Under some circumstances, they can refer back to non-plural subjects:
If the character writing the incantation fumbles their roll, their error will call the spirit of dead Cthulhu to life.
If a non-player character is killed by the vampire, they will return to life
Note that some English teachers will tell you this is poor English. Theyre wrong. This gets into one of my pet peeves, which is trying to categorize the rules of a language, discovering that your rules are wrong, and then claiming that the people speaking the language are really the ones at fault.
In my experience, they can be used to refer back to non-specific nouns, especially nouns that, while singular, refer to a class of people. I would never use they to refer back to a specific individual. That may be because we know that specific individuals gender, or, if we dont, that in itself is important.
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