Your Favorite Villains

[Ibram]

From my most recent campaign (done in an Orental setting) there was the evil Dr. Fu (a powerful wizard/monk) and his undead undead barbarian bodyguard. The party rather quickly knew he was evil, but since he had part of the key that they needed to complete the campaign they agreed to work for him. Several adventures later they steal the key and head towards their goal, only to be met there by Dr. Fu. big fight ensues, between the party, Dr. Fu, his bodyguard, and a host of Sing Wa assassins (monk/rogues). The party managed to destroy him as he was accending to Godhood by throwing the artifact that would stop his accention through him. Now they think he's gone for good, but thats not quite true.

Ashfiend the Baneful:
this powerful daemon was bound into the body of a noblewoman that the party was trying to find (she had run away from home and fallen in with the wrong crowd). In the process of recovering her the party paladin was sacrificed to resurect Ashfiend (but was stoped by the fact that the pal had already fallen and sold his soul to a fallen angel). The party found out about the binding, after Ashfiend took over the girl and used her to poison her entire family. the Daemon then fled into the night.

Nuredien El Melkru:
not actualy an Arab, but rather a bandit hidding his true identiy behind that of a desert raider. Sacked several villiages (because he likes to), and draged the people off in chains. When the party caught up to him at an abbandoned monistary they found out that he had kept one of the younger girls as a... companion... much carnage insued as the enture bandit gang was hunted down and slaughtered.

The Burning Man:
a knight who had fallen inlove with the queen of Doriath, he was rather... forceful in his affections and was banished from the kingodm. Fastforward about 10 years and he returns, now an evil warlord wearing the "Armor of Burning Souls". He sets his sights on getting back the woman he loves. Enter the party, seaking a dwarven vampire. They get mixed up in the Burning Mans plans while seaking magical book. The party is there when the capital of Doriath burns to the ground, forcing them to flee north (with the Queen and her 10 year old son... wink wink) while the king stays behind to hold off the comming horde. Over the next few months the party seeks out a magical sword capable of killing the Burning Man (his armor generated such intense heat that it melted any weapons used against him). Finaly they track down the "Frozen Hate" which they think (thanks to a handy prophicy) will kill him. Armies march and hundreds die as the party fights against the Bruning Mans evil horde, finaly driving him back into the ruins of Doriath. the party Paladin kills him in an epic combat overlooking the shattered city.

 

[Kalendraf]

Back in a 2e campaign, I played in a group that used rotating DMs. The player taking over as DM would usually sideline their character for that session or use them as an NPC. My character was a ranger who seemed to have a knack for losing levels to undead. Across the span of about 5 adventures, he lost 4 levels to various forms of undead, and finally he had fallen so far behind on levels that he had become useless to the party. Several party members had stated as much to his face. I sidelined him during one of my DM-ing sessions. In the night, he simply ran away during his watch. He was accused of being a coward, but the party did little other investigation and moved on. I started running a different character for upcoming sessions where I would play.

Fast forward several sessions and several months of game time, and the entire party was up a few more levels. They got a message from the ranger, inviting them to meet him at a nearby keep, and offering to explain why he'd left hastily that night. He greeted them at the castle, and offered them a nice meal and warm comfortable rooms for the night. He only left a few minor hints about what had happened, saying that there was someone they had to meet, who'd be arriving in the morning.

Turns out that the ranger had gone insane from his level-drains. Seeing his level drains as a sign from greater powers, he had decided to seek out the strongest undead he could find and become one of them. He managed to find a vampire and became one. Now he had lured the party, hoping to punish them for all the past ills that had befallen him. During the night, the PCs were attacked by the vampires in their bedchambers. No one died, but it was a harrowing fight. The party battled the ranger and his two vampire companions eventually defeating all but the ranger. The ranger/vampire managed to escape, and the party never found his coffin.

He returned to harass them a few more times over the upcoming adventures, but they were never successful in defeating him. They even tried to find a way to undo the vampirism, but were not successful. Unfortunately, the campaign ended before they ever defeated him.

 

[Henry]

Memorable villains in my Homebrew campaign include:

1) The Suel Lich Vargas, a transplant from Greyhawk who can never return, so he schemes to rule the continent on the PC's world. He was a major pain for them, mainly because as a Suel Lich he is INCREDIBLY difficult to kill. In the process of tracking down his vulnerabilities, they uncovered a lot of information about a previously bad character from their world's history, named simply the Wytch King.

Vargas was probably their favorite villain in that campaign, because he ALWAYS managed to come back, and because he took a major hit in power when they literally WRESTLED a gem of power from his grasp.

2) Alenda, priestess of the world's foremost evil deity. She was a "leather queen" pure and simple - lots of bondage, chains, masks, and tortured PC's. Whether the party loved or hated her, I'm still unsure.

3) Kelister, the priest of a "Dead" God. The party first met him at low level, where Kelister tried to stir up the local humanoids of the Caves of Chaos to destroy a human fort. He harried them in various small ways for a year. His deity not worshipped for centuries, his goal was (and he succeeded in) reviving his god in flesh form on this plane, and his blood and body was the first sacrifice his god took.


In my recent FR campaign, the most memorable has to be Meph-keset, lady lich and leader of the Red Wizard Enclave of Zhentil Keep. She double-crossed the party, and they still claim to owe her a debt of reckoning.

 

[demiurge1138]

It lives!

The Warden. The head of the brutal police city-state of Reshka, this nasty trog was superior in all respects to his peers. Clad in black full plate and wielding a massive mace he called "The Mercystik", the Warden kept the PCs in terror for several sessions, having his goons capture half the party and keep the other half in hiding in Reshka's sewers. Eventually, the Warden met his end in his own watch-house, but not before killing all but two PCs messily.

Demiurge out.

 

[Taneel BrightBlade]

Axarn the black knight
Half-dragon blackguard
The cause of at least 5 TPK (only becuse he's nice)
Was killed:3-5 times
always came back for a good reasen

 

[kolikeos]

a sonofabitch elf barbarian.
we helped him fight some small monsters, and after that the rogue in our party pickpocketed him for a neutralize poison potion.
after a long time he shows up, saying we stole his potion and attacks us with a friend and kicks our ass, then take all our money and goes away.
the wired thing is, he left us his potion.
a few levels later, we plan on getting back at this sonofabitch, we buy a scrolls of teleport and a scroll of scrying for the mission.
we, obviusely, teleport to the wrong place.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I designed a campaign that was intended to be inspired by fairy tales. I decided I wantedto take elemenst from fairy tales and use those as the creation of the game, so I had things like intelligent magic axes, warewolves that harrassed people in the dark woods, animals that could talk, etc.

The campaign started with the characters living in a kingdom where the king has married a woman who was essentially the evil-stepmother figure. The queen wanted rid of the king's two children. The children stowed away with the PCs and the queen's chamerlain, Shekabrie, was charged with going after them, trying to arrest them and have the children killed.

The adventures that the characters went on (standard D&D sytle adventures) were certainly suppliamented by constantly being chased by the queen's chamberlain and his flunkies. Everyone really enjoyed that and to this day recall 'fondly' the fact that the guy was always after them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The Dream Wizards were a nice group of people who believed that all illusion and enchantment magics were essentially too powerful for normal people to use. By "normal people," they meant anyone who was not a Dream Wizard. Although not truly evil, they did take steps to prevent others from using these spells, and to counteract anyone who relied upon them. And, being illusionists and enchanters, they were tricksy. (Actually planning on bringing these guys back IMC.)

The Winter Witches are a group who worship Aulshaka, Lord of Winter, in his icy domain. Since the Court of the Winter Queen is a demiplane, it has properties that...disconcert...nonbelievers. Nasty, evil, and conniving, these women rule over most of the northern tribes.

Arak the Spidersoul (I believe the name was cribbed from an article in White Dwarf) was a wizard whose spells and magic items revolved around a spider theme. He began play as the PC's patron, but they eventually realized that he was evil, and for many, many sessions they sparred with him. He had all kinds of backup plans to ensure his survival, including a ring of regeneration that the PCs never realized they should remove. He just kept on coming back, and all the while he moved closer to his goal of eventual godhood.....At one point when a PC died, I let the player take over the role of a disguised Arak long enough to trap the other PCs in a dungeon that was, itself, an inescapable death trap. They escaped. When the PCs last saw the Spidersoul, he had been captured by mind flayers, who used his ring of regeneration to allow them to eat and re-eat his brain for several years before they just killed him and got it over with. Arak died insane, in the dark, and rumor of what had occured naturally made it to the PCs. (Of course, in many later campaigns, Arak appeared as a god, so I guess the bugger made it somehow....)

Currently: Bael Ebrous, the Dragon. An undying Parthelonean (ancient culture IMC, wiped out hundreds of years ago) wizard(?), Bael Ebrous has recently escaped his long imprisonment due to the PCs, and has set about fortifying the stick-in-the-mud village he emerged near. Now, with his followers, he is preparing to create the fantasy version of the Nazi regime. Great fun for all involved, and a guy you love to hate.


RC

 

[Aries_Omega]

Evil Baddie

This guy wasn't in a AD&D game but rather in a Cyberpunk 2020 game. We were "outsourced experts" for Max Tac...the city's cyborg hunters. We had a mission that started with and investigation of a multiple murders at the NCPD practice range. There was about 100 dead and more wounded. The perp was a Anubis headed psycho with a gatling gun! He reportedly shrugged off pistol, shotgun and SMG fire. After gathering evidence and all the three of us were in the parking lot when a guy in a dog mask open up on us. We retured fire, turned the guy into Swiss cheese and thought it was done. Turns out it was some teenager with a SMG and high as a kite on some drug...but he had evidence that led us to an apartment.

We get to the place...(knock, knock PIZZA SHACK)....and no answer. We battered down the door and I tossed a tomahawk at the perp's head...who was on a couch watching the news. Another PC saw that it was a fake...wired to an explosive and ran for the bomb while the other, stronger PC held the door from opening all the way and blowing us up. The dummy was a blob of vat grown flesh and a wig. The apartment was stocked to do illegal cyber surgery. We called it in and was about to leave when Anubis showed up. Mind you this is a 7 ft. tall guy in a loincloth, dog legs, dog face, Egyptian crown and a gatling gun for a left hand. My PC was armed with a freaking light machinegun....a H&K G-11 to be exact!

We defeated him but we all ended up in the hospital. One guy had to have both arms replaced and some vital organs too. Anubis used ripped his arms off and beat another guy with them. He also had blades on the barrels of the gatling gun and would spin the barrells and take "core samples" from people. What freaked us out was that we got get well cards on the day we were being discharged and fit for duty with little Egyptian scarabs in them and a note saying "That one hurt me...now I am going to hurt you". Anubis was a villian that would show up at the most inopportune times.

Aries

 

[Ironclad]

One that sticks out in memory was an insane elven assassin from a 1st Edition AD&D convention game I wrote about 12 years ago.

The party had been hearing rumour of a blood drinking assassin who strikes without warning or mercy as they are travelling through an evil theocracy. Eventually in the middle of the night in the penultimate encounter, Obsidian strikes. In the dry grass they hear mad cackling and a ghost white figure strikes the sentry looking for the most part like a vampire. Magic spells seem to have little or no effect. The combat ensues with Obsidian doing a lot of hit and run strikes..... and taking out a few characters on the way.

It turns out that that Obsidian was a standard elf with prophyria (sp?). A zealot who also just happened to be insane, quite homicidal and afflicted with a disease which made him appear vampiric (I think he filed his teeth to points as well...) I loved running him up against teams.... I think it's the only time I have seen 1st Ed AD&D players scared....