This is part of a series of RPG characters, creatures, items, adventure ideas, and locations inspired by random entries from Wikipedia. The material I create may grow distant from its roots.
Today we have Sharad Malhotra, a minor Indian TV actor.
This is a great example of a Wikipedia entry that requires digging. Deep in the first paragraph of his biography, we read, “He did a lot of ads prominent among them being ads for P.C.Chandra [Jewelers] ([he] was the first male model to have done a jewellery campaign).” Interesting. A small-time TV actor who models jewelry.
Luigi Castellani’s Seated Noble (cropped)
Amar is a local celebrity in this large market town. He belongs to a small troupe of actors who put on farces and puppet shows during market days. Everyone’s seen Amar.
But lately, Amar’s been acting strangely. While he’s always dressed with a flamboyant air–despite his troupe’s meager earnings–a few months ago he began wearing a huge emerald on a gold necklace. (Since Amar maintains a public lifestyle, nobody’s had the chance to steal it yet.) Ever since, he’s been selling smaller versions of his necklace to young men and women. He claims he has a deal with a foreign merchant named Chandra, who recognized Amar’s fame as an opportunity to recruit a celebrity as a salesman.
But his clients always end up coming back within Amar’s orbit, hanging around wherever he happens to be and laughing at all his jokes. Some have seen Amar and his “followers” all enter a house for some kind of meeting.
In reality, Amar has come under the spell of the mysterious merchant Chandra. Chandra leads a new cult, the Followers of the Unseen Eye. The cult’s symbol is the emerald, etched or drawn on all their papers and artifacts. Chandra wears an even larger emerald than Amar. Each necklace is a magical artifact that gives the wearer a moderate psychic hold over anyone who wears a smaller version.
This would only be a mild curiosity, except that an informant has told the town’s militia that the Followers of the Unseen Eye worship demons, and Chandra plans to kidnap several locals for a human sacrifice. Indeed, perhaps Amar’s followers are meant for the knife….