RPGaDAY2025 - Day 22 - Ally - NPCs of the Lumberlands

Some NPCs from my Lumberlands campaign

https://polyhedralnonsense.com/2025/08/22/rpgaday2025-day-22-ally-npcs-of-the-lumberlands/

#Lumberlands, #OSR, #RPGaDAY2025, #Ttrpg

RPGaDAY2025 – Day 22 – Ally – NPCs of the Lumberlands

What’s #RPGaDAY2025 ? See the details here.

Day 22 – Ally

Last year I finished up a campaign of the Black Hack set in the Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) campaign setting. It’s a world roughly based on old North American lumberjack lore. Here’s my old posts on the setting.

Here’s some of the NPCs I created for the setting that served as allies to my players:

Tendentious Vague

He claims to be a representative of the Thieves’ Guild of the town of Squeamish. He is, but he often fails to mention he is the founder of the group and currently the only member.

• Wears overly dramatic dark cloaks and hoods.
• Will try to recruit PC thieves for his guild. He’ll often suggest daring and dangerous robberies of which the “Guild” will get a 30-40% cut.
• Dramatically sends messages with throwing knives with messages attached. He’ll often insist on getting those knives back, as they are expensive.
• After meetings, he’ll always try to exit suddenly, Batman-style, as soon as the players look away. If they don’t look away, he’ll stand there awkwardly until he can distract them somehow.

Mabel Monsoon

On a fog shrouded island in the Muskinee River, it is said a terrifying necromancer lives. A dark mansion has been dimly spotted on the island, along with strange structures seemly infested with the walking dead. No one has dared land to investigate.

A necromancer does live on the island. Her name is Mabel Monsoon, and she is a lovely, gregarious, and grandmotherly old woman.

• The strange structures are in fact, a zombie staffed toy factory, where Mabel mass produces children’s toys for the world. She puts aside 10% of the production to provide free toys to underprivileged children.
• All of her animated corpses are ethically-sourced, with post-life provenance documentation proving they or their loved ones allowed this.
• She loves guests, and will stage elaborate dinner parties for anyone who lands on the island. She rarely gets to show off her baking skills to the undead.
• She can serve as a confidant and patron to characters, if they’re of good moral character.

Sherriff Thatch McGillicuddy

The duly appointed Sherriff of Squeamish. He keeps the peace in the town environs.

• Only real law in Squeamish, though he has two extremely dumb deputies.
• His badge is a magical charm that protects him from most low-level spells (sleep, charm. etc.)
• Fair minded, but doesn’t care for the shenanigans of adventurers.
• His mustache is considered the finest and largest in all of the Lumberlands.
• Expert shootist.

I also made a list of some notable Muskinee riverboat captains.

#Fantasy #Lumberlands #OSR #RPG #RPGaDAY2025 #ttrpg

Just ran my final session of a 2 and a half year Black Hack campaign, set in the Lumberlands, an OSR setting based on North American lumberjack lore.

We all had a good time, but it's still a little bittersweet to end a good campaign.

Along the way, I maintained a map of the campaign setting, marking the locations of all of the campaign's major events:

#OSR #TTRPG #Lumberlands #BlackHack

My Black Hack campaign was originally supposed to be 6 months, but is now closing in on 2 years.

It's set in Lost Pages' Lumberlands zine setting, and as it goes along, I've been updating a map for the players of all the major places and events they've encountered. When the campaign's done, I may have it printed.
#TTRPG #OSR #Lumberlands #BlackHack

My #Lumberlands campaign is heading into the home stretch, and I've been updating the campaign map every time they encounter something new. It should make a nice souvenir for the players when it's done.

The map itself is just a modified 19th century map of the Kennebec river in Maine.

#OSR #TTRPG #BlackHack

In my ongoing #Lumberlands campaign, I introduced rumors about a mysterious Necromancer who inhabited a spooky island complex. My players eventually investigated.

The Necromancer turned out to be a lovely little old lady named Mabel, who used ethically-sourced corpses to run an automated toy factory, where she produced low-cost toys for underprivileged children.

She and the party became great friends.

#OSR #TTRPG

My #Lumberlands #BlackHack campaign has been active for nearly a year. As we go along, I've been filling in a map of all of the major locations the players visited.

The original setting has no map, so I modified a old map of Maine.

It serves as a quick campaign log, and eventually as a nice memento for when the campaign ends.
#OSR #TTRPG

I've been playing a game of the Black Hack RPG in the Lumberlands setting for about a year.

One of the quirks of the Black Hack is that to level up, you have to go to a tavern, buy a round of drinks, and tell stories. You have to roll D6s equivalent to your current level to determine how much gold you're spending.
(1/2)

#BlackHack #OSR #TTRPG #Lumberlands

Just ran a session of my #OSR #Lumberlands game.

My players had to escape from a band of pursuing sasquatch, so I needed some #TTRPG chase rules. I used David Black & James Young's "Snakes & Swords" rules.

Highly recommended and worth a download:
http://tenfootpolemic.blogspot.com/2017/05/flee-snakes-ladders-chase-mechanics.html