In Underdark dwarven society, two primary warrior castes exist: the warmains and the shieldmains. Warmains are trained for aggressive combat, pushing into enemy lines, and participating in full-scale wars. The much more common shieldmains are the defenders of dwarven settlements, trained to patrol, eliminate threats, and protect their fellows. Frederick was raised in the warrior caste, and chose the path of the shieldmain in order to both remain close to to his home settlement of Kharazh and to help combat the constant threat of troglodytes and kua-toa.

When Frederick was thirty, only a few years out of his apprenticeship, Kharazh was attacked by a force of drow in quantities rarely seen in the shallows. The drow made quick work of most of the patrolling shieldmains and either killed or enslaved the bulk of the population of Kharazh. Frederick survived because he was patrolling on the opposite side of the town from the attack, and was unable to make it home to defend Kharazh in time; by the time he arrived at the walls, the battle was already over.

Frederick is no expert tracker, and the drow had covered their tracks well. Only a few shieldmains and warmains remained after the battle, as well as a handful of citizens. Rather than hunt the drow down and fight them in their city, possibly losing the rest of the population in the process, Frederick led the remaining dwarves to the surface dwarven city of Hammerfast. Once he was sure they were safe, he left them.

Frederick blames himself for what happened, and longs for vengeance against the drow, whom he hates more than anything now. He knows that he is not strong enough to fight them, so he seeks out those who are, in the hopes of gaining allies in his quest.

Frederick is accustomed to protecting people, but doesn’t trust his own skills. Because of this, it will be some time before he has the confidence to lead; as such, he makes an excellent follower for the PCs (see the ally card above). Frederick can also be a good source of quests, as he will likely try to convince the PCs to go to the Underdark and confront the drow, hopefully saving his people int he process.

In just about any RPG, D&D included, you need people who can take care of the exposition for you. It can get pretty boring if you’re just telling the PCs everything they need to know in paragraph format; it’s much more interesting if you can plant that information in dialog that they’re participating in, allowing them to ask questions and find things out as a result. It’s the difference between being an active participant and a passive observer. To that end, here is an NPC that can fill that roll for you. As will likely be the case in future posts, I’ll refer to specific place names from my own campaign, and you can feel free to substitute names from your own as needed.

Vanity grew up on the streets of Bastion, the capitol city. When she was old enough to have learned how to pick a pocket, she tried to join the thieves’ guild, but was rejected for her lack of natural aptitude. Where she did have aptitude, though, was in getting people to talk to her and trust her. The local guild wasn’t being very helpful, so she moved to Fallcrest and set up as a fence and information broker; she was quite successful.

Vanity if flirtatious in the extreme; it seems to be the only way she knows how to relate to men, who are uniformly attracted to her. This works in her favor more often than not, as she is able to get good prices and set good prices, and often picks up valuable information through idle flirtation. What she doesn’t tell anyone is that she’s not actually interested in any of the men she flirts with; her interests lie in other directions.

Vanity can be used to relay information about the goings-on of a city, as well as its underworld. She has an extensive network of contacts, and she can arrange meetings for the PCs with many influential people. Also, because she is a fence, she knows how to move things on the market, black and otherwise; this can be useful for PCs who want to sell some gear, particularly if it is of questionable origin.

If you have a rogue in your party (or anyone with ties to the criminal element), you can tie Vanity to that PC by giving them common history. In my own campaign, Vanity and Silus (the half-elf warlock) are both rejects from the same thieves’ guild, and they used to commiserate about that together.