#DnDcember 3: Favorite NPC

First, you hear him. The clanging of thick metal armor shifts with each forceful step. The only sound louder than his steps is the “breathing.” Rhythmic and horrid, it’s a noise like strips of moist jerky rattling within a throat.

He approaches, lumbering toward you. His bulky, wide frame takes up most of the alley. At nine feet tall, his head moves above the windows offering dim light. His massive set of ornate, full platemail armor scrapes against the brick walls when he sways too far. His gauntleted hands are large enough to palm your helmeted head. A large scythe with gears and three sets of steel wires connect the blade to the curved handle.

The massive religious symbol carved into the chest piece of his armor- a chalice- is nearly unnoticeable. Over it, a large, crudely drawn smiley face covers the articulated armor.

He wears no helmet. Everything from his neck to the top of his hairless head is made out of a collection of faces; the flesh stretched across one another, making layers of faces over whatever meat and bone make up the base of his body. The faces all appear to belong to once attractive people, though their flesh is only slightly preserved, taking on a few qualities of necrosis.

The figure stops before you, towering above the heads of even the tallest of men and elves. The wet grumbling in his throat seems even louder without the company of his footsteps. As he smiles, the lips of all ten mouths curl upward and all eight sets of eyes squint with genuine delight.

“GREETINGS, HOPEFULLY FRIENDS,” he says, his voice louder than he seems to intend. The only time that meaty, wet breathing noise stops is when he speaks. The rhythmic noise returns a moment after his words part.

“I am Gargles on Bile,” he says, his voice retaining the meaty resonance of his now halted breathing. “I heard you needed a friend to help find the missing people in the city.”

That is Gargles on Bile. He is a size large flesh golem NPC I made using the rules in Savage Species (my favorite D&D book). He wants to become a paladin, but flesh golems have a charisma score of 1. To try and counter that stat penalty, he repairs his body with the faces of dead people who had high charisma scores. Maybe it will work. He is loud, silly, and passionate about helping people, even though his unsettling appearance scares many of them away.

During #DnDecember, my Twitter pal @ratkingnow was doing “bad character commisions” and he did one of Gargles on Bile. Enjoy!