Building Bhakashal - Kanai Grith the Hessonite

Every once in a while a NPC in the game takes on a life of their own, this guy, Kanai Grith the Hessonite, became one of those notable NPCs in our home game. 

Art by Chris Seaman

https://bluemoonrising.com/artists/chris-seaman

Kanai is a warlock from Bhakashal, he has taken up with a pirate for a time to return an honor debt, he encountered the party when they sought to retrieve a pair of religious artifacts the pirates had stolen from a temple. In the ensuing naval battle the party managed to damage his ship, but he also managed to deal significant casualties to the party’s crew by extending the range of his archer’s shots using Ammon Marr’s Projectile Extension, and use of a Phantasmal Force that misled the PCs and almost cost them the fight by having them slam into a rock outcropping and sink their ship. Fortunately the PCs had hired on some Malu (fish-folk) sailors that were in the water and saw the underwater portion of the outcropping that was concealed by the illusion up top

Little pieces of the AD&D magic system really reward you here, the players weren’t expecting a caster that wasn’t an illusionist to have illusions, so they were far more vulnerable to his use of illusion after they saw him casting regular warlock spells 

When the party damaged his ship they tried parlay, mainly to save the rest of their crew, and the pirate leader, Kuga the Brazen, wanted to avoid the loss of more crew after losing his ship. The party came to an agreement with the pirate, and they celebrated with a feast. Well, at the feast, the PCs had SO MANY QUESTIONS for Kanai Grith, they wanted to know if he had ever been to the city, he revealed his House tattoo and told them he worked for House Klis. It was no secret after all, Bhakashal warlocks fear nothing!

Kanai is a sage (all Bhakashal warlocks are sages with a major and minor field and two areas of specialization in their major field) in Fauna, specifically Reptiles and Amphibians, so the PCs asked him a lot of questions about the ocean monsters they had encountered recently. It always fascinates me when PCs get interested in lore. Sometimes they seem utterly uninterested, and the next thing you know they are interrogating an NPC to find out everything they know about the Plesiosaurus, which had been encountered recently

You can’t plan for stuff like this, it emerges spontaneously from role play. If you place an NPC that has knowledge that a PC should, on paper, be interested in, they will often have no interest whatsoever. But if you place an NPC that has some esoteric knowledge about something fairly useless you can be sure your PCs will suddenly become INTENSELY INTERESTED in that useless thing. A good sandbox referee develops the ability to “read the table” and take advantage of those occasions when they see a spark of interest that can be spun into good role play.

Grith’s personality is listed as, “Perceptive, diplomatic, scheming”, so I played him that way. When discussing issues I would make perceptive comments on his part (I’m the ref, I know everything, so that’s pretty easy). I had him resolve a dispute between sailors during one conversation with the PCs and he made observations about the crew and those the party encountered that showed he was aware of rivalries and vendettas amongst his crew.

He accompanied the party as they sought out a replacement ship for the one they sank, part of their deal with Kuga the Brazen, in exchange for the religious artifacts they wanted. On the way to return the artifacts and secure a ship, they stopped by an island for fresh water and their ship was swarmed by four Tanystropheus while sailing up a river. The creatures climbed on deck and were engaged by the party using missile fire and spells. Several sailors were slain by the beasts when they tried to directly melee. All the while Kanai Grith was casting a spell surrounded by his three togmu (frog-folk) henchmen. At the end of the round it culminated, and six glossy black tentacles emerged from the water and attacked the dinosaurs (there were three left by the time his spell cast). The tentacles scooped up the creatures and dispatched them.

This made Grith popular with the crew, and even more popular with the PCs! They wanted him to join the party, and the party warlock was even discussing sharing spells. It’s hard to tell what makes players gravitate to particular NPCs, some they ignore, some they love. Kanai Grith the Hessonite definitely goes in the “love” category. He adventured with them for several sessions, I played him as arrogant but clever and always willing to back up his boasting. At one point a high level fighter thought to taunt the party in a public place.

Kanai was having none of that, he had his three henchmen engage the fighter with missile fire while he cast a monster summoning spell, then he took out his sword and called out the fighter. Bhakashal warlocks aren’t as good at combat as fighters, but they aren’t inept. And Kanai is an arena warlock, different warlocks do different things for their Houses, Kanai was an Akhaada Combatant Primus Warlock for House Klis, this means he regularly fights (using claw, sword and spell) in the arena in Bhakashal.  

Since Akhaada warlocks fight regularly in the arena, they get the attack bonus of a mercenary of equivalent level with a single weapon of their choice, and gain the mercenary’s ability to make a saving throw versus any critical combat effect. They still have worse AC and fewer HP, so they aren’t invulnerable, but they are frequently underestimated. As it happens they were not in Bhakashal when this happened, so the fighter taunted the warlock without realizing a taunt could not go unanswered.

Kanai went two rounds with the fighter, who tagged him once, before the Algoids showed up. They attacked the fighter en masse and beat him almost to death. Grith left him on the street with a reminder not to run his mouth, or question a Bhakashal warlock’s bravery.

In one session he used his Tippling Ring to drink a group most of a group of bandits under the table while the party kidnapped their leader for ransom (to hire a new crew for his new ship). 

The deal of the parley was that the party would find a replacement ship for Kuga, they used their payment for retrieving the artifacts to purchase the ownership of their current ship, and gave this to Kanai to take back to Kuga. The party also spent their own gold to hire his new crew. That gave me the opportunity to have Kanai cast Tanner’s Prowess Assessor to pick that crew from potential recruits, getting a better cut of sailors for his new ship. After about 5 sessions Kanai parted with the party, for the next 8 months or so of game time Kanai and Kuga’s new ship, the Brass Boar, will be an entry on the random encounter table, if pirates are rolled, then there will be a 1 in 8 chance it’s them. 

The important part about running an NPC like this is to ensure that they don’t direct what the party does. Kanai never suggested courses of action for the party except to make demands that made sense to his position and faction, for example demanding that the party replace his ship. How they do that is up to them, and if they do that is up to them, so they have agency. 

In cases when I had him take the initiative in the moment it was always in character and related to his factional alignment and his stated goals. So for example, when the party was insulted in the street, for a Bhakashal warlock that’s pretty clearly something that won’t be ignored. But to be clear, even THAT I diced for, he might have let the insult pass, there was a very small chance, but once I rolled, we were committed. If you are playing a powerful, arrogant and intelligent NPC, they can’t sit back and do nothing, but they can’t run the show either.

It’s also important to avoid having the NPC give the PCs intel all the time, they can’t be omnicient, they have to be surprised sometimes too. The referee is for all practical purposes omniscient, so it's important, IMO, to randomize a lot of the NPCs' decision making to compensate. I regularly come up with lists of options for the NPC that all seem reasonable, and dice between them. Sometimes that means an NPC will cast a spell that has no impact, e.g., the NPC cast a spell on an illusion thinking it to be real, the ref knows it’s an illusion, but the NPC does not. Sometimes it will mean they have nothing to do in a given situation because they are equally stumped with the party. 

There is too much temptation to run a NPC as a self-insert, so to make them successful in the game you need to make them part of the environment, and randomize as much about their decision making as possible. And you have to let them die. Kanai has 20 hp, that’s not a lot. There were a number of cases where all that saved him was a fortuitous dice roll. It’s wild to see how the players would shout and scream about those rolls, they didn’t want him to die!

The payoff is immense. A well played NPC brings the game world to life, this one was only around for about 5 sessions, but his contributions outlast him. They also make for powerful deaths when it happens. Both NPCs and henchmen deaths have had great dramatic impact at the table because they feel real at the table. 

It’s a kind of magic