Overdoing the DM NPC

 

I had first heard of the term a DM NPC in some forum or another around 11 or 12 years ago. A DM NPC was one of the campaigns NPC's, but usually had a more negative connotation. Not just meek shopkeeps and street sweepers/walkers. But the terms "precious" and "favored" NPC's were thrown about. 

There seemed to be a real thing about this. Many folk clearly had a bad experience with DM's about NPC usage. And I guess I can see that. I remember about 12 years ago going to a Star Wars Saga session at this guys dad's apartment, me and 3 or 4 other full grown adults sitting on the floor playing in the guys Saga game (I only went because I was to run the system and wanted to experience it). I don't remember a lot other than the black dude in his 20's running a game while me and a handful of others in our 40's sitting there on the floor smoking pot. But one thing I remember is his main NPC, a well painted jedi miniature, being all over the little model buildings set up on the floor, doing almost everything while the rest of us kind of just waited our turns. But this kid loved his NPC clearly, and just wanted his favored guy doing most of the work while we watched. An extreme case to be sure. 

I also remember back in the day in my early teens going to the local Jewish community center in Santa Monica a friend invited me to because there was an older (probably around 30) guy running D&D for anybody who wanted to play. The main thing I remember was towards the end our characters were in trouble and were going to get killed by a local gang or something. And older DM dude having our characters having heard of this NPC, clearly his own character from some other campaign, and seeking his help. I remember the NPC confidently walking down the street with us, casting haste on himself and twirling a pair of swords around as we walked. I think that NPC mostly took care of the final fight. 

So yeah, I get it. Both of those are probably extreme examples, but if anybody was in the hobby long enough they probably had similar experiences. But how guilty am I? I suppose its subjective. 

From early on in my DMing my "precious" NPC's would be present. And more often than not they started as my early characters, and I incorporated them in my fledgling game world because, well, I wanted NPC's to be around other than shopkeeps and wenches. So here are two examples of my earliest D&D characters/NPC's (started in the latter 70's).

Arcturus Grimm - A ranger. He was probably among my first couple of characters ever created. I think from the original Greyhawk supplement where ranger was introduced (or maybe an issue of Dragon). There was no 1st ed Players Handbook yet.  He was exceptional and though we used 3d6 in order, I rolled nothing lower than 14, and the stats included 3 of them 16 or higher. As I was practically a kid I probably didn't realize how rare that would be. I made him a ranger, a strong 6'5" man (maybe based on one of my older brothers who was that big, and an all city athlete in school). His name was taken from a couple of my fave comic book characters. He was raised by bears in the northern Darkwold Forest. I had Arcturus Grimm be the elvish words for "Archer Bear." He was raised in the deep woods, and was fairly naive. 

When I soon started my own world, and began rarely sitting down as a player, I just injected Arcturus into the new setting (mostly just a tavern and a dungeon.). Over those early years Arcturus was there as the world grew. I expanded his background as being the adopted son of The Woodking Armis, the leader of an ancient order or rangers in the Darkwold known as The Woodlords, which I also added to the world. An early teenage sweetheart playing the game eventually would have a character marry Arcturus (making things awkward setting-wise when we broke up). But as characters, players, and campaigns came and went over the years through the 80's and into the 90's, Arcturus was here and there.

 Not hogging glory or fighting the fights for characters, but he would be around. Cameos as PC's adventured or playing a bigger role as wars and other major world events went down. At one point in my early 20's a girlfriend ran a daughter of Arcturus. New ranger characters might have heard of the Woodlords, and maybe aspired to join at higher levels. And Arcturus would be there. I have him pop up rarely to this day, still mortal but somebody of very high level who dallied with gods and other major spiritual beings. His adopted sister, Sheenara (or Sheen) rose to a minor woods deity status. Over 120 years of game time has gone by in my games, but Arcturus is actually 3rd elf so is not all decrepit yet, but far more mature than the young man I started him as when I was very young. Of all my characters/NPC's I probably had the closest affinity for Arcturus. I lived his ups and downs in the game world along with him.  

Over the decades I used various miniatures for him. Ones older gamers like me would recognize. 

One of the few minis I still have since the early 80's. Of any mini I used for Arcturus, this one looked the least like him. I suppose it is relative from a distance, but this does not convey the sense of a 6'5" dude. Just a basic ranger figure. Like most of my minis I got it at Aero Hobbies where I played a lot (but not as Arcturus) in my early teens. Owner Gary Switzer offered to paint it, and despite my descriptions proceeded to paint him how he wanted. I already did not like that the mini had a mustache, at a time Arcturus was clean shaven. And he gave him light hair instead of dark brown. But what the hell, it was a mini.  Early on as a character Arcturus had a Pseudo Dragon familiar (we levelled up fast when we were kids), so he used epoxy to put it on his shoulder, which was a nice touch. 

But more recently for brief cameos in Roll20 games I used this image:

Also his sister Sheen has made and appearance or two in the matters of druids:

These appearances are more for me than anything else. A brief touch of nostalgia. In most cases the players have no idea of the greater history I have with them. But I have had children of his (he left many of them throughout the lands after the Woodlords disbanded) appear in more recent games, specifically the twins Frend and Frenda, who are rangers encountered working for local caravans and what not. They appeared in the last couple of campaigns but nobody knew their parentage. So another insider bit for myself. 

Montigar Silverglen - he was an elvish fighter/thief I did up to play maybe a year or so after I created Arcturus. He was a high elf raised among wood elves and was an adventurous spirit who dallied with player characters here and there. He fought primary with two swords, and yeah when he became an NPC in my world I pumped him up a bit. 

Through the 80's and 90's he popped up here and there, usually meeting new characters in new campaigns. Every time he was encountered he was into something else. He was a dualist, a privateer, a Bon Vivante, a highwayman,a monster hunter, and a hero of two kingdoms, human and elf. I somehow ran him very charismatically; no less than 3 women in my games over the years had characters romantically involved with him. A romantic triangle between him and two other player characters (neither of them were girlfriends of mine, though "T" who I often mention is still one of my players) ended in death for one of them (his former girlfriend character, a fighter, killed a mind-controlled character of T's thief (the players were actually roommates then) who was his current girlfriend. Rather than restrain her, the fighter killed her. It was wild. No ending of friendship with the players, but this was a memorable moment that just became another part of his storied history bards would eventually sing of (which actually happened in recent games. Keep reading).  

One interesting aspect of Monitigar is his father was Whirligar, a high elf illusionist who was looked upon as a deity by gnome illusionists. Just one of those weird facts you come up with as a kid. 

I had a teenage sweetheart who ran a wood elf thief named Noradama. She identified with this character the same way I did with Arcturus. She and Montigar hooked up and were a famous power couple in the mostly city games I tended to run in my later teens and early 20's. This was the first time (but not the last) I would experience personal relationship role-playing, and my GF and I spent late nights acting out these characters as if they were in an inn room. Sometimes it can be extra good being the DM. I imagine other people must have experienced this. 

Much later, after the 90's, I had Montigar be a bit of a tragic figure when he appeared, someone who had bards across the lands sing of his many adventures and misadventures. Triumphs and failures. But I thought of him as somebody who was tired of the death and violence and doomed romances. He was a lone soul who never lost a fight but always lost in love. 

The first of many times I used the old Apple Lane setting for D&D in the early 2000's, I had characters encounter him living out the song Margaritaville there, working for the weapon trainers and drinking day and night, pestered by various would-be legend killers coming to make a name by taking his life.  

As a kid I got my hands on some Ralph Bakshi LOTR minis, including Legolas. I would eventually use the Legolas mini for Montigar, adding two longswords to the mini. Though Legolas was fairly effeminate looking in the film, the mini was a bit more butch.

Yep, after many decades I still had this fucker, though with an arm missing. One of my first ever paint jobs, and it shows. But really, now much better was Gary's paint job for the Arcturus mini.

Prior to the most recent games I think characters in a couple of campaigns the last two decades ran into him living the more or less quiet life. Probably several years since the last. But recently he appeared in my current Roll20 thing. 

The characters were on their way to the dungeon just beyond the southern border of the kingdom (taking several games to do so), and when they came to Shire's End, a remote village at the southern frontier of the Halfing Shire, I was brainstorming encounters there. Three families control the place, mining families who have concerns in the mining town a couple hours south near the dungeon out in the Grass Wilderlands. As the place had not much in the way of kingdom security (army outposts), the place had its own force of volunteer halfling frontiersmen, but also I decided this would be Montigars latest hang out place, being a Regulator for the families in return for a nice tower to live in and a modest stipend.

 The characters show up to the area and are chased by a hill giant but make it into the walled village. There they eventually meet Montigar, who is happy to see other than mining material and lumber merchants and invites them up for a party in his well-appointed tower in the merchant family inner compound. Here is the image I used for later in life Montigar, with scars and all.

Montigar spent a lot of the time manning his
minibar. "One for you, one for me, one for you..."

There is an issue with a hill giant, wandered up from the grasslands, menacing folk and stealing sheep. Long and short of it Montigar will deal with it, though he does not want to kill it because he is tired of killing things in his long life. The next day the characters go out to help him (he says maybe with their help he can subdue it over killing it), and it turns out there is a female one as well that was hidden in the copses of trees. With help from the characters Montigar got the giants to submit, and he offered the big dummies the opportunity to stick around to help protect the area and be helpful to the inhabitants in return for regular offerings of sheep, pigs, and bags of potatoes. Montigar asked the characters to stick around for another night of partying. 

I added the minibar to this map!

Despite my hopes that the wood elf bard Xanthia of "T" and the wood elf ranger Myrnigan of "L" would hook up at some point, given his history I thought it would be just right for Montigar to get the Xanthia hookup. I mean, she is super-hot. Tall, built like a female volleyball player, platinum locks, and a high charisma bard. Who would not want to experience that?

Or maybe I just have a thing for a cartoons

Ultimately, she wasn't having it. That is until Montigar asked her to do a duet of a famous old love ballad from their hometown of New Denaria. Luckily there was something nice in elvish in the jukebox to play and set the mood.

It won her over, though there was no nookie for ol' Montigar. Not yet, but it was on her mind. We'll see if that hookup comes down the road. The dungeon is only two or three hours away, so...

BTW, Evador the young cleric was taken with him, and snuck up later the last night to be with him. Xanthia the bard actually followed her up to the den to see what happened, and was glad to see Montigar nicely turned the Tanmoorian teen down, said she was too drunk and so was he, and sent her back to bed. Xanthia seeing that put her in the "I like Montigar" camp even more. 

So yeah, that DM NPC appearance was fairly self-indulgent. But what the heck, "T" enjoyed seeing an NPC from the past she knew of, and B and L thought he was cool. "Like a character from a fantasy romance novel" one said. 

But this is a rare case. I'm coming up with NPC's for games all the time, some regular, some more interesting. But jeez, I've had this game world a long time. It's nice to drag out old NPC's that have been around since my youth out of mothballs now and again. Not all of them are still alive. But why not use them?

Above: any Dragonsfoot Grognard who 
might read this post

Cheers

Night Below Modifications

Now that the long campaign is over, I can talk about some changes I made to the adventure as presented in the module, and some of the reasons I made the changes. I doubt many people are going to take up a super-long campaign with this (one campaign I read about started in the 90’s and well into the current decade – something like 8 years including all the book in the module) at this point, but you never know.

Some of the things I read online when I started the campaign were how players were pretty sick of the oppression and the simple hack and slash of the adventure as it proceeds to the City of The Glass Pool. By that point, role-playing was mostly confined to interacting with a variety of evil and neutral tribes of creatures in the Underwilderness. But in reality, it was I who was getting a bit tired of throwing things at the party in the same setting again and again for two years. So some of my change-ups were not just to save time, but to give me a little variety. Here are some of the things I did, for posterities sake if nothing else.

*Time saving: I think this is key in TNB. This campaign takes people years and years to finish, if they don’t get fed up with it by then. I didn’t want to make a lifetime commitment out of The Night Below. So I cut corners as much as I could even though this particular campaign did not include Book 1 or Book 3. Even with an eye towards time management, this campaign has gone on for a bit over two years. We play for around 3-4 hours twice a month, so if you play a lot more than that then time is not that much of an issue for you. Many of the changes I made in this module cut down on some of the challenges, but they saved months worth of sessions. Where I did remove or tone-down foes, I tried to compensate with other, less time-consuming challenges.

A Sketchy Timeline of Changes

*I bought a used Night Below boxed set on Ebay several months into a casual campaign that had PC’s working for a caravan from the big city of Tanmoor. This caravan was travelling to the southernmost frontier towns of the Tanmoor Kingdom. Ultimately, the players planned (through the urgings of the young ranger NPC “Dia”) to go to a classic dungeon crawl further south in the Hobbit lands. I switched things over then to a Night Below campaign instead. Because much adventure had been experienced in the villages and towns of the south, I completely skipped the Book 1 portion of the module. I literally used nothing from that book. I just had the party come to the largest town in the area, and discover that spell casters and others were being kidnapped wholesale and taken to caverns down below. Two of those kidnapped spellcasters would be new players Big Ben and Paul’s characters, who appeared in the clutches of hungry, stew-making Gnolls in the upper tunnels when it was time for them to join our group.

For little Ben, a player who had played a bit more than Big B and Paul, I came up with some cool stuff for his gnome to get him involved. Mainly, a sub-surface sort of panic room below town that his great uncle had built hundreds of years ago, and below this was found “SouthGem,” an old abandoned surface gnome town from ancient times that a family of gnomes from up north, The Toolos, were living in and studying and restoring. This not only gave the gnome character some gravitas, but having some things in the sub-surface area before the underdark as a buffer to the isolation below added a little color, and possible places to retreat to and rest without having to go all the way up to town.

* I added in surface town encounters with a party of drow (travelling incognito). This party, led by a drow city ex-pat named Avatara (is an NPC I have used on and off for decades) encountered a couple of the characters a bunch of games ago. They are still around the area, and have been on a mission to explore the ruins of the drow city at the Sunless Sea in Book 3. With the PC Krysantha being a drow, and The Night Below lacking in the presence of dark elves, I thought it would be interesting to have this group lurking around.

*I totally threw out the Rockseer Elf part of the adventure. Yes, I know they are a big part of it as written, but I just did not want them and their baggage involved in the game, nor did I want them to become a part of the surface world as the end of Book 3 would tell you to do. So Rockseers, including their magic items, artifacts, and bickering NPC’s are nowhere to be found. Sure, they could be around as they are, but I just don’t involve them. This saves a bunch of time (at the point in the module you encounter the Rockseers, you need to backtrack many days to go to their area), though not using them deprives the players of an opportunity to have an 11th level MU, with an enhanced set of boots and cloak of elvinkind, assist in the attack on the City of the Glass Pool.

*Deep Gnomes – I named their city Blingdenblang, and I gave them a much larger role than depicted in the module (to make up for removing Rockseer Elf involvement). They are a little more helpful, and Queen Carmenaran friendlier to them (though no less paranoid about being invaded by the evil below). They provide the usage of a flux point, and also offer up a certain amount of hospitality. I had the party save a royal engineer of Carmenaran’s from certain death at the hands of gnolls (they ate his legs), so his influence helped the party be accepted as well. I still had the gnomes a bit afraid of giving themselves away to the deadlier races down below, so they offered very limited access to the flux point (the party could only use it two or three times). I had to expand the city a bit one night when Paul’s thief/MU Lily went out to burgle a building. She snuck into a building and climbed some walls, filching from a chest in a room some gold and gems.

*I played down the big troll tribe encounter near the gnome city, and instead just had it be a small encounter with several trolls. Cutting back on this encounter probably saved at least one game session, while still providing a nice troll fight and a favor being done for the gnomes.

*No Grell! I threw out this encounter in its entirety. I really don’t like the Grell as a race or as a monster. For some reason the Grell also seemed sort of out of place and alien even for the Underdark. I really wanted the Illithid, Aboleth, and even the Kuo Toa to be the weirdest races down there. I substituted this place as a Dire Corby hunting ground, where at certain times intruders could expect to fight a “murder” (as flocks of crows are called) of them upwards of 100 at a time. As the PC’s slew around 80 of the beasts, they would cease to be a problem for anyone who passed by for some months.

*There are two encounter areas that I used almost completely as-is by the book. The first was the hook horror/quaggoth and Rakshasa areas, and the second was the Roper/Xorn areas. As usual I did fudge treasure a bit, plus I also decided these areas would have been outpost areas for the drow city on the Sunless Sea left over from its doom several hundred years ago. I included some faded drow artwork and writing on some walls, including a magical portrait of Pajarafane that had the illusion of movement and realism cast upon it (similar to the portraits in Hogwarts).

*Pajarafan/Finslayer: The only thing I changed about the historical ranger personality of Pajarafan was to make him instead a female from the past named Pajarafane. Finslayer was looking for a neutral good ranger over any other kind of owner, and the only individual that fit the bill best was the young NPC ranger Dia. I did not make Pajarafane a female to coincide with this, but it all made sense once Dia got her hands on the sword. The drow Krysantha at one point declared that Dia was the spirit of Pajarafane returned, but that was not my intention, and still might not be the case.

*Clovis the Underdark Ranger: I included this NPC as a sort of appearing/reappearing guide who could give guidance and information when I needed such things given to the players. I had thought about Underdark Rangers for a long time, so this was a chance to use one. Clovis turned out to be the son of famous ranger and Woodlord Arcturus Grimm who lived in the southern lands above currently. Both Clovis and Dia are children of Grimm (Dia only recently learned all this. Could Grimm be a descendant of Pajarafane?) Clovis was never meant to fight in the City of The Glass Pool. Instead, I have him mainly being concerned with trying to save slaves during the chaos of the city assault. His entire purpose as set up by Arcturus Grimm is as a friendly observer who can offer aid when possible, but otherwise sits on the sidelines.

*The party encountered a raiding party of Minotaur’s (from my using The Old School Encounter Reference for encounters instead of the books). When Krysantha the drow druid changed into a bat to go see where they came from, I went ahead and included a Minotaur maze city hidden a few miles off of the main passage. Krysantha did not look into it further, so I did not have to wing further encounters off of that. That would make a nice mini-campaign sometime in the future (because I think the maze city idea is hellacool).

*Book 2 really plays up the Jubilex shrine area, and seems to think it is an obligatory encounter. It isn’t. The party fought the Rakshasa (actually, they left him alone for ownership of the Deck of Many Things), the high level deranged magic-user, and some of the jelly/ooze overflow, but had no intention of going into the temple. I suspect a lot of players would avoid it, even if they suspect there is treasure. Nobody likes dealing with oozes. I think knowing about it, and hearing some lore about it, was more interesting than actually having the players go in there. The party bypassing it probably cut down on yet another session.

*Mixing up the Slaver attackers near the purple worm area: the diverse party of high level Slavers is a cool encounter and a brutal fight. On top of that, I added the character Xavier as leader. A high level fighter/thief, Xavier was created by Paul so his character Lily could have a bad man in her past. The module had this group attacking to kill in very brutal fashion. I found that silly considering these were slavers looking for more slaves to sell for top dollar. So I held off of the major killing attacks at first. That made the encounter less dangerous, but it was still a big challenge. Two characters were left in negative hit points (fighter Helena and MU elf Lumarin) when this fight ended (more or less in a draw, as the roof collapsed from all the powerful spells going off), forcing the party to find a side cave to rest in for a week (they had no access to high level cleric heals and such).

*Derro Town - Adding an urban location in the derro area, whatever the size, is a must. I like that this part of the Underdark (the southern Underdark in my world) is a wild wilderness compared to the northern Drow/Illithid/Cloaker empires, but the long-term isolation and oppressive surroundings are a bit much for player and DM alike. The module would have players travelling to the surface world again and again to restock supplies (and train, which I don’t really require) and rest, but I figure that an underground trading town near the City of The Glass Pool provides some shelter and stocking of equipment and scrolls and such when they need them the most, assuming the party does not just attack all the evil things. So I had a small mind flayer tower on a hill at the center of town, and several hundred derro (some of whom are under the control of the Crown of Domination) run the towns establishments.

Besides the Illithid tower (usually manned by a couple of mind flayers plus Zanticor the main mind flayer visits often. Also, a troop of ogre and troll guards are on the first level), there is a derro tavern (a large building open to all races who can pay), a brothel made up of various slave girls, a road house with rooms for rent, and a street market with food, supplies, animals, water, and even a group of derro dealing in scrolls and magic supplies. As long as a party of adventurers doesn’t draw undo attention, this is a great place to rest and resupply. Also, characters may just want to assault the tower and kill the mind flayers, which would cause some chaos in the town. In my game the party negotiated with the derro renegades so they would cause various distractions (cave-ins and explosions) on the outskirts of town so they could assault the tower with little interference. After all that, the party used the tower as an HQ, and a place for freed slaves to be safe while the party attacked the City of The Glass Pool.

*The Froghemoth – I never really got to use this behemoth that originally appeared in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Nope, there is no Froghemoth in the Night Below material. But I thought it would be nice to have one around in case I needed just one last dose of possible death to hurl at the party. I decided that Kuo Toan priests could control its actions through special flutes (made from fish bones). They would keep it under the Glass Pool in a large water chamber, to be released under one of two circumstances: Either when the statue of Blipdoolpoolp was defeated (which they didn’t think would ever happen), or if I needed another big encounter and could have priests lead the Froghemoth into the next big cavern to attack the players tower, which would have been a cool set-piece. As it was, I had the creature appear after the fight with the statue, and the players booked right out of there. So never got to use it (although it will still be down there amidst the chaos of the broken Kuo Toan city).

If you’re a DM planning to use The Night Below (either for 1st edition as I did, or for it’s intended 2nd edition) and want more details, just search my blog for “Night Below.” My players discovered my blog late last year, so around then I’m a bit less open about my inner thoughts, but still there is a lot of good detail and ideas within those posts.