RPGaDay 2026 Day 17: Intensity

 

Developing another female NPC for Ureka and she's got some Intensity. I feel like I'm trying to find smaller and smaller niches as I go along (and I'm also doing these much closer to the wire, so maybe they're getting a touch less thought), but my feeling here is that this is a plucky girl reporter at the Times-Standard.

Name: Hildy Russel

Appearance: A red-haired mousey woman in her 20s in a practical business outfit.

Quote: "Is that on the record?"

Roleplaying: Hildy talks very fast, making it difficult to get a word in edgewise.

Background: Hildy has always been sharp and inquisitive. When the offices of the Times-Standard newspaper were reclaimed and re-opened, she became one of the first reporters to reply. She is also a regular in the local podcast scene.

Key Info:

Hildy has information on a lot of goings-on around Ureka
Hildy may need independent sources to gather information, or competent escort to dangerous locales where information may be obtained.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay2026 Day 16: Composure

Now to come up with an female NPC for the Eureka Ruins who is having a hard time with her Composure. If she were having an easy time with her composure, she might be a little too close to Scarlett from back on Day 4, so let's try to keep things interesting.

In fact, to make things a bit more interesting, let's make her human. What is a human doing spending most of her time in the Eureka Ruins? Well, one of the things that I've struggled to incorporate into the setting is one of the Ruin tags that I rolled up for this part of town has been the Hidden Purpose. It doesn't really mesh with how I think of my hometown,

But if we're willing to accept that Hupa developed some sort of black programs that it implemented while everything was falling apart, there are other kinds of developments that very naturally follow. So there may well be something hidden under this portion of Eureka.

So our NPC is Mary Ross (named after a Native American rocket scientist), who has come up from Frisco to try to learn about what happened up here since the Collapse. Since she is Native American, she is interested in Hupa and she might work her way there at some point. But right now, she's interested in what might have happened in Eureka in response.

She's also interested in Tuluwat, the largest island in Humboldt Bay. It's gone by a few names in its history, but it is currently called Tuluwat and is the territory of the local Wiyot tribe. If Hupa was able to militarize, maybe Tuluwat was able to have a small navy controlling the bay. And maybe Eureka was able to work up a response.

So what does Composure have to do with all this? Well, like any post-apocalyptic scientist, she more than a little MAD!

Name: Mary Golda Ross

Appearance: A Native American woman in her 30's with straight dark hair under a kerchief. She wears khaki outdoor gear.

Quote: "How exciting!"

Roleplaying: She is brilliant and very excitable. The prospect of a new discovery will have her clapping her hands and rubbing them together in glee.

Background: Mary is from one of the larger Enclaves in the San Francisco Bay area on a research expedition.

Key Info:

She has some information regarding Hupa, Tuluwat, and even some of the science projects at Calpoly and underneath Eureka from her studies, but she is limited on practical experience, which she is eager to get.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 15: Endurance

Now we're making a male NPC for Cow Town and just surviving in Cow Town is an act of Endurance. And for all that we've talked about how horrible it is, maybe we should look at some of the reasons that the people stay.

There is a certain kind of safety in living in a place that no one else wants. No raiders coming to kill you when they know you're going to die sooner rather than later and whatever killed you may well be waiting for them.

There is hunting and gathering that can be done outside the city. And the Eel River with its slamon runs passes under the bridge at Fernbridge.

And cleanup of the radioactive and irradiated materials is possible. It's just slow and difficult work being done by people who are slowly dying as they do it.

One of the people taking on that work is Ernie Pierson (actually named after the founder of one of the most famous hardware stores in Humboldt County). Armed with a Geiger counter, he spends his days trying to isolate radioactive metals and remove them from wherever he can. And even if he were to remove all of radioactive materials, recovery and return to normalcy are a good distance away.

Name: Ernie Pierson

Appearance: A middle-aged barrel-chested white man with thinning grey hair and a bushy mustache. He wears a neon green safety vest over his work clothes and dark protective goggles.

Quote:

Roleplaying: He is always willing to help, but averse to violence. He is on good terms with most folks in town and can provide some information on most of them. He will guide

Background: Ernie has always been an explorer and his Geiger counter lets him find safe places as well as identify radiation hazards that he may eventually be able to remove.

Key Info:

He has a Geiger counter that can identify radioactive materials and areas.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 14: Regard

 Now to create another female NPC for Squatch-Ville. Because this is another female NPC and the prompt is very close, I want to make sure that I'm not retreading Day 2, so I'll make this character a human. She won't have Stature, but she will have Regard.

I do have a couple more chances to make sasquatch NPCs and I do want to develop their society further. But one of the ways to do that is to show how humans live in their society. And the difference between Stature and Regard gives us an opportunity to look at the glass ceiling that prevents humans from rising too high in Squatch-Ville society.

So our NPC clearly has some measure of authority, but that is sharply limited. She lives and works among the sasquatch, but is frequently overruled.

The truth is that Squatch-Ville is not a single city, but a widely distributed community. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle means that the people must forage from large sections of the forest to feed their families and communities. There is a "trade town" that acts as a central hub where these distributed gatherers can come together to trade for what they need with other gatherer groups and also outside traders. This is what most outsiders refer to as "Squatch-Ville."

Each of these smaller communities is overseen by a sasquatch. Since they are nobility in this situation, they would naturally have little feudal fiefs. But our NPC is not a sasquatch. She's actually something of a secretary or vizier to the sasquatch overseer of this particular fief. So she's very close to power, but just a hairsbreadth away from it.

She's actually competent and when the last overseer went invisible, she requested that she be promoted to overseer permanently. Instead, the position was filled by another sasquatch designated by the Central Council, with the use-name "Percy."

Name: Lillian Donovan

Appearance: An attractive slender Black woman with tightly curled, close-cropped hair. She wears a simple dress with bangles and bracelets denoting her position in sasquatch society.

Quote:

Roleplaying: Lillian is very well organized and helpful. She sees Percy as useless and will avoid involving him as much as possible.

Background: She grew up in Squatch-Ville and found herself to be a competent and capable organizer. She's taken risen through the ranks to be the top human administrator in her fief.

Key Info:

She is a capable and competent administrator
She wishes that she had the authority to run the fief without having to defer to a sasquatch

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 13: Strain

 

Now we're looping back to Ureka, and since the last NPC for Ureka was female, this one will be male and he is under some Strain.

Our last Ureka NPC was the wife of a timber baron, so that means that there are probably a good number of lumber workers of varying varieties and that has got to be hard work. We also established that she used her immense social power to protect her timber baron wife from any evidence that there might be anything wrong with her operations. So let's make our strained NPC the face of what's going wrong with Dolbeer Timber.

There are a couple of ways to play that. One way is simply to accept that being a lumberjack is a dangerous job. Another would be to lean in to an aspect of the Fallout series, which is the dark humor of corporate absurdity. Vault-Tec and the other corporations of pre-Fallout America were constantly developing new products and new lines of scientific research. The Vaults themselves were given over to psychological and sociological experiments, but there was nothing that Vault-Tec wouldn't try to improve upon. We find these documented in the games via logs kept on the various computer terminals throughout the game environments.

So there might be an efficiency upgrade to the fusion donkey that pulls an immense log at up to 100 feet per second, but nobody was aware of how fast that really is and 12 loggers were crushed. Which is still an improvement, since the last tree of that size cost 15 loggers their lives.

In either case, Harry is a rough and tumble kind of guy. And I think the Strain he's under isn't just the labor of harvesting enormous redwood trees. I think he's lost something that he is struggling to get back. Maybe he was there when the fusion donkey crushed those loggers and he feels the need to get justice for them. As a post-apocalyptic reconstruction of the 19th Century, it is both before and after OSHA.

Name: Harry Bridges

Appearance: A solidly built white man with a bushy dark beard and a knit cap on his head. His clothing is rugged, flannel shirts and denim jeans.

Quote: "Do right by your team and they'll see you through"

Roleplaying: Gruff and empathetic.

Background: Harry's been a lumberjack long enough to know how dangerous it is. He's lost a number of fellow loggers to enormous trees and the powerful equipment needed to move them. He's got some ideas about how to make things safer if only anyone would listen.

Key Info:

Harry wants to make logging safer
Harry does not want to take extreme action, but might be forced into it.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 12: Loss

 Now it's time to create a male NPC for the Eureka Ruins. This typically means that we're looking at a Ratfolk. And this Ratfolk is going to be someone who has experienced a Loss.

To keep things interesting, let's think about the kinds of losses that only Ratfolk can have. Such as their tail. Now, on the common rat, the tail actually does a lot of work. It helps with balance and heat regulation, among other things. Among the Ratfolk, the tail allows them to connect their minds with other Ratfolk to form a collective consciousness known as a Rat King. The Ratfolk of the Eureka Ruins are led by such a hivemind, which has applied its intellect to the problem of the people of Ureka.

But that's not the only Rat King. Similar collectives may be formed to accomplish some other goal requiring significant mental effort, which are known as Philosopher Kings.

So today's NPC, who I'll call Splinter, was part of one of these Philosopher Kings, but after a raid on the school they were occupying by the Ratcatchers, his tail was severed, removing him from the collective and destroying any chance of joining another. Not only has Splinter had to adapt to being alone in his own head, the loss of the nerve clusters in his tail has affected his cognition as well.

Having his tail severed in a Ratcatcher raid gives him reason to be antagonistic, but the link to a Philosopher King is intended to tie in to the other Tag that was rolled for the Eureka Ruins: Hidden Purpose. Whether that's something that the Ratfolk themselves are working on, or something that came to Eureka before the Collapse that they are trying to discover (I'm not sure yet myself), that's something that should be brought up.

Name: Splinter

Appearance: A dark-furred Ratfolk with scars on his body and no tail.

Quote:

Roleplaying: His mind is splintered. He's got more control when he's calm, but especially when agitated, he will suddenly trail off or pause, unconsciously trying to pass off the mental effort along the link that is no longer there. His memory is muddled because some pieces of it were stored in other rats when he was separated.

Background: Splinter spent much of his life linked into a Philosopher King living in the Eureka High School library. A Ratcatcher raid some years ago stormed the place and forcibly separated the Philosopher King, leaving Splinter as the only survivor. Now missing a tail, he struggles to manage thoughts and memories that are only fragments of the hivemind.

Key Info:

Splinter likely has information from his time in a Philosopher King that could reveal a secret that the Ratfolk are trying to keep or discover.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 11: Tact

 

Now to create a female NPC for Cow Town. With the prompt being Tact, there's the temptation to recycle the society matron concept that I already used for Ureka. But Cow Town has its own needs. I think someone with a lot of Tact in Cow Town would probably be a doctor who has to give their patients increasingly bad news.

But we also want to use this round to create NPCs that are possibly antagonistic and would wind up in conflict with a prospective adventuring party. So let's make her a little cold, a little ruthless, maybe a little too eager to make the hard decisions.

Name: Dr. Kristi Hale

Appearance: Middle aged aged, thin faced white woman with her light brown hair pulled up into a messy beehive in a failing effort to keep it out of her face. She wears a clean lab coat over worn, drab clothes.

Quote: "Would you please stop! You're not doing anyone any good!"

Roleplaying: She uses the forms of politeness, but she is used to being obeyed. "Please" is an order.

Background: She took over her father's practice as the Cow Town doctor when his passing from radiation poisoning forced her to take it on. She was quite young at the time and she was not prepared for the amount of death she would oversee.

Key Info:

Dr. Hale is likely to restrict care for patients that she feels are lost causes.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 10: Secret

Following the patterns that we've previously established, we are now devising a male character for Squatch-Ville.

While it would be interesting to have another sasquatch to build out more of what they're like, let's make this character human so we can see that society from their perspective. And let's see if we can make this character more antagonistic towards any interlopers, such as a potential PC party.

Another thing to touch on would be the Reckless Complacency that is affecting Squatch-Ville. There is a threat of some kind that everyone is pointedly ignoring. What could that be?

One thing that we've already established that the sasquatch are complacent about is "invisibility." Sometimes, a sasquatch experiences such extreme social anxiety that they disappear, living the invisible, solitary existence that they had before the Collapse. When they are ready to return, they are more or less welcomed back into Squatch-Ville. Any role they had before they left has likely been filled and they will have to find another if they've been gone long enough.

It only makes sense that the sasquatch would be equally open to humans under their care coming and going just as easily. There would be patrols and such to respond to violent raiders, but peaceful folks would be allowed to pass without incident.

So let's say that our character's secret is that he is a raider, infiltrating the community to undermine it and make it easier to raid. It's been a while, and even as he's passing on information to his old raider gang, he's developing attachments to the community of Squatch-Ville.

Name: Ham

Appearance: Dark skinned with black straight hair cut short. Has either a permanent 5 o'clock shadow or a light beard. Dressed in simple clothing

Quote: "You didn't hear it from me."

Roleplaying: Ham is cautious about everything. He's constantly trying to figure out who he can trust and what he can trust them with.

Background: Abandoned as a child, was adopted by a raider gang. While they did well, stealing supplies from other raider gangs as well as small farmsteads, the major prize has always been Squatch-Ville. A simple frontal assault was out of the question, so Ham volunteered to infiltrate it, gathering information and exploiting weaknesses as best he could. But he has started to "go native," making friends and connections throughout Squatch-Ville that he's not sure he wants to betray once the Enclave is taken over by his gang.

Key Info:

Ham has an understanding of Squatch-Ville's underworld
Ham often has plans to sabotage parts of the community

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 9: Privilege

 And now we loop back to Ureka. Even though we created a female character for yesterday, our last NPC for Ureka was male (back on Day 1), so it's another female character to keep up variety.

Going with the notion of Privilege, let's assume that she's a member of the upper class of Ureka, closely associated with Carsonism, the specific flavor of Victorian Reconstructionism that inspired the reclamation of Ureka, and/or the previously mentioned timber barons.

I have nothing against the notion of a woman being a timber baroness, but my brain is sticking on the idea of a society matron; The woman who controls the gossip mill rather than the timber mill, and wields enormous social power. Because now that I have created a potential ally back on Day 1, I am now free to create something more antagonistic.

Mildred Dolbeer is the wife of reconstructed timber baron Lavinia Dolbeer (the last name is borrowed from historical Humboldt timber baron John Dolbeer). While Lavinia oversees the business operation, Mildred organizes their social calendar, planning luncheons and soirees, making sure that the right people are invited and the wrong people are kept out. She's also not above organizing whispering campaigns to steer opinions.

Her primary goal is to protect the reputation of her wife Lavinia. Unfortunately, by preventing her from experiencing blowback from bad, unpopular and harmful business actions, Lavinia has developed a casual callousness that makes future damage control constantly necessary.

Name: Mildred Dolbeer

Appearance: An imperious, heavyset woman in her early 40's in elaborately tailored dresses. Her pale blonde hair is wrapped like a crown around her head.

Quote: "I will not have that sort of thing happening here!"

Roleplaying: Mildred is saccharine and obsequious among the upper crust, and disdainful of those of the lower classes.

Background: Mildred was always an aggressive social climber. Her attachment, and later marriage, to Lavinia, was merely the latest step.

Key Info:

Mildred will protect Lavinia Dolbeer at all costs
Mildred has extensive connections and can open or close any social avenue to the party that she chooses.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 8: Resolve

Today gives us a look at our final Ruin through a female NPC. And since that last Ruin is Hupa, that puts me in a bit of a bind. Touching on Native American topics comes with real consequences for Doing It Wrong, which I really want to avoid.

The best defense is research. The second best defense is going so hard into the land of Make-Em-Up that everyone knows that you're not talking about something real. A solid backup is to avoid narratives about exploitation and give potential marginalized groups the power to determine their own fate.

As I was rolling this up, that last item was one of the things that I decided to lean into. The idea of this sort of Area 51 location seemed cool, but to place it in what is now a reservation had a lot of potential for exploitation. Some outside government used this area as a dumping ground for whatever weird weapons research or other unethical and bizarre things they were doing. Not very cool.

The idea that the Indigenous people living there made the choice to build that on their own is actually kinda cool. It becomes a mad rush for poorly considered power. It may have been stupid, but they would have the self-determination to make that stupid decision.

But because it is more or less lost, that also gives me a bit of of an out in terms of Native American representation. The "face" of the area doesn't have to be one of the people that lived there previously.

Let's say that, while nobody really remembers what Hupa became for a brief moment during the Collapse, it did leave a legacy. Spooky happenings make people think that the area is haunted. So a raider gang has decided to exploit that by using the area as a safehouse.

The leader of this gang is Raider Queen Sia.

Name: Raider Queen Sia

Appearance: A tall, athletic Asian woman. Her black hair is cut short on the sides, with the rest of it just long enough to jut out from her head in a chaotic spikey mess. She wears cobbled together armor made of leather and whatever metal bits she can find (scrap mail).

Quote: "Try and stop me!"

Roleplaying: Sia is arrogant, but tough enough that it's got some backing. She knows she is attractive and will use that to her advantage whenever possible.

Background: Sia grew up in a raider camp deep in the redwoods. As an adult, she struck out on her own and formed a roving raider gang. They found some success raiding caravans along the route of the old Highway 299, between Squatch-Ville and Yreka. Increased patrols along that route have forced her to be more cautious.

Key Info:

She has connections to other raider groups in the area.
She is losing the iron-fisted control over her gang because of strange occurrences (and even a few deaths) at their new camp.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 7: Mercy

 Now to come up with a male character from one of the remaining 2 Ruins. Mercy feels like something that McKinleyville sorely needs.

It does mean that I'm going to have to make some decisions about what happened there. There was a community there. It might have been a continuation of the current community that occupies the location or a community attempting to re-occupy the old site. Back in February, I suggested that it might be part of the story of the migration from Squatch-Ville to Ureka, but I'm not sure that makes sense with the development that Ureka has received since.

McKinleyville is home to the Eureka-Arcata Airport, which is the only significant airport in the area. Without significant air travel, it's very easy to imagine the community shrinking to insignificance. So our Failed Community tag comes from an attempted re-settlement at some point after the apocalypse.

And since we're thinking about NPCs, let's think about the person who might be the "face" of this Ruin. Not an original inhabitant, but someone new. Perhaps an archeologist or anthropologist of some sort. Since we are talking about a town with the largest airport, let's say that he came from the air. Perhaps the failed community also came from the air. They came from another surviving Enclave with an airport and our new "face" isn't just cataloging them for curiosity, but for closure.

They had come to resettle and rebuild the air travel networks that crisscrossed the country before the Collapse, but fell to some disease or other complication. So Delmos Jones (a name borrowed from a real Black anthropologist to make sure that my names and characters stay interesting and diverse) comes back a generation or two later to check up and finds everyone dead.

Name: Delmos Jones

Appearance: An older, solidly built Black man, balding with short tightly curled grey hair circling his head and a neat grey beard. His clothing is rugged, but neat and well-maintained.

Quote: "Let's see what we have here."

Roleplaying: His demeanor is serious, and more than a little sad. He is very empathetic, seeing each body as a person and seeking to understand their story through the evidence left behind. While no one is a stranger to violence in the post-apocalypse, this empathy causes him to prefer peaceful resolutions and to mourn anyone he is forced to kill.

Background: Delmos grew up in The ReDD (formerly Redding Regional Airport) and looked at the travel maps and brochures with awe. He has flown to other airports and communities throughout the state, learning everything he could. His flight to this airport should have been another renewed connection, but led to him discovering the site of a tragedy.

Key Info:

He is one of the few people from outside the area who live here.
He does have access to a small airplane and can provide aerial recon, supply drops and possibly transport.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 6: Reach

 Now we come to a female character and a Ruin that has previously been unexplored.

The prompt of Reach makes me think of the psychic overlords of Crescent City and their ability to project their minds over the city. But that mind is so diluted by controlling so many people that the populace is reduced to a zombie-like existence.

There is a temptation to put a face on one of the psychic overlords that dominate the minds of the populace, whether that's the overlord themselves or some sort of remote-controlled proxy. But that would require them to want to have some peaceable interaction with the outside world, which is not what Ruins do.

So perhaps an enemy of the overlords that might request assistance from an adventuring party, enabling missions into the Ruin.

Rebecca is a former zombie. As two overlords dueled over her consciousness, she broke free from both and regained her own faculties. She was likely born in Crescent City and may have had no conscious thought of her own for nearly her entire life. As soon as she could walk, she would shamble along with her mentally dominated parents.

Being freed meant that she had to figure out how to survive on her own without guidance or protection from an overlord. She stole from the supplies that the overlords use to keep their slaves fed. She hid in schools and libraries, since the overlords had no use for either. That's where she learned to read and chose her name.

She doesn't know if she is now immune to the control of the overlords or if they have simply forgotten about her. In either case, her goal is to stay off their radar as much as possible. If the overlords realize that their control can be broken, they will send wave after wave of mindless zombies after her.

Having spent many years reading to stave off her loneliness, Rebecca will take advantage of the opportunity to interact with other people and perhaps even seek romance. She is already smitten with someone within the Ruin, but I'm not sure if it's a zombie that she hopes to separate from their overlord, or perhaps a fellow freed zombie that she can only have remote interactions with while remaining out of the overlords' perceptions.

Name: Rebecca

Appearance: An unkempt young woman with stringy blonde hair. Her eyes are wide and move rapidly, taking in as much of her surroundings as possible.

Quote: "Let us not worry about the my-newt-ya."

Roleplaying: She is well read, but has had no one to really talk to. She is comfortable using large words, but is prone to mispronouncing them. Her manners are either nonexistent or grandiloquent, or some mix of both.

Background: She escaped from mental bondage by accident and has had to learn how to live her own life based on vague memories of her life under domination and books that she taught herself to read.

Key Info:

Rebecca knows Crescent City better than anyone and can guide you anywhere you need to go.
Rebecca wants human connection and will want to keep the party close to her.
Rebecca desires a person in the Ruin and will request help communicating with them (if a fellow former zombie) or freeing them (if a current zombie)

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 5: Burden

 Now to go someplace that we've never been before.

To create some sort of sequence for these, let's go by distance for Ureka, since that's more or less the focus of the campaign. The closest Ruin would be Calpoly, the former site of Arcata and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (though back when I lived in the area, it was Humboldt State University).

There are a couple of interesting tags that we rolled up for this one and I haven't really addressed them. The first is "Highshine Concentration." In the default setting of Ashes Without Number, Highshine is the secret sauce that means that radiation will give you cool mutations rather than just radiation sickness and cancer. While I'm not really using an established larger setting, it does let us have those Gamma World vibes even if everyplace else is a bit more Fallout.

The other tag is one that I haven't really addressed, but probably should. "Political Gulag." Someone is using the town as a prison. Since Ureka is the nearest Enclave, that suggests that they're the ones sending poor souls here, presumably to get eaten by the wild mutant plants and animals that roam the area.

With our prompt being Burden and the location being a place where mutations are common, let's assume that he has a mutation that makes him a burden. It's a bit extreme, but let's say that he has no arms and no legs. He can move and get around, and we could probably have fun by setting up encounters with him turning up in unlikely places, but I think the most common form of interaction would be him requesting a lift somewhere.

I do also want him to have some sort of attack power. This is partly to create a justification for how he's able to survive in such a dangerous environment with a distinct disability and partly to discourage players from being dicks and dismissing him outright or being overly ableist. It's a bit crude, but players are going to have more respect for anything that can cost them hit points, regardless of form.

He should also be connected to the Political Gulag Tag. He's was not born there, but exiled for some crime against Ureka, The easy one would be sympathy for Ratfolk, but we can also explore other aspects of Ureka by supposing that he was an opponent to some aspect of the Victorian Reconstructionism embraced by the rest of the community. A fun mirror to modern times might have him be an environmental activist against reconstructed timber barons.

That also suggests our name: Hillard Hurwitz. "Hillard" as a nod to Julia "Butterfly" Hill, an activist who spent a year in a tree. Hurwitz is for Charles Hurwitz, owner of Maxxam, the private equity company that bled Pacific Lumber Company dry. The idea of a descendant trying to make right has a certain appeal.

Name: Hillard "Stumpy" Hurwitz

Appearance: A man with no arms and no legs, clean shaven (somehow) but with long, lanky, dark hair.

Quote: "How about a lift?"

Roleplaying: Stumpy is a stereotypical hippy in many ways. He is very "go with the flow" and sympathetic to the balance of nature. He is casually optimistic and avoids getting overly bummed out if possible. He's spent a long time learning about the strange ecology that has developed around Calpoly and has a deep respect for it.

Background: After staging protests over excessive logging by the Timber Barons of Ureka, Hillard was exiled to Calpoly. While there, he suffered significant injuries to his arms and legs. The mutating elements in the environment granted him a healing power that closed the wounds quickly, but did not restore the limbs. It also granted him thermokinesis which he can use to defend himself.

Key Info:

He is surprisingly capable and well adapted to his current status.
He will often be found requesting a lift to a destination
He understands the ecology of the monsters roaming Calpoly, but it opposed to their casual destruction or exploitation.

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 4: Charm

 Now we come to the Ruins. The first Ruin on my list is the Eureka Ruins. I might come up with an alternate name for the area, but for now, let's focus on our NPC.

We know this character is female, likely a Ratfolk, and our prompt is Charm. As this is early days, this will be some sort of "face" character that adventurers would likely be dealing with.

Let's say that she represents the Rat King. Is she a simple emissary? Nah. That would be boring. She's a Second Foundationer.

To back up a little bit, the Rat King that rules over the Ruins of Eureka is a collective consciousness made up of several ratfolk linked by their tails. Presumably, this makes them (singular or collective "they" is the correct pronoun for the situation) super-intelligent, so we can imagine that they have some sort of predictive power along the lines of psychohistory from Isaac Asimov's Foundation stories.

But in the stories, psychohistory wasn't perfect. While the Foundation was the public face of the Seldon Plan, there was the Second Foundation that had agents that took action behind the scenes to ensure that the Seldon Plan was fulfilled.

So let's assume that our "charmer" is one of these agents. Her job is to gather information to help the Rat King make better plans, but also acting to subtly influence the other players on the board to ultimately advantage the Ratfolk. So she could turn up in a lot of adventuresome locales.

Again, we have a challenge for a name. I don't think that Ratfolk speak English amongst themselves. It's probably a squeaking and chittering language, so we've got another "use name" situation. Let's call her Scarlett. We could come up with an in-universe justification for this, like red fur, but really, it's a reference to Scarlett Johansen who played the Black Widow in the MCU.

Name: Scarlett

Appearance: A female ratfolk with reddish brown fur, Among the ruins, she wears minimal clothing, mostly belts, harnesses and holsters for small weapons and other tools. In Ureka, she wears a loose, light dress as a ratfolk housemaid might wear, with the harnesses and holsters underneath it. Her tail has a few fleshy growths along its length, signs of healed injuries

Quote: "You don't have to do that."

Roleplaying: Scarlett is a manipulator. She prefers to talk rather than fight her way out of tight situations. She appears as non-threatening as possible as a way of getting access to surprising places. She doesn't always understand her missions, but she has faith that they will lead to greater success for the Rat King and her people.

Background: Scarlett is an agent of the Rat King and acts to fulfill their long-term plans.

Key Info:

She is a wild card, possibly aligned or opposed to the party, depending on her missions
She doesn't always understand what her mission is supposed to accomplish

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 3: Poise

Now it's time for an NPC for the last Enclave, Cow Town. And keeping with the gender pattern established, this character is male.

Someone with poise feels very strange in Cow Town. It feels like a community driven to extremes. Everyone is sick. Everyone is hungry. Everyone is despairing.

So what we'd be looking for is someone trying to keep the extremes in check. Maybe a spiritual leader of some kind. Which does bring up the subject of religion.

Most Americans, I think, assume that "religion" and "Christianity" are the same thing, unless it is specifically called out. So I could easily call him "Father" or "Reverend" and be done with it. Assume the major religious doctrines are in the general "be a good person" mode.

Post-apocalyptic settings give us an opportunity to explore other possibilities. Cultural relics could be given religious significance. The apocalypse itself could be a source of revelation.

But for Cow Town, I think there's a lot of inertia. They've been a farming community for quite some time, even before the apocalypse. The only thing that really changed for them was the customer. They no longer had to provide Costco with ice cream and other dairy products. Local production for local needs became the priority.

Likewise, the local churches became separated from their larger ecumenical organizations and became focused on local needs.

I think the radiation infusion occurred within the last generation or so. Long enough ago that people have largely accepted that this is the way things are now, but no so long ago that the conditions have managed to kill everyone or drive them away.

So our priest could possibly be old enough to remember the time before that and use that as an anchor for his faith.

There are two Lutheran churches in modern-day Ferndale, so I feel comfortable drawing on my own Lutheran upbringing, along with the common trappings of Christianity that we all know from movies and TV even if we don't participate in them, to get a picture of this church.

I'll also draw on my own history for a name. This is Pastor Dave. And remembering Pastor Dave helps me fill in a few pieces. But this is an imperfect mirror of the Pastor Dave of my childhood, with a few layers of tragedy on top.

Name: Pastor Dave

Appearance: A balding man in his late 40s. The hair that remains on the sides of his head, as well as his thick mustache, is light brown turning to grey. His once-rounded face gives way to sunken eyes and cheeks.

Quote: "I'm scared, too."

Roleplaying: Pastor Dave is warm and empathetic. His voice is warm and deep (Nick Offerman is probably the closest, but imagine a situation where Ron Swanson was the evil twin. Pastor Dave would be the good twin,) He listens and he understands.

Background: Pastor Dave grew up in Cow Town and took over caring for the congregation from his father, Paster George. He had hoped one day to pass the position to his own son, Seth, but the radiation came and took Seth. Pastor Dave has since dedicated himself to making sure that no other parent should suffer as he has. This dedication has become so strong that he has reached out to nearby raider gangs for aid.

Key Info:

He is dedicated to peaceful resolution whenever possible
He has connections to local settlers and even raiders

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 2: Stature

 

Still going in no particular order, "Stature" makes me thing of Squatch-Ville, so let's go there. A person of Stature can be very tall or very important. A sasquatch living in Squatch-Ville is both.

As has been previously established, sasquatch form a nobility overseeing the humans of Squatch-Ville. But there are also things going wrong in Squatch-Ville that the populace is trying to ignore or paper over.

Since this is the first sasquatch NPC I'm defining, this should be a character that likely PCs will be interacting with regularly. Someone with some rank and status, but not so much that they can't leave the palace, so to speak. Someone who has some interest in affairs both within and without Squatch-Ville.

Since yesterday's character was male, let's make this character female. I'll probably avoid having trans, non-binary or other gender-nonconforming characters, just because I don't have enough experience with those identities to have any confidence with writing them, not because I think they don't or shouldn't exist in a post-apocalyptic world. I only feel marginally competent to write women. Something may come up that really feels like it needs to go outside the gender binary, but for right now, my plan is to simply alternate between male and female.

So our sasquatch of Stature is their main trade delegate. One suggested reason why we have little to no solid evidence for sasquatch in the real world is that they are very long lived, so let's say that she has been alive long enough to experience the entire history of Squatch-Ville. She started small, helping the early survivors trade with smaller survivor encampments and ensuring that those in her protection were treated fairly. Now she oversees most of the trade that goes through the largest and most prosperous settlements in the region.

She has become spoiled by the luxuries made available due to Squatch-Ville's success. While she may not wear clothes, she definitely adorns herself. She also enjoys marijuana. It may be her influence that encouraged the general use of marijuana as a currency throughout the area.

The use of marijuana may also be the reason that she has been able to maintain a consistent presence in Squatch-Ville. The traditional Sasquatch lifestyle is very solitary and maintaining a large community is very stressful for them. From time to time, sasquatch will suddenly disappear without a trace and then reappear months or years later. This is called "going invisible." Typically, their role will have been filled in their absence and they will need to find another position in the leadership hierarchy. There is no memory or record of Cleopatra going invisible

None of this is to say that she is easily bought. She is still shrewd and protective of those in her charge. But she will favor those who bring luxuries either to her or into Squatch-Ville.

Now to figure out her name. I'm not sure she has one in the conventional sense. She is identified by other sasquatch either by a sound too low to hear or loud enough to be deafening or by something like a name-sign for an ASL speaker. So for her dealings with humans, she has adopted a "use-name." Given her love of luxuries, I feel like "Cleopatra" would match her nicely.

Name: "Cleopatra" (what she is called by other sasquatch cannot be easily produced by outsiders)

Appearance: 7 foot tall sasquatch, covered in dark brown shaggy fur that is kept clean and perfumed. She wears no clothing, but does wear elaborate bracelets and necklaces. Her shaggy fur obscures most of her feminine curves.

Quote: "Have you tried these? You simply must!"

Roleplaying: "Cleopatra" is typically relaxed and rather casual. In her own space, she has a hookah as well as some indulgent food or drink and she offers to share either of those to make her guests feel welcome. She loves roses incorporated into her food and drink. (A current favorite is small cakes or cookies baked with acorn flour and flavored with rose essence.) She is careful to manage her consumption so that she is "buzzed" rather than inebriated. She cannot be bribed and will make no deals that endanger the community, but she can be influenced with proper gifts. While she might appreciate the opportunity to abdicate her responsibilities, she will refuse any effort to return to "invisibility," the sasquatch cultural practices that kept them undetected by humanity for all of those centuries.

Background: She is old enough to remember life before the sasquatch revealed themselves to the humans flooding into the redwood forests. She joined the security patrols keeping their refugees safe from petty warlords and independent raiders. When a traveling trader found them, she was the one who made first approach. Ever since then, she's been the primary contact most traders have with Squatch-Ville.

Key Info:

She is the main trade envoy for the community of Squatch-Ville.
She will prefer trade deals or negotiations in which luxuries and comforts are made available.
She will refuse any effort to return to "invisibility."

Stat Block:

RPGaDay 2026 Day 1: Discipline

 

For this year, I'm doing character creation for RPGaDay. Since I've been trying to build an Ashes Without Number post-apocalyptic sandbox all year, I'll be taking advantage of this opportunity to build out the NPC cast.

If you're just joining me, this is a post-apocalyptic version of the northern coast of California, encompassing Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Because this is a very sparsely populated area even now, there are fewer Enclaves (pockets of safety and what civilization still exists) and Ruins than a typical AWN setting covering the same size area elsewhere.

The Enclaves are:

Squatch-Ville: As civilization fell, humans fled into the redwood forests en masse. The local Sasquatch took pity on them and taught them the ways of the forest. There is now a sprawling city with the Sasquatch forming an inadvertent ruling class over the humans. Located in Elk Valley in the redwood forests of Del Norte County

Ureka: The former site of Eureka. Abandoned during the apocalypse, the city became home to sentient mutant rats. Humans dissatisfied with the austere lifestyle of Squatch-Ville came here to live in the shadow of the Carson Mansion, believing that it represented the height of human culture. They have pushed the Ratfolk out of the northern, coastal regions of the city into the suburbs.

Cow Town: The former site of Ferndale. This was a breadbasket region until the entire area was afflicted with radiation sickness. Scavengers raiding an old nuclear power plant brought back a cache of irradiated and radioactive materials that quickly got incorporated into all aspects of the town. Crops tended with radioactive farming implements sickened and mutated along with the people, leading to widespread starvation. Cow Town persists, but is slowly dying.

There are also 5 Ruins in the area.

The Eureka Ruins: While humans have reclaimed a portion of the city, there is still a large portion controlled by the Ratfolk. They are ruled by a Rat King, which is a cluster of Ratfolk who have merged their tails and their nervous systems to create a powerful hive mind.

(As I've been developing this, it feels like the Eureka Ruins is a Ruin only because of politics. If the humans weren't so chauvinistic and insisted on pushing them out, there could be cooperation and development for mutual benefit.)

Crescent City: Most of the city was abandoned when a tsunami struck during the apocalypse. Among the survivors who remained arose a small number of powerful telepaths. The remainder of the citizens here have had their minds overwhelmed and live like zombies under the control of the psychic overlords.

Calpoly: The former site of Arcata and Cal Poly Humboldt. Aggressive and reckless research in the days leading to the apocalypse resulted in Calpoly and the surrounding area to be overwhelmed with mutated plants and animals.

Hupa: Former site of Hoopa. As part of the collapse of civilization, the United States splintered. The people of Hupa attempted to build up quickly to become a regional power. Their attempt at militarization wound up a mere footnote, but it's likely that some useful relics could be found.

McKinleyville: The main thing I know is that there was an attempt at building a community in this area that ended in tragedy.

So my plan will be to develop an NPC for each of these sites, then repeat for the Enclaves and also the Eureka Ruins (like I said, it could be an Enclave if the people of Ureka were willing to get along), cycling through until the end of the month.

Although I listed Squatch-Ville first, I'll be starting with Ureka, since it's my hometown and where I'm planning to focus the campaign.

The prompt is "Discipline." This can be a disciplined person or someone whose job is to keep discipline.

Let's flesh out Sheriff Allen Ross, leader of the Ratcatchers.

The Ratcatchers is an organization somewhere between a military and a police force. As the name implies, they are focused on dealing with Ratfolk, either leading raids to claim a new historical structure or responding to raids and infiltration by the Ratfolk, but they can be called on as general peacekeepers and police if needed.

I'll be borrowing the format for NPCs from The Alexandrian, mostly because my brain craves structure and I might or might not need game stats for any of these.

I plucked the name Allen Ross out of historical research, but a picture of him has not been forthcoming. Though trying a Google image search did turn up pictures of Colin Ferguson as the Sheriff on the SciFi TV show Eureka. I might borrow some of his image from that. But the overall concept is more in line with an 1880's version of policing.

Name: Sheriff Allen Ross

Appearance: A tall athletic man in his early 40's with light brown hair and blue eyes. His mustache grows down the sides of his mouth, but his chin is clear, with sideburns that extend to the jawline.

Quote: "Do it right and you only have to do it once."

Roleplaying: Sheriff Ross is disciplined. He avoids going off half-cocked and discourages his Ratcatchers from doing the same. He is less bloodthirsty than his predecessor, but just as dedicated to returning Ureka to Human occupation.

Background: Allen was a boy when they arrived in Ureka. He volunteered as a scout, using his small size to hide in small spaces to observe the Ratfolk, gathering information for eventual attacks. This taught him patience and an appreciation for intelligence.

As a young man, he joined the Ratcatchers at their formal founding. Rising through the ranks of the Ratcatcher Civic Patrol, he was eventually given command of the division. When the first Sheriff, Sheriff T. M. Brown, passed, Allen was promoted to Sheriff and head of all Ratcatcher operations.

Key Info:

Head of the Ratcatchers
Prefers tidy, efficient solutions

Stat Block:

Building Character in 2026

 

This year, it looks like RPGaDay has become a character creation challenge and I am on board with that. The early years of the challenge were easy for me, since they encouraged me to share my collection of games, which I was quite proud of. Then it moved more towards gaming stories and anecdotes, which I do have a collection of, but it's a limited number and it has not been growing significantly in recent years.

The idea of a character creation challenge appeals to me. It lets me leverage the books that are on my shelf. It pushes me to create rather than reflect. The thing I'm not sure about would be exactly what sort of focus I want to have.

I could readily go back to "shelfie" mode, creating a character for a selection of RPGs that I own. Or I could create characters as possible NPCs and PCs for a campaign. I've been working on an Ashes Without Number setting for some time, and it could be an opportunity to flesh that out.

Or maybe I could think about a campaign I've wanted to do that has lain fallow for some time.

I've wanted to do Stars Without Number for some time and have the basics of a sector rolled up, but turning that into something that I can zoom in on enough to imagine what a campaign in that sector might look like. Probably a case where I need a Session 0 before I'm really able to run a campaign. But a batch of NPCs might also do the trick.

I always tell myself that if I had to run a campaign in the next week, it would be OSR. Just because of the wealth of material and the straightforward nature of the core activity. So NPCs to flesh out a homebrew fantasy setting might be good too.

Another possibility would be to build another campaign from scratch. I tell myself from time to time that I should make the effort to get familiar with D&D 5e, Pathfinder or Starfinder so I could be more comfortable running or playing in one of the more popular settings/systems out there. So a batch of NPCs in support of one of those concepts might be a good kick in the pants as well.

 It's been a couple of weeks. My goal has been to post here weekly, but at least I'm posting more frequently than I have been for a while.

I got exposed to job resources at college, and have been trying to take advantage of those. But like most things to do with college, it's only going to really kick into gear once classes begin. I might have made an effort to join the summer session, but I worried about being in a rush for deadlines and missing something important, as well as a concern that most of the financial aid cycles were geared towards the fall semester. So now I have a couple of months until classes begin and I have lots of time to prepare and aim at the milestones, but a lot of the process is waiting for those deadlines and milestones to come.

In the short term, the monthly meetup for the local gaming club is this Saturday and as usual, I am debating what to run. I've got my pickup gaming kit, with all the materials I need to run Fiasco Classic, Microscope, Fate Accelerated (with the It's Not My Fault! scenario creation cards) and InSpectres. Those are easy choices.

My other thoughts are turning towards more trad-style games that require a bit more prep. A portion of my interest in Ashes Without Number was that the setting and adventure creation tools seemed very clear and usable. Because my previous standard time for building trad adventures has been far too long. Often weeks, if not months. So now I'm wondering if I've laid enough foundation for a new adventure that I can bring to the table for Saturday.

Still no luck getting jobs, though I am still trying.

Since my college preparation is for the fall semester, my eagerness puts me ahead of the curve. At least one of the classes that I want/need to take hasn't been scheduled. Which is a problem because it's a co-requisite with another class, so I can't sign up for either class until it gets scheduled.

On the gaming front, one thing that surprised me is that I have a surprising recall of the plot I had done for my old Transformers adventure Attack of the Retcons. Though I admit that a chunk of that was how depressingly linear it was. Go to place from Transformers canon, fight Retcons who are at that location, talk to NPC who tells you the next location in the plot, repeat as needed.

Scene 1

Location: Autobot base on one of Saturn's moon.

Retcons attack

Analysis of Retcon wreckage reveals that they were manufactured on Planet Junk, home of Wreck-Gar and the Junkions.

Scene 2

Location: Planet Junk, where a factory has been built to produce Retcons.

Fight Retcons as they come off the assembly line

Wreck-Gar reveals that the Quintessons forced him to build the factory.

Scene 3

Location: Quintessa, home planet of the Quintessons.

Fight Retcons protecting the Quintessons.

The Quintessons reveal that they got the Retcon time weapon technology from the wreckage of Unicron

Scene 4

Location: Unicron's head

Fight Retcons and destroy the Time Core that Unicron is going to use to retcon his body back into existence.

Very linear and damned little variety of encounter. The retcon mechanics were the only really fun thing. At certain points in the very boring, theater of the mind, run them out of hit points fights, a character would get an index card revealing a new ability or stat boost. If the character took enough damage, they got replaced with another character and the process starts over.

If I wanted to keep as much of that structure in place, I could replace the simple fights with different tactical objectives. Instead of destroying the Retcons that just jumped off the assembly line, the scene instead becomes about the process of shutting the factory down. Dealing with the Quintessons can involve a rescue mission (they were holding certain Junkions hostage to get Wrecck-Gar's compliance) or breaking into their audience chamber (which can include the famous "letting themselves get captured so they can listen to the villain monologue").

I don't know that they opening and closing scenes should change much. A simple fight at the beginning lets the players get comfortable with their characters and the mechanics of the game, as well as introducing the threat of the adventure. The final scene revolves around the Time Core, so it's not just squads of Retcons again.

 Just a lovely brainstorm