REF: Noble

Time to go back to the dungeon for another random encounter! Picking randomly, we end up on level 2 of the crawl. Rolling for our encounter, we get a 12, which is a Noble (2-12 appearing).

Huh?

Like the Traders in an earlier post, a noble doesn't sound like someone you'd bump into as you are working your way through a dungeon. Going back to the monster listings, it describes a noble as "the lord of a castle and any of his or her relatives." In Basic, the encounter will be with a 3rd level fighter by default, but can be any class or level. The standard encounter will be the noble (F3), his squire (F2), and possibly 1d10 retainers (F1s). That's potentially quite a crowd! Not to mention the possibility of noncombatant attendants, like torchbearers or porters.

So let's dive in and see what we can make of this.

Since the lord of a castle is usually 9th level or more, I'm going to say this is a relative. For the sake of building a narrative, we'll say the baron won't let their heir go off adventuring, so this is a younger child/nephew/niece. Let's go with niece, just to break the stereotype.

This young lady thinks her cousin is a twit and doesn't deserve the title or estate. She goes off and becomes a tough adventuring type, making it to 3rd level. She hears a rumor of some item or treasure that might help her in some plot to discredit her cousin and put her in a position to be named the baron's heir instead. She gathers a few loyal troops and her squire (the d10 results in four 1st level fighters with her) , then heads to the dungeon seeking the object of her quest. While the PCs are working their way through the same crawl, the two groups run into each other.

The noble could be hostile or friendly. Perhaps she would consider joining forces or hiring the PCs to help. Things might get dicey if she decides that she has the sole claim to whatever she's after, while the PCs see it as party loot. If the PCs refused to join or work for her, she might decide they need eliminating. Fighting a half dozen fighters of 1st - 3rd level sounds like no picnic. What's worse, what if the PCs win and kill her? What if word gets back to the baron that his niece wasn't killed by monsters, but slaughtered by a group of local murder hobos?