Your best Villain (or Nemesis) in Campaign Adventures

[Hand of Evil]

The noble mother of one of the characters - used a "loyal henchman" who worked with others as the go between.

• Did not like the people her son was hanging out with, tryed to have them killed.
• Wanted him to be successful and make a name for himself - provided low level adventures. Later turned into kidnapping of a princess.
• Wanted him to marry well - see princess above.
• Wanted him to have title and lands - provided mid to high levels of adventures.

Lots of fun.

 

[Aeolius]

I liked the minions of the BBEG in my last game, so I recycled them.

" Tempest and Salkt, her niece, shared the bond of Xaetra’s blood. Born of the union between midnight hag and sea elf, Salkt would be the more powerful of the two, had Tempest not partaken the path of the blood magus. Holding the midnight hag Xaetra as her grandmother, Tempest was born from the joining of shellycoat and merrow. Known upon land as greenhag, the shellycoat named Meir had slain Tempest in retaliation for her mother’s cruel and unjust murder.

Reborn amidst ancient rites, Tempest embraced the title of Blood Hag. Absorbing the energies of undeath, the midnight hag succumbed to the Turning, emerged as the unliving spectral hag, and sought revenge of her own. In time, Salkt and Tempest came to serve the abyssal hag Syliah, while Xaetra took refuge in the depths, communing with her progeny through dreams and portents.

It was the abyssal hag and the four coveys under her command that sought control of the Pinnacles of Azor’alq; ruins nestled within the still waters of the Dramidj Ocean. Yet even after death, the spectral hag stood fast.

Having assembled a gathering of heroes, Xaetra had bonded with the cold machinations of a metal construct devised by her paramour, the lich known as Zander. The iron hag, amalgamation of spirit and steel, became known as grandmother clock. Together the two conceived a child, Jaenan, daughter of skin, steel, and sorcery.

Though aided by the mystic homunculus she had fashioned in life, Xaetra found herself the victim of Syliah’s treachery. Thirteen hags descended upon Xaetra and her circle. At one fell swoop thirteen hags weakened the spectral hag, desecrated her corpse, destroyed her construct, and slew her blood-spawned homunculus. The ocean was theirs for the taking.

Her ghostly form transformed once more, Xaetra emerged as a creature of dreamstuff. Doomed to haunt the dreams of those she knew in life, the spirit hag took sanctuary within the ethereal Region of Dreams.

Syliah was not appeased. She demanded the homunculus, corpse, and construct be removed from her domain. Yet beneath her grasp, the iron hag was stolen by its creation, Jaenan. Frightened, the silver-pied child carried grandmother clock into the one place she knew the others would not follow - the Underflow.

Entrusted with the corpse of the midnight hag and her desiccated homunculus, Tempest and Salkt fearfully followed the silvery mechanatrix into the darkness of the immense submerged cavern, which joined the Dramidj Ocean with the Oljatt Sea, thousands of miles to the east. Together, the two found courage within a token granted by Syliah, the bodiless head of Meir. Animated by necromantic magics, the shrunken head served to bolster hags’ powers as if they had been joined by a third, completing their covey.

Unknown to all but a handful of protectors, a massive underground river of saltwater known as the Underflow connects the Dramidj Ocean to the faraway Oljatt Sea, some three thousand miles to the southeast. The intense shifting currents, layers of poisoned waters, and indigenous sea jellies make this a journey fraught with danger for the unprepared. As the majority of the Underflow is completely submerged, travel by the inexperienced is all but impossible.

Yet onward they traveled, Jaenan and her burden, the two hags and their charge, followed by Xaetra’s final legacy - the simulacrum. Fashioned from ruby dust, a living draught of elemental blackwater, and a bit of flesh from Salkt’s daughter, the magical duplicate swam dutifully onward, never questioning her orders, intent, or creation. By appearance she seemed indistinguishable from NeeKaa, one of the heroes of Azor’alq and Xaetra’s granddaughter through Salkt’s union with an unwitting triton. Yet from the moment of her creation she was but a sliver of the oceanid’s soul coupled with her own dreams and desires.

The currents of the Underflow held secrets of their own design. Within their waters, the corpse of the midnight hag awakened once more; taking the shape of the deathlock; an unliving creature bound to the powerful magics its wielder once commanded in life. Within the eddies of the Underflow, the unliving head of Meir awakened; emancipated from Syliah’s control. Within the turbulent waters, Tempest happened upon a field of phosphorescent coral; coral bound by the magics of incarnum and charged with the powers of propagation. The coral begat a life of its own.

Clumsily, the two hags held fast to their prize as the currents beneath the ocean floor spat them out like wastewater. The sea was shallow and warm. Two moons shone brightly atop Synsaal, the Barrier Between Worlds.

The safety of their captive was crucial to earning the favor of their mistress, yet the journey had taken its toll. In an instant, Tempest succumbed to the birth spasms of her parthenogenetic offspring. Of virgin birth, Ciliaris the reef hag was born with the memories held by her mother. From her first breath, she hated her. The infant hag took full advantage of her mother’s weakness, abducting the token hag and darting off into the distance.

It would be the last sight beheld by both Tempest and Salkt."

Inspired by this sculpture:

I devised Diadema the Blackwater Hag, an amalgam of the sea hag blood magus Tempest, the salt hag Salkt, and the deathlock of Xaetra herself. Diadema is also a bard capable of singing with three voices simultaneously, as well as a witch with a similar talent for multiple spell use.

 

[vonmolkew]

The best villian was a creation of a friend. He was first used against us as a side story going through the WFRP 1st edition modules. His name was Roger Oakenshield. He was a rogue through and through. He would pop up at the wrong times and always had an escape route. Had a couple of obvious traits that the group got used to seeing every time they encountered him. The most obvious was twiddling his nose when he talked to them. I borrowed him when I ran the modules a couple years later.
The best use of him was in Shadows Over Bogenhofen. The group had been slugging their way though, finding out bits of info here and there. This went on for three or four weeks of getting together....none of which involved Mr. Oakenshield. At one point, they got a little frustrated and went into a tavern for a drink. We role-played out pretty much the whole encounter, to the point where they stopped paying attention to the waiter. When it came time to pay the check, the waiter came up and gave them their bill and spoke to them briefly (all the while I twiddled my nose) They weren't picking up on it. They gave the guy their money (which was alot for food and drinks), he thanked them (twiddling his nose), then they went back to their conversation. For some reason, one of the players leaned back, looking at me funny and twiddled his nose. His eyes got REALLY wide in realization and he snapped his gaze back over to me. I looked at him, told him that from way across the crowed bar they see a guy with a big grin on his face who waved at them and bolted out the door. With their money...They tried to chase after him, got accosted by the three bouncers who demanded they pay their check, a brouhaha ensued, etc.....He was right there in front of them & they missed him AGAIN. 15 years later it's still funny as hell....

 

[Joshua Randall]

Rel's post reminded me of an off-hand villain who ended up becoming pretty memorable for some of my players.

Mekali was an umbragen (Eberron-style drow) favored soul (3e spontaneous casting "cleric") who worshipped Erebus, god of darkness. She was extremely dedicated to Erebus' cause, which was nothing less than the unmaking of the universe in order to return it to a uniform expanse of black nothingness.

What made Mekali so compelling is that in that campain, she was actually in the right. Erebus was the "first god" and he was minding his own business in his comforting nil-soup when the other gods arrived on the scene and ruined everything by creating stuff.

Due to careful spell selection on my part, Mekali was extremely robust. Time after time, the PCs tangled with her only to be unable to pin her down due to her ability to shadow jaunt, invoke various darkness effects, and of course heal herself.

Similar to Rel's players, mine eventually started dedicating everything they had to pinning down Mekali. The finally got her -- and even used neutralize poison on her when she tried to kill herself with a "cyanide pill" kinda thingy. When Mekali refused to talk, the PCs ended up using a helm of opposite alignment on her.

Stripped of her connection to her god, and newly remorseful about all the evil she had perpetrated, Mekali became a tragic figure rather than a villain... but still memorable.

 

[Dykstrav]

The villain must escape: A good villain is a good thing. A recurring villain is a GREAT thing. Word of caution though - the escape MUST seem plausible and not just a deus ex machina/GM fiat kind of thing. NOTHING kills the player enthusiasm for going after the BBEG faster than the sense that the GM is just going to hand wave an escape for him whenever he feels like. So have the villain plan a careful escape. Have him attempt escape when the battle is obviously lost but while he's still got some minions covering his trail. And if the players legitimately catch him, let them.

Generally good stuff... But D&D in particular has always had several neat ways of keeping villains around, even after a legitimate defeat. They don't always have to escape to make a plausible threat later on.

For example... If the PCs take the villain alive, imagine their reaction when their king/local temple/whatever orders the villain released as part of a prisoner exchange. That sort of thing has to go carefully, however, or it can frustrate players and feel very DM fiat-esque.

One of the things that has been vastly satisfying to me is to remember that (at least in 3.5) villains had just as much a chance of stabilizing when reduced to negative hit point values as the PCs. I've seen several groups that reduced a villain to, say, -2 or -5 hit points, and that villain happened to stabilize and make life troublesome for the PCs. That's why it's a good thing to bring back the heads...

Also, with villains, people seem to forget that there are raise dead, resurrection, and similar spells in many D&D worlds. A powerful or wealthy villain working with a sympathetic organization could have the villain brought back from death just as easily (or with as much difficulty) as the PCs could for their fellows. There is no reason to expect that killing a villain will permanently end his depredations when there is magic that can raise the dead.

All of this is also not even considering all the issues that could arise from having a villain become some sort of undead monster, either...

 

[Rel]

Also, with villains, people seem to forget that there are raise dead, resurrection, and similar spells in many D&D worlds. A powerful or wealthy villain working with a sympathetic organization could have the villain brought back from death just as easily (or with as much difficulty) as the PCs could for their fellows. There is no reason to expect that killing a villain will permanently end his depredations when there is magic that can raise the dead.

All of this is also not even considering all the issues that could arise from having a villain become some sort of undead monster, either...

This is an excellent point. I try not to overuse it because it feels too much like the players are getting screwed if all the bad guys come back to haunt them time after time.

I do recall one of my favorite uses of this tactic however. It was after the PC's (barely) survived a combat with a Beholder. One of the party members finally killed the thing with a critical hit, but not before it turned the Rogue to stone. They had to drag the Rogue out of the lair as a statue as quickly as they could before enemy reinforcements showed up.

After they got the Rogue turned back to flesh and came back to finish off this place, they encountered the Beholder again...it had been Raised.

And it was wearing an eyepatch.

 

[radmod]

My favorite villains are the ones who annoy the bejeezas out of the PCs and then have a little twist at the end.

2e D&D:
a) NoBudge, the Troll. Yes, he lived underneath a bridge. Unfortunately, the party had to cross the bridge anytime they wanted to do anything interesting. He would accept as his Troll Toll horses, goats, or hobbits (preferably). At low levels the party paid. Finally they got high enough where they thought they could get away without paying by attacking him. He would then just grab anyone who attacked him and jump off. Hey, he regenerated! And why should he care if his dinner was tenderized a bit?

b) My absolute favorite was created because I DM'd stupidly. The PCs did a much better job than I expected of looting a temporally displaced town of ghouls. They got so much treasure that they threatened to skew my treasure system up. So I decided I needed someone to take some of it away (yet I still wanted to reward them for the great job though). My first thought was a pirate, so I stole from Disney's TaleSpin the character of Don Karnage. I made him a half-orc sky pirate with an artifact ship which gave him special powers. He would routinely show up (with a high pitched: "Hello, my good friends. It is I, Don Karnage, how are you doing today?") and demand a 'tax'. (I, of course, intentionally gave them extra treasure so they weren't really out.)
The twist: The main villains in this world were several tribes of orcs and the like that were ruled by a Hobgoblin Overlord. The Overlord had a special psychic sway over the tribes;the more evil he was, the more evil the tribes became. The Hobgoblin had also usurped the power from, you guessed it, Don Karnage! So, in the end, to make the world safe and at peace, the party had to risk life and limb to rescue Karnage from the Hobgoblin and crown him Overlord! (They almost refused to do it.)

 

[Lord Captian Tobacco]

Twy again. This time, wit feewing..

In the Battletech/Mechwarrior game, I had an enemy ace who evolved into a real nemesis.

Slowly the actions of this ace came to the attention of the players, who then went off trying to prove themselves the ‘fastest gun’. Unfortunately, they fell for the most basic error of heroics. They were following a villain, reacting to the villains plan, allowed the villain to control when and where the action would take place. The villain didn’t need to bring down the heroes, just be one step ahead of them.

As the frustration mounted, the players tried many questionable plans to ‘bag’ her. Most were well considered, poorly planned, and executed by their bootstraps. ( a method guaranteed to fail outside of Hollywood.) The players finally decided to change tactics; moved from their mechs to assassination. Then it was remembered that she had been in intelligence when they had first met her. Again, misanalyses of the situation allowed for rational and easily acceptable escapes; again building the reputation of the ace.

Then as a real twist, as the war wrapped up, she had to be rescued. Yes, rescued. Way back at the beginning (and occasionally unexplained subplots) hints had been lain pointing to the fact that the ‘Ace’ was really a spy working for the good guys. Cover blown, she needed help and only the PC’s were close enough to help. And they are ‘white hats’.

Now years later, the players detachment (battalion in this case) has the Ace working as head of security and intelligence for the group. There is: uncertainty, mistrust, and (best of all) fear. For this agent has been squeaky clean since coming home.


But the latest adventure graces the edges of a mole hunt. Things have been going badly; good info getting to the bad guys, poor intel getting to the players.

Who do you think the players are first to suspect? Has she turned coat or just bad timing.

This is where good villains are made…when YOU, the player, feels emotion for/about them…

 

[Doug McCrae]

As a player, the best villain I've encountered was a ragewalker in a game of 3e D&D, which became our Obmi. It had no backstory, no reason for being where it was, not even a name, but was a very successful villain simply because it defeated us twice in two epic battles before we finally killed it. I regarded it as the major nemesis of the campaign even though it had no relevance to the plot, it had just been a monster guarding some treasure. Not even important treasure.

I also liked a supervillain called Ruffle from a Champions game who appeared only once and got shot before she'd even had a go. Based on the name I assume she had the power to turn your clothes against you, which I thought was a rather cool and unusual concept.


As a GM -

Zeno the Super-Gorilla:
Radioactive green gorilla. Silver Age foe of the New York Five, with all their powers. By the modern age, this ex-con was a drunk, working dead-end low-level jobs in the entertainment industry in LA. He was an intellectual, I pictured him somewhat like Frasier. The PCs encountered him attempting to destroy the Hollywood sign when his powers returned. They decided to let him go after giving him a 'straighten up and fly right' speech. He did, indeed, straighten up and made a new life for himself on Monster Island.

Grackle:
A supervillain whose only power was a winged suit. He was killed by one of the PCs in his first encounter with them and later returned as a ghost to wreak his horrible vengeance. He was, again, unsuccessful.

Wrath:
Hydra-like organisation following a twisted monotheistic religion, according to which the world is, in the eyes of God, unholy, and must be destroyed. Hi-tech terrorists with a medieval flavor to their equipment, unit names and beliefs.

Sekhmet and her Super-Cats:
Feline controlling animal rights extremist who used the offspring of a silver age superpet, Ralph the Tornado Cat, as her terror weapons.

Jaditheris and the Lightning Men:
Golden Age witch of the skies. Her cloud kingdom, monsterising ray and lightning formula were discovered by CIA agents ferrying drugs in a light aircraft. The agents went rogue and cut a deal with her to take over a Central American nation.

Here, I liked the juxtaposition of golden age and modern age elements. In superhero, the combination of real world + comic book-y is often a winning formula.

 

[Smoss]

I've had two good villains. One was a shadowy extraplanar creature that my PCs ended up dubbing the ever so cliched "The Shadow". (This also had the benefit of making me laugh harder at the move "The Gamers" when I first saw it years later).

It was a powerful cosmic force - So it was not something the PCs had much direct effect on at first - And they did not realize its subtle machinations at first. One of which makes me grin to this day. The PCs found a book of prophecies. They read it and worked to be in the right place at the right time to be involved so they could sway the prophecies.

HOWEVER... They did not realize at first that it was their very presence that CAUSED each of those bad things to happen. I had set it up perfectly that they caused all the problems that they had come to solve/prevent. Just as some PCs started to realize something was amiss, my adventure led them to learn what it was.

That book of prophecies had been written by "The Shadow". They had neatly become its pawns. They were REALLY pumped to go take it down on learning that. It went on to manipulate them further (Feigning weakness or inability to do things so that the PCs would continue the course they were on, etc). It was a happy day for them when they finally got to the end of that campaign.

The other great villain is a deity of fate that the elves of my world dubbed "Faerlynn". He is the sole real power in his campaign world. Controlling fate and destiny while being neutral except with a few "Mary-Sues" made for some fun times. He often took on the avatar of a small elven cat. I love mentioning his name around my various players and hearing them growl out, "I hate that damn cat!"

Smoss