Author: Jonathan Perrine

Moar NPC! I tend to lump my NPC’s into a list called ‘Dragonkin’ or more often just ‘Friends’. Even when they aren’t.

Name: Captain Shoalwing

House: Tessith

Age: Bearded Dragon

Colors: Glistening aquamarine and seafoam scales

Looks: 

Shoalwing is a muscular dragon, with an enormous wingspan that dwarfs her whip tail and long snout. Her iridescent coat shines seafoam and aquamarine, and her tiny horns are almost an afterthought.

‘Captain’ Shoalwing as she’s known commands one of the massive coastal barges House Tessith uses as stopover points for traveling dragons. With the sails down, a full sized elder can land on board – Albeit, not leaving room for much else. She delights in telling scary stories about the ocean and krakens to young drakes, but is only so good at giving them a scare because  she’s a little afraid herself. 

Shoalwing loves traveling and will take any excuse for a long, soaring flight over the water; She usually wears a rigging-like harness, to make it easy for smaller dragons to hitch a ride, and carrying a clutch of drakes is almost effortless with her huge wings. She secretly wonders around the krakens, and won’t admit it, but wants to take a risk and sail out into the sea just to see if there truly is anything out there. 

In my game, Shoalwing and her ship took the clutch from the southern cliffside city of Rabaton to Gemport, a mine and shipyard in the northeastern archipelago. She told some scary stories but also gave the clutch a lot of hope with her pep-talks and adventuresome spirit. 

This is the clutch sheet I use. I fold it in half, along with my moves lists, and it’s the sheet I keep in front of me for most of the game. Between this and my half page map I have a pretty good at-a-glance record of the game.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WvFWwM3KVYXv22h5LNXHLIGwfxAOJbhCMB-YGt0ua2g/edit?usp=sharing

I have a fairly massive list of memorable NPC Dragons and House Strongholds from my games. I’m not sure ultimately what format is useful, but figured posting a few could help others, and get some feedback.

Up first is the ‘helpful’ professor from the GenCon Epy game, Sy.

Name: Professor Sy

House: Kebros

Age: Longtooth Dragon

Colors: Inky Black with red highlights

Looks: Sleek, scaly body with talons, a pointy snout, two rows of horns, and a stinger

Professor Sy is a smooth, inky Longtooth dragon loyal to house Kebros. He has two rows of horns get longer as they go back from his forehead, and he has red highlights on his wings and face. He has been known to bring an entire courtyard of playing drakes to a dead stop with his severe expression and unamused demeanor.

Sy is a sought after academic on matters of the Stone Moon, but his true calling (and regular job) is the education of young drakes that house Kebros deems as ‘Gifted’ in prophecy (such as seers) and in some cases, poaching such gifted youth from the other houses.

Sy is never seen without his harness and his black bag, which he guards jealously and often rummages in or idly rifles through. Whatever he keeps inside seems to be abnormally heavy for its size.

In my game, Sy stumbled across a rambunctious clutch playing in snow of the Blackrock Academy’s courtyard, and decided that they all, including his Kebros student, Draven, needed something to do. He sent them to fetch him a sample of black fluid at the bottom of a well in a mountain cave – A task complicated when a spooky giant owl abducted their talkative friend Rollatha.