Welcome to the Dog Days of Podcasting, 2022 season. This year we’re taking part by creating 30 NPCs to use with table top gaming, writing projects, or other creative endeavors. These NPCs are system agnostic, but may include minor suggestions for how to run the characters with a party of adventures and explorers. They are written with a specific genre in mind, but will include notation for how to use them within at least two other realms.
That said, let’s get started.
Today, we’re visiting The Maintenance Crew, an NPC designed for Sci-fi campaigns.
The Maintenance Crew
XVIII
The enforcer swung at the door again, his fulgur club bursting into arcs of electricity. The lock began to buckle under the onslaught, but then warning chimes went off through the hall. The party moved closer together, facing out to deal with whatever oncoming threat would lash out against them. They saw movements near the ceiling, dozens of little spade shaped creatures poured from crevices. The telekinetic started prepping a mind blast while the enforcer readied another charge in his club. The swarm swept along the walls and surrounded them, before flowing towards the battered barrier. It was the system breaker that halted them when she let out a warning. “It’s not us they’re after,” she said. “It’s the door.” They moved like a kaleidoscope, as the drones fell into odd patterns over the broken latch. Small flakes of material swept from mini-limb to mini-limb until the old piece had been completely torn out and replaced. The enforced grumbled while the other two watched in awe as the machines worked. Another set of chimes and they dispersed, except for a larger diamond shaped machine that waddled towards them. It held something small, fluttering, that turned out to be a leaflet. It dropped it in front of the party and with a small motion, the telekinetic lifted the sheet before them.
“A bill for damages?” They said in unison. The party looked up at the new lock, shiny, perfect, and open. It was repaired, but not reset. The door hung ajar, ready for them to pass through.
The Maintenance Crew is an annoyance to a party. Whether on space stations, high tech facilities, or luxury living zones, the swarm is a cluster of machines that want to keep things in top shape. They don’t care if the party is there. That’s another system’s problem. But they do care if the party breaks things in the care of the swarm. The crew will watch from a distance, observe any disturbances, announce their presence, and then fix what’s been smashed.
Their behavior is meant to be predictable, as that lies in the heart of manipulating them. As drones they can’t help but keep things clean. They are hyper focused on the task even if it means breaking other protocols. Their job is to fix, not security. Not reporting intruders. Fix.
In sci-fi they’re a swarm of creatures resembling mechanical insects. They beep and chirp and make loud modem noises at the party as they bumble their way through the facility.
In fantasy they’re a swarm of dust motes, moving about an ancient shrine repairing old statues and keeping the torches lit in ancient crypts.
In cyberpunk, they’re a swarm of human faced birds that sweep across digital realms searching out different types of data and keeping a network “clean.”
The swarm is here to do a job, and the characters are the ones in the way. Fix, clean, move on. Let the other systems deal with the problems about intruders.
The audio portion of this episode is shared on a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Sounds and music are provided by Syrinscape’s Shipboard Soundset. Please see the website for individual song and sound usage. The text for this episode is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Have a good time with the character, and let me know if you use them for something.
Until tomorrow.