Mercenary Company Campaign: Company NPCs

Feeling inspired by the campaign concept, so I have been working on some NPCs that can provide clues or motivation to the characters to strike out in different directions. Some are inspired in part by their stat blocks, as I find interesting stats for NPCs and consider how they acquired these abilities and came to be part of the company. 

Rasp

Appearance: Dark skinned man with white hair. He has a full head of hair and a beard. Slim but strong and muscled. His shoulders stoop slightly from age. His eyes are a deep brown, but at times have twinkles that appear purple. They are deep and appear ancient beyond his years.

Roleplaying: 

• Has a rasping voice and often coughs. 
• Rasp is wary of strangers, but a solid drinking buddy and dice player with his trusted companions. 
• He falls silent at times and seems in deep thought. 
• As a sergeant, he is gruff, but looks out for his newer troops.

Background: Rasp was born in the far southern continent. As a young man he was kidnapped in a raid by mind flayers with others from his village. The illithids took him into the Astral Sea and he worked as a thrall for the colony. He was about to be implanted with a tadpole when the colony was attacked by Githyanki, who freed him. Rasp was forever changed by the near implantation though, developing psionic powers. He fought the mind flayers alongside the Gith for many years, unaged in the Astral Sea’s suspended time. Finally he returned to the mundane world through a portal only to discover his village long desolate, abandoned hundreds of years later. Rasp is over four hundred years old because of these experiences. He joined the company many years ago and has been part of it through many battles. 

Key Info: 

• Provides hooks to the Astral Sea.
• Info on mind flayers and githyanki.
• Introduces psionic powers.

Stat Block: Psychic War Veteran (Planar Bestiary 5e, pg. 111)

Ram

Appearance: Ram has the head of a goat and the torso and arms of a humanoid, with the bow legs and hoofs of a goat. She has a white stripe of hair that covers the middle of her face down to her muzzle and white hair on her ears. Otherwise her hair is brown. She has brown eyes, and wears light leather armor. Ram is quite tall, standing about six and a half feet in height.

Roleplaying:

• Ram is very talkative and friendly, always asking questions.
• Ram out loud bleats when she disagrees with something.
• Ram does not talk about her past and ignores questions about her unique ancestry.
• She dislikes orcs and half-orcs.

Background: Ram is an Ovisan hunter, a member of a people living on another world that are mortal enemies of the evil grethk. The ovisan send small groups of hunters called battle flocks through portals to hunt infestations of grethk. In Ram’s case her flock arrived in a remote region of this world near a tribe of orcs. The orcs hunted a killed her flock, believing them to either be magical mountain goats or strange aberrations. Ram escaped by surviving in the woods and hills until stumbling into a settlement where bewildered halfling farmers nursed her back to health. Once she had her strength back she worked for a time as a sheep and goat herder, but then journeyed and joined the company when it arrived in a nearby region. Ram continues to hold a grudge for all orcs and their kin, and she has vowed never to leave the company with a greater dedication than even the average recruit because it is her new flock.

Key Info: 

• Provides hooks to the grethk and other worlds.
• Ram has knowledge of how portals function.

Stat Block: Ovisan Hunter (Planar Bestiary 5e, pg. 102)

Nivs

Appearance: Nivs is a tanned and muscled human woman, with brown hair dyed with red and orange streaks. She bears both tattoos of blue and red ink on her face and applies daubs of paint as well before battle. Her eyes are deep brown. She is of middling height and weight but is solidly built and moves with speed and grace as she fights.

Roleplaying:

• Nivs speaks and moves confidently, acting with decisiveness in every action.
• Nivs can be bold and often speaks in anger without fully considering the consequences.
• Nivs carefully studies her blood hunter crafts and is a master of these mysterious arts.

Background: Nivs was trained in the mysterious ways of hemocraft from her youth by her adopted mother, a member of a blood hunter order in the Thornspire Highlands. When her order and mother were killed in the Dragonflame Rebellion, Nivs joined the company to escape the remnants of her old life and find a new family.

Key Info:

• Nivs possesses links back to the lands of the fractured imperium and Thornspire Highlands.
• Nivs knows the ways of the blood hunters.
• She is an accomplished tracker and hunter.

Stat Block: Bloodhunter (Explorer’s Guide to Wildmount, pg. 284)