May 11
silly vtm stuff. Floris’ brother Jesse w/ his bestie and bandmate Mallory, and ofc Floris in a dumb novelty tshirt bc he would 1000% have these
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Spain
seen from Poland
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Japan
silly vtm stuff. Floris’ brother Jesse w/ his bestie and bandmate Mallory, and ofc Floris in a dumb novelty tshirt bc he would 1000% have these
Some recent drawings I've been doing for Triangle Agency npc Relationships!
💚 Marlene , gamer girl gf?? newly hired CEO agent, who's a catalogue just like you, Lettie! 💖 Inez, childhood friend and retired gymnast with Opinions about getting some actual hobbies, Donny 🧡 Talaver, from Wicked Generation. Remember when you confessed you weren't over him, before Gunk and God, Zarin? 💙 Andres, a overly-friendly soccer star who can multitask constant training AND being friends, Donny
No Greer relationships yet because I need refs!!
UGH i love my district 8 kids
How to populate a fantasy city without going mad — and 5 NPC archetypes that always work
The first time I tried to run an urban adventure, I prepped a tavern, a market square, and the gates. The party went to the temple I had not prepped. They befriended the priest I had not named. They got involved in the embezzlement scandal I had not invented.
The fix is not "prep more." You can't prep a city. Cities are too big.
The fix is to archetype. There are five city NPC types I have found that, once you have one of each in your back pocket, will get you through almost any urban improvisation.
1. The Listener
Every city has one — the merchant or scribe or bartender who has heard everything and remembers it. Players will eventually need information. The Listener is the door to that information. Make them charge a price that is not money.
Example: Vesper Quill, a half-elf scribe at the market who quietly archives every letter she writes. Charges three coppers a letter. Knows everyone's secrets. Has not yet decided what she's doing with them.
2. The Wall
The person who stops the party getting where they want to go. A sergeant. A magistrate. A noble's manservant who decides whether you have an appointment. They make the city feel like a place with rules, which is the only thing that makes breaking the rules feel like an accomplishment.
Example: Sergeant Halver, watch sergeant at the south gate. Procedural. Fair. Has secret evidence against his own corrupt captain and has not yet acted on it.
3. The Hidden Reservoir
Someone the party will dismiss at first glance. A child. A beggar. A serving-girl. They know something none of the powerful people in the city know. Players who learn to look past appearances will return to this NPC again and again.
Example: Doll, a twelve-year-old pickpocket who saw a powerful man commit a murder. She has been hiding ever since. She is the most valuable witness in the city. She is twelve.
4. The Faded Power
Someone who used to matter. A retired knight, a former spymaster, a noble whose house has fallen. They have skills the active powers no longer have, and they have grudges. They are also lonely. Players who treat them as people, not as resources, will be richly rewarded.
Example: Lady Pemma Vell, a sixty-year-old halfling noblewoman, retired spymaster of a kingdom that no longer exists. Keeps the only complete archive of that kingdom's collapse. Three governments would pay to suppress it.
5. The Stranger
The person the party has never met who appears at exactly the moment they shouldn't. The hooded figure by the city gate. The veiled woman at the temple. They are not part of the city. They have come for one specific person, and the party doesn't know which one yet.
Example: The Stranger Who Knows Your Name. Stands at the city gate. Speaks once, to one party member, by name. Asks them to come and see something. The campaign is now whatever this NPC needs it to be.
Five archetypes. Five doors. With those five, you can improvise an entire urban session.
If you want fifty more — across markets, temples, nobility, watch, slums, and travelers — I just released a 56-page supplement called 50 City NPCs. System-agnostic, no stat blocks, every entry has a name, voice, secret, and plot hook.
→ 50 City NPCs on itch.io — pay what you want, $4.99 minimum.
What's the most memorable city NPC you've ever run? I'm collecting good ones.
(Disclosure: AI-assisted writing, human-curated.)
City of Mist NPCs (comic book style study)
(open the image for higher quality)
ID in Alt
Today on The GM Makes His Players Cry:
local 10 yr old outcast bullied lonely Firbolg not-quite-adopted but not-quite-NOT-adopted “help me round the animals a bit, and you can eat breakfast with us and have a little coin to take back to yer deadbeat-“ “Prudence! Not in front of the kid!” “-uh… out-of-town-a-lot folks, and sleep in that warm spot in the barn loft whenever ya need to” farmhand meets his bosses new son and immediately pack bonds hi yes this is my brother now can’t you tell look we’re The Same.
Sketches of random members of the United Resistance, a covert rebel faction working against the assimilative Benefactor Empire, for a Lancer campaign in the works.
also a special preview of a song for said campaign I have yet to get to uploading due to having to make the art for it!
So we got 500 likes on here today :3 thank you for all the love y’all. For that we want to share the npc Arcees (IDW, Prime, and Cyberverse, all a bit with our own fanfic homage flavor and a bit in the spirit of the ttrpg) we made for the transformers ttrpg, feel free to use them in your games! They are high level characters- They could make great ally sages to a lower level party or companions to a higher level one, and are certainly very dangerous enemies! You can find the PDF here. we have a spelling error and will fix https://drive.google.com/file/d/18jVGkNP8cCaKAu7pbCeGFtob7oZyv2iC/view?usp=sharing and here’s an example portion of one of the npc sheets:
