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Ling Fan

NPCs
Tiefling · Fighter, Battle Master · Level 7

Ling Fan

Senior Guard
AC19
HP67/67
Init
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
ConditionsNone

At the table

Voice

Her voice carries the dry rasp of someone who has spent years projecting over the grind and chime of transit machinery. It is steady and economical, with a clipped rhythm shaped by giving clear orders under pressure. She does not need to shout to sound authoritative.

Her words have the dry, slightly rough resonance of someone accustomed to calling instructions over machinery and through a helmet. Years of station duty have made her precise with directions and careful with names. She speaks in compact clauses, placing emphasis on the verb that matters. Her humor, when it appears, is plain and deadpan.

Speech patterns

She asks for names, destinations, and reasons in that order.
She uses short, exact sentences while on duty, but gives dry, detailed explanations when discussing machinery.
When someone is frightened, she tells them what she is going to do before she does it.
She does not raise her voice to command attention; she states the consequence and waits.

How to play them

Ling Fan is courteous but observant with strangers. She asks practical questions and judges answers by consistency rather than charm. Treat her openly and she will explain the station's rules and offer help. Threaten her staff or the transit system and she becomes immovable. Evidence of sabotage earns her attention, though she will ask visitors to prove they can be trusted before sharing sensitive details.

Goal

Find who is tampering with the transit rings before a deliberate failure turns the chamber into a disaster.

Motivation

She believes a guard's duty is to protect people first, and the systems and rules that serve them second.

Secret · GM only

Appearance

Ling Fan has the lean, sharp-featured look of a person who has learned to occupy exactly as much space as a situation permits. Her deep warm burgundy skin makes the iron-grey of her uniform seem colder, while the crimson rank collar looks almost tailored to her coloring. Short, unadorned horns curve forward above amber eyes with vertical pupils that catch the teleportation chamber's light. Her thin tail moves with controlled patience, a quiet counterpoint to her nearly motionless posture. She smells distinctly of orange peel and clove, a clean, unexpected trace that lingers around the stern senior guard.

Clothing

A fitted iron-grey guard uniform with crimson collar detailing that marks her senior rank, reinforced seams, polished but practical plate over the torso, dark gloves, and high boots scuffed at the toes. She wears no ornamental jewelry.

Body language

She holds her shoulders square without puffing herself up, shifts aside to give others a clear path, and uses her tail to mark the boundary she does not want crossed. In danger, her stillness becomes absolute; when she is thinking hard, the tail tip makes one slow, deliberate curve.

Height
5 feet 8 inches
Build
Lean, compactly strong, with the balanced stance of a trained swordswoman.
Eyes
Amber with vertical pupils
Hair
Black, cut close and kept neatly combed back from her horns.
Skin
Deep, warm burgundy
Age
Late thirties
Gender
Female
Size
Medium

Distinguishing features

Short, forward-curving horns, kept entirely unadorned.
A thin tail that moves with measured patience even when she stands still.
Amber eyes with vertical pupils that catch the chamber's shifting light.
A faint, memorable scent of orange peel and clove.

Personality

12 traits and drives

Ling Fan is disciplined enough to make a crisis feel orderly, yet compassionate enough to break formation when a person is being abandoned. She gives strangers the same clipped fairness she gives colleagues, but around exhausted staff her humor surfaces in dry, unexpected flashes. When the station is calm, she is patient and almost self-effacing; when its safety is threatened, she becomes intensely controlling and has trouble trusting anyone else to act.

Alignment
Lawful neutral

Quirks

She turns an orange-peel strip between two fingers while reading a report, then folds it into a tiny square.
She counts a chamber's exits under her breath, but skips the final number if she is interrupted.
She aligns cups and tools with the edge of a table while listening.
She taps her horn once against a wooden doorframe before entering a room she does not know.
She uses her tail to nudge dropped objects within reach rather than bending to retrieve them.

Habits

She checks the nearest exit and the chamber's ward indicators whenever she enters a room.
She memorizes visitors' faces and their stated destination, then notices when their stories change.
She lets junior guards explain their reasoning before correcting them, unless someone is in immediate danger.
When a rule threatens a person needlessly, she makes a practical exception and records the truth afterward.

Traits · 3

She follows procedures closely because she has seen what one failed safeguard can cost, but she refuses to let procedure become an excuse for cruelty.
She is reserved with visitors and quietly playful with the people who work beside her every day.
She appears unshakable in emergencies, then replays every decision afterward.

Flaws · 3

She takes responsibility for outcomes she cannot control.
Her habit of quietly bending rules makes it difficult for superiors to know when she is acting outside orders.
She can mistake protecting someone for listening to them.

Fears · 3

A second transit surge caused by a fault she could have noticed.
Turning Jun into a symbol of her own guilt instead of respecting his independence.
Discovering that someone in the guard is deliberately endangering the station.

Wants and needs · 3

She wants the transit chamber secured without putting its workers under suspicion.
She needs someone outside the guard hierarchy to investigate the sabotage impartially.
She wants Jun to be treated as a capable colleague, not as the person she once rescued.

Combat

AC 19 · HP 67 · 30 ft.

Ling Fan protects the teleportation chamber and prioritizes stopping enemies from reaching its controls. She uses the room's architecture to keep allies behind her, attacks whoever threatens a bystander or the mechanism, and saves a superiority die for a decisive parry or a precise strike. She uses Action Surge to end a dangerous breach quickly, and Second Wind only when holding the line matters more than retreating.

Ling Fan

Medium humanoid (tiefling), lawful neutral
Armor Class19
Hit Points67
Speed30 ft.
Level7
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
Saving ThrowsStrengthConstitution
SkillsAthleticsInsightPerceptionIntimidation
SensesDarkvision 60 ft.; passive Perception 15
Languages
Common,
Infernal
Fighting Style. Defense. While wearing armor, Ling Fan gains a bonus to AC.
Second Wind. Once per short or long rest, she can use a bonus action to regain hit points.
Action Surge. Once per short or long rest, she can take one additional action on her turn.
Extra Attack. Ling Fan attacks twice when she takes the Attack action.
Battle Master. Ling Fan has four d8 superiority dice, regained on a short or long rest. Maneuver save . Her maneuvers are Riposte, Precision Attack, and Menacing Attack.
Tiefling traits. Darkvision 60 feet and resistance to fire damage.
Infernal Legacy. She knows thaumaturgy. Once per long rest, she can cast hellish rebuke as a 2nd-level spell.

Spells

Thaumaturgy (cantrip, transmutation). A minor supernatural effect associated with her infernal heritage, such as making her eyes glow or causing a small flame to flicker.
Hellish Rebuke (level 2, evocation). When a creature she can see within 60 feet damages her, she can use her reaction to make it take fire damage on a failed Dexterity saving throw, or half as much on a success. Once per long rest.

Actions

Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 () slashing damage, or 8 () if wielded in two hands. Ling Fan can expend a superiority die to use one of her known maneuvers.
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: to hit, range 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: 6 () piercing damage.
Multiattack. Ling Fan makes two longsword attacks.
Menacing Attack. Ling Fan can expend a superiority die when she hits with a weapon attack to add the die to the damage roll and force the target to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the target is frightened of her until the end of Ling Fan's next turn.
Precision Attack. Ling Fan can expend a superiority die and add it to one weapon attack roll. She can use this after seeing the roll but before its effects are resolved.

Reactions

Riposte. When a creature Ling Fan can see hits her with a melee attack, she can expend one superiority die to reduce the damage by the number rolled plus 3. If the attacker is within her reach, she can make one melee weapon attack against it as part of the same reaction.
Infernal Rebuke. When a creature Ling Fan can see damages her, she can use her reaction to cast hellish rebuke as a 2nd-level spell, dealing fire damage on a failed Dexterity saving throw, or half as much on a success. Once used, she cannot do so again until she finishes a long rest.

Services they sell

Can arrange a guarded passage through the station.
Can explain transit chamber procedures and safety restrictions.
Can help identify mechanical faults if given access to the relevant equipment.

Rewards they can give

A safe escort through the teleportation station.
Access to restricted transit records if she trusts the party.
A favor from the station's repair crew if the characters help uncover the sabotage.

Equipment

  • Service longsword (weapon)A finely maintained longsword with a plain iron guard and a grip wrapped in dark cord.
  • Guard crossbow (weapon)A heavy crossbow, carried for emergencies in the transit chamber.
  • Senior guard armor (armor)Reinforced plate and uniform designed for mobility in tight corridors.
  • Duty kit (adventuring gear)A whistle, keys to restricted gates, a small notebook of shift observations, and a tin of dried orange peel.

Possessions

A duty notebook containing shift observations and unsent reports.
A tin of dried orange peel.
A plain iron key ring for restricted station gates.

Background

Ling Fan grew up among the crowded furnace alleys beneath the capital's old teleportation station, where her mother repaired ceramic conduits and taught her to recognize dangerous cracks by their sound. As a young guard, Ling was assigned to a chamber during a disastrous transit surge. She obeyed the evacuation order, but a junior operator was trapped behind a jammed gate. Ling doubled back, forced it open, and saved him; the operator, Jun Tal, lost the use of one leg, and the station lost several lives before the surge was contained. Ling was reprimanded for breaking formation and privately praised for saving Jun. The contradiction made her a meticulous officer who values procedure but will violate it without hesitation when a life is at stake. She rose through the station guard and now supervises its inner checkpoint. Her mother, Sera, still repairs the station's neglected conduits, while Jun works as a dispatch clerk and resents being treated as someone Ling must protect. Recently, a sequence of tiny, deliberate faults has appeared in the transit rings. Ling suspects someone is testing the system, but her superiors insist the damage is ordinary wear.

Role in the story

A capable checkpoint authority who can become a valuable ally, an obstacle to unauthorized access, or the first person to recognize that the transit chamber is under threat.

“As a young guard, Ling was assigned to a chamber during a disastrous transit surge.”
From their background
Faction
Senior officer of the capital teleportation station guard; loyal to its people more than to its administrators.

Known connections

Sera Fan, her mother, is a conduit repairer whose warnings about the transit rings are being ignored.
Jun Tal, the former junior operator she rescued, is now a dispatch clerk. He wants her to stop making decisions on his behalf.
Captain Kelm Daret, her blunt and ambitious superior, considers Ling indispensable but suspects she is investigating without authorization.
Major secret · GM only
Minor secrets · GM only

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