Five Folk Heroes

Intro

Your players aren’t the only heroes out there, and not all heroes are adventurers. Here’s five folk heroes to drop into your campaigns and bring life into your world.

What I have here are some basic narrative bones. Remix, flesh out, and adjust as needed.

The Mountain Man

A small, fairly isolated village nestled in the foothills of a great mountain have a legend stretching back long through the ages. In times of great strife, when the town has been beset by marauders and supernatural threats, a mysterious man comes down from the mountain to protect them. He arrives in burnished armour of iron, armed to the teeth with a towering shield and spear. Around his shoulders is a cloak of ghost-pale fur from an unknown beast. He never speaks, refuses all gifts of thanks and hospitality, and returns up the snowy slopes of the mountain as soon as the danger has passed.

When the party arrives, the town is under threat, but refuse to pay out of pocket for the party’s help believing the Mountain Man will surely come soon.

Should the party investigate further, perhaps with the village’s young trapper in tow to better navigate, they will eventually find upon the mountain a vacant suit of armour encasing a set of crumbling bones.

The Mountain Man is in fact a Graveknight, a bearer of a cursed suit of armour that will eventually turn the wearer undead. It’s unclear how many have taken up the charge of protecting the village, bearing the curse so that they may live for centuries until they too wither into dust.

Perhaps the young trapper, now realising the truth of the Mountain Man, chooses to don the armour and take up the mantle, emerging from the mountains with the party to save the village once again.

Luna of the Lake

A little ways into the woods near this humble town, not far past the orchards, is a small lake. In the day it is picturesque, capturing the sun while creatures drink upon its shores in peace. In the night it is rendered mirror-silver by the moon’s glow. Only on the most blustery days is the lake’s surface ever marred by wind-ripples.

Commonly the townsfolk will travel to it during the summers to take refreshing swims in its cool waters, and at night it is known as a spot for lovers. Many townsfolk will even claim their children were conceived on the lakeshore.

It is also common, however, for townsfolk to travel to the lake to throw into it fresh fruits, valuable metals, and sometimes even prized heirlooms. They will say it is to pay tribute and give thanks to Luna, who emerges from the lake to protect the forest.

In some time previous (though townsfolk will argue over whether it was the time of their great-great forbears or their great-great-great forbears) the town was a plaything of the fae. Redcaps would slaughter animals in the night, Sprites would steal children from their beds, Pixies would jinx farm tools to make them break right at the start of the harvest. This was until a beautiful young woman strode into town dressed in naught but simple rags and set off for the forest.

Once there, she summoned great magic to banish all the fae to their home realm. As she weaved her wards her hair unknotted into sleek, flowing locks, her clothes fell away revealing flawless silvery skin, and her limbs began moving with increasing grace and majesty. When she was done, she walked nude into the lake and was never seen again.

Some children today will claim they saw her but the parents quickly discard this as fancy and vivid imagination. All the town’s adults will claim they have never themselves seen Luna.

The party, if brave enough to linger near the lake and dive beneath its surface, will find in the centre a stone structure within a small pocket of air. Inside resides none other than Luna, still young and beautiful as ever with sleek black hair and flawless silvery skin as the legends say.

A savvy adventurer, however, may clue into the witching nature of the woman. She is a hag, shrouded in glamour to appear beautiful, stirring up trouble in the forest so that she may ‘fix’ it and continue receiving endless gifts from the townsfolk. Her ‘banishing’ the fae all those years ago was simply her striking a deal with them. It’s the ultimate grift.

Mariel Mayweather

‘The Magnificent’, he and his greatest supporters will call him. This particular region is blessed with a bard whose primary subject is his own brother, Mariel Mayweather. Each night the bard sings his most popular songs espousing the deeds of The Magnificent Mariel Mayweather, and while most of the crowd knows all the words and sings along with glee, there are sceptics among the villagers.

Frankly, no-one has witnessed any of Mariel’s deeds. Some believe it is a case of acts being exaggerated by an overeager songsmith, some believe the whole thing is a sham and a con. Indeed the volume of tips and free drinks collected throughout the night’s performance lends credence to this theory.

None of this is helped by the fact that Mariel himself carries an air of arrogant braggadocio. He will confirm all his own supposed feats without a hint of humility.

The more time the party spends around Mariel and his bard brother, the more they come to suspect the man is a fraud. Many of his stories conveniently end with no witnesses, no matter how crowded the area they take place, and sometimes he even seems to get mixed up on details implying he is struggling to keep on top of a pile of lies.

In reality everything Mariel says is true, he simply fits the personality mould of a fraud so well that folk who consider themselves worldly assume he is so. They will poke holes in his stories, question his deeds and attempt to sully Mariel’s name wherever he goes. This is Mariel’s tragedy, one that weighs on him deeply. No matter how much good he does, because it seems fantastical he will always be judged and mistrusted by those who have themselves done little good for others.

Some folk will simply always hold hate in their hearts.

The Sirenslayer

Captain Heartsway, more commonly called ‘The Sirenslayer’, is a freebooter based near the Ironwood Stacks. His modest flotilla of pirates harass and raid the Imperial Navy taxships every time they come to collect their levies. In fact, he often raids their ships after the taxes have been collected so that he can take a modest cut and return the rest of the coin to the people.

Naturally this is an arrangement the Ironwood people are more than fine with. Diminished Imperial influence, lower taxes, and the all-around preservation of their fierce independence keeps the Stackfolk pleased. This is something Captain Heartsway is more than happy to bask in the credit for, enjoying free repairs to his ships, a steady stream of eager and able crewmen, and drinks on the house for all his band wherever they make port.

What the Stackfolk fail to appreciate, however, is the incredible toll placed on the Imperial Treasury by keeping the waters north of the Ironwood Stacks safe. Indeed the current sitting Emperor has begun to consider cutting the region loose and letting the so-called Sirenslayer try his hand against the demon-driven Dreadfleets that emerge from the icy mires every winter. How quickly, he wonders, will the people turn on their pirate boy-king and beg for Imperial protection? How high, he further wonders, will he be able to hike taxes thereafter…

It must be said, the Empire’s strict controlling of information about the supernatural works against them here. Perhaps if they allowed the public to know more of the true nature of the world around them they would enjoy more widespread support – especially come tax season.

‘Chef’

There are those that feed the poor and needy, and then there’s the strange man simply referred to as ‘Chef’. It’s an almost open secret that he is some kind of fae or other form of outer-creature. He will arrive in a city’s most impoverished districts, or in towns wracked by failed harvests, and pool together whatever meagre ingredients the people can muster. Then, with a loud clap of his hands a cohort of spectral kitchenhands will apparate around him and set to work. Stoves are assembled, fires are lit, benches and workstations materialise, and the entire team begin cooking a feast to feed however many hundreds show up throughout the day.

The gentleman’s name comes from the classic call-and-response shared between him and his team. He will bark a command and be met with a resounding ‘Yes Chef’ from all his cookery crew in unison. Indeed this is the only time these spectres are heard to speak.

If one watches the work closely they will see ingredients spontaneously multiply while they are prepared. A knife will draw across a vegetable and two, three, or even four slices will plop out the other side. A chicken will be halved and rotisseried only for each half to become a whole chicken sometime during the spit’s rotation. Bread doughs will expand to unimaginable sizes from even the most paltry starters of flour and water.

Then there is the matter of eating. When service begins, a station of ever-replenishing bowls will appear and any who takes one will be served a full portion by Chef himself. Many will utter a quiet ‘Thank you Chef’ as they receive their meal. The superstition goes you should never look him in the eye, though the reason why changes depending on region. In some cities they say you’ll become one of his spectral kitchenhands, in others they say you’ll become the meat for his next meal, in some they say he’ll feast on your soul just as you feast on his cooking in turn.

Finally the dishes are done. The bowls will be collected by Chef’s spectral workers and washed in a giant tub of foamy water. Whether this is necessary is entirely unclear since as soon as the last bowl is scrubbed the whole arrangement – crew and all – disappears leaving Chef stood alone. Without a word, he will turn and walk his way out of town until he visits again however many weeks, months, or years later.

Nobody has ever witnessed him treading the roads between towns…

Outro

Like I said at the start, these are just loose ideas to get your juices flowing! Weave quests and other narrative beats around these, remix and reinvent them as needed, or even just pop them in the background as window dressing for your world.

As always, if you like what I do then support me on Patreon. I’m out of the 9-to-5 life and back freelancing so every bit helps!