NPCs of note (Bara Gairo)

Continuing my description of Bara Gairo, a small seaside town near to and associated with Porto Liure that is a good, small environment in which to start a DARK•HERITAGE game.  This post is on a handful of important local NPCs around town that the player characters might wish to interact with.  Clearly, its not meant to be exhaustive.

Alfonso Galland — A middle-aged, sturdy fisherman.  He owns a boat that he operates with his son, Éttiene.  He's widowed and also lives with his daughter, Vittoria, who is an accomplished tracker and trapper of small animals, preferring to avoid the company of the village-folk for the solitude of the woods.  Despite his rather taciturn children, Alfonso himself is friendly and kind, and among the villagers, is the most likely to be convinced to help in a tough spot.  Bring danger or trouble to his children, though, and you'll see a dark, ugly side of Alfonso.

Braz Vargas — Owner of the Lima's Spirits, the inn, tavern, and general store for Bara Gairo.  Braz is a large man, who displays a degree of wealth unusual for this small village.  His common room is nearly always full, while his rooms rarely are.  In addition to running the inn, he also is the local brewer, and most of the folks in the island drink small beer brewed by Vargas as their day to day drink.  Friendly on the surface, Vargas is also notoriously untrustworthy and cowardly.  The locals like to hang out in his common room and drink his spirits, but otherwise don't trust him with much.

Inés Peixoto — Although she purports to be a simple assistant and serving woman at the Lima's Spirits; a distant relative of Vargas' taken in by his charity, it's a fairly open secret that Inés is actually an agent of the Castiada crime family.  Rumors are thick in town about how Vargas got saddled with her, the most popular being that he was deep into debt with the mafiosos.

Cesar Gonzalez — An extremely skilled crafstman, Cesar claims to be able to fix anything that comes through town, and make most of what else is needed.  His skill with his tools makes him a popular person in town.  Idle talk around town occasionally refers to rumors that he honed his skills working with the Castiadas, and has "retired" to the country--with a head full of secrets.

Jaufré Marcuçez — The "mayor" and semi-official town leader, Jaufré is notorious for being somewhat indecisive, and its no secret that Camilla, his sturdy farmwife and a highly religious person, actually calls the shots.  She is greatly respected, but has little patience for fools.

Evike von Rajecz — As a Tarushan "Gypsy" Evike is one of the most exotic townsfolk.  She lives simply, long having given up her roaming days, but is famous for her fortune-telling—which is only taken half-seriously by the townsfolk.

Kemal Hajdari — This brusque wildman is the town's primary source of non-seafood meat, furs and leathers.  In addition to hunting and slaughtering, his house doubles as a small tannery and leatherworking facility.  He's taken a liking to the similarly taciturn Vittoria Galland, calling her his "little niece."  He knows more about the islands nearby—once you're beyond the beach, anyway—than anyone else around.

Gisati Tahhi — A middle-aged hamazin woman, who lives in a large house with a bunch of children, none of them her own.  Most of them are orphans—or presumed to be—who shipwrecked with her eleven years ago just north of the harbor.  They were brought into the town, the house made for them with the wreckage from their ship (mostly by Alfonso Galland and Cesar Gonzalez), and her services as a small orphanage were seen as good for the town.  A few more children were moved in after a bout of plague swept through the town.  Curiously, she claims no knowledge of who her charges were or what the mission of the ship was that brought them.  The captain was killed in the wreck.

Although I haven't yet committed it in writing, I'm also developing a number of secrets associated with most of these characters.  Giving campaign elements secrets is one of the best ways to keep a campaign setting feeling rich, robust and alive, as well as being a potent driving force for the campaign overall—assuming you drop enough hints that the players start getting curious enough to investigate them.  I'll either commit those in writing in another post, or in the comments section of this post, and I'll write a FRPG post about secrets sometime in the future.