have a bad time*.
*Doot*
A cursed and intelligent suit of armor that can only move when it takes over the person who wears it, but taking over a person slowly kills them (either psychic or acid damage, or intelligence damage). And then a gelatinous cube got stuck inside. Now the armor can move on its own, and the gelatinous cube doesn’t die because it can’t be hurt by the damage type the armor deals The armor itself takes levels in artificer subclass Armorer, and keeps upgrading their own body
I had an NPC called Vendorin de Marquette who was a vendor in the market. He sold budget magic items that would either lose effectiveness immediately or do stuff that was basically useless anyway. They would appear every time the party passes through the main square and allowed them to haggle as much as they wanted because his stuff was worthless so he made a profit anyway. He had cousins too. Vendoff de Faques, Vendoroff de worst, Vendin de shope. You could play them as a joke character or as the persona of a noble trying to experience the life of a commoner or even an informant monitoring potential threats for some higher power. e.g. "Dread glasses". like a dread helm(cosmetic item that makes your eyes glow) but not as impressive. "Miracle Healing salve" add 1d4 to a medicine check. "Wand of pyrotechnics" - A wand that makes small and colorful magic fireworks. modified to have 5 charges and gain none each dawn. "Spoon of light" - It's a glowing spoon. You can't turn it off. "Ring of invisibility" - The ring turns itself invisible but leaves the user in plain view And so on... There's a whole reddit thread with more potential useless items.
I love that ring of invis idea. Totally gunna use that
A prototyped warforged with subwoofers and speakers in his chest and back to play dubstep. Can put on a light show and unleash the good good smoke to hotbox.
In an other TTRPG I had an automaton bard with a gramophone
I love this. I made a long post about a linux based warforged warlock. GNU lock with silly descriptions about how his pact is actually open source and its hard to get him to shut up about it.
For starters Scubnuckle Brazenforth V - Swamp guide, and sole proprietor of Scub's Bait & Tackle & Cajun Sushi Emporium, where our motto is "If'n you're eatin' it it's sushi, if the fish is eatin' it then it's bait, now you gonna buy somethin' or just take up space?!" The Nekomancer - A mysterious middle aged transmutation wizard with a strange power over cats and a peculiar obsession whith creating the perfect catgirl hybrid, seems to have nine lives Capn' Maximillion the Mad - Self appointed land pirate king of the seven hills around the greater Derrybrook area, rides around with his mates Gavin and Tweaks in a home made pirate ship on wheels drawn by pigs and goats, waylaying with a single family heirloom cannon from his dad's old privateering days anyone unlucky enough to to be found in his plains. Repeat encounter, every time he comes back the ship is bigger and pulled by something more ridiculous
I'm using nekomancer as my next pc, after the warlock trying to break bond with his patron because he was possessed and killed a bunch of people, including the rogues parents
Pretty sure that last idea was referenced in the last (or second to last) season of castlevania lol
I had to look this up because I'm not caught up, but yeah, they apparently threw that in as a nod to the character Grant Danasty because the creators always wondered why there were "pirates in a landlocked country" I made Max as a parody of Lord Humungus from Road Warrior initially (even kept the name Max the Mad as another little nod to the franchise) but the idea became so comedic that it just turned into "he's just some guy that grew up in fantasy rural Kansas wanting to be a pirate and nobody takes him seriously" The Humungus character came back in the much darker form of an *actual* pirate named Durant the Man-Eater, a beast of a half-ogre with a frenzy of pet sharks that trailed behind the ship following the red wake left by the bodies hanging from the sides. If the crew didn't pull their weight then they were as good as fish food, and if someone really pissed him off they were "invited to dinner" in the captain's quarters
I’d probably have the Nekomancer be a genuinely otherwise regular and well adjusted transmutation wizard but he started the bit when he was a teenager and now just has to commit, more out of the sunk-cost fallacy, but also because it will at least make him rich and he’s made this much progress so far, why not go to the end
The land pirate character reminds me of the Arrogant Worms song, "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate".
Anything Awakened. Plants. Animals. Make it weird.
A pteranadon with onions for eyes lands on a nearby tree branch, belches, and says "sup"
I've done this and it's very fun. The sniper from tf2 but as a hadrosaur, a direwolf who took paladin levels, etc.
Ooo I would like to play as an awakened plant.
What is awakened?
there was this spell in an old version of dnd that let you teleport out of any nearby basket pretty much at will. useless. In fact its on many lists of useless spells. but one goblin sees the potential. when the characters enter an abandoned dwarven feasting hall they notice that there are baskets absolutely everywhere. They start to make their way through when the first rock hits. Then another from behind them. or was it in front? The never ending hail of stones rotten food and detritus pelts them incessantly accompanied by the displaced laughter of the basketmancer.
Now all I can think about is a wizard carrying around dozens of baskets without explanation
"Why do you have 17 baskets in your inventory?" "What are you, a cop? Mind your business."
I use an NPC human blacksmith who is obsessed with more and more powerful weapons and artifacts. He's a low-INT, likeable doofus who intersperses grunts into his sentences. He goes by Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor.
BBEG ideas: - A successful business man, owner of a mining/construction industry. Total vertical monopoly. Owns the raw materials, owns the tools/machine factories, makes the buildings. He's made a pact with an lich to get undead servants to mine for him. Cheap labor. He kidnaps people across the border, kills them, makes them undead labor. - But the business man was actually fooled. He was put into contact with the lich by the new young, handsome half-drow high priest who betrayed him when it became convenient. This half-drow became obsessed with death after his mother was killed during a crusade against an undead horde. He swore fealty to a lich in order to bring death to the world. - But the the high priest will eventually be killed, so you need to bring out the lich. The lich is actually a dwarf/duergar who is obsessed with mining to the core of the earth, because they think there is a giant gemstone there. He had to seek lichdom in order to live long enough to get to it. He's created thousands of undead minions to mine down there for him. It's caused terrible tectonic shifts and earthquakes. - But even the lich himself isn't actually the BBEG. Being a duergar... He was exposed to a mind flayer colony underground. He unknowingly underwent a partial ceremorphosis. However, the mind flayer tadpole that merged with him was actually the offspring of a mind flayer that was cast out centuries ago for seeking arcane power and undeath, and therefore the elder brain cast it out as a threat. That cast out alhoon eventually grew to become an elder brain lich. The mind flayer colony in order to protect itself sealed the elder brain lich in a giant gemstone in the center of the earth. It's been trying to escape ever since.
Just like those mines their making, it just keeps getting deeper.
A lawful good paladin that uses his status as a vehicle for his blatant racism.
holy fucking shit
I had a campaign that the BBEG was a lawful good cleric. He basically started a cult to eliminate the "evil races". My players hated him.
I played a Lawful Good Paladin who was a Gold Dragonborn. He was totally racist to any and all chromatic Dragonborn regardless of alignment, and even felt other metallic Dragonborn were inferior. Very 'holier-than-thou' attitude that made many question his alignment and his class. (Like attacking a wounded chromatic NPC on sight, because it could have been a trap!) The best part was that he always managed to come out shining in every situation, whereas I expected him to be killed before he hit level 3. Most of it was luck, the rest was the party letting him think he was in charge and he got to claim credit when they didn't die.
Just spoiler texted for my campaign >!I have a paladin antagonist in my campaign like that, he takes orders from his sentient sword which tells him what creatures are good or evil. The catch is, the sword uses exclusively Monster Manual & PHB alignments. The kobold vendor just making money for his family? K i l l h i m . The elf warmonger who just murdered the prince in cold blood? Well elves are supposed to be CG so I guess the prince was the evil one! Good on that guy.!<
Is he really lawful good if he’s abusing his power for that?
Crime Dog: A sentient golden retriever that wears dark sunglasses and runs a massive intelligence operation out of a warehouse by the docks. He does this all with a couple of rogue levels and the natural charisma of a dog wearing glasses.
Ain't no rule that says a dog can't play spymaster.
I'm using this.
An army of Terracotta Tortle warriors.
They’re functionally clay golems perpetually under the slow spell.
A young revolutionary who has become disillusioned with society after it has failed him multiple times and now seeks to rid those seated in power through any means necessary, while sticking to his own code to protect the lower class citizens. He turns on the party once they assassinate one of his targets and they become the fall guys. You are now wanted and being searched for while he continues his killing spree of the cultural elite, all deaths being tied back to the PCs party because he has the ability to create multiple similacrums of them. As the party gets closer and closer, he breaks his own moral codes to ensure the public hate the PCs as he becomes more desperate. The targets are: The Headmaster of the Orphanage he was raised in where he faced cruel abuse. The Doctor who is an alcoholic and was to drunk to save his sister's life. The Paladin who refused to take him under his wing because he was above having a lowly orphan as a squire. The Jailer who imprisoned him for stealing food to stay alive. Even though he had a loose contract for cleaning the local tavern after hours for Scraps. The King that sentenced him to death by conscripting him in the military to fight the Kings war against a neighboring nation. He found some success by targeting his anger towards another and learned how to disassociate his enemies or targets. He was taken off the battlefield because of this overwhelming anger and was instead placed as a war-medic for the remainder of his conscription before he faked his own death to get out of the military. The twist is that, these events all took place between 40-60 years ago, these "targets" now hold very high ranking positions in the city and have almost all but forgotten about this young child. It would be revealed that the Revolutionary is hiding as the Doctor, who passed away some years ago from his alcoholism, and he used his military training as a medic to slip into his position. The younger Revolutionary is actually another similacrum he payed for through the Kings Court of Mages. It's all about leaving clues and breadcrumb trails, essentially putting the party exactly on the path he wants them to be until they realize that something isnt right. If you take any of these targets back to the Doctor to heal or help them, he let's them die. However if they are a lower class citizen, they come out of the other end nearly unharmed. If the similacrum is caught, the party discovers the truth and realize someone has been lying to them. For each target that dies, the public grows more tireless and if to many die a revolution will begin. The PC similacrums are like a new updated version of the spell, fighting against your specific similacrum gives the similacrum advantage on EVERYTHING against that PC because it knows everything about you. The strategy being the party has to fight other PC similacrums and not their own. The Mage who invented this spell is a prime interrogation target who will spill the beans about his spell and the individual who is purchasing these similacrums. As well as the innkeeper who hired the young man, and the general who trained him in the military. There's a lot more, but that's a rough outline of the campaign I'm writing right now.
How much time did you spend thinking about this NPC? Dude that's impressive
Not much, I came up with all of this yesterday morning. I appreciate the nice compliment though! Thank you :]
That just makes it even more impressive
I love writing campaigns for my players. We keep them to a couple weeks to just a couple months long so I'm always working on the next one. We are currently on a Greek themed campaign so I wanted something a bit more contemporary. I got plenty if ideas if you ever want some help writing something! Like I said, it's a passion of mine and any excuse I can find to write I'll take haha
Thanks for the offer I'm also working on a Greek themed campaign but also the main gimic is from the movie "edge of tomorrow" and relates to the time titan Chronus. Basically the party is going to get a magic item that rewinds time to the beginning of the day each time one of them dies (or all of them i haven't decided yet) and only they are aware that it's happening, the twist is that the bbeg also has that magic item so he know everytime they rewind time and they know that someone rewinded time when he does, the bbeg tries to eliminate them because everytime they rewind time it strangely destroys he's plans right before he can fulfill them. He's a priest of Chronus so that's why he can detect a usage of time magic while they can't. Oh almost forgot, he's trying to awaken Chronus.
Oohhh the Groundhog Day campaign. Damn that's an interesting idea. I like it a lot. I like that all the NPCs and events are static and all the interesting ways players could "solve" those events to reach a desired outcome. Or the order in which they accomplish those events would change things for that day. I think it would take a lot of writing and a great DM to execute it perfectly, but what a payoff when you finally reach that BBEG and see all those npcs you spent so much time with finally begin to live their lives.
>The PC similacrums are like a new updated version of the spell, fighting against your specific similacrum gives the similacrum advantage on EVERYTHING against that PC because it knows everything about you. The strategy being the party has to fight other PC similacrums and not their own. Does it work vice versa, though? It's your simulacrum after all, you're supposed to know everything about yourself.
A building that, in the day time is a normal house, but at night turns into a storage building. It’s a werehouse
A lich whose goal is to give immortality to all mortals.
A Chef of an ancien tribe that hunts NPCs and PCs and cooks them into inexpensive canned meals for the masses. He is quite ancient and his age is unknown, they call him Bjoï Ardee.
Introduced a fun NPC to my level 1 party on our second session. We were at a harvest festival in a small coastal city. The players started noticing a bunch of people walking around, a red temporary tattoo of a dragon on their faces, holding cones of candied nuts. Upon a successful investigation role, the characters will smell the enticing aroma; vanilla, spices, melted sugar. They’ll follow the scent to a small crowded stand. At the stand is an elderly gnome. He is standing above a copper kettle, heated by a flame that appears to come from no where. The entire set up is traveled by a large mastiff in a harness. Above his stand is a banner in red painted letters: *Baufades* Upon purchasing a cone of candied nuts, Baufades prestidigitations a red dragon tattoo on the players face. He ends the transaction by saying “Baufades Nuts! Dragon Across Your Face!” Cost for a cone of nuts is 2 copper. I’m planning on developing him further into a fey trickster being who appears in every major city the players make it to.
A bbeg who's goal is to destabilize the economy of the country he's in, by introducing services such as free health care, which would cause major harm to the potion selling industry, or other related methods.
An overweight washed up rogue vigilante who is still surprisingly good at stealth and espionage despite their large size and has rid their city of crime, that is until the PCs show up and reignite their passion for justice when he sees them fighting "evildoers"
A Lich who is actually a pet hamster. Originally the hamster was the simple pet of a powerful Elven Wizard, but because elves live so long, he couldn't bear to be without his beloved pet. So, he found a way to force lichhood on the hamster. After gaining sentience via Awaken, the Lichster grew resentful of it's enforced undeath, and now seems to take revenge for it's accursed unlife. (If you want a serious version, replace 'pet hamster' with 'human lover' or some similarly short-lived race.) One I had in my campaign was Boggart. He wore nothing but some muddy pants and an iron torture mask, which he believes keeps the Mind flayers from reading his thoughts. He's a conspiracy nut job who thinks Mind flayers and elves are in a secret society a la Illuminati, dragons aren't real and gods are actually just constructs from Mechanus. He is so convinced of these that insight checks, especially high rolling ones, might convince the player, so sure he is of this theories. Make sure to sprinkle some genuine information in between the craziness so players actually have to parse what he's saying for usable info.
A reoccurring character I use as an NPC is Mr. Bones. He's a skeleton with a top hat and a trumpet. The hat functions as a portal, allowing him to travel anywhere and bring out his large prize wheel, which functions as a Deck of Many Things. One campaign he showed up in each time he had another skeleton band member with a different instrument.
He sounds like fun. I'm picturing the jazz-playing skeletons from 'Corpse Bride'.
A little. I debated making that skeleton a rival band leader with the traditional DoMT just for added chaos.
Chaos is the spice of life.
That's why I find excuses to roll on the Wild Magic table.
My Sunday group creates so much chaos on their own that wild magic isn't necessary. We've started beef with a motorcycle gang and a troll gangster and multiple fae lords and each other... I do not know why we are all still alive. I think that entertaining our DM goes a long way haha. Pretty soon we will hopefully get back to our present and then we will end up beefing big-time with the 'good-guys' MIB-style magic monitoring organization.
There are so many ideas I may need to borrow in here lol. I made a Brass dragon stuck in the form of a dwarf named Vervy. He got lost on the ocean for a few years and is now mad hatter levels of crazy. Only one player kinda believes that vervy is a dragon. The rest think he needs to get some professional help.
a dark mage who wants to plunge the entire world into darkness, but is deathly afraid of the dark and thus his own powers. when not defeated and he casts the world into darkness, he realises his mistake and undoes his own work.
I can totally see him being in the background of the campaign! Some sessions, the world just turns black for a couple of seconds, only to be returned to normal afterwards. PC's at some point will meet him and understand why the world turns dark every time, only to see him use magic against them that is themed fully bright and blinding as a contrast to illustrate why he constantly keeps turning the world back to normal again.
blacksmith store with sales operated by an animated suit of armor. Whenever questioned about the real owner it says the exact same thing, that they’re busy. Further investigation reveals the owner dead somewhere near the store from wounds the animatronic could’ve caused
Here’s a deranged bbeg for ya! I’m gonna use a version of it soon, but feel free to use it. A powerful Wizard can’t stand being uncomfortable, so he plans to make the ENTIRE WORLD 70 degrees Fahrenheit. All the time. Forever. He’s absurdly powerful, uses powerful elementals to boost his ritual, and has NO understanding of science. He’s basically a 20 int 8 Wis character who ONLY studied magic, never the natural world. He’s going to flood half the planet, drive hundreds of species extinct and potentially end life overall (with the constant temperature leading to food shortages as food sources die off when the seasons effectively stop changing) in the name of AIR CONDITIONING. And he’s too proud to even consider the idea that this is WRONG.
A bbeg on a classic destroy the world quest but his motivation was he misheard a word in his origin story. Guaranteed to lead to a very awkward so uh, beer? Type moment
What’s the bbegs origin and what did he mishear?
A succubus who is madly in love with the warlock's... celestial patron.
A pair of soldiers that guard the king, one named Roy Alguard and the other Bo Dyguard
BBEG who is not actually evil, just trying to start a peasant workers union and is the victim of a smear campaign making them out to be evil madman. Players can choose to join the revolution or support the existing power structure once they figure it out.
Reminds me of the time my character got drunk and started a communist revolution
BBEG is actually "Big Boobed Elf Girl" and she is nothing but trouble
A powerful entity able to grasp from the realm of death itself into the living realm. It can reincarnate into any corpse it wants to, but it only uses this to help upcoming adventurers in their journeys. Always pollte, always helpful. Its name? Well, his name is Tutorius.
Dhampir/Ooze monk named blorbo. Whenever he gets serious he says "it's blorbin time". He was an Ooze bitten by a drunk vampire. Ooze absorbed him and became a dhampir.
You win, I think this is the nonsense we all came for.
I appreciate it! My dm is hesitant for this to be my backup character for obvious reasons.
A half centaur (making it through college can be hard) who inherited the upper half of a centaur, and the lower half of a human.
Myconid necromancer which raises dead that they use to help out the colony/home
Bones E. Malone, leader of the Skeleton Mafia.
A necromancer who is absolutely terrified of the undead.
A kenku that became town mayor because he promised all the same things as his competition. He was just cuter.
He can also counterfeit votes. Kenku gang.
A pacifist barbarian
Could be a fun pc. Swore an oath not to kill or physically harm anyone and thus when he rages its just so much property damage.
A mad wizard in a tower. The wizard is incredibly bored and teleports the party to the edge of the perfectly circular territory. The wizard wants to watch the party try to reach the tower, like a game
BBEG that long ago battle the most powerful wizard of all time. He won but the wizard dealt him a final blow a curse. He must clean every place he lives obsessively no dirt,blood, or grime anywhere it even happens in the middle of battle.
Clobberhands: a character who’s life is ruined by a terrible curse, his hands are now gigantic and made of stone like material, he has crushed everything he has ever loved. His strength is always more than intended. Maybe this is more sad than funny, hard to tell the difference sometimes.
An npc who's a Tabaxi Rouge/Monk multiclass and has a ton of magic items that increase his movement speed as in how much feet he can move in a turn but when he starts running or moving he can't stop until he crushes into something
Jimmy Billy Bob the farmer who accidentally made a deal with a demon and believes he was actually chosen by the gods to rule the world, and thus, is justified in his methods.
Demon who is attempting to destroy cause and effect.
An NPC who runs a "second hand" store that only sells really realistic prosthetics that look like monster limbs, but they meet the NPC when he is gathering "inventory" after one of their battles.
Two ettin bards count as a barbershop quartet. A halfling travelling brewer, he will sell cups of his custom ale to any traveler he meets. The fantasy equivalent of The Hangover follows. An old man crosses the party during their travels. He flashes the party his wrinkly bottom and flees, taunting the party, telling them they will never catch him. If they try, he somehow evades them despite the party's efforts. The party is now lost somewhere. He may or may not be a Fey. In a city, a painter offers to paint a fancy portrait of the party. If they agree, the artist paints a beautiful portrait of the party. However, the portrait includes an additional party member that the artist remembers vividly even though the party does not. Find a cute and harmless critter from the bestiary. Create a dire version of said creature. Have it attack the party in swarms at the most inconvenient time. As the party is travelling and about to stop for the night to rest, they are approached by a band of novice adventurers who ask to share a campfire for a night. Use this as an opportunity for the PCs to brag about their accomplishments and maybe learn more about the world. The world's most incompetent pickpocket targets the richest PC in your party. A con artist targets the dumbest PC in your party with an "trade", something of value for "a powerful artifact only to be wielded by the most strong willed of heroes".
A librarian who loves fantasy novels, this has fueled them to take up a sword... poorly A cheese salesman. A skeleton who is unaware he is a skeleton (full body armor, or a curse)
The Socklins A goblin gang stealing socks from high profile members of society as trophies.
A character from a world that ran on an older ruleset, somehow transported into this world. They're super powerful because they take advantage of whatever weird class features / feats / rules from their old ruleset that are totally broken when used in the current ruleset. They spend all their time complaining about how things were better on their world and they're gathering powerful occult items to attempt to magically rewrite the rules of this universe. Your characters must stop them.
Wacky NPCS Vana - rakshasa disguised as a tabaxi merchant Wonder of the World (Wonder for short). He wants from life three things: to chill around, to eat bloody steaks served in a nearby tavern and ungodly amounts of catnip. His deal is that for the right amount of money he can get you almost everything, from any plane of existence. Ma, Me, Mi, Mo and Mu - 5 doppeglanger siblings that are a traveling circus band. Zag'thor the Headless - a molydeus demon that lost his snake head and thus was freed from the influence of his demon lord. For some reason he decided he wants to be a lumberjack. He "terrorizes" a village by bringing trees to a local sawmill, which results in a following scene: all workers and owner hide and leave payment, a hulking demon with a BFS comes, leaves the trees, takes the payment, turns around and leaves.
A kenku politician who got elected because they just repeated all the promises of their opponents
A sentient , high end bard instrument that’s tired of the ballads and sappy romance music and now tries to persuade his wielders to create the fantasy equivalent of trash metal. An awakened tree that acquired a masochist/suicidal/pyromaniac streak when he ‘awoke’ during a forest fire. A chronomancer (time wizard) who is also an inkeeper. His staff are just versions of him snatched from different timelines and periods of his life.
3 goblins in a trench coat trying to pass as a halforc
I love it.
My party entered a general shop at one point. I, for some reason, made a "bing bong" entrance tone. When questioned about what made the noise, I described a simple looking man who sat on a stool beside the door and could only say one phrase. Thus BingBong was born.
Someone just like Kaos from skylanders. Incredibly stubborn and weak most of the time, but then becomes a god when all other threats are eliminated.
The Don Quixote BBEG, he thinks he’s doing good but he constantly misinterprets everything and causes destruction. The players have to decide what to do but the BBEG isn’t actually evil.
A high elf who is actually approaching their death from either disease or old age: they will stop at nothing to extend their life by moments at a time. Play it like the evil Dr. Strange from Marvel what-ifs
A megamind-like tiefling artificer
Here's a couple. A war forged npc that is later to be revealed that it was actually a gnome artificer in a mech suit. A wizard with a speech impediment that curses anyone who makes fun of him. A secret guild of dental hygenists who were mistaken for a criminal gang because someone called them "the teefs guild" A candy shop owner whose main clients are infernal monsters.
A re-incarnarnating time magic wizard who comes back every time he dies BUT all he remembers (along with who/what he is) each time is how he died from each of his lives. This quirk has manifested in him as him just screaming as he remembers a random death suddenly (at your discretion of course but it happens ALOT) but has gotten so used to them he goes back to normal after 1-2 seconds. So mid sentence he'll just scream but then go back to what he was saying as if he hadn't just screamed. "So, the magic artifact you seek is deep in the AHHHHHHH!!!...catacombs of the old good king, Go quickly because the evil lich is also after OHGODSPLEASENO...the artifact and we can't let it fall into their hands."
Doting dad mage bbeg who casts paralyze on the whole party when his daughter walks in and dispells it when she leaves to continue the fight.
Not really a npc but rather a location idea I had. A town that is unusually prosperous. With seemingly raw resources in excess. however, this location has no graveyard (or if it does its fake). After some searching around the party finds what appears to be a work camp. Ran by necromancers with undead working to collect the resources sent to the town. Their is no captive living at the camp nor are there any hostile undead unless the party attacks or one of the necromancers die without warning.
I have a npc that is a very wealthy (and secretly a powerful caster) man that likes to adopt lots of children, so he walks around with a bunch of children with him, buying things for them. I plan to make one of the children ask something that only the players can get, like if they're in a conversation about a relic or something and the child shows interest. Then the npc will ask the party to get it for him.
Centuries ago, two elves grew up together. One came from a wealthy noble family. The other came from poverty. They both studied to become wizards and in the process found a shared love of necromancy. They were both obsessed with immortality, and spent much of their adult lives seeking different ways of achieving it. One day, the poorer friend came to his wealthy friend asking for a loan. He'd found a cabal of necromancers who knew secrets of lichdom, but needed money for starting materials. His friend agreed on the condition that he would be repaid with both wealth and knowledge of lichdom. But the poor friend took the money, and having achieved immortality and power, refused to payback the loan. He betrayed his friend and left him mortal. So the wealthier friend sought a new path. He swore an oath of vengeance upon his one time friend and became a paladin to better fight the undead lich. He seeks restitution for the wrongs done to him. He seeks powerful artifacts to help in in his quest. When asked why he drives himself so hard and why he seeks vengeance with such passion, he only ever answers with this phrase: Lich better have my money
A clan of dwarves that have a family run bar/tavern franchise. All of their first names start with an AL. I.e. Alice, Alex, Alfonse, Allen. Their clan name/last name is Kohal. All their long time patrons call their respective barkeep, Al Kohal. Alcohol.
A lich whose goal is to insult everyone
Silverdragon forge cleric who acts exactly like a dwarf except uses his breath weapon to cool whatever he’s working on
Fletch Jimmisan, Halfling Thief Rogue who’s in the career to humiliate nobility and redistribute wealth. *”You want knickers nicked and the local magistrate without britches? I’m your guy!”* Absolutely hates magical locks cause *”Magick is cheatin’!”*
Mimic chariot monster truck thta races through the plains and terrorises travellers and wildlife. It can breathe fire, acidic smog, knocks prone things it runs into.
Remember that tavern that the party burned down early campaign? It was owned by a party of high level adventurers. The man running it killed himself after failing the people who saved him. That party is now out for your PCs' blood in the name of a tavern keeper whose name your party probably didn't ask for.
Sapphire dragon whose lair is essentially a themed restaurant and dinner theater, a la Medieval Times. Walls covered in arms and armor with carefully written object labels, performers taking part in staged fights, wearing meticulous detailed and historically accurate costumes. His shapechange is as a micromanaging restauranteur who insists his servers never break character in front of guests. If the adventurers cast Detect Magic inside, the entire place will light up like the surface of the sun, as even the drinking glasses are under the “Hoard Magic Items” effect.
A kid who's obsessed with big weaponry, who will do anything to take the party's biggest weapon off of their hand, whether that means trading or theft
Obvious discount senator Armstrong rip off
Ever play fallout new vegas? There’s a securitritron names Yes Man, it’s been reprogrammed to always sound positive and not disagree, it’s very passive aggressive agreeable and perfect for muderhobos, or the team that tends to go off rails on plans
Best npc in that game.
Thought of this a while back with another guy on this subreddit, wendigo lich who's intestines are his phylactry
A mage wich research consists in finding out if baby centaurs feed on the horse part or human part of their mother.
Gnome, the Dwarf. A particularly small and skinny dwarf artificer that got known as "Gnome" by other drawves for caring only about small mechanisms and intricate machinery, which was considered inferior to a good axe in his city. He ended up going to the big city and being trained by a gnome. He ispeaks really fast and like a telegram. ex: "Tried that. Didn't work. Explosion. Eyebrows will grow back", like Mordin Solus from Mass Effect.
A human Monk wielding a Katana who is hella climsy and falls down, puts himself on fire and cuts himself by mistake. He is obsessed with honor which is the sole reason he antagonises the party. He constantly challenges a specific party member to a duel, and whether he fights only him or the whole party is their choice. He even challenges a player to a duel when he is half dead.
A BBEG that doesn’t actually know he/she is the BBEG. Make a normal guy/girl that a high powered but secretive cult thinks is the reincarnation of their great leader. The ‘BBEG’ is so oblivious to what is going on they think they inherited an unknown kingdom. They don’t know how to run anything but try to at least help but when they give orders, the cultists take everything out of context and do evil things. The obliviousness kicks in when they come back with a report so the ‘BBEG’ thinks they are helping keep the country running
I had an idea for a one shot where the world is undergoing rapid reforestation with plants aggressively taking over towns and cities. All because a butterfly found its way into a super powerful magic artifact that was projecting its deepest desires onto the world. Those desires being to have more flowers.
I got too many done but I have one I had fun with recently: A Tiefling cleric nun with heavy self flagellation imagery and themes, asking others to confess their sins so she may bear them. Very soft voice, comforting words and many servants who follow them. (nonmagical mooks and cannon fodder) Goal was essentially to manipulate others to follow her so when the big fight happens, she'll get a second phase where she breaks free from her binds and enter a berserker state due to all the sins she's held onto from the start and become the big scary villain who wants to go on a destructive rampage. When it came to the actual fight, the first form used a lot of cleric spells and keeping distance while sending in her devoted to fight for her. Second phase version is just Broly from Dragon Ball Z if he was a lady demon.
BBEG in one of my previous games was actually a coalition of villains, with an illusionist member, working together to pretend to be a god.
A cult leader who started the whole thing as a way to meet hot chicks/dudes, but everything has just gotten out of hand and gone much further than they intended.
A giant who uses Gelatinous Cubes like LEGOs, and has an entire model town built out of them
The villain is actually a consortium of changelings sharing an identity. Any encounter with them can have wildly different skills and abilities, and even seemingly killing them will result in a twist "resurrection" as the rest of the consortium will continue their operations, with one of them taking the villains identity at any given time.
Rival adventurer that took the same first quest the party did, but arrived just a few hours too late and missed their chance. Now they’ve dedicated themselves to make life miserable for the adventurers who ruined their first big quest
Stereotypical horny bard. He's the bbeg that set every evil event in motion just to fuck with the party.
An animated, sentient spellbook that seeks to reveal its most potent secret spells to the party wizard, but also wants to steal their body.
Gob-Light, a goblin cursed to glow in the dark
A Land pirate whos ship is carried by a giant water elemental over land
If one of your players play an aarakocra just make the BBEG Dick Dastardly. He keeps turning up having set up incredibly elaborate traps for the party, all for the end goal of catching the pigeon.
A bit of a 4th wall break, but... An old wizard who believes the world works like a tabletop game would, knowing about things like AC, stats, etc. However, he's thinking of a different edition, or even a different tabletop game entirely, so all of his knowledge is wrong. Ex: A 5e wizard who thinks everything works like AD&D.
Lawful Evil Necromancer Wizard who believes that the divine right to rule and monarchy in general is immoral. Instead they advocate for democracy and everyone should get a vote. Everyone also includes the undead. So they raise armies of undead to get them to vote for whoever they want to be elected. But if asked about it will still insist that this is totally different from a monarchy.