Iconic NPCs from cultural mythology

    I'm working behind the scenes on Pb, and focusing especially on building out the world's anticanon through DM tools and tables. This table of NPCs is my step towards bringing more "name brand" characters into the architecture of Pb. Pb already flirts with this idea: Charlemagne and Nicholas Flamel are major historical characters, and the Seven Dwarves are named after heroes from history and myth.

• These characters should be not just recognizable, but iconic. Players should walk away from encountering them with a real sense of wonderment that they got to interact with such a legend.
• These characters should be vivid. There should be a low burden on the DM to flesh out a character's manner or personality; they should come with vivid enough baggage to flow on their own merit. By this token, it should be possible to roll on this table, rename the result, and still be left with a vivid character to play. The name can't be the only capital, all that is to say.
• These characters should be on their bullshit. (This comes from another post I can't find; if anyone can link it for me, I'll cite my source.) They're not sitting stagnant, waiting for the players to interact with them to be spurred into motion, but have broader goals, obligations, or relationships that occupy them.

1 Abe no Semi

2 Abel

3 Abraham van Helsing

4 Achilles

5 Akhenaten

6 Alastair Crowley

7 Anne Bonny

8 Arachne

9 Baba Yaga

10 Beowulf

11 Billy the Kid

12 Blackbeard

13 Bonnie Parker

14 Cain

15 Canio

16 Captain Ahab

17 Cassandra

18 Charles Darwin

19 Cinderella

20 Circe

21 Cleopatra

22 Clyde Barrow

23 Conan the Barbarian

24 Confucius

25 Cu Chulainn

26 Cyrano de Bergerac

27 David

28 Doc Holiday

29 Doctor Caligari

30 Doctor Faust

31 Don Giovanni

32 Don Quixote

33 Dorian Grey

34 Ebenezer Scrooge

35 Edmond Dantes

36 Emperor Norton

37 Empress Elisabeth

38 Ferdinand Magellan

39 Friedrich Nietzsche

40 Genghis Khan

41 Gregor Samsa

42 Guy Fawkes

43 Hammurabi

44 Harry Houdini

45 Henry Jekyll

46 Hildegard von Bingen

47 Howard Carter

48 Hua Mulan

49 Icarus

50 Ichabod Crane

51 Immanuel Kant

52 Iolanta

53 Jack the Ripper

54 Job

55 John Dee

56 Judas Iscariot

57 Julius Caesar

58 Karl Marx

59 Keith Moon

60 King Arthur

61 King Ludwig II

62 Lady Godiva

63 Leonardo da Vinci

64 Mahatma Gandhi

65 Marco Polo

66 Marie Antoinette

67 Martin Luther

68 Merlin

69 Mona Lisa

70 Morgan le Fay

71 Napoleon Bonaparte

72 Niccolo Machiavelli

73 Niccolo Paganini

74 Nicolaus Copernicus

75 Nikolai Tesla

76 Norma Desmond

77 Orpheus

78 P. T. Barnum

79 Pandora

80 Persephone

81 Phileas Fogg

82 Pinocchio

83 Plato

84 Prince Hamlet

85 Quasimodo

86 Rapunzel

87 Robin Hood

88 Romeo Montague

89 Samson

90 Scaramouche

91 Scheherazade

92 Sherlock Holmes

93 Sigmund Freud

94 Solomon Kane

95 The Artful Dodger

96 Vecna

97 Victor Frankenstein

98 Vlad the Impaler

99 William Tell

100 W. A. Mozart

When I post long tables like these, there's almost always a number of table entries that don't quite make the cut. In this case, the surplus is almost as long as the final list, and a lot of it serves as compelling inspiration. Click the button below if you want to see excerpts of that brainstorming- there's some funky, interesting stuff there.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.