D&D 5E Help me design a scheming long-term nemesis for my new campaign

[Paul Farquhar]

Step one.... never ever ever ever let him meet the group in person until you are ready for the final fight. Sendings from a far, notes, the impact of his deeds noted through secondaries....all good.

But 5e is not forgiving to single monsters, you have to assume that should the villain and heroes ever be in the same room, the heroes will attack them, and kick the crap out of them. Let it be only one fight....the final fight.

Villains who the players never meet are boring to the level of pointlessness. The trick is to make sure the players don't know the character is a villain. or to make sure they can't kill the villain without also killing the good guys, and therefore losing anyway.

It doesn't really matter if players do unexpectedly kill a villain. They were just working for someone else, or it was a clone, or somehow, they returned....

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you're tying to Ahkarin Sangar, how about Genie patron, and have them working for Navid the Ashen Heir? This could particularly work if you want them to be more of a morally gray troublemaking rival/ally rather than an evil villain.

Tying to San Citlan, working for Itzmin and having Pazuzu (fiend) as a patron is a natural fit, and works better as an evil villain. Or maybe it could be Orencio reborn and in disguise? Or mega plot twist and have Dona Rosa actually be the villain pulling the strings behind the whole operation?

You are reading my mind on a lot of this.

And yeah, this nemesis is going to be more along the lines of Littlefinger in Game of Thrones through most of the campaign -- they'll have to figure out some way to foil him that doesn't involve violence -- although I'd expect him to not survive the Ahkarin Sangar adventure at high levels.

Last tip from me is that if you want the NPC to be safe from murder hobos you better make them much more than 1 level higher than the PCs or encase them in some thick Plot Armor that makes them unattackable.

They'll mostly encounter him in public places where attacking him -- once they know what he's doing -- will get them in trouble with the authorities. Think of him as a message board troll who knows where the lines are and how to weaponize the moderators on those he antagonizes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What’s this guy’s motive? Everyone is the hero of their own story - why is he compelled to meddle with the PCs?

Think of all the toxic bro responses to Radiant Citadel (and years before that, to Green Ronin's Blue Rose). He's that guy. He believes that a utopian society spreading its beliefs through a dozen worlds (I've decided to have the Concord Worlds all be on different planets) is actively a bad thing. So he has to make sure that the Radiant Citadel doesn't reconnect to the missing civilizations and turn the existing Concord Worlds against one another and get them to cut themselves off from the Radiant Citadel.

That strikes Pazuzu fine and he's got a pact with this guy as a result.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It doesn't really matter if players do unexpectedly kill a villain. They were just working for someone else, or it was a clone, or somehow, they returned....

Yeah, this won't be the only person working to destroy the Radiant Citadel and redivide the Concord Worlds. They might all have different motivations, but all be united in that goal.

 

[Meech17]

Perhaps the villain is actually a cat. An old fiend/wizard/lessor deity who through some misfortune was turned into a black cat. While lacking the ability to do much himself due to his form, he is able to share his power with others through a pact. A kitty cat pact. The villain the party interacts with and assumes is the mastermind is really just the warlock who the cat is a patron of. There could be multiple, and this gives you additional side-roads to venture down if somehow the party does catch the villain in a position where they are able to dispatch them.

Disclaimer. I know nothing of the Radiant Citadel or the setting you've discussed. I'm just going off of the themes of kitties and warlocks

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Perhaps the villain is actually a cat. An old fiend/wizard/lessor deity who through some misfortune was turned into a black cat. While lacking the ability to do much himself due to his form, he is able to share his power with others through a pact. A kitty cat pact. The villain the party interacts with and assumes is the mastermind is really just the warlock who the cat is a patron of. There could be multiple, and this gives you additional side-roads to venture down if somehow the party does catch the villain in a position where they are able to dispatch them.

Disclaimer. I know nothing of the Radiant Citadel or the setting you've discussed. I'm just going off of the themes of kitties and warlocks

Interesting idea. Thank you!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Rakshashas are still a thing, aren’t they?

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Think of all the toxic bro responses to Radiant Citadel (and years before that, to Green Ronin's Blue Rose). He's that guy. He believes that a utopian society spreading its beliefs through a dozen worlds (I've decided to have the Concord Worlds all be on different planets) is actively a bad thing. So he has to make sure that the Radiant Citadel doesn't reconnect to the missing civilizations and turn the existing Concord Worlds against one another and get them to cut themselves off from the Radiant Citadel.

That strikes Pazuzu fine and he's got a pact with this guy as a result.

That fits perfectly with Akharin Sangar and working for Navid - that setting is the embodiment of strict utopia being crammed down citizens' throats "for their own good" whether they enjoy it or not, so the motivation to want to disrupt the Radiant Citadel would be palpable. Only problem there is that type of NPC may not work as a villian, most DnD players I know would side with that type of NPC as an anti-hero unless you lean hard into making them insufferably obnoxious. I love the idea of having this anti-hero NPC leading a troublemaking band of Rakshasas re-skinned as lions to match their dawn incarnate. Might even steal that idea for my Radiant Citadel campaign

Did you end up choosing Pazuzu as the bad guy behind the whole thing? That's who I use as the overall campaign BBEG since he has the tie-in already for San Citlan plus he's criminally underrated, one of my favorite NPCs in all of DnD along with Asmodeus

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Did you end up choosing Pazuzu as the bad guy behind the whole thing? That's who I use as the overall campaign BBEG since he has the tie-in already for San Citlan plus he's criminally underrated, one of my favorite NPCs in all of DnD along with Asmodeus

Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why I wouldn't just go with Pazuzu, since he's already in the book and he certainly would be happy to see the whole Concord Worlds effort fail.

 

[pawsplay]

Gnomes can definitely be evil, but the whole evil gnome thing I think is a little played out, lately.