A Troublesome NPC

[Ghost]

Hi,

I'm having difficulty giving statistics to a few of the sample NPCs i'm developing for my homebrew, Ifpherion (link is in my  signature). It's mainly one particular character that is proving difficult.

I'll present the full text in a post right after this. For those who haven't yed read my homebrew, you can substitute half-elf for the term 'Albiz' (my setting's version of them; an actual evolutionary branch of humanity). Don't worry about the 'Skull King' Grouxenas, i'll be developing him seperately.

Mainly, i'm wondering what would be the best way to show his immortality as in the D&D rules? Also, i'm wondering if I should have him be under level 20, or higher than that? He has been around for almost 2,000 years, after all.

[Ghost]

[ic=Hwarp Nethrol, 'the Rupturer']â,¬ËSleep, young one, sleep now and dream of the good things tomorrowâ,¬,,¢s world may bring. Be happy that you can sleep and wake in the morning, for the Rupturerâ,¬,,¢s visits are obscured by no other darkness.â,¬,,¢

                                          -An Altaxian father to a child


Millenia ago, before the ascendance of the Six, in a kingdom whose name has been lost to time, there was born an Albiz in a small village. Although this Albiz was born into a wealthier family, his father was well known as being involved in the research of necromantic and similar magics. Indeed, the Nethrol family was famous for their unique support of necromancy as beneficial to their society.

Even before the child was born, there were indications of his â,¬Ëgiftsâ,¬,,¢. While his mother was bearing him, he shone a very faint white light. This caused many sleepless nights for his parents, who were forced to hire a specialized caregiver, who, unknown to them, was a former student of Grouxenas, the famed â,¬ËSkull Kingâ,¬,,¢ of centuries earlier.

When the child was eventually born, it was discovered that this glow continued, and only intensified if in the presence of bright light for long durations. Later, it was found that the child, named Hwarp â,¬' â,¬ËHopeâ,¬,,¢, in the language of the time â,¬' carried the Vecan mark, unique to those, like his father, who practiced the Vecan faith. Hwarpâ,¬,,¢s mark was formed with such complexity and unnatural elegance that the priests knew it could only be the mark of eternal life.

As a result of this discovery, the Vecan priests wanted him to join their temples. However, his caregiver, an older human, had other plans for him; this man, whoâ,¬,,¢s name is lost, began to teach Hwarp a few necromantic spells, as well as the ways to deceive, cheat, and kill his way to success in the world.

Hwarpâ,¬,,¢s parents also had plans for him. They wanted to use him as a central figure to help advance their plans for introducing the use of necromancy into the developing industries of the kingdom. To them, he seemed to be a virtual selling point; why go through the bother of hiring new workers as old ones get too old or die of diseases, when you could simply get them to live forever â,¬' work for the company forever?

All this attention and conflict of interest put a strain on Hwarp. He never got much sleep, because of the constant glow about him. When Hwarp reached his 50th year â,¬' the equivalent of the 20th year in humans â,¬' the tensions between his impatient parents, his conniving caregiver, and the doting priests had reached a critical point. They knew that soon the biological processes that regulated his aging would slow down enormously, and his appearance and metabolism would be practically locked in.

The breaking point for Hwarp was seeing an entire Vecan temple â,¬' at evening, one of the most active times for the Vecan faith â,¬' disappear within a disintegrating sphere, a spell that could only have been devised by the cruel and violent Grouxenians. He watched as Vecan initiates, not knowing the danger of the spell, ran up to it, only be disintegrated upon contact with the jet-black sphere.

After seeing this, Hwarp escaped the village â,¬' which by then had become a city, in part due to his fame â,¬' to a smaller, more peaceful human kingdom on the shores of the Mitte
Lago. There, he found what he sought â,¬' obscurity, and freedom. There, he found practice as a doctor â,¬' a natural use for some of the spells and techniques taught to him by both his caregiver, and the more caring Vecan priests. But the warmer climate of the human kingdom would become his downfall, as the suns came out much more often than back home. His glow became brighter, and eventually he could not sleep at all. With a severe lack of sleep, he made many mistakes at his job, and was soon had to move elsewhere, for fear of arrest.

Hwarp moved to the newly-founded Barony, and integrated into the eventual seedy underground it developed in the cities. He flourished there for a few millennia, successfully ruling the poorer districts, and overseeing many criminal activities. That is, until the Great Necromantic War of 9,780. After narrowly escaping the Baronial military, he moved back to Neum, the great metropolis that his hometown had become, and disappeared into the criminal underground. Since then, Hwarp has not let himself become too well known, for fear of someone developing a way to dispel the effects of the mark.

Hwarp has become hardened, cynical, and cruel over the millennia. This is in addition to the madness caused by knowing he is cursed to live for eons without a moment of peaceful sleep, if any. He will often invest funds in assassination missions, organize abductions for clients, and monitor racketeering schemes â,¬' under an assumed nickname, or simply as â,¬Ëthe Rupturerâ,¬,,¢. Sometimes, he will even go out himself, and commit crimes for fun â,¬' this has lead to his reputation for killing innocents in their sleep.


Hwarp still appears as much as he did when his physical growth froze millennia ago; lean, with long and muscular limbs. However, he has acquired many scars over the years, due to physical combat and errors in spellcasting. He has had part of his right arm replaced with another one he harvested himself; if one gets close enough, there is a very slight mismatch of skin tones. Hwarp also possesses a prominent scar running down his forehead; this remains from being struck by an axe, and being treated by another necromancer just in time. Hwarpâ,¬,,¢s Vecan mark â,¬' a complex figure whose meaning is known only to him and the few Vecan priests remaining â,¬' covers the front of his throat and neck.
[/ic]

[Wensleydale]

Over level 20. That's the way I go for all -my- ancient NPCs - this theory about elves in DnD, that they spend 100 years getting to societal maturity but still start out at level 1, despite them being the same age as an ANCIENT human.

Also, his immortality could merely be represented as him not taking aging penalties but gaining the bonuses, and not dying from old age. He could also have immunity to disease and poison if you wished.

[Tybalt]

(my take on elves starting as 1st btw is that they're either lazy by nature or else they are busy learning the art of being willowy and sexy. Stupid sexy elves)

I'd say either make him 20+ or give him that potential but limit him to spell like powers that influence the character type you want.

[brainface]

If you want your pcs to fight him, give him the level that would be a challenge for the pcs at whatever time you want the fight to occur. If the pcs aren't going to fight him yet, all you really need to do is stat out what he can do, ala:

can he scry?
can he teleport?
can he sneak around really, really good?

I don't think you need to stat out "he can teleport 500 miles 3 times per day, has an attack bonus of +17, a touch ac of 19", etc. until an actual fight is about to occur.

[Ghost]

Hmm. I guess you're right, brainface. As he has become one of the top guys of the underworld, I should be developing smaller NPCs that answer to him, and their henchmen. But i'll keep what the other posters have said in mind, should players reach 17+ levels.

Oh...maybe a few copycat killers might prove to be a cool encounter. Or, maybe helping the militia to quell violence resulting from a factional war - 2, or more, people competing to be his right-hand man (or woman).

[Lmns Crn]

One of the interesting effects of D&D's very thorough array of stats seems to be some kind of "stat-craving" among players and DMs. There are stats that govern almost everything, and with that expectation in mind, players can become tempted to look for stats even when they aren't really needed.

Stats are essentially just ways to describe things with numbers after you've already described them with words, and that's not always very useful. Do you really need an "immortality" stat? Wouldn't just saying "this guy is super old and doesn't die" do the job just fine?

I'd do the same trick with level and other stats. Make him whatever level he needs to be to present the desired kind of challenge to your players, and don't worry about whatever level you think he "ought" to be due to immortality or other backstory business. I think it's too easy to miss the forest for the trees when trying to translate that sort of flavor information into mechanics.

Were I running this game, I might build Hwarp with a low Wisdom, or maaaybe have him be constantly Fatigued, as a result of constant sleep deprivation. Personally, that's the only thing out of your story that I think really benefits from being worked into statistics, rather than just expressed as story.

[Ghost]

Thanks for the reply, LC.

Yeah. I guess I don't need to stat him out at all - I actually started out intending to use him just as an example NPC for my homebrew, but then I got inspired and wrote a lot. But i'm not going to go all the way and stat him - anybody that could survive a direct axe-blow to the head, even with the help of his own necromantic magic, isn't really worth the time.

Although, I guess that this could be useful information, were the players to somehow get involved in shady deals in almost any of the cities on the same continent - who he prefers to deal with, who his immediate henchmen are (and who their henchmen are), and the various goals he may be working towards (power? or the acceptance of necromantic magic as a practical and everyday tool? or is he by now just criminally insane?).