For over a year, players in Northport have been rounding out their groups with a collection of NPC’s built out of Peter Dell’Orto‘s excellent DF 15:Henchmen. Two of these are Ludlow the Munificent, an overdressed and somewhat hazardous apprentice wizard, and Razakeel Shadowcloak, Goblin apprentice necromancer. Ludlow introduces himself as a jourtneyman wizard, of modest talents. Razakeel’s name, and indeed most of my goblin naming conventions after one player introduced the now NPC Zeelzeel Shadowspear, courageous priest of the hunt. Their images will be be appearing along with several other characters in another bundle of stock art I will be selling on Drivethrurpg; it should be there in a few days. (Edit: it is there now!)
The primary feature of Ludlow is a variant 3e spell that aspired to replicate a wand of wonder in its effects. The spell of Whimsy and its misuse was a major plot point when I first ran Northport back in 2002. Several competing teams of random players were making proficiency runs in the proving grounds of the Adventurer’s guild. One character had been accidentally teleported into an Admin only area, and was stuck in a pit trap. At the same time, the kobold servants of the guild had gone all Tucker, sort of like Doby’s revolt of the house elves in Harry Potter, and had started killing the guild Admins, who were there to score the players as they worked through puzzles and got hit with padded clubs wielded by hired orcs, and swatted by pendulum pillow traps. The kobolds had spiked the traps and torn off the Mystic Mark laden guild badges that allowed them to be tracked by Rigo Bleak, the Guildmaster (He is a knight+treasure hunter+ knight/thief lens and about 150 points worth of equipment, guild rank and allies) using a knockoff of the Marauder’s map (I had it worked as an enchantment that used seeker, know position, scribe and was limited to the mystic marks made to be worn by all guild members and employees by its enchanter, another ranking guild member).
That game had lasted several months and I have kept most of the original players on as NPCS. They were originally all 100 pt characters, and some translated directly into 125point henchman grade characters, Like Dagon the necromancer with his two mummy allies (As they had disturbing speech, I would right their responses without vowels) while others were more complicated, Like Monorith the katana wielding, martial artist were lion, who is essentially a skirmisher with the were lion template I originally had ifrom Witchworld, as I was a big Andre Norton Fan.
Here are Ludlow and Razakeel. you may note that they both have Weirdness magnet…
Ludlow the Munificent:
Att:90 AD: 36 DQ 55 Sk 25 Sp 31 total 127
ST: 10 DX: 11 IQ: 14 HT: 10
HP: 10 Will: 13 PER: 14 FP: 13
B/S: 5.0 MV: 5 D: 8 Bl: 20
T/S: 1d-2/1d+1
ADV:
25 Magery 2
9 Extra Reserve +3
1 ADVG member
Cultural Familiarities:
Aralaise Native/native 0
Eldrich none/broken 1
DIS:
-5 overconfident
-5 will -1
-10 impulsive
-15 Absentminded
-15 Wierdness magnet
Quirks:
-flamboyant costume and spell effects
-curious
-pipe smoker
-generous
-astrology minded
Skills:
Thaumatology IQ/V 2 14
Weird Magic IQ/V 2 14
Hazmat: Magic IQ/A 1 13
Alchemy IQ/V 2 12
Occult IQ/A 2 14
Speed Reading IQ/E 1 14
Research IQ/A 1 13
Teaching IQ/A 1 13
Cartography IQ/A 1 13
Astrology IQ/H 1 12
Enigmas IQ/H 1 12
Fortune Telling IQ/A 2 14
Carousing HT/E 1 9
Knife DX/E 1 11
Staff DX/A 2 11
Innate Attack: projectile DX/E 4 13
Spells:
Sense Foes IQ/H 1 14
Sense Life IQ/H 1 14
Simple Illusion IQ/H 1 14
Light IQ/H 1 14
CTL Light IQ/H 1 14
Itch IQ/H 1 14
Spasm IQ/H 1 14
Seek Food IQ/H 1 14
Ignite Fire IQ/H 1 14
Create Fire IQ/H 1 14
Shape Fire IQ/H 1 14
Fireball IQ/H 1 14
Seek Earth IQ/H 1 14
Seeker IQ/H 1 14
Detect Magic IQ/H 1 14
Aura IQ/H 1 14
Mage Sight IQ/H 1 14
Find Weakness IQ/H 1 14
Mend IQ/H 1 14
Magelock IQ/H 1 14
Lend Energy IQ/H 1 14
Recover Energy IQ/H 2 15
Whimsy IQ/V 8 16
cost 3 effects (3d, 1d)
3-5 Really Impressive Positive
6-7 Positive Effect
8-9 Barely positive effect
10-11 neutral, pointless effect
12-13 barely negative effect
14-15 negative effect
16-18 Really Nasty Negative
1 immediate environment
2 something shows up
3 something goes away
4-5 something is altered
6 everything or everybody nearby is altered
Equipment:
$530 magestaff (fine, balanced, bejeweled, good for 8 fp)
Fancy robes $360 (DR1)
embroidered cloak $80
shoes $40
fancy hat $80
cheap dagger $10
pouch $10
basics $5
Pipe $15
Pipeweed in smaller pouch, $10
vial of blue paut $135
Ludlow had made use of a dye-comb aquired through use of whimsy, so his beard,
hair and eyebrows are white rooted and dark brown tipped.
Razakeel Shadowcloak
Goblin necromantic apprentice
ST 10 DX 11 IQ 13 HT 12
Dam 1d-2/1d bl 20
HP11 will 14 per 13 fp 12
Bs 5.25 m 5 d 8 parry 9 block 9
Goblin: sharp teeth, infravision. Rapid healing
Resist metabolic hazards+3, ugly, cowardice, savage
Deathliness 2
Aralaise accented/accented
Goblin native/native
Dark one broken/broken
Curious, annoying phantom voices, skinny, wierdness magnet, struggling
Occultism 13 hidden lore: undead 13, spirits 13, secret writings 13
Hazmat:magical 12 Thanatology 11 exorcism 12 physiology:undead 11
Research 12 speed reading 12
Shortsword 12 shield 12 throwing 11
Scrounging 13 cartography 12 search 12 stealth 10
Spells
Death vision 1 13
Detect magic 1 13
Final rest 1 13
Lend energy 1 13
Recover energy 1 13
Lend vitality 1 13
Sense spirit 1 13
Summon spirit 1 13
Turn spirit 1 13
Turn zombie 1 13
Zombie 1 13
Equipment:
Cheap shortsword $80
Shield $80
Leather torso armor $100
Boots $80
Black cloak $80
Cloth armor elsewhere $60
Northport 