I have a ruthless army of uncompromising druidic zealots called The Pride. They emulate savage pack animals. Their leaders are a group of class-based "alphas" called The Glorious. The Pride also uses "ripped from the headlines" terrorist tactics like magically broadcasted public beheadings and Necklace of Fireballs suicide bombers.
I love The Pride. That is a fantastic name for a group of religious Zealots.
We are currently playing a huge sandbox campaign with a lot of goings ons but very few villains. My last campaign however had many interwoven, villainess organizations and villains but they were all ultimately unaware of each other or their plans. The party kind of ended up choosing their own group of bg bads from amongst these threads. They chose a group called The Veritas.
Unknown to the party the Veritas were the first ever adventures, who inspired the concept of getting your friends together to kill goblins and save the kingdom. The Veritas had been punished however for a terrible evil they had committed late in their lives, and thus were immortals with horrible punishments to fit their crime. Of the 5 veritas, one had died before the punishment, and three of them were trying to end the world in order to end their own suffering. One veritas (The only one who was truly evil) aided the party, as he felt he deserved hit punishment, and the world shouldn't have to pay for his sins.
The Veritas were as follows:
Zidane (Zolltollinis Brightskies) - As a primeval hero of yore he was a naive high elf wizard/illusionist who only ever wanted love. As Zidane of the Veritas, he is the second in command of Madame Zarnolvia's Traveling Troupe of Troublemakers and Troubadours. The Troupe is a well known vistani traveling circus, known for feats of acrobatics as well as magic. Commoners know it only as such, but most community leaders are more than well aware that the Troupe is in fact a front for traveling assassins. Every time the Troupe has ever stopped in a town someone has died that night. However there has never been proof that it is Madame Zarnolvia's men. Zidane's curse manifested as an inability to feel joy or any degree of happiness. Zidane raised the PC Gnome Bard (A member of the circus and blissfully unaware of their true purpose) and was a mentor to the PC Genasi Swordmage (A member of the circus who was being trained to be one of their assassins). As a result Zidane was a constant throughout the campaign, occasionally helping the party, occasionally causing trouble. He became a flat out villian to the party when the group learned he had kidnapped the Gnome Bard at a young age (she always believed her parents sold her) and that he had killed the Genasi's parents (he always believed that Zidane had saved him from his parents assassins). At the end of the campaign he was sent to Garavond to endlessly float in the void in order to save The Gnome Bard.
Passion (Igwom Furspeighll) - As a primeval hero Passion was one of the first Warlocks, a human made tiefling by having made an infernal pact to save her brothers soul. In the modern era she is a Plump seductress, who runs a notorious brothel in the capital city of the country she calls home. Passions body aches whenever she is not in the throes of pleasure, whether it is sex or food, or other various splendors. Passion enjoys seeing naive would-be heroes corrupted by good intentions. She collects information from her brothel and sells the information to a network called the League of Broken Feathers, a group if blackmailers and information brokers.
The Stepping Skald (Name Unknown) - As a primeval hero The Skald loved Passion, and they were set to live a long and fulfilling life together, before they received their divine punishment. Today he is a mysterious traveling bard that shows up in border towns under certain conditions. He is followed at all time by an army of ghost children, most of whom look as if they were burnt alive. He has various necromantic abilities and seems to be unaware that anything happening around him is real. He shows up, puts on a show, adds the ghosts of those children slain to his growing army, and departs. The PCs saved one town from him, but otherwise when he departs he leaves the place devoid of life. He seems to take orders from a small black dog statuette he carries on him at all times. His punishment was the inability to form new memories, because of this he carries a magic book which he records everything in. If it is in the book it is in his mind.
Nautos (Nautos Silvedge) - As a primeval hero Nautos was only ever in it for the money and the fame. After receiving his divine punishment he and his city were pulled into the land of the dead. They were to become the first Shadar-Kai. He rules as Dread Lord of his domain, and has spent eons trying to shape a warrior that could kill the Veritas.
