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Tao Wen

NPCs
Hobgoblin · Barbarian, Berserker · Level 3

Tao Wen

Border guard assigned to a teleportation chamber
“Small point, possibly important,”
AC15
HP32/32
Init
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
ConditionsNone

At the table

Voice

His voice has a dry, slightly rasped edge from years of calling across stone corridors and windy checkpoints. It carries clearly without becoming a shout, with a little catch on hard consonants from his tusks. Alarmed, he speaks faster and more loudly, as if trying to get ahead of the sound of the chamber bells.

He speaks in quick bursts shaped by guard calls and equipment checks, clipping the ends of words when excited. His sentences often arrive in numbered steps, even when he is telling a story. He uses Common with a practical border-post vocabulary and occasionally slips into Goblin when startled.

Speech patterns

Begins urgent remarks with, "Small point, possibly important," then launches into the full report.
Counts alarms aloud by number and date, including the false ones.
Uses precise guard terminology, then explains it in plain language when he notices a listener has lost the thread.
When embarrassed, changes the subject to equipment maintenance.

How to play them

Tao is eager to be useful and readily shares his chamber knowledge, but he responds poorly to being waved away. Give him a concrete task and he becomes an energetic ally. If characters take his observations seriously, he will risk his post to help them investigate the strange glyphs. Reassurance without evidence does little to calm him.

Goal

Identify the unfamiliar warning sequence before the teleportation chamber suffers a real breach, and earn enough trust that the next alarm is taken seriously.

Motivation

He wants his vigilance to protect people rather than merely irritate his superiors, and he wants to prove that his first hesitation will not define him forever.

Secret · GM only

Appearance

Tao Wen is a compact, red-brown hobgoblin with a broad, expressive brow that does most of his arguing before his mouth catches up. His skin has the dry, matte texture of fired clay, and his black hair is clipped close at the sides but stubbornly sticks up at the crown. His lower tusks show when he chews, giving even a thoughtful meal the look of a suppressed grin. He moves in quick, squared steps, abruptly halting to listen for alarms. A small brass toy windmill, its paint rubbed away at one blade, is always pinned inside his collar: an unexpectedly tender keepsake for a hard-driving border guard.

Clothing

A practical scale shirt beneath a dark, weatherproof coat, reinforced gloves, and a border-guard sash with crooked crimson edging. The collar is always misaligned because he keeps tugging it into place. His belt carries a chalk nub and a small brass windmill tucked out of sight.

Body language

His brow lifts and pinches in rapid, readable changes, often announcing a question before he asks it. He leans toward anything that might be an alarm, hands hovering near his axe, and rocks once on his heels when forced to wait. When he is ashamed, he straightens the crooked crimson collar rather than meeting anyone's eyes.

Height
4 feet 8 inches
Build
Short and powerfully built, with thick shoulders and a guard's planted stance.
Eyes
Dark amber
Hair
Black
Skin
Red-brown, matte and claylike
Age
Young adult, 24 years old
Gender
Male
Size
Small

Distinguishing features

An unusually expressive brow that rises in sharp, almost theatrical angles.
Crooked crimson detailing on his uniform collar, which he repeatedly tries and fails to straighten.
A brass toy windmill pinned inside his collar, worn smooth on one blade and incongruously cherished.
His lower tusks show whenever he eats, and his laugh begins as a tight jaw-clench before breaking into a snort.

Personality

12 traits and drives

Tao is impatient to help but cautious about claiming certainty: he charges toward alarms, then triple-checks the details once everyone is safe. He jokes freely with rookies and becomes stiffly formal around officers. When frightened, he gets louder and more procedural, not quieter; when someone is hurt, he becomes startlingly calm.

Alignment
Lawful neutral

Quirks

Taps the nearest doorframe three times before entering a room, claiming it helps him hear whether the hinges are lying.
Keeps a private tally of false alarms and gives each one a terse nickname.
When thinking, arranges nearby objects into pairs, then immediately denies doing it.
Offers people a bite of whatever he is eating, then watches their reaction with the seriousness of a weapons inspection.

Habits

Responds to any unexpected bell, flash, or hiss by standing and reaching for his weapon before asking what happened.
After a false alarm, checks every nearby person for embarrassment or injury, then records the event with excessive precision.
When someone is genuinely in danger, his eager chatter vanishes and he gives short, clear instructions.
On quiet shifts, he tests the chamber's floor seams with his boot and rehearses evacuation routes under his breath.

Traits · 3

He wants to be the first to respond and the last to declare a threat understood.
He is protective of nervous newcomers, though his help can feel like an inspection.
He treats routine duties with ceremonial seriousness but privately cherishes small, silly keepsakes.

Flaws · 3

He treats uncertainty as an emergency and can wear down allies with repeated checks.
He rushes toward danger before understanding it.
He takes professional criticism personally, especially when it concerns his judgment.

Fears · 3

Missing a genuine warning because everyone has learned to dismiss his alarms.
Freezing again while someone depends on him.
Being sent away from the chamber before he can discover what the new glyph sequence means.

Wants and needs · 3

Wants his warnings assessed on evidence rather than dismissed by reputation.
Needs to tell Captain Javad what he found before the chamber's next activation.
Needs someone to remind him that caution and courage are not opposites.

Combat

AC 15 · HP 32 · 30 ft.

Tao tries to keep enemies away from the teleportation controls and civilians. He uses his short legs and Nimble Escape to reposition around cover, then closes with his greataxe. Against a dangerous foe, he rages and uses Reckless Attack to hit hard, accepting the risk to keep pressure off less durable allies. If there is an alarm or a vulnerable person nearby, he abandons pursuit to protect them.

Tao Wen

Small humanoid (hobgoblin), lawful neutral
Armor Class15
Hit Points32
Speed30 ft.
Level3
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
Saving ThrowsStrengthConstitution
SkillsAthleticsIntimidationPerceptionSurvival
SensesDarkvision 60 ft.; passive Perception 11
Languages
Common,
Goblin
Rage. As a bonus action, Tao Wen enters a rage for up to 1 minute. While raging, he has advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, gains a bonus to melee damage with Strength-based attacks, and has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. His rage ends early if he is knocked unconscious or finishes a turn without attacking a hostile creature or taking damage.
Reckless Attack. On his first attack on his turn, Tao Wen can choose to attack recklessly, gaining advantage on Strength-based melee weapon attack rolls that turn. Until his next turn, attack rolls against him have advantage.
Danger Sense. Tao Wen has advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects he can see, such as traps and spells.
Frenzy. While raging, Tao Wen can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of his turns. When his rage ends, he suffers one level of exhaustion.
Hobgoblin Fey Ancestry. Tao Wen has advantage on saving throws against being charmed.
Custom, Chamber Drill. Tao Wen has drilled so long in the teleportation chamber that he can recognize the chamber's warning chime and flashing rune sequence. This grants no automatic mechanical bonus, but may help him identify a known malfunction or false alarm.

Actions

Greataxe. Melee Weapon Attack: to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: slashing damage, or while raging. Tao Wen uses two hands to wield the weapon.
Shortsword. Melee Weapon Attack: to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: piercing damage, or while raging.
Bonus Action: Frenzy Attack. Tao Wen makes one greataxe attack. If he is raging and has chosen the Berserker's Frenzy option, he can make this attack as a bonus action on his turn.
Bonus Action: Nimble Escape. Tao Wen takes the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action as a bonus action. This is a goblin trait from the legacy 2014 rules.

Reactions

Custom: Guard's Flinch. When a creature Tao can see hits him with an attack, Tao can use his reaction to add to his AC against that attack, potentially causing it to miss. He must be able to see the attacker.

Services they sell

Can escort authorized visitors through the border post and explain the chamber's basic safety procedures.
Can help identify familiar teleportation warning signals and arrange access to the outer control room.

Rewards they can give

A chamber access badge that grants entry to the outer control room, if Captain Javad approves.
A reliable warning about the strange teleportation glyphs.
A family repair kit and a letter of thanks from Aunt Nara if Tao is safely reunited with her.

Equipment

  • Greataxe (martial melee weapon)A well-used two-handed axe with a wrapped grip and a small notch marking each year of service.
  • Scale mail (armor)Interlocking metal scales worn over a padded coat.
  • Shortsword (martial melee weapon)A straight, plain blade carried for close quarters.
  • Chamber-guard kit (adventuring gear)A guard's whistle, chalk, a maintenance checklist, and a brass toy windmill with one blade rubbed nearly bare.

Possessions

A brass toy windmill with one blade rubbed smooth
A folded maintenance note he has not turned in
A pocket notebook listing all seventeen false alarms
A worn family letter from his aunt

Background

Tao Wen was raised on the border road by his aunt, a wagon mender who taught him to count axles, read weather, and never trust a quiet machine. At nineteen he enlisted as a guard at the teleportation chamber, proud to be posted where every arrival could change the frontier. In two years he has answered seventeen false alarms: misfires, cleaning flares, one apprentice's prank, and a kettle left too close to a rune plate. The first alarm he answered was real. A frightened courier arrived half-translated by a damaged transit circle, and Tao froze for a heartbeat while senior guards shouted over one another. The courier's warning saved a nearby settlement from a raid, but Tao has never forgiven himself for that hesitation. Since then he has trained himself to move before fear can bargain with him. He sends most of his pay to his aunt, who is quietly refusing it, and has become an unwilling mentor to the chamber's anxious trainee, Dima. His current trouble is that the warning glyphs have begun flickering in a sequence he has never seen, while his captain insists the system is safe and orders him to stop raising alarms.

Role in the story

An energetic, useful guard and potential ally whose seventeen false alarms make others dismiss the one warning that may matter. He can lead characters into the teleportation chamber's maintenance spaces and give them a personal stake in uncovering its hidden danger.

“At nineteen he enlisted as a guard at the teleportation chamber, proud to be posted where every arrival could change the frontier.”
From their background
Faction
A junior border guard assigned to the teleportation chamber, serving under Captain Javad.

Known connections

Dima, a nervous chamber apprentice whom Tao is teaching to recognize the warning runes; Dima thinks Tao is overbearing but trusts his instincts.
Aunt Nara, the wagon mender who raised him and still sends him patched socks with his returned pay tucked inside.
Captain Javad, Tao's commanding officer, who values his courage but is tired of his repeated false-alarm reports.
The courier Tao failed to help quickly during his first real emergency; Tao does not know whether the courier survived the journey onward.
Major secret · GM only
Minor secrets · GM only

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