NPCs bring a richness to any campaign, but not every Game Guide has the time or energy to bring fully fleshed NPCs to the table every time out, so, as a thank you to all the Game Guides, GMs, DMs, Hosts and other folks who run the worlds we play in, I am going to start offering free NPCs for you to use in your campaigns (not for commercial use, sorry).
Most characters can be repurposed for different genres, and feel free to alter, embellish, or gender however you like. My goal here is to give you NPCs with some character to them, some personality, minus tropes and stereotypes.
First free NPC is for a fantasy RPG campaign, but you could easily port to sci-fi, etc.
Joris (the Meek) – Most adventures have an inciting incident, something that sets things in motion, well Joris saw it happen. He was a first-hand witness to whatever it was, saw it all as plain as the nose on his face. Unfortunately, Joris doesn’t talk freely.
He’s lived a life of trauma and is a mostly broken man. The events he witnessed had to have been shocking, but Joris doesn’t appear particularly phased, as if he lost the capacity for emotional swings.
A warm meal and a pint or two will get him talking, but not freely, and without expounding. He speaks dryly. Imagine a person who speaks without adverbs. If pushed too hard Joris will withdraw into himself, sad for what he perceives to be the imminent death of the adventurers asking him questions.
If there is any violence, Joris won’t fight back. He’ll take the beating.
Second free NPC for Roleplaying Games
The Bread Lady – The Bread Lady is small and dark. Her hair is cut short, and she wears a blindfold. She blindly walks the streets hawking thin loaves of crunchy bread from a large basket. Her clothes are clean but worn. Her prices are reasonable. She will not haggle.
If the player characters approach, or pass closely, she will make a sour face and tell one of them that they smell of infection, that they must seek a healer before the infection spreads. The Bread Lady is correct. One of the characters has an infection. She’s blind, but her sense of smell is highly sensitive.
The Bread Lady doesn’t want or need sympathy, but nor does she have a chip on her shoulder. She navigates the world just fine, but she’s also been blind long enough, that she no longer takes umbrage at sighted people who are clueless or over-curious about how she manages this or that.
Third free RPG NPC
Pack of Feral Children – This pack of children is not literally feral. They are just overly excited with their play. They move through the streets with shouts, screams, laughter and curses. They swing sticks at one another, battling through the dusty streets, fighting imaginary monsters and each other. Passersby dodge aside and curse, as the children are unaware of anything outside of their raucous bubble of play.
The pack of feral children doesn’t interact with the player characters unless the characters confront them in some way. Mostly they’re here for scene dressing, but they could be inclined to clang a player character on the helmet and race away.
Another option would be to let the pack of feral children trip some wild Rube Goldberg reaction that impacts the characters in some way well after the children are out of site. Have fun with it.
What sort of NPCs do you need? Leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
Cheers!