Some NPCs in Three Rivers

 Digging through documentation from games run several years ago, I came across some writeups for henchpersons and NPCs in the town of Arrowhead (located in the Three Rivers region, as traversed at the time by PC Gunsi the Squirrel).  Basically these were a mess of names and personalities I cobbled together before running those sessions - only a few of them actually appeared in play.

Three Rivers was put together as a place to stitch together Night's Dark Terror and Eye of Traldar and some other stuff.

Major locations

Arrowhead, a bustling town sitting on the trade route

Ironwrack, the imposing fortress-castle of the Warlord who claims the region of Three Rivers.  Ironwrack was the human bastion versus the Bear Dwarves in antiquity; recently repaired by Warlord Zelligant “the Ravenous”.

Squeamish, a medium town at the edge of the Lumberlands

Ruins of Castle Argenta (I had intended to throw the orange-cover B3 in here)

Standing Stones

Lost Valley of Rangdangdiddle, home to the fox-folk

Bernhold, stonefast of the bear dwarves

Factions/Groups

The Poison Crown (Iron Ring) slavers, organized crime, general evil-ness.  Supported by Zelligant the Ravenous.  Attempting to dominate first Three Rivers, then other regions.

Small group of elves

Bear Dwarves (I must like the idea of dwarves that are into bears, as I have another group of these guys further east on the map)

Goblins

HENCHPERSONS IN IRONWRACK.   Ironwrack is the big-ass keep in Three Rivers that was, at the time occupied by a cruel lord called Zelligant, who was a bigwig in the slaver ring known as the Poison Crown.  

Ironwrack recruitables (I can tell I generated the seeds of these with a table):

Custus Framm, trustworthy roustabout with an astrolabe.  Used to work for a wizard (generate in play).  Said wizard disappeared after a heated rivalry with Aurelian, one of the wizards of Ironwrack.  Custus knows the general location of the ruined tower of his former master’s teacher...

Martholomew Rambleshart, intellectual acolyte with a shield.  Rambleshart’s a bit of a know-it-all, but he’s also a 1st-level cleric.  His fine metal shield bears the symbols of his cult (generate lesser saint using ‘Lesser Key’ in play).  DECEASED.  Killed by agents of the Poison Crown in Ironwrack as he accompanied Gunsi the Squirrel.

Veranda Bliss, doe-eyed bookkeeper with a horseshoe.  Veranda earnestly wants to be an ‘adventuring accountant’.  She carries a lucky horseshoe which she swears she saw thrown by a fey steed as some elven knights rode past her family’s farm when she was just a little girl.

ARROWHEAD AREA

While working as a stevedore, the ever-clumsy Mr. Ham Stumbleford sadly lost his left hand due to a piano-stacking accident, but he gets by nicely with an “artifice-ified hand what a wizard gave him” (actually a pair of salad tongs affixed somehow to the stump).  Ham is robustly built and bold, a first-level fighter, although he lacks decent equipment.

Miss Serafina Pale took ill from a rough case of the sanguinary grumbles, passed into a deathlike state,and was accidentally buried alive.  When she clawed her way out hours later, she had a considerably different outlook on life.  Miss Pale is a bit of a dowser and has some psychic potential; although currently zero-level, she’d make a fine magic-user or cleric if life steered her in that direction.  She carries a dowsing-rod made from her own coffin-lid.

Mr. Humdrum Vinegar, until recently a traveling umbrella salesman, has taken up a life of glory based on the proclamations of a carnival fortune-teller.  He is zero-level, 2 hp, armed with a sturdy umbrella (club) and a trash-can lid which he uses as a shield.

TWO WIZARDS OF ARROWHEAD

Phabulus the Warlock is a dashing young man whose red cape and flowing locks are constantly caressed by a cool breeze, even when he’s indoors. Phabulus is an adventuring-wizard, and knows a good bit about the folklore of Wampus Country; collecting such stories and folkways is his passion.  His familiar is a tremendously fat, hairless cat called Penelope who is constantly rolling about and falling off of things.

Vambrol “The Grey” - so called because patches of his skin have turned to cold grey stone - is both skilled wizard and an experienced traveler of this world and others.  He is a master of cartography and owns numerous maps and atlases, including those describing imaginary and impossible places.  Vambrol wears multiple diamond rings on each of his fingers - something about a ward against being scried by the dao who hunt him.  His familiar is a tiny stone-golem with diamond eyes, about four inches tall, called Rochester.

Gunsi the Squirrel had some success in breaking up the slaver ring at the time, but evil never rests, so there's probably a remnant of the Poison Crown out there.

Whisperwing

The below is a critter I submitted at the last minute to a monster-creation contest last year.  It didn't win (hastily-composed things rarely do) but I think it came out pretty fun; it's more of an implicit encounter than a monster, I think.

WHISPERWING
THE STATS (of minimal importance at any rate):
AC 12  HP 10  ATK tiny talons +1 for 1d6
MV N (fly)   Dex +2   Wis +2   LVL 1 fey

APPEARANCE:

A plump iridescent moth, the size of a small annoying dog or a large loaf of bread.  Its eyes are immense and opal-like; its chitin a stunning tortoise-shell.  The wings - bearing scintillating, moving patterns of unearthly color that sometimes seem to coalesce into whispering faces, are heavily furred around the edges and bear long “swallowtail” appendages at the rear.  When at rest or asleep, the wings soften and hang like soft baby blankets.  One sorcerer of my acquaintance described the whisper-wing he saw as “the moth equivalent of a fat, spoiled Persian cat”.  The whisper-wing flies, but only slowly, and with an unsteady manner that makes it appear to be stumbling through the air.  Those who encounter the whisper-wing may at first find it comical.

THE LORE/ENCOUNTER (the good stuff):

These large, nocturnal faerie moths are not native to our world, but are instead another strange byproduct the whirrings of the cosmic orrery.  When the unseelie constellations align just so, mortal secrets and lies coalesce and congeal into an insectoid egg which hatches a single whisper-wing.  Once born, the moth first seeks to fill its belly on any source of protein or sugar it can find for several nights before proceeding with its (un)natural life cycle.  The whisper-wing instinctually yearns to advance along the cosmic wheel by self-immolating in a fire of sufficient size (campfire or larger).  When the intelligent moth spots a suitable bonfire, it will perch in a tree or atop a rock and watch, fascinated, for some time before finally screwing its courage to the sticking-place and charging for the fire.  Whisper-wings can speak the tongues of all civilized men due to their faerie nature, and may improvise quite the soliloquy on their descent to destiny; others may simply rave as to how large and hot the fire looks, and how they cannot wait to throw themselves upon the pyre.  Regardless, any people nearby certainly get the idea the whisper-wing is stumble-flying its way to the fire with glorious suicidal intent.  Those who try to prevent the moth from its destiny will be engaged with drive-by slicings and dicings from the plump insect’s wicked little claws.  Being a horrid little bug made of secrets, the whisper-wing can see secrets, and uses this ability in combat.  If an opponent is hiding a wound, the moth strikes at it unfailingly; if the opponent has a weak side, the moth exploits it.  Otherwise, the moth might taunt its opponent based on deep dark secrets (“Nice dagger, is that the one you used to kill your sister?”)  If slain in combat, the opalescent, plate-like eyes of the whisper-wing could likely be sold as semi-precious stones of significant size (or cut down to be the lenses of magic goggles that reveal auras or the invisible).

When the whisper-wing lies down on the fire and begins to die, it will sing hauntingly in one or more local languages, revealing an important secret as it passes on.  This is, in effect, the last breath of the whisper-wing, which, as you will recall, is not a moth at all, but a conglomeration of secrets made into simplest flesh.  The secret could regard anything - ancient lore, a hidden place or object, political machinations and intrigue, or something personal about a nearby person.  If the whisper-wing is prevented from reaching the fire and held hostage, it may be negotiated with, and likely convinced to reveal a particular secret upon its deathbed rather than a random one.  In this usage is the whisper-wing’s greatest value to most men.

Post-mortem, the curled and toasted husk of the whisper-wing makes a suitable foundation for an enchanted helmet, particularly one intended to be ensorcelled as a helm of comprehending languages, or something proof against ESP.

If seized as a wizard’s familiar - typically by the dedicated casting of find familiar against an entrapped specimen - the whisper-wing begrudgingly becomes a serviceable companion.  As a companion, the moth will attempt to sleep all day (its snoring reminiscent of sighing into a harmonica), demand to be fed buttermilk in a baby bottle, and mutter outrageous probably-false gossip about passers-by.  The whisper-wing grants its magic-user the boon of immunity to effects like know alignment, detect evil/good, and so forth, as well as improved resistance to hostile ESP or penetrating telepathy, so long as the moth is on the wizard’s person.  The whisper-wing contains too many secrets and thoughts in one place and disrupts these sorts of powers by its mere presence and attunement to the magic-user.  The soul-shackling of the familiar unfortunately dissolves the whisper-wing’s ability to see weaknesses, as the mortal companion is such a sad sack of neuroses the fey moth becomes blind to the weaknesses of others in combat.

Happy Halloweeners

 The Happy Halloweeners

A selection of spooky familiars for 5.5, adaptable to other D&Dalikes

Assembled below are some variant familiars themed around the spirit of Halloween.  While not every realm has Halloween, many have something resembling it - a spooky period in the Autumn as the seasons rotate, when the air chills, the leaves tumble, and the realms of the dead are close at hand.  The familiars below all have the regular powers and limitations of the Find Familiar spell, but they also each have a minor extra ability as well.

How to use these Halloweeners

• These critters are imagined as arcane caster familiars but could be used as variant companions for the right sort of cleric or paladin, as appropriate.

• Although in 5.5 familiars can be Celestial, Fey, or Fiendish, given the theming here these Halloweeners should probably be limited to Fey or Fiendish.  They’re all written “cute” rather than “menacing”, so perhaps Fey is the way to go.

• Use one with an NPC (hostile or otherwise); an unusual familiar makes an NPC instantly memorable.

• Allow a PC caster to summon (or upgrade to) one of these familiars as a reward for a Halloween-themed quest - such as defeating a coven of appropriately-themed hags, or for casting the Find Familiar spell in a special place on Halloween, etc.

• Add them to a custom table of summonable creatures for use with a particular Summon Animals spell or related item (Bag of Halloween Tricks?).

• Temporarily replace a PC caster’s normal familiar with a Halloweener during a themed Halloween adventure.

Jack-o-Little.  This softball-sized animated jack-o-lantern offers a friendly, toothy grin, and can be quite useful to the adventuring wizard. First, he emits light as a Continual Flame spell at all times, unless commanded to shut his mouth.  Secondly, despite his lack of visible limbs, the jack-o-little cannot easily be dislodged from its owner’s shoulder when he is happily sitting there, making this familiar an excellent spotlight for the spelunking explorer.  Finally, a number of times per day equal to proficiency bonus, the owner of jack-o-little can speak with plant creatures as per that feature of the Speak With Plants spell.

Pocket Square Ghost.  When not floating lazily about in sheet-ghost form, the tiny pocket-square ghost prefers to rest in a jacket pocket so it can be carried about but still see what’s going on.  Although it can fly and even phase through walls a number of times per day equivalent to its owner’s proficiency bonus, the pocket-square ghost is incredibly slow (Speed 5) and insists on making not-actually-that-spooky noises as it floats around.  The ghost takes itself seriously and may refuse to work if mocked.

Spookan.  An eerie black-and-green bird with a gigantic beak, the Spookan can “follow its nose” and detect the presence of undead within 120 feet, which causes its tremendous proboscis to emit a sickly green glow.  The creature is not clever enough to tell the difference between a lich and a vampire by sight or description, for example, but certainly undead of greater power smell more strongly than a simple zombie or skeleton, and thus trigger a brighter glow. (Note: bringing your Spookan into the presence of an actual death god (Orcus), really legendary undead (Vecna, Dragotha), or similar is very likely to cause the poor familiar to explode comically, never to be summoned again.)

Scaredy-Crow.  This creature, assembled from straw and flannel rags, is essentially a scarecrow version of a crow, which likely causes it considerable existential angst.  The caster attuned to the Scaredy-Crow has advantage on all saving throws against fear effects.

Cauldronid.  A little animated witch’s cauldron the size of a soup bowl, which skitters about on its stubby metal legs (speed 20, can climb walls) when not perched on its owner’s shoulder or hanging from a belt or backpack.  The cauldronid cannot speak but is a happy little fellow, eager to serve.  Its cavity can hold the equivalent of one beverage or potion, which will not spoil while in the cauldron, and which the cauldron will not spill despite its frantic movements.  The cauldronid will dutifully carry a healing or other potion across an active battlezone and pour it in the mouth of an ally.  If the little cauldron is dismissed or destroyed while holding a liquid, that liquid will be destroyed (lost in whatever pocket dimension) by the time he is re-summoned.

Bankenstein.  This little piglet golem has obvious stitching and mismatched parts, having been assembled from multiple piglets.  He has a little slit in his back where you can deposit coins.  Each time the attuned caster places a gold piece in Bankenstein (up to as many times per day as the caster’s proficiency bonus), Bankenstein will manifest the following turn a random effect from the “pig of wonder” table below.  The piglet can of course be aimed if the caster is holding him.  When Bankenstein is out of charges for the day, his belly will appear full and distended, and he will moan a bit and want to take a long nap.

Pig of Wonder effects table

1  Eldritch squeal - Bankenstein emits a terrifying pig-squeal from beyond the dawn of time (possibly from that aberrant plane known as the Farm Realm).  All hearing creatures within 120 feet, including allies, must make a Wisdom saving throw or take 2d8 psychic damage.

2-3  Candy corn - Bankenstein produces a handful of candy corn.  If consumed immediately, the candy corn heals 2d8 hit points.  If saved for later, it’s just candy corn.

4-5 Fire bolt - The piglet burps out a fire bolt spell.

6-7  Web - Bankenstein belches forth a web spell.

8  Jackpot - The piglet loudly and painfully produces every gold piece he’s been “fed” since the last time he delivered a jackpot.  If this is Bankenstein’s first jackpot with you as his owner, then he provides 5d6 gp of filthy lucre.