It's Day One of #RPGaDAY2026, and as the theme for this year's #RPGaDAY initiative is all about characters, I thought I'd really challenge myself and create an NPC for each day of the month, based upon the prompt word. These NPCs are all going to be characters in the background of a game I'm working on at the moment called Hex Education – a magic school game I like to imagine as Grange Hill meets Narnia with a healthy dose of Excalibur in there as well. Hopefully, by the end of the month, I'll have 31 NPCs to populate some of the classes at the Academy.
Not only that, but the game uses a Tarot card system similar to my previous game, WILD: Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming. It's been adapted, simplified a bit, and that led me to think about making these NPCs as Tarot cards! Not ones to be used in the game's Hex Deck, but just as extras to keep me drawing. Get some more practice in, so to speak.
The only problem is, using a fineliner on a blank Tarot card is tricky. The gloss on the cards means that the amount of pencils I can do before I crack open the pens is minimal, so the art is going to be rough. Sorry.
So, let's get started with day one...
DISCIPLINE -
Casper Hardacre
Casper has a bit of a temper problem. And rightly so, he always seems to be butt of everyone's jokes. It's not his fault at all – after an unfortunate mistake during his first week he just seemed to spend a lot of his time in between classes enduring name calling and 'accidental' bumps in the corridors that sent his books and work flying.
In reality, Casper is a genuinely nice student, who has endured so much constant teasing that he's finding it hard to resist lashing out and turning everyone who has caused him so much pain into the earthworms they deserve to be. But he won't. He closes his eyes. Counts in his head. Takes a deep breath, and gets on with the day. He's smart too, and they'll soon stop mocking him at the end of the year when he aces those exams.
He knows violence is not the answer. That just lands you in detention or worse. No, he'll show them all on an academic level that he's not someone to be messed with.
