Morty and Melvin's STATS

Hi Fellow Beans!

One of the things that inspired the NPC curses of the St Churnley's boys was the long and fascinating list of spells you can cast in Dungeons & Dragons. Casting spells in the tabletop game can yield some really fun changes in combat or even social encounters, with lots of scope for visceral and visual descriptions of what happens. That makes for a fun session. I also knew fans of the tabletop game might recognise some iconic spells like Fireball, Misty Step and Dissonant Whispers if they came up in the campaign. So ultimately, creating NPCs as living spells felt like a good fit.

For Morty and Melvin, I needed typically offensive spells that would have a serious enough effect that the players would need to seek expert medical help from Nurse Lenny. It couldn't be too gory either, or they'd have looked like absolute sociopaths. Instead, a punch on the arm with magical consequences felt like a good substitute. When I was at school, 'digs' were punches you got on your arm for completely arbitrary reasons like a yellow car driving by or because it was your birthday, so I used this as a sort of BS initiation that the second years use to pick on the first years. I added some fantastical effect to these punches with corrosive acid and petrification and I had the right stick with which to prod the boys. I knew we had some healers but Cure Wounds or Healing Word would only repair damage, not halt the ongoing effect of these attacks.

Building Morty and Melvin, I wanted to try and use a fairly modular stat block for 2nd Years so I could whip up another if the boys crossed paths with more NPCs. I'd just need to flavour them with other abilities and spells. So I settled on a handful of (admittedly overpowered) spells and a simple attack that was flavoured with their curse. I can then pull this out and modify it to create more boys from their year, using different spells as a basis for their curses.

I hope you enjoy this peek behind the DM screen. I retain the ability to change these stats as and when to better suit the session or campaign so don't think you can catch me out if I roll with a different bonus or trigger the wrong save in future.

Yours hexmasterly,

Midge