Day 12 of #RPGaDay and we're sponsored by Paizo? If the majority of folks are picturing some garden walkway, a significant minority are excited at the mention of "Path"
I'll simply talk about the meandering path one of my NPCs have taken over the last 35 years.
In the beginning, Kannex was about as generic as you can make him: a first level Tanasian Wizard, built right off the archetypes in the Talislanta 2nd Edition rulebook.
Of course, as the only GM to run Talislanta, there was no chance for me flex his unimaginable power!
Okay, maybe I just wanted to focus on the magic system, but the guys in high school, and even college just wanted to fight stuff. Thralls, Saurans, Jakas, avoiding almost all magic. I may have snuck him in as an GM PC for a a game or two, but otherwise, his character sheet sat in a folder for years.
By the time I ran my full AD&D college game, The Ballad of the Pigeon God, I dusted off the folder for some variety and mystery to rural campaign.
Kannex appeared on the road in front of the PCs, steam/smoke rising off his body, unable to communicate for the first day. Luckily, he wasn't murdered on site, and by day two, he had solved the language barrier (somewhat), and by the time they reached home, he barely understood that the group was trying to stop a wedding because an unknown number of guests, including the bride herself were these shapeshifting spider doppelgangers.
.... and in the midst of the combat and chaos, Kannex cast a fireball equivalent, used the Talislanta magic system, with a huge randomizer to account for the new magic environment and, in a world were the spell result could have been disastrous or magnificent, it was both. The fireball covered the entire village green and beyond, killing all the spider-people, who transformed to their original state, killing a number of innocent civilians, and setting half the town on fire.
Kannex's research to go home led him to follow the group to the magic school in the capital of Hydincal. There he successfully transported dimensions to make it home, only to take the brothel everyone was staying at (and all the PCs playing in the campaign over summer break) into Talislanta.
The entire Talislanta summer crossover was McGuffin after McGuffin, to allow Kannex to send everyone back.
Fast forward 70 years of campaign time? Kannex has become the Red Mage of Anon-Maxis, and the focus of the very first mission in our Hackmaster campaign, The Journey of Mutumbo.
After years of war and upheaval, which was alluded to in The Burning Trogs Rule!, Kannex had traveled to Senzar to study... but forced a peace and become Riknil (Emperor) of the precarious island empire..
Finally, Kannex officially retired and wrote an opinionated series of travel guides and gazetteers.
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