Fantasy worlds wouldn’t be complete without distinct non-player characters — all possessing their own unique backstory, personality and related accents. It adds essential flavor to any RPG adventure.
Unfortunately, your well-meaning but talentless Dungeon Master Nick literally can’t do anything except his own standard Northeastern American. That, however, hasn’t stopped him trying. And trying. And trying.
1. Posh British
Noblemen in your DM’s universe are supposed to possess the perfect BBC-anchor-pronunciation of King Charles, but in Nick’s mouth end up sounding like that one cousin of yours who used to live in South Carolina, now works in New York, and recently sustained a head injury.
2. Pirate
Your adventures sailing off the coast of your DM’s harbor capital saw you quickly beset by sirens, merfolk, and even a kraken — but it was your encounter with Nick’s pirate voice that was somehow the most scary. Sounded like a valley girl accent with some “Avast!”s thrown in.
3. Geoff Keighley
In a rather strange turn of events your DM started rapid fire listing off video games titles before shouting about a world premiere advertisement. Hard to understand how it was part of the story – and sounded nothing like the real Geoff.
4. Cockney
The seedy underbelly of the sprawling city of “Grout” is full of crime bosses, pickpockets and bar wenches, who in a TV adaptation would surely sound like they were straight out of a production of Oliver Twist. Unfortunately, your DM’s NPCs sound more like they’ve come straight out of the bayou, which would be impressive if it was anything like what he was going for.
5. Northern English
Game of Thrones made everyone think they could do a decent Jon Snow impression, to the detriment of D&D campaigns everywhere. Now every hardened soldier you come across in Nick’s high-fantasy world comes paired alongside his tortured attempt to sound just like they do at Winterfell. But weirdly high-pitched, for some reason.
6. Jerma
For deep lore reasons that you’re yet to uncover, dwarves in your DM’s fantasy world all ostensibly speak like streamer Jerma985. Except they don’t, because Nick can’t grasp the subtleties of Jerma’s fair-weather Boston accent, so important NPCs like Mayor Dolk Thunderhammer instead sound like Kennedys who’ve taken too many quaaludes.
7. Eastern European
Meeting Minsc and Jaheira in Baldur’s Gate 3 inspired your DM to add a new accent to his repertoire, much to your party’s general irritation. Sultry women who should probably sound like sexy Russian spies end up more like angry German border guards, making your Wisdom saves against their “Charm Person” spells feel really unfair.
8. Hittite
Nick explained that because no-one knows exactly what an ancient Hittite from 1600 BC would have sounded like speaking modern English, he would have to use academic articles and a smidge of guesswork to work it out. So why have they ended up sounding like they come from East Baltimore?
9. Scottish
Why you’d choose to create a whole city filled with people who have an accent you can’t do is anyone’s guess, but it certainly made the five session arc in Glasgoburgh a more torturous experience than it needed to be. At least he added in a couple of “Och, aye!”s and quotes from Shrek so it was clear what he was trying to do.
10. Medieval Peasant
If authentic Middle English was too hard, the gentle people who work the land of your DM’s world could feasibly have sounded like rural New Englanders, or perhaps Southern with a couple of “thee”s and “thou”s thrown in. But no — whatever accent Nick was trying to do to bring these simple people to life, they’ve ended up Jamaican. And you can’t even call him out, because you know it’s not intentional.
11. Spanish
The daring swordsman NPC who joined your party on a quest to steal a priceless artifact had more than a hint of Inigo Montoya about him — but he sounded more like Gilbert Gottfried with a lisp. Your party had to pretend they were laughing at a meme they all coincidentally remembered at exactly the same time he spoke.
12. Australian
Nick refuses to leave the Australians out of his sprawling fantasy world, though it would probably be a mercy if he did. It’s the only one he’s remotely self-conscious about, because he worries sometimes that it sounds a bit too New Zealand. If it ever sounds like either, you’ll be sure to let him know.
13. Wilhelm Scream
No, it’s not strictly an accent, but Nick did it once and then asked if you ‘got the reference’. Then he did it again. You asked if it was from porn. He said it was a famous movie sound effect called the ‘Dilbert scream’. You asked, ‘What, like Scott Adams’ comic?’. Then he sighed and told you to roll for initiative.
14. His Own
Just last month, outside a brothel that doubled as a board game cafe, you met a mysterious Level 20 Human Bard called ‘Mick’ who purportedly liked to weave fantastical tales for his friends. Nick couldn’t stop giggling about his clever self-insert, but you didn’t understand what was going on, because his impression of himself was so far off the mark that you and everyone else genuinely thought it was an offensive caricature of one of the player’s moms. Anyway, that party member beat a 35 AC to bludgeon ‘Mick’ to death and the campaign has been paused since.
