D&D 5E Creating The Bonfire: Help with a BBEG?

[Quickleaf]

The Bonfire is the ruthless enigmatic leader of a nefarious arcane secret society known as the Brotherhood of True the Flame. Help me design him!

[SBLOCK=Players in my Al-Qadim game!]You may wish to avert your gaze to save yourself spoilers. OTOH, if you feel able to separate player and character knowledge, and like homebrew stuff, feel free to comment and read. There are many stories about The Bonfire...not all of which are true.[/SBLOCK]

Step 1: My group
We play-by-post here on ENWorld. Five players of a well-balanced party currently at 11th level, probably confronting The Bonfire around 16th level. However, there will be opportunities to interact with The Bonfire without violence, likely remotely, before then. We use feats and multi-classing, and I'd consider it a high magic game with magic items a little more prevalent than suggested in the DMG treasure tables.

Step 2: D&D lore
According to the Al-Qadim: Land of Fate boxed set, The Bonfire, also called Nar-Aidiya, is a human male 20th-level flame mage. While his face and true name are unknown, his actions and commandments are not; settlements and oases are put to the torch, and rival wizards are slain by holy slayers in his employ. According to A Dozen and One Adventures, he speaks to his followers through special magic mirrors, appearing as a blazing face with shrouded features. He operates from a fortress deep within the Haunted Lands in the rainless Great Anvil, protected from both genies and other elemental wizards.

We learn more in DRAGON #268: Secrets of the Brotherhood of True Flame! The secret fortress is known as Krak al-Mazhar, hollowed out of an extinct volcano, and it is described as an "impregnable hideaway." The Bonfire is described as commanding Imperishable Mamluks (slave soldiers with magic tattoos granting fire resistance), Flamedeath holy slayers, and Shig'harakh (lesser flame mages studying under The Bonfire). He is described as an exceptionally paranoid man who keeps his true appearance hidden from even most in the Brotherhood. He appears to be in his early 40's with glossy black hair, a goatee, and piercing black eyes, and he is described wearing a shimmering scarlet robe embroidered with gold, a white sash, and a white turban.

Sidenote: "Mazhar" is a tricky word to translate from Arabic. Perhaps the closest meaning is a "manifestation (of the divine)." So Krak al-Mazhar might translate to Fortress of the Manifestation.

Been looking for a good picture online, and so far this may be the best contender...

Lastly, the DRAGON article tells us about some of The Bonfire's magic items... a special robe of the archmagi keyed to flame mages; the unique incandescent eye which protects him from fire elementals, allows him to feed on fire to heal, and summon a fire elemental 1/week like a brazier of commanding fire elementals (well, the AD&D version... the 5e version is 1/day); the golden mirror which combines features of a crystal ball and a mirror of mental prowess among other cool things; and an artifact gifted by the efreet called The Molten Throne which grants immunity to fire, acts as a rod of rulership, and allows him to cast these spells at-will: ESP (detect thoughts), chastise (similar to suggestion), and flame of justice (which is a unique Al-Qadim spell I've already converted using a flame to discern truth from lies).

Step 3: A target to aim for
Let's shoot for making The Bonfire a 20th-level spellcaster , a legendary monster with legendary actions & lair actions, and of a higher CR than an archmage (which is CR 12 in the MM) but lesser than Imix (CR 19 in Princes of the Apocalypse). I'd like to "be inspired by" the wizard PC class but not be limited by it; I want him to recognizably be a wizard but also to have some surprises to throw at the players. And I'm planning on giving him maximum hit points for whatever his hit dice work out to be.

Step 4: Brainstorm!
Obviously I have a ton of ideas (and I'm working on a more fleshed out backstory for The Bonfire), but before I overwhelm you with those, I'd love to hear about your thoughts! Any creative ideas spring to mind? Old sourcebooks you'd recommend? Pitfalls to watch out for in creating a BBEG? Suggestions for how such a leader of a secret society would operate? Cool minions you'd suggest he employ? Homebrew spells or DM's Guild products that might support my endeavor? Throw them at me

 

[Capn Charlie]

One of the things that makes me sad when a spellcaster npc goes down is all of the leftover spells/spell slots.

Have you considered switching him over to a spell point build instead of a normal slotted build, and then price a bunch of unique/neat abilities as different action types?

Legendary Action (3SP): Spell attack 120 feet, +12 Atk 5d8 (25) Fire Damage

Hellish rebuke as a reaction, some different stuff like that. Put a top end on his SP though, so that a party can theoretically beat him just by outlasting his fury and running him out of enough "juice" to power scarier abilities.

 

[Quickleaf]

One of the things that makes me sad when a spellcaster npc goes down is all of the leftover spells/spell slots.

Have you considered switching him over to a spell point build instead of a normal slotted build, and then price a bunch of unique/neat abilities as different action types?

Legendary Action (3SP): Spell attack 120 feet, +12 Atk 5d8 (25) Fire Damage

Hellish rebuke as a reaction, some different stuff like that. Put a top end on his SP though, so that a party can theoretically beat him just by outlasting his fury and running him out of enough "juice" to power scarier abilities.

I see your point. While I'm not inclined to use spell points, since I'm not quick at that sub-system, I think the idea has merit. For example, normally Legendary Actions with more "oomf" might "cost 2 legendary actions" (e.g. a lich's Frightening Gaze or Disrupt Life). Instead, it sounds like I could attach a spell slot cost to stronger legendary actions (e.g. costs a 3rd level spell slot to make a 5d8 damage spell attack).

Another thing to consider is that several of his spells will likely be cast prior to any kind of confrontation. This might include spells like sending to issue commands to his underlings, teleportation circle or dimension door to move about, spells to slow the PCs advance down like conjured monsters or illusions or glyphs, and preparatory defense spells like fire shield. It would be a HUGE coup for the PCs to catch this NPC unprepared at least to some degree.

But you've got me thinking of something else...maybe a contingency if he's reduced to 0 hit points with an effect...or variable effects...based on spell slots remaining. I'll mull that over.

 

[Ath'kethin]

A couple of ideas:

1) (related to the ideas above) if he is destroyed, have him explode, with his unused spell slots functioning like leftover charges in the retributive strike of a staff of the magi.

2) (because I always try to work this in) have him be Majnun, the rogue janni accused of poisoning the Amir of the jann city in the Haunted Lands (I'm AFB and its name escapes me at the moment). So basically a rogue genie, and you could if you want make him among the first of the chaos genies or storm genies or whatever they were that you were setting up as part of the Unbinding. Effectively that would make him a noble janni (based on our conversation months ago; you may have taken a different route by now but for this purpose the basic idea still has merit, I feel).

Making him a rogue genie would boost his power in interesting ways and provide an array of abilities your players likely won't expect.

Assuming they don't read this thread, obviously.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6798775]Ath-kethin[/MENTION] That would be a twist! I was reading in Secrets of the Lamp that:

In fact, the amir has actually been kidnapped by the Brotherhood of the True Flame, who keep him languishing in the fortress of their dreaded leader, the Bonfire, deep within the Great Anvil.

 

[Ath'kethin]

[MENTION=6798775]Ath-kethin[/MENTION] That would be a twist! I was reading in Secrets of the Lamp that:

In fact, the amir has actually been kidnapped by the Brotherhood of the True Flame, who keep him languishing in the fortress of their dreaded leader, the Bonfire, deep within the Great Anvil.

How random is that? I had completely forgotten the Bonfire and that bit of info; I was just spouting ideas off the top of my head. But I guess it could all work.

 

[Quickleaf]

Doing just a bit of design tonight, I'm concurrently developing the BBEG's backstory and brainstorming his stat block.

There are a few questions that I'm pondering...

1. What drove The Bonfire to pursue an agenda of domination by flame mages? The Brotherhood believes that fire magic is somehow superior to other kinds, and if they can't convert magic-users the Brotherhood has no compunctions against hunting down the "offending" mage and leaving their burnt corpse and salted fields as a warning. But to what end? Has he foreseen the world's heat death / ice age, and that's what drives him to aggressively push a flame magic agenda? Does he believe it's only a matter of time before Zakhara's Enlightened Throne gets into open war with its neighbors, and he thinks widespread flame magic is the necessary to win?
2. Is he the first "Bonfire", the original creator of the Brotherhood of True Flame? Or is he the latest to lead? If he's the first, how did he manage to create such a powerful alliance of flame mages by his mid-forties? Is he immortal/long-lived or just an exceptionally shrewd charismatic man? OTOH, if he inherited the position from the previous leader, was that peaceable passing of the torch, a grueling test/challenge he had to pass, a wizard's duel, or a coup?
3. How do I make his fire magic potent against creatures with fire resistance in a way that allows the resistance to have some benefit? How does this look narratively? This is a more general question for the entire Brotherhood, but especially applies to The Bonfire. By the time the PCs face him they'll likely all have ways to gain fire resistance. I'm envisioning a trait that causes The Bonfire's fire magic to disable (permanently? temporarily?) any fire resistance after the resistance applies against the spell...but I'm not yet clear how to describe that so it would make sense.

And a few traits for his stat block I'm pondering...

[SECTION]The First Flame. The Bonfire acts as his own arcane focus, doesn’t count fire-based magic items against his 3 item attunement limit, and his concentration checks for fire spells have advantage. Additionally, all allied flame mages within 30 feet who can see and hear The Bonfire similarly have advantage on concentration checks for fire spells.[/SECTION]
>>This represents his leadership of the flame mages, so they have an easier time sustaining conjure elemental and wall of fire spells in his presence. It also lets him attune to all the items described in the DRAGON article.

[SECTION]Paranoid. The Bonfire cannot be surprised while he is conscious, he gains advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks to detect disguised creatures, and can always tell whether his food and drink are poisoned.[/SECTION]
>>I thought this was equivalent to 1-2 feats, as the Alert feat grants immunity to surprise, +5 (advantage) on initiative, and other creatures don't gain advantage on attack rolls against you while hidden. It represents the sort of lengths such a paranoid leader of a secret society might go to, especially when there are holy slayers and agents of the Grand Caliph who'd love to get their hands on him.

[SECTION]Pyromancy. The Bonfire’s fire spells have advantage on damage rolls, and when he does damage with a fire spell to a creature with fire resistance, the creature loses its resistance until the end of the Bonfire’s next turn.[/SECTION]
>>I'm uncertain about both parts of this one. Advantage on delayed blast fireball (12d6 / avg = 3.5*12 = 42), for example, would yield (12d6, advantage / avg = 4.5*12 = 54. So that's +12 damage per target, which is pretty potent!

 

[cbwjm]

For 2, if he is the latest then the players can be in for a surprise when they defeat him, only to encounter "him" at a later date. Perhaps when he dies, his body turns to ash and his unique powers transfer to his replacement.

Pyromancy could be as simple as adding his spellcasting modifier to any fire spell he casts.

 

[Quickleaf]

For 2, if he is the latest then the players can be in for a surprise when they defeat him, only to encounter "him" at a later date. Perhaps when he dies, his body turns to ash and his unique powers transfer to his replacement.

Pyromancy could be as simple as adding his spellcasting modifier to any fire spell he casts.

I was considering giving him a ring of mental shielding, which has a pretty could proviso about "if you die while wearing this ring..."

Your idea made me think what if the character killing him receives the "spark" to become the new Bonfire? And then they have this telepathic voice in the ring guiding them. That's pretty awesome...in a bastard DM way.

 

[cbwjm]

I was considering giving him a ring of mental shielding, which has a pretty could proviso about "if you die while wearing this ring..."

Your idea made me think what if the character killing him receives the "spark" to become the new Bonfire? And then they have this telepathic voice in the ring guiding them. That's pretty awesome...in a bastard DM way.

That is pretty awesome, because it means that the members of the brotherhood of flame who know about it will be hunting down the PCs in a bid to kill them and become the next Bonfire.