Need NPCs? Try These Surprising Lego Sets

Something I've been doing for a while now is purchasing Lego sets that have interesting NPC or Monsters that might work in my campaigns. While there are some very obvious sets out there, like the Dreamzz line of Lego, or anything involving medieval themes - there are also some very good 'Hidden Gems' sort of sets that have been around that may make great additions to your TTRPG!

I was in my favorite comic book shop the other day, where they have some random Lego minifigs on sale, and noticed that they had a monster that looked exactly like a beholder. Come to find it, it's the monster from the Dr. Strange set pictured at the top of this article. This made me realize that there are tons of sets out there that have great potential, so I thought I'd make a list.

Some of the sets featured here may be retired, but acquiring them shouldn't be too bad (unlike the original LOTR sets). Mostly, I will try to keep the sets recent or current. Usually, the longer a set is retired, the more expensive it becomes.

Hidden Gem Sets for Lego TTRPG

1. Dr. Strange and Gargantos Showdown #76205 (pictured above). Set features Dr. Strange's cape which is a great wizard cape! Most importantly, the Gargantos monster is basically a beholder. With some modifications, a jaw could be added with some teeth to make it more menacing. Or, you can leave its tentacle maw as I've done here making it more like a mind-flayer, which is scary and great in its own right.
2. Disney's Sleeping Beauty LEGO Maleficent’s Dragon Form Castle and Horse #43240. This set is currently out and quite honestly, it's got a really cool black dragon and an interesting sword and shield print that won't be found anywhere else. There are also some cool vine parts and a barrel which is always useful!

3. Avatar Neytiri & Thanator vs. AMP Suit Quaritch #75571. This is a fantastic set in my opinion. Not only do you get a cool six-legged panther creation that is out-of-the-box-ready to be a displacer beast, but you also get a great fey-like background which would be awesome for anyone that has plots visiting the fey world! The mech could also be shoe-horned into being a 'construct' or something, it's all very useful!

4. Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls #75574. This is another great set for anyone looking to build scenes that take place in the Fey. The tree, as well as all the flora and fauna in this set, would be amazing for a TTRPG encounter. It's so colorful and vibrant! There's also a great bird-like creature in the set that would be amazing as a monster encounter. As for the blue figures, I've seen them used creatively as frost giants or goliaths. There's a lot of flexibility in this set and its worth it if your adventure is heavy on fey encounters.

5. Harry Potter Ollivanders & Madam Malkin's Robes #76439. This is a great set for anyone looking to add some village/town flare. The shops are kooky and fantastical while providing a large assortment of minifigures and accessories that would provide fantastic NPC or PC gear! On top of that, the price right now is pretty great for a Harry Potter set so bang/buck, might be worth it! *Also worth mentioning the Hogsmeade Village set, although its recently retired, has a creepy-looking-lookingsimilar vibe but I find the accessories less useful than what is pictured here.

6. Lego Harry Potter Aragog #76434. If you like giant spiders - this is the set for you. It's still a current set so get it while you can! What dungeon is complete without a giant spider? Also, there are some great light brown spiders and a web as well. And if you like short Lego minifigures, there are the Harry and Ron pieces. For anyone running Shadowdark sorts of campaigns, there's a lantern.

9. LEGO NINJAGO Young Dragon Riyu 71810. Ninjago does not get enough credit when it comes to contributing some awesome monsters and NPC to Lego TTRPG campaigns. There are a lot of Ninjago sets that feature dragons of various kinds and of course lots of ninjas, skeletons, and creepy-looking-looking baddies. I've included this lower-price Ninjago set because it's just that cool. The minis are awesome. There's a wolf mini plus a girl with cat ears wearing a bandana mask! Oh, and the young dragon looks great!

10. LEGO Marvel Thor vs. Surtur #76289. This is a somewhat recent addition to the marvel line and it's great! There are two black skeletons as well as Thor which has some really cool accessories along with Surtur, a menacing boss-like figure that could be a big-bad in your next Lego TTRPG encounter!

11. LEGO Super Heroes: The Goat Boat 76208. I'm so mad at myself for not picking up this beauty last year before it retired but here it is, one of the best hidden gems for Lego TTRPG - the GOAT boat! All the figures can be highly useful in an TTRPG set in a medieval fantasy time, plus it has goats! Three of the figures come with capes. One has a really cool winged helmet and there are several types of weapons. My recommend would be to use the boat as a normal boat, keep the goats for the chaos factor and have fun!

12. CMF line of Mini Figs - I know this year's fall CMF series focuses specifically on Dungeons and Dragons, which is fantastic! However, there are always figures in sets from years past that might have something special for your table. The great part is that often you can find these figures at used toy stores or online for fairly good deals.

13. Lego Botanical Sets. I'm going to shout out to a member of TabletopBrix's discord who posted these great images of the Bonzai Tree #10281. Such a clever use and the lighting is great! But yeah, the Botanical line, like the desert plants also have great application for Lego in TTRPG games and I hope you consider using them.

That's it for now. There are tons and tons of sets out there with great pieces that could work in your TTRPG games if you look hard enough! I'm sure I'll put out another list like this in the future. Again, my goal was to keep it focussed on current sets or recently retired ones so that costs wouldn't be too high. I've also focussed on smaller-medium sets (with some excepts) because of costs as well.

Lastly, if you come across a creature or a build for something but don't want to buy the set, you can always look up the instructions and 'part out' the build. I'm probably going to do this with the tree from the Avatar set. You can order the parts on Bricklink. I'll have a separate guide on how to do that, but it's a fantastic way to start getting into MOC building.