d100 NPCs to Populate Your Tabletop City

When you're GMing an urban encounter for D&D or other TTRPGs, you occasionally just need somebody—anybody!—to add to a scene. Your city has a cool central hook and a handful of neat points of interest, but your players just asked you "who do we see at this bar?," and you need to answer them quickly!

Whenever you need to add one or more NPCs to a scene, consider rolling on this massive table. These are very lightly detailed, meaning they are likely to be compatible with almost any setting. Few specific fantasy races are listed, and you can always tweak genders, ages, or professions as needed to make sure the NPC fits your specific campaign world. If all this list does is serve to inspire the next town you build, all the better!

Note that this table is geared toward fantasy settings. You could roll for inspiration for more modern or futuristic campaign worlds, but you'll probably need to tweak a few more details. 

1. A flirtatious librarian who never speaks above a whisper
2. Twin blacksmiths with horrible reputations; no guild will welcome them and no employer will hire them
3. An aging farmer who has come to town to see if some young urbanite might purchase his farm
4. A charming child obsessed with onions who will follow and pester any party he comes across
5. A honorable knight from a distant land who is disappointed with the culture of the town in which he finds himself
6. A jurist who has lost faith in the law
7. A tax collector with crippling addiction problems
8. An ambitious young angler itching to purchase a boat to call his own
9. An impressively quick child who will deliver messages to anyone in the city for a comically cheap fee
10. A retinue of local ruler's sycophants who snicker as they strut through town
11. A forgetful hostler who definitely won't notice if the party "accidentally" takes the wrong horse
12. An honorable patrolman who must decide whether to rat out his corrupt colleagues
13. A useless political figure who follows rules too closely to ever get anything accomplished
14. A wealthy privateer drunkenly enjoying some time off
15. A sell-sword with a checkered past who hopes to finally find an honorable employer
16. A jester who is beloved by nobles but reviled by the commonfolk
17. A grieving mother who has sworn an oath of vengeance; she will torture her son's murderer once she has buried the boy
18. A gang of orphans who live in the belfry of a church, unbeknownst the church's clergy
19. An unassuming candlemaker who is the object of desire for countless women across town
20. A retired hero looking to sell trophies and used weapons from a lifetime of adventure
21. A jeweler who spends a few months every year sourcing gemstones in distant lands
22. A polyglot savant regularly hired by researchers, diplomats, and spy guilds to translate sensitive texts
23. A messenger who loves challenging able-bodied travelers to a running competition
24. An amateur surgeon who will accept just about any payment for her shoddy work
25. A young woman who has fled an unhappy marriage and must remain in disguise
26. An expert metalworker who refuses to craft instruments of violence
27. A filthy, unhappy man who trains and sells attack dogs
28. A successful innkeep—famous for her famous soups—who is looking for a husband to help manage the inn
29. A flower vendor with a terminal illness and a desire to leave the city behind
30. A family of musicians employed by the local ruler to keep the town hall alive with song
31. A teenage pickpocket who is in desperate need of a father figure
32. A mischievous old woman that everyone incorrectly accuses of witchcraft
33. A legendary scam artist who finally has a great idea for a legitimate business
34. A butler who legitimately loves his work and is going to become unhinged when he is soon let go
35. An elegant lady who regularly hosts extravagant galas but is rapidly exhausting her fortune
36. A banker who is pathetically inept at arithmetic
37. A military commander trying to drum up support for a new crusade
38. A greedy landowner who has made one too many enemies and must now hire a squad of bodyguards
39. A band of marauders laying low after a raid gone wrong
40. A lady-in-waiting notably well versed in philosophy, mathematics, and literature
41. A private investigator over-reliant on brawling, trespassing, and jumping to conclusions
42. A toddler with a voracious appetite who delights and mystifies the town's grocers
43. An eccentric magnate who wants to reshape the city by buying off political leaders
44. A manic herald always looking for something important to announce to no one in particular
45. An improvising bard with no formal training who is regularly accused of plagiarism
46. An arborist who collects seeds, leaves, and twigs for simple botanical experiments
47. A doting husband who is more than happy to share his wife with her many lovers
48. A skeevy salesman peddling revolting perfumes and soaps
49. A prominent noble with progressive views who does not know he will soon be assassinated
50. A one-eyed bandit who has a habit of escaping captivity almost immediately upon getting arrested
51. A historian who believes this town is key to understanding some misunderstood past event
52. A shy butcher who is the bastard of a foreign king
53. A shaman from the outskirts of town who needs a handful of ingredients for a powerful ritual
54. A corpulent woman that lives in a tree and knows all of the town's gossip
55. An intensely loyal soldier responsible for keeping a small flame eternally burning
56. A devout moneylender who donates most of his profits to the church
57. A modest portraitist whose simple but evocative paintings genuinely flatter her subjects
58. A conniving schemer who has a surprisingly foolproof plan to oust the local ruler and take their place
59. A charismatic burglar who needs the help of 3-to-7 adventurers to help him pull off his latest heist
60. A senile fruit-picker who helped organize a rebellion many decades ago
61. A beekeeper who practices profane pagan rites
62. An art thief desperately searching for a reputable fence
63. A poet whose verses have traveled the world and inspired thousands but who will likely die penniless
64. A nobleman-turned-ascetic in the process of ridding himself of worldly possessions
65. A mute assassin working for a foreign cabal
66. An aloof devil-worshipper who is surprisingly open with their beliefs
67. A madman employed by the town's leader for his unorthodox but compelling advice
68. An itinerant healer who detests magic
69. A drunk who keeps unexpectedly solving crimes the town's guards haven't been able to crack
70. A mostly retired exorcist keen on training apprentices
71. A holy knight on a crusade to slay a seemingly innocuous miller outside of town
72. Neighbors who are so in love that they've decided to tear down the wall between their homes
73. A theologian who is a walking encyclopedia of foreign faiths
74. A beer-brewing monk who is unknowingly poisoning the city with tainted ale
75. A handsome philanderer cursed to always find pleasure but never find happiness
76. A malicious inquisitor frequently misled by the lies his subjects blurt out when tortured
77. A gravedigger who has noticed a worrying uptick in recent deaths
78. A caravan guard wielding impressive magical armaments, likely stolen or looted
79. A priest with doubts about his faith who nonetheless possesses unambiguous divine power
80. An obedient bear employed by the military who seems to love contributing to the war effort
81. A tinkerer who doesn't realize he has invented something that will transform society
82. A marksman who wears bizarre protective clothing due to extreme allergies
83. A trio of tailors, one of whom is overly complimentary, one who is a jerk, and one who speaks in riddles
84. A pyromancer who is struggling to manipulate any of the other elements
85. A deposed warlord who seeks to build a new army from scratch
86. A sage who has stored all of her memories in a tome... but has forgotten she has done so
87. Three imps who insist on pranking rank-and-file guards while keeping to the shadows
88. A vampiric thrall performing chores for their master
89. A troubled child who beheld an eldritch deity and narrowly resisted succumbing to madness
90. A maid who always carries a talking frog with her, despite not really enjoying the amphibian's company
91. A dragon-rider whose confidence is shaken after a recent skirmish with her rival
92. A bubbly satyr who grills meats for the destitute but will not say where he acquires said meats
93. A medium who can easily contact spirits but habitually misrepresents their sentiments
94. A vendor of impressive arcane talismans enchanted by his bound genie
95. A ghost who cannot pass on to the afterlife until she hears a king confess to grievous crimes
96. A water spirit inhabiting an unassuming well or fountain
97. A golem whose master was killed and is thus suddenly free of obligations
98. A forgotten minor goddess patiently waiting for her last surviving follower to pass
99. A recently infected werewolf considering whether or not to flee society altogether
100. A mysterious wanderer who may just be a prophesied messianic figure