6 Tarot-based NPCs (using Captain Ahab's oracle)

Phill Loe over at Captain Ahab's Leg wrote a great post about oracles - symbolically charged random generation methods for use in gaming. Phill made some great Tarot-based generators, and I tested the monster generator before. This time his quick NPC creation method caught my interest, let me quote (emphasis mine):

"I always bring a deck of tarot cards with me to the gaming table. They can also be used to answer questions about the world—but I find that they can be a little cryptic if you’re asking the deck anything concrete like “what does this magic item do?” or “what taverns are in the area?” They are much better at generating high-level concepts.
For NPCs, I will use a simple three card layout. The left card represents the character’s past, the middle card represents the character’s appearance or how they “seem” to other people, and the right card represents the character’s motivations. It’s generally important to try to make that character’s motivation something the party would potentially care about."

This is an interesting method, so I gave it a try, and generated six NPCs. Each spread took about two minutes. I based my interpretation on personal visual associations with the iconography (I have a Rider-Waite-Smith deck), in certain cases a simple printout of Tarot meanings, and in two cases rolls on the "36 character types" table.

Six Tarot-based NPCs

1. King of Wands, inverted + Page of Wands, inverted + Knight of Cups
   Scion of disgraced noble house, disguised as a lowly servant, conspiring to achieve personal grandeur.
2. The Empress, inverted + The Fool, inverted + Six of Cups
   Matronly woman, grieving the loss of her sons in the recent war, asks to retrieve lost heirlooms. 
3. Ace of Pentacles, inverted + Four of Pentacles, inverted + The Devil
   Adventurer ready to gamble away everything but a single gold medallion – it was given to them by a dead friend, but is in fact cursed and the source of bad luck.
4. Four of Swords, inverted + Knight of Swords + Seven of Pentacles, inverted
   Famed warrior, the last of his militant order, must lead a last charge, while dreaming of settling down and growing grapes.
5. Ten of Cups + The Tower + Knight of Pentacles
   Family sorting through the ruins of their destroyed home suspiciously optimistic about the future.
6. Two of Swords, inverted + Ace of Cups, inverted + The Magician, inverted
   Mysterious stranger from the Upper Spheres dispenses healing water, but preaches against the tenets of local authority.

Example of the "36 Character Types" random table in use

I posted the "36 character types" table on Reddit, and r/thebalckveil asked for an example of the generator in use. I thought I would save the example here:

"For example, I would use it to create a court intrigue situation. Roll three times to get three NPCs or inspirational details. *roll roll roll*

65 The Weak, 61 Murderers & Assassins, 21 The Avaricious and Grasping

Interpretation:
NPC #1: Prince Bernardo, the king's eldest but sickly son, heir to the throne (The Weak)
NPC #2: Jacopo, the ambitious husband of the king's daughter (The Avaricious & Grasping)
Situation: Prince Bernardo fears that Jacopo, the newcomer to the family, will try to take advantage of his bad health and seize the throne for himself. Prince Bernardo hires assassins (Murderers & Assassins) to take care of the matter.

How to use this situation in your game? Well, there are a couple of ways, for example:

• The party is approached by Jacopo, who fears for his life and hires bodyguards.
• The party is approached by Prince Bernardo's agent, who wants to hire them as assassins.
• The party hears rumors about the tension between Prince Bernardo and Jacopo, and might try to exploit the situation. Or they hear rumors about the Prince hiring assassins."

36 character types (extracted from Georges Polti's "The Art of Inventing Characters")

Georges Polti (1867-1946) compiled long classifications of different types of literary devices. His most famous book is "The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations", a description that was also taken as a prescription by future authors. He also did a similar work on character types, "The Art of Inventing Characters". In it, he outlines 36 types of literary characters.

36 you say?

THAT'S A D66 TABLE OF COURSE!

So I took the e-text of the 1922 English translation (available on archive.org!) and turned it into a random table. There are also freakin' subtables for each of the 36 entries, with a dozen or so types.

Warning: Mind, though: the source text is quite awful. It's essentialist, moralizing and misogynistic. It's naive in how the author thinks that a classification of things (including literary constructs) is the revelation of the true nature of the whole world, and a key to understanding human psychology.

Nevertheless, here's a random table!

Good for melodramatic RPGs?

			CHARACTERS
1	1	VESTA	The Pious
	2		The Wise
	3		The Faithful
	4	JUNO	The Jealous
	5		The Vengeful and Just
	6		The Strict and Severe
2	1	NEPTUNE	The Avaricious and Grasping
	2		The Despotic
	3		The Ambitious
	4	MINERVA	The Daring and Romantic
	5		Adventurers
	6		The Eloquent and Boastful
3	1	VENUS	The Seductive and Seducing
	2		Courtesans
	3		The Vicious
	4	APOLLO	The Impassioned
	5		The Chimerical
	6		The Intellectual
4	1	MERCURY	The Shrewd
	2		The Traitorous
	3		The Knavish
	4	JUPITER	The Arrogant and Insolent
	5		The Haughty and Dignified
	6		The Majestic and Protecting
5	1	CERES	The Generous and Prodigal
	2		The Gay and Sensual
	3		The Vulgar and Practical
	4	VULCAN	The Earnest and Serious
	5		The Deluded and Discouraged
	6		The Unselfish and Devoted
6	1	MARS	Murderers and Assassins
	2		The Violent and Rebellious
	3		The Bold and Fearless
	4	DIANA	The Tender and Sentimental
	5		The Weak
	6		The Pure

Subtables for each type: