Characters / Epic NPC Man

Characters from the Epic NPC Man series by Viva La Dirt League.

Non-Playable Characters

Greg the Garlic Farmer

Ah! Hello Adventurer and welcome to the Town of Honeywood!

Greg The Garlic Farmer

The titular Epic NPC Man, and serves as a major questgiver and general merchant in Honeywood. He is aware that things are not quite right in the world, but has not fully realised that he is in a video game.

• Alliterative Name
• Artifact Title: Originally, every episode was about Greg as the titular Epic NPC Man, or at least took place in front of his shop. Nowadays, he doesn't appear in every episode.
• Artificial Brilliance: Greg hasn't exactly figured out that he's in a video game, but is more than aware enough to realise things aren't quite right about his world.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Greg threatens death to an adventurer, when he does not stop skipping the dialogue.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: He's at least somewhat self-aware and recognise the many oddities about their world.
• Insult Backfire: Downplayed Trope when Bodger insults Greg by claiming that he has "garlic breath". While Greg doesn't take it for a compliment, he does own it, pointing that he smells of garlic because he is a garlic farmer.
• Morton's Fork: One sketch has Greg cast as an executioner by the village and asking passing players what he should do. But despite several pre-scripted answers, all options will result in Greg executing the prisoner. Even if the player kills Greg, the pre-scripted event will make him kill the prisoner before he dies.
• Nice Guy: Greg is usually nice to everyone.
• Not So Above It All: Greg is usually the most level-headed character, but he's not immune to having his crazy moments.
  • For example, in "Accept", when Greg is poisoned and supposedly has a few minutes to live, he spends most of the episode trying to get the attention of the heroes to help save him,... except when he sees two people playing a Hearthstone-esque mini game, where he cares more about who is winning.
  • Another example is in "Stupid NPCs" where Greg is an ally with another adventurer on a quest where they need to rescue sheep from monsters, but Greg insists on using his garlic grenades despite the fact that the garlic grenade also kills the sheep.
• Only Sane Man: Greg usually fulfils that role, although even he is not immune to oddities.
• Uniqueness Value: Subverted in the episode "One of a Kind". He provides his family heirloom, a ring, to the first adventurer. He then, more reluctantly, offers the same to the second adventurer. The box gets dropped, and we find that there are actually a lot of rings in his box.
• What the Hell, Player?: In "Insensitively Looting Dead Bodies", Greg is aghast at the player looting the bodies of several villagers killed by bad guys. In the end, the player even loots the corpse of his female companion's mother mere seconds after she dies, while the companion is actively weeping over her.

Bodger the Blacksmith

The blacksmith and occasional questgiver in Honeywood. He is slightly aware that things are quite right, but not to the extent of Greg.

• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: He sells high-level equipment to players at inflated prices. Examples include "Legendary Sword" (the player finds that he is not high enough level to wield what he just purchased) and "Markup" (where the player accidentally sells Bodger his main weapon and is infuriated to learn he has to buy it back with all the gold he has).
• A Day in the Limelight: "Blacksmith", early in the series, focuses on Bodger. He takes upon himself to forge a set of legendary armour for the PC's quest. This is the first episode that Greg doesn't show up in during the episode proper, though he does appear in the Stinger to complain that it feels wrong for him not to be in it.
• Alliterative Name
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Cheerfully calls Baelin a "handsome devil" in "Baelin's Route", obviously motivated by the fact that they are played by the same actor.
• Line-of-Sight Name: The Historical Village that Viva La Dirt League film at already had the "Bodger" sign at the blacksmith stall.
• No Hero Discount: Skewered in "Legendary Sword" when Bodger the Blacksmith charges Adam the player for the title sword to slay the dragons that threaten to destroy everything, including Bodger himself.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Except for the odd leather bandolier and bracelets, he's practically naked from the waist up.

Baelin the Fisherman

Morning! Nice day for fishing ain't it? Hua hah!

The local fisherman of Honeywood. Only has one voice line.

• Artificial Brilliance: Baelin, despite his very limited AI, also seems capable of functioning past that point should he be placed under enough stress.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Baelin is an annoying fisherman who always repeats the same phrase, but when two adventurers make the mistake of attacking him, he beats them both.
• Broken Record: Has only one voice line. He speaks it every time he passes Greg's shop.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Baelin, most of the time he is an annoying fisherman who always repeats a phrase, but if they make him angry, shows how dangerous he really is.
• Improvised Weapon: Baelin, the fisherman in "Chicken" uses his pole like the rest use their swords. Yeah, go figure. In later instances he uses it as a staff.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Baelin's "Mornin'! Nice day for fishin', ain't it?" line usually has no deeper meaning, but when he does want to convey something else the other characters have no trouble interpreting it. However, in "Baelin's Route" there's a legitimate inflection even if he always repeats his voice line.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Two adventurers take a beating when they try to attack Baelin.
• Welcome to Corneria: "Nice day for fishing, ain't it?" Even after he has repaired a shop, or killed a player. And even when the lake is frozen in winter!

Eugene

Slow yourself, adventurer! [pathetic crying]

The local chewtoy of Honeywood.

• The Chew Toy: Made to be this by the game programmers. His house burns down in his first appearance. His life only gets worse from there.
• Escort Mission: Usually gives out these. Unfortunately, his walking speed is about two feet per minute.
• Prone to Tears: Eugene the Escort Mission NPC, who is constantly sobbing uncontrollably and loudly about his dead family. This can lead to very unpleasant situations, like alerting enemies during his quest.
• Welcome to Corneria: His pathetic crying is nigh-identical each time. Impressively, it's not a stock soundclip; his actor does the cry each time.

Fred the Fruit Merchant

The local fruit merchant of Honeywood. He is constantly in the position of being close to needing to sell his children to avoid starvation.

• Alliterative Name
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: He is forced to buy items he doesn't need from players, despite not having enough to support his family.
• Chew Toy: Like Eugene, but more caused by player actions than how he is programmed. Players force-sell him items he doesn't need at inflated prices and rob his chest left out in the wilderness.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: The Muggers find that this is Fred's Berserk Button. Fred is more insulted when they give him money to fix his cart and get his life back on track, because he thinks they found him too pathetic to rob.
• Sadistic Choice: One of his scripted quests is to ask players if he should kill his mother or sell his children into slavery to have less mouths to feed. Britt is horrified, but the game won't allow her to ignore or turn down the quest.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: While Fred (somewhat) is perfectly fine getting abused verbally and mentally, but hitting him physically? He will get instantly mad and whip out a BFS to turn the schmuck into Ludicrous Gibs with just one swipe.

The Town Guard

For the peace of the Kingdom!

For the King!

For the Alliance!

For King and Country!

The town guard of Honeywood. More guards appear as required.

• Artificial Stupidity: He's taken an arrow to the head (and not even noticed), been killed by an Assassin whilst distracted, and had a bucket put on his head so a player could steal from the shop, has his uniform stolen off him, and wound up in the town lake for one episode.
• Broken Record: More and less than Baelin; Baelin speaks his single line when he walks past Greg's shop every few minutes, but the guard speaks one of his four lines every few seconds.
• Conspicuously Selective Perception: The guard is killed in "Assassin" because he concentrates on the stone being thrown, despite Greg noticing the assassin and trying to tell him.
• Disproportionate Retribution: If a player kicks a chicken, or defends himself from bandits in front of the guard, they will be horribly killed.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: In contrast to most guards, who are among the dumbest NPCs in the game, one once stared into the player's eyes and told him that he would personally hunt him down to avenge his fallen comrades, not in the game but in real life.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy:
  • "Perception": A guard investigates the murder of one of their comrades, only to holler out repeatedly "What could have done this?!"
  • "Persuade": A group of guards attempt to arrest a player for her numerous crimes. They set her free when she simply convinces them that she didn't do it... only to let her murder one of their comrades.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: In "Over Powered", a guard congratulates the adventurer for defeating the troll, as the guards were not strong enough to defeat him, but the adventurer was. When the adventurer accidentally kicks a chicken, the guard kills the adventurer in a single attack.

The Muggers

"What are we?"

"We’re Muggers."

"And what do muggers do?"

"They mug people."

"So...Let’s go mug ‘em!"

Bernard and Charles, the Honeywood muggers. Both are fairly stupid, though Charles does have moments of brilliance, albeit rather short moments.

• Artificial Brilliance: Charles also has this (occasionally); but Bernard, has more charisma points.
• Bullying a Dragon: Bernard always tries to assault targets that are much more powerful than themselves, while Charles tends to fail to talk him out of it. In one episode, they even try to mug a literal dragon.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Charles appears to attempt this when the circumstance is stupid enough, but is eventually reset by Bernard with a "Hey! What are we?!" He also notices when a dialogue loop happens, but is again unable to break out of it.
• Ignored Epiphany: In "Vikings", they are robbed by the titular Vikings — two of whom had distracted the pair with a polite conversation that described the very method that was used on the pair, as a third snuck up and stole their stuff — and thus realise, for the first time in their lives, the sort of feeling that they've given their own victims. To cheer themselves up, they decide to mug Eugene.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: The muggers can't resist trying to mug people, even high-level players who can kill them in an instant. Or dragons. Or, on one bizarrely successful instance, an unattended wagon.
• Team Rocket Wins: The muggers finally get a successful robbery when they decide to mug a wagon. (It should be noted that they were not mugging a driver, but the wagon, the inanimate object, itself.)

High Sorcerer Baradun

Portal away!

The questgiver for the main storyline, concerning the entire realm of Azerim (i.e. not just Honeywood). Is completely aware that he is a video game character, but mostly uses this knowledge to be a dick to Greg.

• Jerkass: He never misses a chance to be condescending about Greg and Honeywood.

Isaac

[flatly] It's heartbreaking knowing what has happened to the women and children. They truly are suffering in these dark times.

Bodger's friend. The developers didn't hire a talented voice actor for him.

• Dull Surprise: He sleepwalks his way through any video he appears in, no matter how dramatic the situation.

Greta the Garlic Farmer

Greg's wife who was added in a patch and promptly patched out.

• Alliterative Name: Doubles as Theme Naming as her name is obviously based on Greg's.
• Distaff Counterpart: Obviously created as a female version of Greg, with similarly colored working class clothing and matching garlic on her belt.
• The Lost Lenore: Becomes one for Greg after she's removed.
• Remember the New Guy?: Justified Trope and Played for Laughs. She's added with full memories of her wedding to Greg and a life with him.
• Unperson: Her existence is not acknowledged by the game after her removal, though Greg remembers her against the patch's instructions.

Darkwood

Good evening! Glorious night for fishing, wouldn't you say? Muhuhu... muhuhahaha!

Darkwood is another village down the road from Honeywood. It's similar to Honeywood, but dark.

• Brains Evil, Brawn Good: Darkwood!Baelin speaks in a noticeably more sophisticated manner.
• Cut and Paste Environments: As the adventurer completes her final quest in Honeywood, Greg warns her to stay away from a dark evil town named Darkwood found up in the north. She then takes a time-lapsed journey to "Darkwood",... which just ends up being Honeywood with a dark fog filter applied to the camera. She then has a brief encounter with an "evil" version of Greg (who offers her a virtually identical quest) as well as Darkwood!Baelin.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Honeywood's Evil Twin settlement is "a dark, evil town named Darkwood, where darkness reigns".
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Darkwood!Greg. Despite being supposedly evil, his evil actions are limited to a Machiavellian laugh; beyond that, he is no different from Greg.

Players

Adam

• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Adam, who is used to "F" being the "Use" key, discovers that it is the "Punch" key, resulting in him accidentally punching Greg constantly when he presses it to advance the conversation.

Alan

• No-Sell: In "Overpowered from Side Quests", he ignores the main quest and get powerful gear from side quests. When he decides to get back to the main story, the thieves guild leader can't even scratch him. Even a bomb blowing up in front of him does nothing.

Ben

Often finds himself arguing for game logic when paired with Rowan.

• Gameplay Ally Immortality: During the episode "Taking advantage of NPC's - Cannon Fodder" a patch that made village escort NPCs unkillable is introduced. Ben decides to exploit this and accepts their quests, then leads them to a high-level giant demonic boss. Suddenly all the harmless-looking civilians pull out improvised weapons, then proceed to whittle down the boss' health while Ben steps back and smirks.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: In "Blocked Path", Rowan and Ben argue about their ability to cross an ankle-high fallen log. He's right that there's an inexplicable force-field stopping someone from just stepping over it, though a stubborn Rowan does eventually manage to clip through it... only to find he's not supposed to be on the other side and the ground there has no programmed collision, causing him to fall through the world.

Britt

The sole recurring female player.

• All Men Are Perverts: She often finds herself subject to outright blatant sexual harassment in the game.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: In "Skipping the Grind with Money", Britt gets annoyed with Rowan when he pays real money to unlock armour that take a long time to earn with in-game progress. Rowan argues that he has earned the armour, by working at his job in real life, to which Britt concedes he has a fair point. However, she still is disgusted when the items he buys include weapons that provide a significant in-game advantage instead of just being cosmetic.
• Chainmail Bikini: Whenever Britt is playing a PC, this trope inevitably comes into play. She once picked up a breastplate discarded by a male player, only for it to transform into a Chainmail Bikini. Later episodes would drop this and give her more practical armour.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: A variant in "Girl", where she simply uses a male avatar in the game (Adam) rather than trying to alter her in-game appearance after the fact.
• There Are No Girls on the Internet: Spoofed in "Girl" where she uses a male avatar and is showered with uncomfortable comments as soon as she reveals she's a woman. In the same sketch Clark plays the female avatar of another player who turns out to be male.
• The Smurfette Principle: Downplayed. She's the most recurring female character and a de-facto member of the main four, but other female players appear from time to time. Nevertheless, this rarity is still highlighted in some sketches like "Girl" above and "Girl Power", where she's surprised to find another female player and becomes best friends with her.

Rowan

Often finds himself arguing for real life logic when paired with Ben.

• Achievements in Ignorance: In "Missing an Obvious Game Mechanic", Rowan expresses dismay at coming across a murder scene, saying there are no clues and it will take hours to track the killers. Ben is confused since the quest should only take a few minutes with Detective Mode, slowly realising that Rowan has no idea how to use this mechanic or that it even exists. He's stunned, then admits he's honestly impressed Rowan got this far in the game solving these quests through sheer brute force.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: In "Skipping the Grind with Money", Britt gets annoyed with Rowan when he pays real money to unlock armor that take a long time to earn with in-game progress. Rowan argues that he has earned the armor, by working at his job in real life, to which Britt concedes he has a fair point. However, she still is disgusted when the items he buys include weapons that provide a significant in-game advantage instead of just being cosmetic.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: In "Blocked Path", Rowan and Ben argue about their ability to cross an ankle-high fallen log. Rowan's surprised to find that it isn't as easy as just stepping over it, as there's an invisible wall. With some effort he finds a clip through it, but it was meant to be an impassable obstacle denoting the edge of the playable area, so by getting through it he's just glitched himself out of bounds and falls through the floor.
• Only Sane Man: Rowan would be playing this role against Ben,... if this were real life. Rowan's character is using real world logic, and thus makes sense to the viewer; while Ben's character is respecting the rules of the game's logic, and thus naturally the sketch will ultimately prove Ben right.

Specific Player Characters

Dinkledork

A low-charisma, low-intelligence player character.

• The Ditz: When looking for clues regarding the missing mayor in his house, fails to notice the overturned chair, the blood-stained knife, the puddle of blood, or the mayor's corpse.
• HA HA HA—No: When Dinkledork applies to join the Rangers Guild, this is the ranger's response. Then Dinkledork puts on a Charisma Ring and the ranger immediately sees him as worthy, even though he's still the same dork as he's been before.
• Meaningful Name: Exactly how you would imagine a character named Dinkledork would be.

The Silent Hero

An adventurer that never speaks in the sketch "When Your Hero Never Speaks".

• Chick Magnet: Two NPC female companions (one accompanying the group in a quest and another just arrived) fall in love with him and his supposed heroics despite him doing and saying nothing to earn their affection. Eventually becomes Even the Guys Want Him when one of his male companions joins in.
• Heroic Mime: He doesn't say a word or even move his lips in the sketch.
• Informed Attribute: Played for Laughs. His admirers keep singing him praises and calling him a hero despite him doing nothing to deserve it (on screen at least).

Snuggles

A troll player character.

• Face of a Thug: Snuggles is one of the kindest adventurers Greg meets, despite being a troll with the respective terrifying appearance.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: The Troll Snuggles in "Troll". Despite his terrifying appearance, Snuggles turns out to be much friendlier than most player characters, who tend to act like jerkass.

The Watcher

• Expy: Of The Witcher.