D&D General Who's your villain?

[Umbran]

In your current campaign, who's your villain?
What are its goals, methods and alignment?
What is needed in order for its goals to succeed?

My current campaign isn't D&D, but what the heck. My villain (as named by the players, since they cannot technically pronounce his name) is Space Satan.

In Ashen Stars, there is a PC race called the Vas Mal. Before the Mohilar War, they were the Vas Kra - basically the Q from Star Trek. Somehow, in the war, they were diminished.

Except, Space Satan was naughty, and locked away in his own pocked of spacetime during whatever event lessened the Vas Kra. So, when he was finally released from imprisonment ( a year or so before game start), he still had many of his powers intact. But "many" is not good enough for Space Satan. He wants it all back. Unfortunately, to do that, he's pretty sure he needs to get a hold of a chunk of spacetime from before the War. And his powers are not sufficient to do that.

Now, normally Space Satan was, on the scale of things, not actually all that bad. His focus was on usually on individuals, rather than nations, planets, or cultures. He specialized in finding some poor mortal, granting their deepest desires (without generally twisting the wish) and watching the fallout of unintended consequences. Most often, he did this to people who other mortals would probably say deserved it - their narcissistic angst over what should have happened was delightful to Space Satan. But at this point, he doesn't even know if he's immortal any more, and that's not acceptable. The depths of his sociopathy have come out, and he's going no-holds-barred to find a way back to his powers.

No culture he can reach has the tech he needs, which is most closely related to the translight-drives used on starships. He could (and is) find ways to funnel massive amounts of resources into tech research, but even taht has its limits. He's turned to the #1 jumpstarter of technology - war. He's fomenting an interstellar war to accelerate tech development to get his powers back.

Enter the players into the campaign, who frequently run afoul of his plans to start a war....

The campaign is now at the point where they have actually met Space Satan, and the campaign's final session is goign to be their response to an offer he's made to them - they get their wildest dreams, and he gets his powers back... without a war! Do they trust him? What are the repercussions of saying Yes or No?

 

[ART!]

Villains, you love to hate them. A good villain makes every story more interesting, and the best of them can even overshadow the story's main protagonist and become beloved characters in their own right. Just think of the Joker, Darth Vader, Sephiroth, Piccolo, Revolver Ocelot, the list goes on.

In your current campaign, who's your villain?
What are its goals, methods and alignment?
What is needed in order for its goals to succeed?
Do you have multiple villains? If so, what is their relationship to each other?

If you don't have an ongoing game, feel free to tell us about one of your favorite villains of a past campaign.

I'm running Tomb of Annihilation, D&D 5E, and the Big Bad is Acererak. I did some research to add to what ToA has to say about him.

He could easily become a death god if he wanted, but he would rather make death gods than be one. This begs the question: why?

My reading is that he doesn't want the responsibility and wants to have death gods who owe him favors - and has the power to resist if said death gods want to get rid of him.

Also, he absolutely delights in torturing/toying with adventurers and do-gooders.

So, this is a guy who likes his freedom, and one of his main things he likes doing with his freedom is messing with adventurers.

Also: he's been to other realms/universes/multiverses.

So, I'm running him as someone who wants to communicate regularly with the PCs so he can taunt them and egg them on. He might even "help" them now and then - all in the interest of watching them squirm in the long run. He talks like Emperor Palpatine if Palps had a sense of humor and exposure to the pop culture of other universes. He's incredibly powerful and theatening, but also makes light of things, is flippant and dismissive, and is having a blast.

Resurrection spells feed his project - the creation of a new death god, using the Soulmonger and an Atropal - so he made sure the PCs got their hands on a magic item than can cast Resurrection. Will they use it? It will be fun for him to watch them decide.

They've already met him - at 2nd level! - so I could establish the threat immediately and make it personal for the PCs - and I've added a set of magic items - the heads of famous necromancers, which can answer 3 questions each but also allow Acererak to track the PCs. Every key location in the adventure will have one, so the PCs can burn through them, learn stuff from them, thus expediting the adventure some. Those ket sites are amplifiers for Acererak's death curse, which draws life energy from those who have benefited from resurrection magic. The PCs will be led to believe that taking the necromancer skulls is a big win for them, that it will lessen the amplification of the death curse, but really Acererak is using the PCs to accumulate the skulls for him.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

He's been off-stage for a long while now, but the main villain for my campaign is Vicor Sand. He's a vampire, but he's never killed anyone, being careful not to feed until death, and has actually only acted to defend himself against the PCs. He's crafty, charming, and has outwitted the PCs multiple times. When he first showed up, he was searching for a magical MacGuffin. He eventually found it, defeated the PCs, captured them, and brought them back to serve in the land of the dead. They escaped with said MacGuffin and I've been letting things cool down with him for a bit, since he trounced them so badly.

He's going to come back for the conclusion of the campaign, when the MacGuffin gets it's big reveal, but we're still three levels or so away from then.

 

[Fenris-77]

Non-lawful communist Halfling psionicists with reskinned versatile rapiers and sentient mushroom minions is sounding better and better this week. A little something for everyone.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My villains or antagonists usually are example of toxic people, toxic bosses and psychopath, with a point of view close to Nietzsche's ideas about the Übermensch (super-man) and master-slave morality, rejecting ethical values like mercy and solidarity. And the evil organitations need a common allegiance or they wouldn't survive external menace by fault of internal conflicts. Even the craziest gnoll need a common allegiance, maybe the clan, family or religion. No faction can survive for a lot of time when there are too many betrays among them, nor even the drows.

About concepts, usually is the rebel against authority who later becomes a new tyrant because he forgot to respect the human dignity, or supernatural factions, for example vampires, controllign secret societes, for example masonery lodges.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

sentient mushroom minions

This totally belongs in the "Adventuring Party Names" thread.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Dragons.

There are five ancient dragons vying for power (one for each color), along with their very large extended families. The humanoid races kind of get stepped on in the conflict until the PCs rise up and start slaying them.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Tiamat herself.

 

[Olrox17]

He's been off-stage for a long while now, but the main villain for my campaign is Vicor Sand. He's a vampire, but he's never killed anyone, being careful not to feed until death, and has actually only acted to defend himself against the PCs. He's crafty, charming, and has outwitted the PCs multiple times. When he first showed up, he was searching for a magical MacGuffin. He eventually found it, defeated the PCs, captured them, and brought them back to serve in the land of the dead. They escaped with said MacGuffin and I've been letting things cool down with him for a bit, since he trounced them so badly.

He's going to come back for the conclusion of the campaign, when the MacGuffin gets it's big reveal, but we're still three levels or so away from then.

I like the idea of an evil, very powerful, but non-violent villain. The PCs can't take him down by dumb brute force, but he's also not going to just hunt them down and murder them. Nice dynamic, it encourages strategic thought.

He talks like Emperor Palpatine if Palps had a sense of humor and exposure to the pop culture of other universes. He's incredibly powerful and theatening, but also makes light of things, is flippant and dismissive, and is having a blast.

Hah! Sounds like a pretty fun guy to roleplay.
One of the most memorable roleplay session I've ever had with my group, was when the PCs met Glanrung the iron dracolich. A being of legend, dreaded by everyone who knows its name...and they found out it was a total goofball. I role-played the dracolich kinda like Alucard from Hellsing Abridged, the players didn't see it coming and we all had a blast.

 

[Coroc]

Villains, you love to hate them. A good villain makes every story more interesting, and the best of them can even overshadow the story's main protagonist and become beloved characters in their own right. Just think of the Joker, Darth Vader, Sephiroth, Piccolo, Revolver Ocelot, the list goes on.

In your current campaign, who's your villain?
What are its goals, methods and alignment?
What is needed in order for its goals to succeed?
Do you have multiple villains? If so, what is their relationship to each other?

If you don't have an ongoing game, feel free to tell us about one of your favorite villains of a past campaign.

My players do not read this please!!!







Well, in my Greyhawk campaign it is Iuz. But he is an indestructible nemesis like suggested in blue box era material. Even if I stat him out, players will probably not stand a chance in direct confrontation, no matter if they are level 20 (But psst, do not tell them).
Vecna is also around, also his lieutenant Kas (who is a vampire now) but Kas has beef with Vecna and Vecna is currently imprisoned by Iuz so he has beef with Iuz also.
I also invented some succubus named Lida who is an underboss for Iuz and recurring frontend face. This one the players might someday kill (on the material plane).
I also plan on running the Rary the traitor stuff so here is another underboss with some major potential.
When I made Ravenloft excursions for my players then the local domain lord takes over the role of the main villain temporarily .