10 Bookish NPCs by Matt Sanders
This past week was a bit of a write-off for me in terms of creating anything. There should have been a Campaign Setting post on Monday, and the DMs Guild roundup should have been out on Wednesday. I also still need to finish off this month’s long form review.
Luckily it’s now a 4 day weekend here, so I’ve got plenty of time to catch up and start to get ahead of the schedule again. And, even more luckily, Matt Sanders kindly offered this post to help fill the content void that’s started to develop here.
If you haven’t been paying attention, Matt and I recently re-released his fantastic trinkets supplement Trinkets: Books as a Pay What You Want title. Today’s post is an extra table of bookish NPCs to accompany the table inside that product.
Enjoy!
Bookish NPCs
D10 | This… |
1 | wizened old woman’s eyes sparkle and shine with a youth far greater than her parchment-like skin. Eldritch runes are tattooed on the backs of her hands and her fingers are stained with black ink. |
2 | small child has her nose buried deep in a book. The cover shows a young girl in a red cape surrounded by foul monsters in a dark forest. |
3 | young man swaggers and sways as he walks. His clothes are stained and worn but are of fine quality. He carries a slim, leather-bound volume, kept folded open. The pages are full of poetry, corrected and changed many times over. |
4 | huge troll wears a metal collar. Chains holding thick volumes covered in arcane symbols dangle around his waist. The troll seems docile and glass-eyed. If you strain your ears, faint, papery whispers can be heard. |
5 | elven scribe boasts he can write in any major language, many minor obscure ones and even a number of forgotten magical tongues. He opens a leather roll to reveal a dizzying array of quills and coloured inks. |
6 | ancient wizard wears thick glasses but is apparently still unable to read the scroll he is holding. He yammers at passers-by, asking for help. None seems to forthcoming, as his hygiene is as deteriorated as his eyesight. |
7 | spectacled and portly chap seems fit to burst out of his waistcoat at any moment. He carries an incredibly thick, locked book he claims documents the lineage of every noble family in the realm. He whispers provocatively “even the stuff they don’t want you to know.”. |
8 | tall and well-muscled half-orc has a stack of stone tablets on his back, bound with a leather strap. He wears little else beyond a loincloth and a belt full of chisels. A tattoo across his chest reads “werds written, won copper eech”. |
9 | rosy-cheeked halfling speaks so rapidly and enthusiastically about her herbalism it is hard to get a word in edgeways. She says her library is unparalleled and contains many rare or even unique texts. |
10 | knight’s armour is almost entirely covered in engravings. “These are the last words of those I have slain, look away lest I should add you to their number.” he snarls at anyone who stares too long. |
If you enjoyed this, don’t forget to pick up a copy of Trinkets: Books and the newly released Trinkets: Bottles. Both are available as Pay What You Want titles on DriveThruRPG right now!
Find Matt on Twitter: @iammattsanders