William Brandes Stoddard
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Twenty Hirelings Awaiting Certain Doom
🕑 Added 2025-08-06 00:02:19 +0000 UTCThe use of hirelings isn’t nearly as common in D&D as it once was, but I think we should bring that back a bit. In addition to shoring up a party’s weakness and draining some cash out of their coffers, hirelings also provide someone who can die horribly to showcase a monster’s sick dance moves. Oh, and they make great backup characters for when a dragon eats the one guy in the party who can Raise Dead and you’re a week away from anyone else who could.
Anyway, here’s a collection of twenty hirelings and a weird detail or two about each of them. I’m not setting their daily or weekly costs or any required signing bonuses – they’re not all created equal, but I don’t know the economy of your game.
Bounty Hunters | Crewmates | Scholars | Dungeon-dwellers | Hirelings
Hirelings
1. Embry the Ostler, human Commoner. He excels in making camps hospitable in even the most dreadful circumstances. For each Hit Die you expend to regain Hit Points during a Short Rest, add +2 to the result. Utterly useless in a fight.
2. Veech, goblin Spy. She keeps tabs on what your distant and cunning enemies or rivals are doing and has some kind of update about once every week. She delivers this information in a whiskey voice. She responds very positively to gifts of improved ammunition or unusual toxins. Oh, and she’s a top-notch cook. Read that skill set all together, and choose your next words carefully.
3. Hawkbit, gnome Druid. He is a skilled herbalist, but his assistance comes with frequent requests to seek out rare herbs or spend time giving his plants some sun and water. Your overland travel is slowed, but Hawkbit administers a Potion of Healing to one character after the first three combat encounters in any adventuring day.
4. Beraren Suloh, half-elf Tough. Beraren is lucky in a fight (his first hit after rolling Initiative is an automatic crit) and mind-bogglingly unlucky in everything else, which the characters only discover after hiring him. He is unaware that he has been cursed with bad luck by a warlock who wants to shape him into a pure engine of violence (as that is the only approach he can ever succeed with).
5. Ak’ek, Thri-Kreen Marauder. Ak’ek does not do well in urban areas, as most city-dwellers are alarmed by the thri-kreen diet and manners. This makes him difficult to find and hire, in the wilderness or in dungeons, but he is sturdy and reliable as long as he is treated with respect. He won’t follow the party into urban areas, and is only 50% likely to wait for them to leave that urban area.
6. Apprentice Ulle “Frogleg,” halfling Mage Apprentice. Ulle got kicked out by his last teacher, Wisterand, for destroying his alchemical laboratory and burning down his tower. Ulle had cast Jump on himself and Mistakes Were Made. As a result of that incident, Jump is now permanent on Ulle, which is why he’s called Frogleg—a nickname that, surprisingly, he doesn’t mind. Other than that error in judgment, Ulle is a reasonably competent apprentice and research assistant.
7. Deatach, Smoke Mephit. Most mephits are destructive little jerks, and Deatach is no exception… but she is more than happy to be your destructive little jerk. When she dies, which happens all the damn time, she reforms in her hookah after about 8 hours. Her payment is in expensive incense, and the really expensive stuff can double her Hit Points and Death Burst damage until the next time she dies.
8. Sejanya, Hobgoblin Warrior. Sejanya is very good with animals (Expertise with Animal Handling), and any mount or hunting animal in her care gains 1d8 + 2 Temporary Hit Points at the end of each Long Rest. She also has a shocking number of enemies among the courts of the fey, who will absolutely track her down and attack whoever she’s working for. She has a secret map of the Dream Tyrant’s Labyrinth and palace tattooed onto the palms of her hands. The fey want to seize or destroy them, but she has less than no interest in helping.
9. Vraekal, githyanki Guard. Vraekal is a spy for Tu’narath on a twenty-year assignment, and very conscious of aging in a way that doesn’t happen in the Astral. He works for half his standard rate if there’s any chance to work against or learn about mind flayers or githzerai. If the party helps him seek out and destroy a horde of grimlocks that are building a mind flayer outpost, his stats improve to a Githyanki Warrior and he becomes intensely loyal to them.
10. Orlanna the Exile, elf Pirate. Orlanna is an elf with a whole lot of a checkered past (Expertise in History) that she alludes to but doesn’t want to explain directly. The truth is that she was once part of the Elven Imperial Navy, but led a mutiny when her captain ordered the crew to fire on a civilian ship that might have had one passenger infected with an illithid tadpole. She was dragged before a captain’s mast and sentenced to death, but escaped to Sigil, then to a Prime world. She doesn’t trust other elves, who might be agents of the Imperial Navy sent after her. On the other hand, she needs money.
11. Peresko Secret-Binder, apparently a tiefling warlock. In actuality, Peresko is an Oni, seeking employment with clerics, monks, or paladins in order to lure them away from their path of wisdom. He explains away all of his unusual abilities as part of his Patron’s gifts, and describes his Patron as a creature of nightmare (if pressed for detail, he describes an extra-powerful oni). As a hireling, he’s powerful in combat, and otherwise lazy if he’s not clearly getting something he wants out of any particular action.
12. Norwin Ashforth Calavance III, human Noble. Torwin got himself into a whole lot of gambling debt that he doesn’t want to tell Father about, and he’s initially convinced that hirelings have an easy (if undignified) life. The concept of actual hardship is foreign to him, but once he gets past that, he’s at least charming and loyal. He’s willing to use his high-society contacts to help the PCs while he’s on retainer.
13. Swick, Winged Kobold. Swick is incredibly useful for getting places that others do not want her to go. She’s a deeply money-motivated creature, overriding the risk aversion that kobolds are known for. More uncomfortable for most adventuring parties is her frequent prayers to Tiamat, not that Tiamat has much time for anyone with Swick’s paltry net worth.
14. Julienda Artemisia Savré, aasimar Performer. In addition to that stat block, Juliendra can use Bardic Inspiration (d6) three times per Long Rest. She is very good at matching the mood of any moment with her violin, except for stealth or treachery. You may need to remind her not to pluck the violin-strings for a “sneaking” accompaniment.
15. Evris, Yenna, and Hrapp, dwarf Bandits. These three siblings have spent some time on the wrong side of the law, and now they need to do better to expunge the shame they brought to their clan. They have Advantage on attacks against a creature that reduces one of the siblings to 0 Hit Points, and on a hit they deal an additional 1d6 damage.
16. Rausa Burnhill, brass dragonborn Berserker. Rausa is overjoyed to finally have a job where her taste for bloodshed is a strength rather than “socially unacceptable” or “legally actionable.” People cut her a lot of slack because they believe that metallic dragonborn must be “more goodly” than chromatic, but Rausa is happiest when her own scales are painted with arterial spray. She gains 10 Temporary Hit Points the first time in each encounter that she becomes Bloodied.
17. Tynos Ansifir, apparently a very old human Mage Apprentice. Tynos is unaware that they are actually an Arch-Hag that fought a battle across half a dozen planes of existence against the lich Acererak and his bound atropal, and lost all of their memory when they were hurled into the River Styx. Tynos’s spellcasting ability is unreliable, but sometimes they cast spells much more powerful than they “should” be able to command. Tynos needs a mentor to help them recover and remember that they rejected the path of corruption and cruelty to pursue justice.
18. Ilvia Thurstrom, water genasi Priest Acolyte. Ilvia has Armor Training in heavy armor and wears it regularly (AC 16). She has taken to mercenary work because her temple kicked her out for heterodox ideas about the structure of the cosmos and the deity’s place in it. She has lively interest in theological discussion and archaeological research, and is otherwise a dependable hireling.
19. Yugind the Smith, orc Warrior Infantry. Yugind is proficient with Blacksmith’s Tools and would prefer to stay in camp maintaining their gear, shoeing the horses, and making spare crowbars or lockpicks or whatever. When he does have to join the fight, he guards the healers and scholars unless given a direct command to charge into the fray. This is perhaps unusual for an orc, but Yugind is the last of seven brothers and he wants to live to carry on his family’s legacy. The treasure he gains as a hireling will help to impress the father of his intended.
20. Cullen, Wererat. Cullen passes himself off as a scout, assassin, scrounger, or cook, whatever he thinks the client is looking for. He explains his ability to shapeshift into a rat as a property of a rat medallion he wears (not actually a magic item). What he really wants is the freedom to travel, some adventurers to have his back, and enough freedom to slip away whenever he’s near a wererat nest.
Those characters went in all sorts of unexpected directions as I wrote. Anyway, I hope you like this bunch of weirdos, and let me know if any of them find their way into adventure and/or a messy end in your campaigns.
Comments
Geoffrey Fortier
These are amazing, and an inspiration for the rest of us to up our NPC game!
