This prompt seems like a good opportunity to expound on something I mentioned yesterday about my players adopting kids. Because one of those kids, Bluepie, has had a dramatic impact on how I run the game.
Bluepie is a Torture-Demon. In the natural course of events she’d grow up to devise special suffering for condemned sinners in Hell. While playing through Bad Myrmidon, my players came upon Bluepie’s parents doing what they do to some poor travelers. The party killed Bluepie’s parents, then got the bright idea to look around for a lair. They found one, which I hastily generated while they were busy climbing down a sheer cliff face to reach it. Within, they found 6-year-old Bluepie. One of the PCs, a Patchwork Boy named Ecco the Enduring, lied to her about discovering her mothers’ murdered in the road and hunting down their killers to take revenge. She believed him, and he adopted her. Bluepie has been with the party ever since. She is a strong contender for my favorite NPC in any game I’ve ever been a part of, ever.
At first I was uncertain how I wanted to portray Bluepie, but I settled on playing her as a 6-year-old first, and a demon second. I think that decision was largely influenced by the way Ecco handled her. I don’t think he’s ever chastised her on moral grounds, merely on practical ones. Never “You can’t kill that person because it’s wrong,” just “You can’t kill that person because they might be useful to us later / people will see and kill you instead.” His approach always struck me as one that would resonate with this precocious and reckless monster baby, and so she gradually adapted to life with a group of amoral adventurers who (probably) do more good than evil in the world. She’s able to go into towns and even occasionally play with other children because Ecco has made such a consistent practice of responding to her shenanigans with honest attempts to be the sort of parent she needs.
So for several years now I’ve been in the curious position of figuring out what a child is doing while the party fights off an ogre ambush, parleys with goblins, or does whatever else adventurers tend to do. Other hirelings and NPCs who travel with the party can usually be relied on to follow the players’ lead, but kids will be kids. Often I roll 2d6 to determine how foolish Bluepie is going to be at any given moment. On a particularly low roll she might throw herself into danger. On middling rolls she’ll follow Ecco’s lead. On a particularly high roll she perhaps spots an opportunity to contribute to the party’s current struggle, without calling down some horrible consequence on herself.
(This 2d6 roll to determine a hireling’s foolishness comes in useful a lot, actually. The only difference being that each NPC tends towards different flavors of foolishness. For example, Hibub Karate has internalized a lot of toxic ideas about masculinity, and is prone to acting foolishly in his attempts to be macho. He’s getting better, though.)
From my perspective, the best part of having Blupie in the party is that I get to use her to inject all sorts of chaos into tense situations, and the players let her stick around because she’s Ecco’s kid. For example, on multiple occasions she has whispered bad advice into another NPC’s ear explicitly because she thinks it will be funny to see them get killed. She is, after all, a demon! Whispering bad advice into people’s ears is a natural talent for her, and has nearly gotten a few good torchbearers killed at inopportune times. Another example are the times she’s rolled a 2 or 3 on the foolishness check, and wound up on death’s door after trying to backstab an ogre. She’s only got something like 4 hit points, and no plot armor beyond the injury rolls I allow to all characters in the player’s party.
Bluepie is a fun NPC for me to play. She’s a highly motivating NPC for my players. She’s a tool through which I can inject chaos into the party’s ranks during tense situations. And, as her presence in the party has now spanned several years—both real and fictional—it’s neat to watch her grow up. It feels odd to say it that way, but I can’t think of a better one. Aging doesn’t usually come up that much in my games, because the difference between a 30 year old PC and a 34 year old PC is negligible. But the difference between a 6 year old child and a 10 year old child is huge. Before too long I might need to consider giving her class levels of her own!
In fact, Bluepie has been so much of a joy to play with, that it’s basically a foregone conclusion I’m going to try and tempt future parties to adopt children of their own. Street urchins on the run from local child-gangs; apprentices who want nothing to do with tradecraft; homonculi on the run from the wizards who made them. Pitiable things which prey upon the player’s sentimentality. Convince them to take a tiny chaos engine into their midst for me to leverage against them in amusing ways.
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Bluepie sounds like quite the delight (and the little hellion)! The party in the campaign I’m running also adopted a headstrong street urchin named Hie, and it’s interesting to see how they take to being parents to her. It’s even having an effect on her adopted mom, who is very impulsive herself and rarely doesn’t think twice before running off. She’s starting to realize that even though Hie wants to be a hero and has the will and courage to do so, she’s still a child and already she’s suffered some serious and crippling injuries, like losing a foot and developing some distressing PTSD symptoms in the process. Hie, of course, hates being left behind, and will likely feel deeply betrayed if the party ever does or orders her to stay out of fear for her safety. Time will tell if she grows up to be a great hero or lose too much of herself in the process.
And it’s made all the worse when you consider that Hie has actually been very helpful in several battles, which robs the party of a lot of arguments for keeping out of harm’s way (giving a child a wand of magic missiles and telling them to shoot the bad guys with it is probably the smartest move the party has made, all things considered).
I’m glad to know we’re not the only group to stumble into being adventuring parents. As it happens Bluepie has *also* lost part of her foot as part of a bargain she made with a cannibal prince. Kids do the wackiest things. 😛
One of my longest running games has involved a wizard, Andsaca, swearing himself to the Queen of Worms, a cursed deity trapped in the megadungeon with the rest of them. Since then, Andsaca has incubated the latest messiah, a Wormling that goes by the name of Blerbles. There was quite an emotional moment when Andsaca stood and fought the Name Thief, the highest level wandering encounter, due to the Thief constantly seeking out and enslaving demigods just like his “son” Blerbles. Andsaca died, and Blerbles is now his new character in the dungeon.
Would you let someone else play Bluepie as a character once she has grown up and gotten some levels?
This is quite beautiful