Pocket Full of NPCs for 5E D&D — The Reclusive Researcher

Salutations, nerds! Did your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons party forget to take identify? Got no wizard? Need a nerd who they can go to for the cleansing of cursed items or simply require a plot hook to motivate the party delve into the ruins of an exploded wizard lab? I’ve got a character for you.

Burning desire for knowledge for 5E D&D

Here’s the game: I’m going to give you a name, list what stat block you should be using plus an extra feature or two to make things feel more mechanically unique. Then we’ll touch base on what this person wants, how to make them a nuisance to the party, how to make them an ally and finally a concept for a side quest they can offer.

“Mages spend their lives in the study and practice of magic. Good-aligned mages offer counsel to nobles and others in power, while evil mages dwell in isolated sites to perform unspeakable experiments without interference.” — from the 5E D&D Basic Rules

Jocasta Alexandria

A female tiefling, Jocasta is a very pale blue from all her time spent indoors in diligent study. She is a fully fledged adult of about 28 years.

Jocasta’s hair is as black as ink and her eyes are framed by a pair of wire spectacles to help her focus on small writing in candle light. The lenses of these glasses make her eyes twice their usual size. She dresses in the robes of wizardry with blue and silver silks with runes of power embroidered into them. She often talks without looking at the person she is addressing due to being a creature of constant multitasking, which can lead her to miss social cues sometimes.

Mechanically

Use the stat block for a mage as found in the free 5E D&D Basic Rules. Jocasta always has identify and lesser restoration prepared. Add the following features:

Sight Beyond Sight. Jocasta is prone to seemingly random bouts of insight. Any time a character uses a point of inspiration on her presence, or rolls a 7 or a 20 on a die, she may have a vision regarding something they have done or something that might happen. When she describes these happenings to the character it will often be vague or worded as non-contextual and unsolicited advice such as, “Take the left door.”

Change her dagger attack to the following:

Flame Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 +2) piercing damage and 2 (1d4) fire damage.

The dagger is a basic dagger with a simple flame enchantment on it. If a character ends up in possession it just does 1d4 extra fire damage on a hit.

What Drives Her

Jocasta had a vision in her younger years at about 14 in which she watched her city burn. She’d had enough visions at that point to know sometimes they were very real. When she tried to tell her wizard master about it he brushed her off.

This was the first in a long series of incidents that caused her to break away from her tower to study independently on her hill overlooking the city. She is dedicated to stopping this calamity from coming to pass but dislikes working with others or having to incorporate other people’s opinions into her projects.

However, she is also dedicated to amassing knowledge and anyone who knows more than she does about something will have her intense attention directed fully onto them.

Jocasta as an Enemy

Anyone in the business of destroying knowledge will have Jocasta’s full enmity — even if the knowledge is dark and supposedly wicked. She doesn’t believe in the idea of evil magic, only magic used in a bad way.

She doesn’t leave her tower but if someone has truly rubbed her the wrong way she might send out homunculi to try and deal with them.

Jocasta as an Ally

She is more than willing to cast spells and identify items for a party in exchange for secrets. If a wizard has a copy of a spell she doesn’t have she would exchange much to be able to copy it down for her own library.

Jocasta is also very interested in philosophical conversations with intelligent partners. She will play favorites with characters she finds fun to talk with and offer them better deals and preferential treatment as well as blatantly disregarding other characters.

A Potential Side Quest

Jocasta’s vision of her city burning is always present in her mind. Anything that gets her closer to understanding what might have been the cause and whether or not it is averted is of great value to her. A party who has endeared themselves enough to Jocasta might find themselves on the receiving end of a quest for information, perhaps going as far as to break into the wizard tower in the city to get it.

And there’s the Reclusive Researcher. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and even if you don’t decide to use Jocasta whole cloth she’s given you some ideas to with which to play around. As always, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — Farideh, Devil’s Chosen from Magic: The Gathering’s Adventures in the Forgotten Realms may be a warlock holding a staff but she’s a tiefling spellcaster surrounded by fire. Close enough! [Art by Magali Villeneuve]

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