Daniel Sell
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Who are they and what do they want?
🕑 Added 2024-01-06 23:06:07 +0000 UTCThis was meant to be a cute little table to stretch my fingers but it tumbled out of control. Use it to add a few wrinkles to Troikan NPCs.
Start with a name and a job here: https://perchance.org/4tpvv57r56
## Table 1 - Below the surface
1-2. Very boring, exactly as they appear
3-4. Has a hobby (see table 2)
5. Obviously odd (see table 3)
6. Well kept secret (see table 4)
## Table 2 - Hobbies
1.
1. Keeps a large house frog
2. Grows chimney orchids
3. Sings in an ecumenical choir
4. Builds golden barges in bottles
5. Owl spotter
6. Collects knock-off relics
2.
1. Plays the (and owns an) organ
2. Member of a popular dinner club
3. Local graffiti artist
4. Nightly calisthenic classes
5. Breeds coati in the loft
6. Competitive eater
3.
1. Prints and distributes their own poetry
2. Caricaturist
3. Recreational hypnotist
4. Weekly seances
5. Night jogger
6. Owns and operates an unusually powerful telescope
4.
1. Mudlarking
2. Super fan of a specific actor, house full of engravings
3. Plays in a rounders team
4. Steeple climber
5. Music-hall wrestler
6. Knitting circle member
5.
1. Caroler
2. Maintains novel facial hair
3. In a morris troupe
4. Book club member
5. Harpsicordist
6. Park rambler
6.
1. Scrumper
2. Bridge fisher
3. Owl fancier newsletter distributor
4. Pugilist club member
5. Brews worryingly potent gin
6. Amateur detective casually on several trails
## Table 3 - Obviously odd
1.
1. Does their own dentistry
2. You'll start noticing them around once you've met them once. Yes they're following you.
3. Really wants to be your friend
4. Whispers into their sleeve when they think you're not looking (50% chance there is something there)
5. Eats raw onions like apples
6. Won't answer any question unless they know the year you were born in relation to the collapse of Tawny Bridge. (This is year 73)
2.
1. Wears rubber gloves filled with butter. Purportedly to encourage nail growth.
2. Severe saintly adherence causes them to interrupt conversations with prayers and prostrations seemingly at random.
3. Intensely friendly but will offer no actual help or substance
4. Screams if touched
5. Has an identical twin who follows them everywhere and speaks alternatively with them. Entirely interchangeable. If one were to die or be separated the other would only be able to speak every other phrase of a thought still.
6. Is in a city-wide game of tag and will quietly touch your arm and say "you're it?" to see your response. If chased they will run, de facto inducting the chaser into the game.
3.
1. Always drunk, but impossible to catch them drinking
2. No indoor voice
3. Always chewing black tar. Their mouth and teeth are totally black
4. Speaks no known language but understands you perfectly well
5. No matter what you do they will intensely dislike one player character specifically for no discernible reason
6. Is very clearly colonised by a brain fungus but it doesn't seem to bother them
4.
1. Owls and vagabonds come and go from their home as they please, has no sense of private property, but is well kept and polite.
2. Keeps an exotic wild bird of prey as a kind of pet. It perches on them as it pleases, ruining their clothes and causing deep gashes, none of which they seem to mind.
3. Will never turn or rotate left, instead taking three rights, in all things.
4. Casual monarchist. They haven't committed to a pretender yet.
5. Loud and proud republican with many strong opinions on which party should replace the caretaker (now seated for almost a century) Universal Congress
6. Chronic thief, will take things from players even if they have no chance of getting away with it. They will apologise and give (most) of it back only to do it again a few minutes later.
5.
1. Their fingernails are over a metre long and well kept. It doesn't seem to hinder them much.
2. Impaled with a Commonwealth lance, neatly cut off and sticking out through custom made holes in their clothes. They will not mention it, though if (rudely) pressed they will explain they got injured during The War and doctors couldn't take it out without killing them. No, it doesn't hurt. No, you can't touch it.
3. Suffers from star madness, contracted while working on golden barges as a youth. Haunted by floating creatures no one else can see, regularly asks if you can also see something they are reacting to. The "madness" refers to the emotional toll, not the creatures; everyone agrees the creatures are real.
4. Falls in love at first sight with one of the player characters.
5. Will completely forget the player characters between encounters. This only applies to the player characters and associated hangers-on, their memory otherwise functions normally.
6. Wears roller-skates indoors and out, in bed and awake.
6.
1. Perfectly nice, but will not answer anything other than pleasantries without a small bribe.
2. In a pyramid scheme selling a time share in the location you encounter them.
3. Will always insist on hosting you as a guest. Any stays less than a full night will be considered insulting.
4. Haunted by an astral naiad which followed them back from The War. Everyone can see it but they desperately want you to ignore the soggy sprite.
5. Reads while you are talking, only taking breaks when they speak. They insist it isn't rude and you should just continue.
6. One of their hands has a mind of its own and is liable to grab people and squeeze. Observant sorts might notice the squeezing is in morse code describing the same recipe for sausage rolls over and over on loop.
## Table 4 - Well Kept Secret
1.
1. Was born in the anti-city below and came up and replaced their posi-city counterpart. Not evil, just chiral.
2. Is an active part of a monarchist cell preparing for an armed coronation
3. Demi-god, estranged from their parents, seeking a quiet life.
4. Deserter from the Commonwealth's invasion of Troika. Time has passed but most people won't take kindly.
5. They once ruled a sphere as a malevolent dark lord, wielding absolute power over life and death. Things changed and now they live here in relative obscurity, baring the occasional unusual visitor.
6. They are the Butter Street Strangler.
2.
1. Once a month they visit the fight club underneath Mother Ratchet's Creamed Buns and get obliterated.
2. They keep a stash of fissile material under the floorboards.
3. One of the windows in their house is a portal into an abandoned palatial sphere where they spend most of their spare time.
4. A neighbourhood mafia boss. Not this neighbourhood though.
5. Actually a thinking engine (or actually a person pretending to be a thinking engine, if they are a thinking engine already)
6. A mind flayed pod person. They keep it on the down-low but will brain jack anyone that presents an easy target.
3.
1. Breaks into people's houses and rearranges stuff for fun.
2. One of the anonymous members of the Universal Congress. Anything they like could become state policy.
3. An undead creature that must consume the living to survive. Moves on and starts a new life every few decades.
4. The original owner of this place is bricked up in the basement.
5. Wanted by the Spider Bank for missed mortgage payments. Bounty hunters have been notified.
6. Cultist of Shazmazm, ready and waiting to bring their Lord into the upper worlds and begin the end of all things.
4.
1. Their partner is an undine, and their children are half undine monsters, though you wouldn't tell.
2. Knows the location of a small portal to The Nothing and charges a huge fee to toss things into it no questions asked.
3. Was cursed by a saint to turn into a boot scraper if they are ever kissed or reveal the nature of their curse. Very twitchy.
4. Has the map to a great treasure in the anti-city tattooed on their back.
5. Keeps all their money in a box under their bed.
6. The last living heir to the fortune of Arnithrax the Vampire Baronet (who is their seven times great grandfather and would like to see them dead)
5.
1. An undine nymph, biding their time as a member of Troikan society before they grow too large for land.
2. Knows what the Zed spell does.
3. A failed zoanthrope procedure causes them, on sleeping, to go out into the streets at night to hunt and devour. Remembers enough to cover it up.
4. Allows a parliament of owls to hold court in their loft. Regrets the decision but fears the repercussions of anyone finding out and helping them.
5. Is actually a Rat Emperor cunningly operating a living meat suit.
6. Started the fire that burned down Rich Street and would do it again.
6.
1. Begins each day by eating 12 live mice.
2. Is a ghost and cannot touch the living. They have kept up the charade for a long time now.
3. Dies and is reborn each day afresh from a wet patch on an alley wall.
4. Is a Ven refugee from the end of time.
5. In an alcalde witness protection programme, whereby they must pay the alcalde not to rat them out every month.
6. Sold their soul in exchange for everything they have. They are doomed to work the floor of the demon sea when they die.
Comments
Laughing_Owl
This is amazing, thank you!
