Reflecting the richness of the world in your NPC Encounters

I saw Throne of Salts check-list for 'building more diverse worlds' - I already had all the layers from generating with Azgaars, so I wanted to see how much more I could wring from this.

The killer point for me was "Cultural / religious / ethnic minorities will always exist, there will always be some sort of cultural exchange or interaction going on even in the most isolated and tiny locales. Migration and diaspora are written into our souls (for is it not said, that the open road still softly calls?)"

Layers from Azgaars Fantasy Map Generator

So - while we have the day to day majorities, we can break in with the neighbouring cultures and religions. This being menagerie world, ethnicities are already all over the place with the many many animal-lings; I am just running that as a random-roll layer that drops in on top of all the chunkier elements.

My standard NPC creation workflow is:
- What this person is like individually (randomised traits)
- Their background / ancestry (randomised background)
- What they care about (picked faction)

I see what we look at here dropping into the background aspect - breaking up the monolithic aspects of the different groups of animal-lings.

Digging into cultures - this one is interesting as we are set in more of less the beach-head of an old colonial push by an offshore culture. The people living here now, mostly the animal-lings were uplifted by the incoming elves. The previously existing dwarf, giant and draconic cultures were swept back - but should have left traces behind. Let us tag all of those for now; examples of the older cultures blended into the current most common culture. There are not so many original members of the culture around so these will likely be present as variations on the practices of the majority

Next, looking at Religion - here we have a more interesting flash point in that we are sitting more or less on top of the cradle of a religion that has been nigh on swept aside by the current majority - the old animist religion of the elves being replaced by the standard D&D pantheon. Definitely there are hold-overs from the old animists, I think potentially scary druids in goblinpunch style. Also interesting, on the western border, we have the Kirianshalee cult of the Land of the Dead beyond - definitely worth working them in - are they the living adherents who think the lich-priests running the Land of the Dead are doing it wrong? Are they vanguard cultists softening the place up for invasion? Lots of potential there.

Dicing up my cities previously I came up with a couple that were 'defended by holy orders of knights' and a couple of others that were 'laws enforced by a secret cabal of clerics' - I think the holy knights are the current dominant pantheon, the secret law enforcers are the hold overs from the old ways. In addition we have the new elf pantheon - a 'return to the forebearers' movement focusing on just the elven gods - that too will be an influence come in on the trade routes.

Finally, the original article talks of nations/political as the buckets into which the rest are poured, but for the purposes of this I think history and the change of boundaries is another relevant factor. Looking back at the big shifts and long stable periods, both of those are going to leave the strongest legacy in the people today. We have the current realms, which have all fallen out of the old elven colonial empire, which took these lands from the dwarf-lords millenia back. In between those we have two 'memory/culture forming' periods - the colonial conquest of these Southern Reaches by the elves and the fight for power in those same realms by the elves abandoned vassals - the era of the Predator Queens. Think of all the rebel songs from short lived revolutions that persist long after their cause was lost and national anthems that recall founding struggles - that is what we get from those interfaces between periods.

So this gives us a couple of political role models, icons to be invoked is you will - the current status quo power players, those who look to some pre-elven better time, those who feel they lost out in the current realm forming and those who whould reclaim the conquering crown of the elves.

So sweeping up all these; we get a diversity flavour table to layer onto our encounters. I'm not sure how I will integrate this into my usual NPC generation workflow - maybe make it a 1-20 table with 1-7 as 'local powers', 8-10 as 'main pantheon' and use the usual faction driven NPC motivations for these two, then have the rest of the table being played by ear:

Roll d20 for NPC's main allegiance / motivating concern
1-7. Political follower - local powers
8-10. Religious adherents - main pantheon
11. Cultural blend elf-dwarf
12. Cultural blend elf-giant
13. Cultural blend elf-dragon
14. Religious adherents - old animists
15. Religious adherents - elven forebears
16. Religious adherents - kirianshalee orthodox vanguard
17. Religious adherents - kirianshalee heretics (living)
18. Political follower - elven conquerors
19. Political follower - dwarven utopians
20. Political follower - deposed predator queens

I can see that depending on the circumstance, some of these would be incidental flavour and the NPCs primary motivation would be factional but under other circumstances the fact that you are talking to a hardcore believer in the predator queens or one of the secret supporters of the old animists could make a difference.

This will get used in combat and non-combat encounters - probably slightly more helpful in non-combat where there will be lots of jaw-jaw but always helpful to have these kinds of flavours available to spice up your session - some thought put in ahead of time creates a tool that will make lots of sessions easier. Need some NPC's - dice a couple of times on this table and even if it just a conversation in a tavern, you know what they are likely to be arguing or telling stories about now. It helps keeps things fresh, surprises the players by unearthing new aspects of the world while also remaining consistent, and over time will grow a meaning of its own at the table. I talked about this happening before in NPC mannerisms: d66 animal-folk attitudes where as the players run into another one of 'those ones' and that identifier begins to accrete baggage from past encounters. The world becomes more real because as the players lift rocks, there are things for them to find - from thinking through this kind of thing before hand.

Really handy thinking from Throne of Salt in 'building more diverse worlds' - well worth the read.