Favorite recurring NPC?

If you read my answer to the prompt from day 4, you know that the most memorable NPC is also a recurring one. But I’m not about to take the easy way out and use them for both answers. Where’s the fun in that? Besides, there are lots of recurring NPCs to choose from. each with their own appeal.

Part of what I really love about RPGaDAY is just how diverse the answers are. I’m always blown away by some of the creative ways people have used the prompts to go off in directions that would not have occurred to me. I have my thinking and perspectives challenged & broadened as a result. Inspired by that willingness to “think outside of the box”, I’m going to take a slightly different angle on this.

No one said that the recurring NPC had to show up in the same game.

A lot of real estate on my gaming shelves is taken up by games that are powered by the Ubiquity game system created by Jeff Combos to power his Hollow Earth Expedition RPG, and which he has licensed others to use to run games such as All For One & Leagues of Adventure.  It’s a great system, & Hollow Earth Expedition is a very compelling game. ~ Think Indiana Jones style 1936 Nazis, Dinosaurs, Mad scientists, Jungle expeditions, and a journey to the center of the earth with lost Atlantean ruins & you’ll get the idea.

After Anthony Boyd of the Casting Shadows /Runeslinger YouTube Channel ran a HEX (as it is affectionately called) one-shot  for me and Jason (of the DarkAgeOf RolePlayGame channel), Jason decided that he wanted to give it a go. Soon after, Jason ran a great session for Anthony, myself, and Big Mike of the Tef’s Tavern YouTube channel. (It’s great the friends you get to make in this hobby, even if you never meet face to face).

The session was a lot of fun, and we soon found Midnight, Mulligan, and the good Doctor deep in the jungle at the outskirts of a Nazi encampment, our guide and benefactor suddenly coming clean about why we were really there and what he was trying to do. As a plucky (if somewhat unstable) group of veterans of the war to end all wars, we certainly weren’t about to back down from the opportunity to harass a bunch of Nazis.

What we needed was a distraction. We found one in the form of barrels of petrol used to power the generators & the “digger” the Nazis were working on. Mulligan just knew that he could blow those up with some dynamite, if it only weren’t for that pesky guard. A lone Nazi stood idly at his post, smoking a cigarette next to the gasoline storage area, with a name tag that clearly read “Fritz” even at 50 yards in the dark. (Well, there were lights, but still). Midnight was able to take him out with a deft hurl of an axe, and Mulligan went on to cause quite a stir. We were pretty sure that the other Nazis wouldn’t immediately discern that they were under attack ~ “It was bound to happen, I told Fritz 100 times not to smoke by the gas!”

Fast forward to a few months ago. I’ve been lucky enough to play online on a regular basis with a group of gamers on Thursday nights. HEX showed up on the rotation, and I began what has become an on again off again campaign of Hollow Earth with members of the Current Projects (AKA “Cool Kids”) Group.

There they are in Iquitos Peru, and sure enough, a Nazi Dirigible is moored in the airport. A few of the characters try to get a better look at it at night in the hopes of sabotaging what is clearly a rival group in pursuit of the same enigma in the jungle that our heroes have been assembled to investigate. ~ However, they are spotted by a Nazi guard, idly smoking near some barrels of Fuel. You could read the name on his uniform all the way from the fence.

Only some fast talking kept Fritz from sounding the alarm. ~ Later on in the jungle, when things go terribly awry, Fritz shows up to help take them prisoner. If I recall correctly, Fritz doesn’t fare so well when fisticuffs break out in a car in Buenos Aires, but I doubt that group has seen the last of him.

Inspired by the genre and the game, Eloy from the Current projects group decided that he wanted to run some HEX as well, so we rolled up a different set of characters and followed a trail of clues from Egypt to a castle in Germany.

Trouble with the Nazis started up almost at once as we discovered that were far braver than we were stealthy. However, we were able to lose our pursuers and found ourselves holed up in a staircase looking out a window at a strange and fiendish looking ritual in the courtyard of the castle. The man we had been sent to save was in the clutches of the Nazi villains & we needed a distraction.

Fortunately, we spotted some cans of petrol that we knew we could light up if we shot at them enough. A lone Nazi stood idly on guard, puffing on a cigarette.

You could read the name on his uniform from 100 yards away…