Add an NPC
Create a Non-Player Character, give them a Goal, and put them somewhere the party will collide with them. Without a Goal, they're scenery.
Ultimo aggiornamento 12/09/26
Wyrdli · Aiuto e documentazioneCreate a Non-Player Character, give them a Goal, and put them somewhere the party will collide with them. Without a Goal, they're scenery.
The cult has a financier and you don't know his name yet. The harbour master keeps showing up in the players' questions and he doesn't exist in your prep. Every Campaign accumulates these gaps the moment the party starts asking questions, and every gap is an NPC waiting to be written.
Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are the engines of a Wyrdli Campaign. Without them, every Location is a description, every Scene is empty, and every Secret stays inert. Adding one takes under a minute; what matters is what you give them once they exist.
A new person enters the Campaign, whether they're an antagonist, a witness, a contact, or someone the players haven't decided how to feel about yet.
This is the primary path, and the one you'll use most. The NPCs tab on the Campaign holds every NPC you've created, and the "+" button on that tab opens the full editor.
Open the Campaign and click "NPCs" in the sidebar (or in the Campaign's tab navigation).
Click the "+" button on the NPCs page. The NPC editor sheet slides in.
Give the NPC a name and a description: what they look like, what they sound like, what they're doing when the party finds them. The description supports formatting, mentions of other entities, and AI assistance.
Optionally upload an Artwork portrait. Use the slot at the top right of the editor.
If the NPC belongs to a Faction, attach the Faction from the relationship section after saving. Same for any Location they live or work at.
Save. The NPC joins the Campaign and is now available everywhere a relationship picker, mention, or Scene Tension list lets you pull them in.
The NPC exists. They're inert, and they will stay inert until you give them a reason to act.
This is the step that gets skipped at 11pm, and it's the step that decides whether the NPC actually does anything at the table. Give the NPC a Goal: one sentence about what they're trying to do in the world. Open the NPC's detail page, find the Goals section, and add one.
A Goal lets the NPC produce Threats. The Alderman with a Goal can hire someone to follow the investigators, lean on the harbour master to slow their boat, or quietly post a bounty. The Alderman without a Goal can only describe.
Wyrdli surfaces the NPC editor at every place you might realise you need a new NPC, so you rarely have to navigate back to the NPCs tab to create one.
From the header's quick-create menu. Click the "+" icon in the top header to open the quick-create panel. While you're inside a Campaign, "NPC" is one of the entries; clicking it opens the same NPC editor with the current Campaign already locked in.
From a Faction's NPCs list. On a Faction's detail page, the NPCs section has its own "+" button that opens a picker. The picker finds an existing NPC and attaches them to the Faction in one step. To create a brand-new NPC tied to the Faction, use the NPCs tab or the quick-create menu first, then attach.
From mentions in descriptions. In any rich-text description (a Scene's notes, a Secret's description, another NPC's bio), typing @ opens a mention picker. You can mention an existing NPC there; for a new NPC, create it first, then mention.
From the canvas. While prepping on the Canvas, you'll often realise an arc needs a new NPC. The canvas focuses on Locations, Clues, and Scenes, so create the NPC from the NPCs tab or the quick-create menu, then attach them to the relevant Scene's Tension list.
An NPC sitting in your prep that the party never meets is one you wrote wrong. After saving, decide what Scene or Location they belong to. Open the relevant Scene's editor and add them to its Tension list, or attach them to a Location so the party encounters them naturally on arrival. Either way, the NPC needs an entry point, or they're scenery you wrote for nobody.
If you can't say in one sentence what your NPC wants, you don't have an NPC yet, you have a portrait.