Friday, June 10, 2022

The Heimlich Codex

I tend to bring in characters and things from my games to other games. Usually NPCs, though Sir Zay has managed to get played in D&D v5 as well as a d20 (I think!) game, where he almost died. Years ago, when I first introduced my group to The Fantasy Trip, the patron NPC had an uncle who was along. My player's character, a Halfling Knight, was making eyes at the Dwarf. Her uncle / bodyguard was making a different set of eyes on the errant knight. There were some fun moments in the role play. Ever since then, Heimlich has shown up in many of the games I run or show up as an NPC attached somehow to my character when I play. A few years later, he is still coming up and, per an email conversation, I've decided to make the Heimlich Codex:

This mighty tome shall have all the Heimlich's in all the worlds. So far, he has shown up in The Fantasy Trip, Corsairs, a d20 Vigilante game as my character's uncle, as an Old West d20 game as my partner (who was almost killed), and I am pretty sure I stuck him in the original Apex game as well. The current game I am working on he is the uncle of my main NPC for introducing everyone to Aurora and the Cowboy & Dinosaur game (and she is essentially based off of Ellie May from the Beverly Hillbillies, so I have some mannerisms to at least try to use). We're switching to Klingons to finish up playing some Star Trek, and yes, my Klingon character will have an Uncle Heikl'Ick, son on Swaa'Ne (emperial tithe collector) 

The original NPCS here:

What appears to be a young female Dwarf, Glorirnolsia (Glori to her friends. They are not her friends yet) is a city mage. She requires a special mushroom to work on a magic item she has a commission for. 

She is well dressed and at times appears a bit absent minded. She is about 4 and a half feet tall and somewhat slender for a Dwarf.

She is always accompanied by two other dwarves who act primarily as bodyguards, although they seem to show more deference than a bodyguard would normally show.


And it turns out I either did not stat her out or I cannot find her character sheet (and I do all these digitally, then maybe print if I am going to use them at the table. And stick into a notebook. Sometimes). While she is a mage, she is also of royal blood. I've not really worked out any of that in my version of Cidri, leaving that sort of thing vague so I have a lot of wiggle room to make things up to help with the stories we're telling. It never came up, probably as I did not play her as well as I should have to indicate she was a posh Dwarf of a royal family.

The 2 other Dwarves include her Uncle Heimlich, technically named Hanarlig ThunderAnvil, the original Heimlich (which is the Common version of the Dwarven name Hanarlig. And actually, because I was relying on memory, Hanarlig somehow turned into Heimlich. I am really, really bad at getting names straight!) 

And he also is currently stat-less. The tome shall have a character sheet or info per page. I expect it to be a fun endeavor. Almost like, if anyone recalls, the Thieves World RPG (wiki link here) set that had stats for 9 different games so you could use that supplement across a swath of RPG universes. So something similar to that but instead of a town, it is a small subset of characters that revolve around the universal Heimlich.

What I also need to do is come up with a common theme for the Heimlich Codex: in most cases he is explicitly an uncle, and a protective one generally. And always for a girl or young woman. So I may expand out the Codex to include that other person as well for completeness. 

And only tangentially related, I had a magic bookshop in the Apex game. Thinking I'll also have that in various universes, just not spell it out. Aurora now gets a bookstore, and if I can dig up those notes, I think it is a small Italian. Who could be not human but under a fey glamor or something. Maybe - I just won't make it stand out.

And I am giving platelets this weekend - I do this every few weeks (I've low platelet counts so I cannot give as much as I'd like to). It is a good thing to do as it helps people with cancer most of the time. And free cookies and juice! Been doing it 20+ years now. My little bit of helping others (and getting the aforementioned snacks) Always try to do something nice for others when you can. 

Anyway - I need to also work up my Klingon character, and I'd like to make some progress on the Solo Traveller. There just is never enough time! Or at least time that intersects when I want to do that.

And finally - there is a misspelled tag, Heinlich, that may help me (and others!) find our Heimlich in the various game updates I've posted. You can search in blogs which is really nice: use the word cloud to the right, and clicking on Heinlich gives you this list basically. I may have to go back through the posts to find other mentions of the great and mysterious Heimlich and update the tags!

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