Non-Player Characters

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; —it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”

-Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

NPCS

Non-Player Characters, or NPCs for short, are beings, people, or other entities in the game’s narrative that are controlled by the Monitor. Interaction with NPCs is a common occurrence.

Legendary divides NPCs into two types: NPCs and Bonds. While NPCs are general characters that come and go in Legends’ lives, occasionally making multiple appearances, Bonds are NPCs that the players feel strongly enough about to want to encounter over and over again, because they are an important person in their Legend’s life. All Bonds are NPCs, but not all NPCs are Bonds.

NPC DISPOSITION LEVELS

A disposition level, or just “dispo” is a helpful way of labeling the attitude that an NPC or group of NPCs has towards your Legend or Party. Dispos are a one-way feeling; no matter how your Legend feels about the NPC, an NPC’s disposition is a reflection of how they feel about your Legend or Party.

An NPC may keep their feelings hidden from the Legend, meaning that by default all dispos have the [secret] tag, for the hearts and minds of everyone is rarely worn on sleeves like a rank identifier. Determining what an NPC’s Dispo is can be accomplished via certain Activities, such as Analyze or Profile. More on these Activities can be found in Section 3.

There are six levels of dispo. From highest to lowest: devoted, friendly, agreeable, suspicious, hostile, unreasonably hostile.

Devoted

NPCs with this disposition have a Favorable View of Legends.

The NPC will do nearly anything that the Legends request of them, including but not limited to

• Going into battle against terrible odds
• Implicit, unwavering trust in the Legend
• Providing Requisitions and Favors at one tier level higher than their Wealth allows for.

Friendly

NPCs with this disposition have a Favorable View of Legends.

The NPC will do almost anything that the Legends request of them, including but not limited to:

• Going into a Battle with reasonable odds of winning
• High levels of trust and faith in the Legend.
• Providing Requisitions and Favors at the tier their Wealth allows for.

Agreeable

NPCs with this disposition have a Favorable View of Legends.

An agreeable NPC might have the same goals as your Legend, which leads to a mutual cooperation towards achieving them, but not if it would require risk to themself or their reputation.

• Going into a Battle with overwhelming odds of winning
• Respect and confidence in the Legend.
• Providing Requisitions and Favors at one tier level lower than their Wealth allows for.

Suspicious

NPCs with this Disposition have an Unfavorable View of Legends.

The NPC will only help the Legends if it does not inconvenience or endanger them.

• Will not go into a Battle with a Legend unless there is no other choice
• Mistrust or disrespect for the Legend
• Providing Requisitions and Favors at two tiers lower than their Wealth allows for.

Hostile

NPCs with this Disposition have an Unfavorable View of Legends.

The NPC does not tolerate the Legends’ presence and requests or forces them to leave, or else makes efforts to get away from the Legends.

• Will inconvenience or trouble the Legends if they can do so without blowback or reprisal (trickery, subterfuge, sabotage, etc)
• A disdain, distrust, and disrespect for the Legend that borders on hatred
• Hostile NPCs will not provide Requisitions for Legends.

Unreasonably Hostile

For NPCs with Unreasonably Hostile views of the Legends, there is no hope of persuading them with words or even deeds; in fact, there’s a good chance that they may attack the Legends on sight.

Most animals, beasts, and other creatures have this disposition towards Legends by default.

AFFECTING DISPOSITION

Disposition changes as the consequences of your Legends actions are realized. Certain things that the Legends do can influence disposition either positively or negatively. If it is not immediately obvious, the Monitor can use Reaction Tests to adjudicate whether or not a dispo should change. For example, if your Legend does something that an NPC does not like, it may call for a Reaction Test. The dispo could be reduced on a Fumbled Reaction Test or if the result of that Reaction Test results in a dispo lower than the current dispo, decreasing the NPC’s dispo down to that new level.

Disposition is increased via Strengthen Relationship Activity. Particularly hard NPCs to influence may call for the use of other Activities as part of the Strengthen Relationship Activity. See ACTIVITIES for more.

BONDS

“Friendship is unnecessary,
like philosophy, like art….
It has no survival value;
rather it is one of those things
which give value to survival.”

-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Bonds are special relationships with NPCs that the players want to see over and over again. More than an NPC met in passing, Bonds are characters in your Legend’s life that they maintain a vital relationship with. Most Bonds are created during a Legend’s Lifepath, but they may also be developed during other modes of play.

Bonds follow the same general rules with disposition, but provide other levels of deeper interaction across all modes of play.

Using Bonds

There are several rules that Bonds are used for:

• Once per Encounter, your Legend can use the Be Inspired action to draw upon a Bond to gain Willpower Points.
• During Fieldwork or Downtime, if the circumstances are right, Legends can use the Make a Request activity to call upon a Personal Bond for favors and other requisitions.

BONDS AND DISPOSITIONS

Bonds are classified using the same rules as NPC Dispositions. Unlike other NPCs, a Bond can never be below the Suspicious disposition.

Devoted Bonds

A Devoted Bond is the strongest relationship that a Legend can have with an NPC.

They are either relationships established under extreme conditions of hardship and strife, built on a foundation of longtime love and respect, or a mixture of the two.

Put simply, you would die for a Devoted Bond, and they would do the same for you.

Friendly Bonds

A Friendly Bond is typically a relationship established between members of the same organization or company, or between close friends or distant relatives.

Agreeable Bonds

An Agreeable Bond is a relationship established on working together towards a common goal, or a reflection of casual common friendship.

Suspicious Bonds

A Suspicious Bond is a relationship where either the Bond feels like a stranger, or your Legend feels like a stranger to them; intentions and desires may be a bit mudded between a Suspicious Bond and your Legend. Suspicious is the lowest Disposition that a Bond can have. If a Suspicious Bond were to be broken, it is considered lost. See LOSING BONDS.

Making and Improving Bonds

Most Bonds are introduced to your Legend during Paths as part of character creation.

Outside of Downtime, NPCs may become Bonds via the Strengthen Relationship Activity during Fieldwork mode. Once your Legend has a Bond with an NPC, over time and with enough effort, they may become a stronger force in your Legends life. This is also achieved via the Strengthen Relationship activity.

Losing Bonds

Bonds are more easily broken than made. If a Bond’s Disposition would fall to Hostile, the Bond is lost.

When you lose a Bond, strike it out on your Legend’s character sheet, but do not remove it; the people in our lives linger in our minds whether we want them to or not. The Bond could be reforged over time via the Strengthen Relationship activity as if it were a new Bond being made. However, if a Bond were to die, it calls for a Stability test; on a failure, gain a Bane with the [personality] or [mental] trait.

Bonds with Other Legends

While dispositions usually reflect an NPC’s feelings and attitudes towards Legends, a Legend can form a bond with other Legends during Lifepath character creation or during other modes of play. This usually occurs after Legends have worked with each other to survive extremely dire or deadly times. Usually these circumstances will be obvious, but when in doubt the Monitor has the final say. Bonds between Legends are called Legendary Bonds.

Unlike dispositions with NPCs, the disposition of a Legendary Bond is a reflection of how your Legend feels about their Bond. It changes at the whim of the player whenever the player’s Legend’s attitude or feeling towards their Legendary Bond has changed. If you are ever not sure, you can use the Reaction Test to see if the dispo has changed.