Residents
A Resident is an NPC tied to a specific landmark. The affiliation is the point — it gives players somewhere to go, and gives the engine a settlement post for that person node.
This procedure comes from Street Magic.
Creating a Resident (5-10 minutes)
Title & Pronouns — What do people call them? Not their name — their handle. Examples: The Lamplighter (she/her), Brother Moss (he/him), Sena Three-Coins (she/her)
Affiliated Landmark — The specific building or location where they’re findable. Players who want to find this person know where to look.
True Name (via Collaborative Vignette) — The sensory essence that makes this person real and memorable:
- GM starts: “Let’s see [Title] in their element. Where are they and what are they doing?”
- Players contribute one detail each: “I see them…” / “I hear…” / “They’re holding…” / “I notice…”
- Build until everyone can see this person
- Extract the True Name from the vignette
Example:
GM: “Let’s see The Lamplighter. Where is she?” Player 1: “She’s on the corner of Saltmarket at dusk, lighting the street lamps one by one.” Player 2: “Her hands are always smudged with lamp oil, and she hums old mining songs.” GM: “She notices us watching and gives a gap-toothed smile, then moves to the next lamp without breaking rhythm.”
True Name: “oil-smudged hands, hums mining songs, gap-toothed smile, moves like ritual”
Quick Resident (mid-session, 2 minutes)
See Quick NPCs for the abbreviated procedure.
Recording Residents
Each resident who gets play becomes a wiki entry: Title & Pronouns, True Name, Affiliated Landmark, Faction, Known Relationships, Session Appearances.
The Vignette as Engine Operation
The collaborative vignette is WFC by hand. Each player contribution adds a constraint. The True Name is the collapsed result — the lowest-entropy description that satisfies all the constraints simultaneously.