What can I do for ya?! Getting into it this episode on some RPG creative elements. I was talking shop with another DM (guess GM is more inclusive) and we were trading notes on our stable of old reliable characters. The kind of archetypal, almost intuitive NPC's that you can whip up a moments notice, or even put to paper way in advance of a mission. The group I run with now has a penchant for over-asking about NPCs, and over engaging with them. That takes an encounter like "a passing merchant  offers you a ride on his cart" to one wherein they've interrogated this newly named, fleshed out wool merchant about his political leanings and extensive family history. You always gotta be ready to throw shit back in the groups face, and no GM wants to blank and not have a character ready to go. 

I always record my episodes here in one sitting, and use zero editing software (since I don't have any...) so these were characters that just snap to mind (which is part of this whole exercise). Always make sure you can whip up a world for your players, even if it's completely the opposite direction or expectation from what you had planned. Also, for real, no offence to anyone with accents, linguistics are straight up fascinating.

Take a look at some very thrown together NPC frame examples. Feel free to change names to suit your 'verse (Arabia is the Mid-East in the Warhammer world, etc.):

-Angus: Great Scot! This is my catchall character voice for many a fantasy NPCs. The accent suits dwarves so perfectly, I almost always pair the two up. But it's still versatile and you can be a guttural barbarian lord, drunken town innkeeper, staunchly trained blacksmith or anything in between.

-Farouk: The quick to anger, "generically Arabian" Shuk merchant, or an experienced dessert mercenary who's quick to draw his blade.

-Pei Ling: The hasty Chinese servant/chef/business owner who's unmatched in the arts of the bargain. Or perhaps he's a town guard captain with no patience for new strangers in town and their nonsense.

-Lord Cuthbert: The villain. I'll go into this one at length in the podcast, but British accents (especially the high accents) have an unparalleled gift for sounding villainous. That's not to say evil, as I argue the German accent comes off as way more suspiciously evil automatically (stay tuned for my Klaus characters in a coming Ep.) But the British drawl has a way of sounding calculated, intelligent and dangerous most of the time. You can play this up or down from a devious and scheming Baron/Lord, to a shrewd and clever member of the aristocracy.

-Duke Renoir, Conquistador Compella and Baron Vigioni: European romantic accents give such a wide range of applications, for most walks of life characters. Definitely expect to see more on these later, for Euro-type fantasy settings, these are your knights, holy men, royalty, court, merchants and etc.

-Shlomo the Wise: I always love throwing in a good old Jewish character in the mix, the blend of humour, wiseness and a dash of stereotype always makes for a good time. Passing Bards, merchants or (of course) goldsmiths make for great bases to ground these guys in.

-The funny ones: Some accents are hard to bring to life without the characters coming across as silly, but I still say that gritty, urban Yuan-ti with the fast talking fierceness of a Mexican accent can play. 

-Pirates: I can't believe I neglected to throw this one down. I love pirates, accent included, and it makes up for probably 30% of the NPC voices my party runs into. Who doesn't like the old "yarr" now and again? I'll swashbuckle up a Pirate Captain or adventuring smuggler character here very soon. 

Well that's about it, I encourage you to listen in and tell me what you think of the roster. I'll be going into more RP stuff in the future, so stay tuned.