NPC Quirks & Mannerisms

• Counts everything twice — Coins, stairs, people in the room. A merchant once shorted them everything they had; being certain is the scar.
• Never says goodbye — Just leaves. The last person they said it to didn't come back, and they've decided the word is the problem.
• Addresses everyone by profession — 'Baker. Soldier. Thief.' Claims names are for friends, and they're rationing those.
• Always sits facing the door — And will pay, charm, or intimidate to get that chair. Knows exactly who might walk in someday.
• Apologizes to objects — Bumped tables, dropped tools, a kicked stone. Grew up around a hedge-witch who insisted everything keeps score.
• Tastes a pinch of salt before business — Old superstition: salt breaks glamours. Twice in their life, it has.
• Quotes a dead philosopher constantly — Half the quotes are invented. The philosopher is invented too, which a literate party member might eventually notice.
• Keeps shaking hands a beat too long — They're counting your pulse. A healer by training, they can't stop checking whether people are well — or lying.
• Whistles the same four notes — It's the first half of a signal from their smuggling years. They've never heard anyone whistle the second half. If someone does, everything changes.
• Refuses to be drawn or described — Turns from sketch artists, deflects questions about their face. Somewhere, a portrait is hunting for its subject.
• Feeds every animal they meet — Crusts in every pocket. They believe one of the strays in this city is a transformed prince, and they intend to be remembered kindly.
• Never touches money directly — Gloves, cloth, a coin-tray. They once held a cursed sovereign for an afternoon and the month that followed is why they flinch.
• Corrects everyone's grammar mid-crisis — Pedantry is how they keep their hands from shaking. The worse the danger, the more precise they get.
• Collects buttons from the dead — One per funeral, with the family's blessing — usually. A jar of them sits on their shelf, and they can name every one.
• Asks permission before entering any room — Loudly, of the room itself. They lived a year in a house that punished anyone who didn't.
• Always eats dessert first — A soldier's habit: never die before the best part. The campaigns are over; the philosophy stayed.
• Lies about small things only — The weather, what they had for lunch, the color of a passing cat. Big things they tell with unsettling honesty. The small lies are practice for one large one they're saving.
• Stacks anything stackable — Coins, crates, polite arguments. Disorder physically pains them; an enemy who scatters a stack mid-negotiation learns what their anger looks like.
• Hums when someone lies — Doesn't know they do it. Everyone else in the room learns the tell within a week, which makes them the most dangerous dinner guest in the city.
• Wears a single glove — Switches hands daily. The bare hand is for friends; the gloved one signed something they regret.
• Names their weapons after exes — Cheerfully introduces each one. The newest knife has no name yet, and they're seeing someone.
• Tips outrageously, tracks it precisely — A ledger of every gratuity ever given. They're buying the city's goodwill one coin at a time and intend to collect, all at once, on one specific day.
• Speaks to their shadow when thinking — 'What do we reckon?' The shadow has never answered. They keep asking because once — just once — it nodded.
• Refuses all chairs but stools — Backs of chairs block escape routes. Ask them where they learned that and watch the friendly conversation end.

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