100 NPCs for your fantasy roleplaying game

NPCs are a big part of any tabletop roleplaying game. Whether they are just passing characters with directions to the nearest town or long-standing background characters that your players have grown to love, every interaction adds something to the game. Having interesting and exciting NPCs can make the difference between a good game and a great game. For that reason we’ve put together the following list of 100 NPCs for you to use in your next fantasy adventure.
 
Need a random encounter? Why not just roll a D100 and see who you meet.
 
1. A ‘reformed’ evil genius
2. Someone who believes ‘everything can be improved with magic’
3. A PC’s sibling
4. A local historian who is overly keen for some ‘history’ to happen in their lifetime
5. Someone who has lost everything and is furious with the world
6. A teenager in love
7. A monarch who has lost their kingdom
8. A child that wants to grow up to be part of the PCs party
9. The world’s best forger
10. A dancer by day, an assassin by night
11. A terrible craftsman
12. Someone who has invented a new storytelling game that the local kids love
13. A beggar with a heart of gold
14. A mage’s assistant that is a fox transformed to a human
15. A hermit who will avoid contact with others at all costs
16. Conjoined twins with differing political beliefs
17. A tavern owner who is struggling financially
18. Someone who lives naked in the woods with no possessions
19. A coin collector who explores foreign lands and forgotten places looking for ancient coins
20. Someone who is starting their own religion (or trying to)
21. A dwarf who wants to be a dancer but has none of the required skills
22. A hairdresser who keeps their hair to make terrifying dolls
23. A skeleton whose former consciousness was returned to them so now they live in isolation, ashamed of what they are
24. A depressed jester
25. A young girl who is CONSTANTLY getting into adventures
26. Someone who believes in fate and rolls dice to make any decisions
27. A shopkeeper that always remembers your name
28. Someone so deep in debt that they will do literally anything to get out of it
29. Someone who owns almost a hundred different types of spiders and treats them all like their children
30. Someone who believes ‘all items can be improved with a bit of tinkering’
31. A goblin who is incredibly intelligent and polite who has been shunned by his own race and not accepted by others
32. A professor who is cataloguing all the creatures found in the most out-of-the-way places
33. The sole survivor of a plague who maintains the village on their own out of a sense of duty
34. A peasant who is having an illicit relationship with a young noble
35. Someone who wanders from small village to small village teaching the poorest and youngest how to read and write in exchange for food and shelter
36. A bard who no longer enjoys performing but doesn’t know what else to do
37. A friendly drunk whose ambition is to be the nicest and best drunk that ever lived
38. A breeder of weird and exotic creatures
39. An orphan who just wants to watch the world burn
40. A very disorganised merchant
41. A priest who has lost their faith
42. Someone who is completely distrustful of anyone who doesn’t come from their village
43. Someone who is vocally opposed to all religion, believing it to be a way for the clergy to make money
44. Someone with an overly sensitive sense of smell
45. Someone who always just says the first thing that comes to their mind
46. Someone who is very proud and will never ask for help no matter how much they need it
47. Someone who makes very weird and low quality dolls and stuffed animals to sell at market
48. Someone who keeps a list of his neighbours transgressions and has spent months planning a suitable revenge for each of them
49. Someone who is easily deceived by anyone using long words
50. Someone with magical abilities that they refuse to cultivate because their parents told them magic was a sin against god
51. An incompetent butcher
52. A rich carpenter whose services are sought across the land
53. A farmer who used to be an adventurer (though you wouldn’t think it) and has led a very interesting life indeed
54. An arrogant writer
55. A fisherman who survived a shipwreck and never talks about how
56. A harper who is secretly a spy for another kingdom
57. Someone who doesn’t remember a large part of their life
58. Someone with no dreams or goals
59. A person who enjoys running in their spare time
60. A woman who likes dressing as a man
61. A man who likes dressing as a woman
62. Someone who always wanted to go on an adventure but has too many commitments
63. Someone who regrets a lot of their life choices and is trying to make up for them
64. Someone from another land who does not speak the language
65. Someone who faked their own death in a different country to escape their life
66. A genuine God who has taken up residence on this planet and doesn’t want anyone to know who they are
67. A bard who follows the party and commits ALL their adventures to their book
68. Identical twins with a psychic connection
69. An alchemist dedicated to making more and better addicting hallucinogens for sale
70. The world’s best blacksmith who only takes on jobs that they believe will give them an opportunity to show off and improve their craft
71. A terrible poet
72. A swimmer who collects flotsam and jetsam found in the sea and sells it on
73. A former sailor who can no longer step on a boat after a terrible incident at sea
74. The last remaining monk of an old religious faction
75. A demon who just wants a quiet life
76. A vigilante
77. A noble in a pauper’s body having been kidnapped and woken up in someone else’s skin
78. A philosopher who, having thought through the meaning of life has decided their isn’t one and does whatever he wants (and has the intelligence to get away with it)
79. A cannibal
80. A tavern owner who knows everyone’s secrets and extorts anyone he doesn’t like
81. An underworld boss who spends their money on charitable causes
82. A soldier who no longer believes that their cause is the right one
83. A famous artist
84. Someone who keeps a monstrous pet in the woods behind their house
85. A collector of wooden spoons
86. A once great wrestler
87. Someone who identifies as a different race
88. An eccentric millionaire who has lost all of their money due to their eccentricities
89. The world’s most boring person
90. An old friend of one of the party. They haven’t seen them in decades
91. An expert on a very obscure (and quite boring) bit of forgotten lore
92. Someone who seems to be experiencing everything for the first time
93. A misanthropic cobbler
94. A sculptor who is obsessed with one of the adventuring party
95. A town guard who commits more crimes than they prevent
96. A ghost who doesn’t realise they’re dead
97. A successful adventuring party who are everything the PCs aren’t
98. An ‘eccentric’ who is experimenting with keeping fish in ‘tanks’
99. Someone who lies as often as possible because they enjoy it
100. Someone who has given up all hope