Designing a few good villains

[Le Noir Faineant]

Hi all,

After a minor hiatus and a rather short, but nonetheless very funny
experience as a Gothic Horror game DM,
it seems that I will soon return to more familiar realms again.

- For next spring, I want to prepare an epic fantasy game again, most likely for OD&D/RC D&D.

The setting is still undecided, though I think about Judges Guild's Known World (Wilderlands/Blackmoor).

Now my problem:

Every epic story begins with an epic villain. And I currently can think of none...

Can anyone help me out, please?

Yours,

Rafael

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What about a Godslayer?

Good villains are driven, good villains have some big motivation - and because they're villains, Goodwill Towards Mankind doesn't work. So look for Revenge. A big Vendetta against the guys who killed his father and thair employer.

His father, a petty criminal - not even a real criminal, he just had money problems, took on a job as a lookout, but it wasn't a minor robbery, it was some blood ritual. The inquisitors of Deity X arrived, didn't bother to ask questions and just killed everyone. His mother died (they were starving and she sick to boot, hence the money problems), and he only survived because he sold himself to sick men.

He vowed to avenge the death of his family and his dignity. Since they were ultimately sent by Deity X, and acted on his behalf and with his consent, he now has a Vendetta against Deity X.

And he's frantic. He's driven. He really wants to kill that god. That's not an easy thing, so he's researching all apotheosis and ascension rituals he can find, looks into all possible ways - lichdom, transforming himself into a fiendlord with old rituals, getting ascendency by sacrificing a whole country to achieve godhood, and so on.

Since he's not really fit for the (few) ways you can become a deity via acts of virtue, he looks into all the stuff that makes you an evil god. And that stuff's vile. They don't all work in one go, of course, and a lot of it is bogus, too (a lot of sick jokes by various evil gods of deception, murder, secrets, and so on), so the results of his previous failed attempts will be all over the place.

That's how the players first tangle up with him: They find out he's been feeding virgins to a half-demonic black dragon, or murdered all innocent people in a town that is in a special location (including children, of course), leaving only the sinners alive (who all had to prove their sinful nature by commiting a sin). Stuff like that.

In the beginning, he's "merely" a not-too-low-level character with an extreme case of megalomania who manages to stay one step ahead of them. Later, as several rituals prove to be at least a partial success, he becomes monstrous not only in behaviour, but in physical nature, too, and in the end, he'll either be a new evil god or something close to it.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Hi all,

After a minor hiatus and a rather short, but nonetheless very funny
experience as a Gothic Horror game DM,
it seems that I will soon return to more familiar realms again.

- For next spring, I want to prepare an epic fantasy game again, most likely for OD&D/RC D&D.

The setting is still undecided, though I think about Judges Guild's Known World (Wilderlands/Blackmoor).

Now my problem:

Every epic story begins with an epic villain. And I currently can think of none...

Can anyone help me out, please?

Yours,

Rafael

I can help you borrow Alek, if you like.

He has what you want.
You want what he has.

Some questions about the villain you want:

Sauron or Hannibal Lecter?
Genghis Khan or Lucretia Borgia?
Jack the Ripper or Blade Runner's Rutger Hauer?

What interests you in a villain?

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

What about a Godslayer?

That sounds nice! As I write below, the concept of a *grey* enemy would be something
that I could like!

I can help you borrow Alek, if you like.

That could be cool, especially since I am seriously thinkign about borrowing Calahan as well,
but this time obviously as a villain.

BTW, already did so in an adventure in a similar setting!

Some questions about the villain you want:

Sauron or Hannibal Lecter?
Genghis Khan or Lucretia Borgia?
Jack the Ripper or Blade Runner's Rutger Hauer?

What interests you in a villain?

More The Joker than Sauron.
More Vlad Dracul than a Borgia.
More Agent Smith than the Replicant.

I am not sure what I am looking for this time, but I want the villains to evolve with the party.
- Like, one villain seemingly converted and then deciding to follow the way of evil again.

No idea where I am heading to with this, though...

 

[Rechan]

Nothing wrong with a cabal. A group of bad guys are a little more interesting than a single one, and can defend themselves a little better. Besides, that way you can pick one off and still have the Plot going.

But some general ideas:

"I want to die."

This has two options here.

1) Kraus is a dwarf of powerful skill at arms. Which is his problem. Kraus has done something few dwarves have had to deal with in some time: he's going to die of old age (or a poison, incurable disease, whathaveyou). The problem here is that Kraus's beliefs, his religion, say that only a man who falls in honorable combat will go on to Heaven. And he, sensing the clock is ticking, is cutting a swath across the countryside, hoping to find something tough enough to put him down.

Maybe this means he has to burn villages, kick in the doors of wizard towers, and stir up dragons all over, but some divine intention or luck, he keeps winning. And he's just going to start upping the scale of his devastation.

Twist

Perhaps Kraus is Cursed (or blessed, depending on how you see it) by the God of Destruction, or some outside force that is somehow letting him beat the odds. This is unknown to Kraus, and perhaps the PCs have to break this curse or dispel it before the dwarf can be brought down.

2) Echaun is immortal. This was not of his design. Perhaps he is a species that simply is immortal. Or it is the result of some eldrich effect, divine blessing, or other mechanation. Regardless, Echaun wants to die. He is tired of life; his friends will always leave him, the goals he has set forth to accomplish have been done, and he is simply bored with life.

Problem is, he has no clue how to go about doing it. So what's the easiest way of going about it? Ending the world. If everything else goes, surely he will too.

"I'll get you."

Nothing like some good vengeance. This requires some work on your part, because the PCs must do something to the villain to cause his whole world to become "I will destroy you and everything you cherish".

This is best with someone who starts out an ally that, through some indirect action by the PCs, is messed up. Say a torch barer who gets attacked and infected/turned undead by something the PCs should've protected him from.

Or perhaps the PCs actions have caused a powerful Monster to be unleashed on the countryside. That monster kills the villain's family. Rather than blame the monster itself, he blames those who released it: the PCs. This is best if he was formerly a friend of theirs.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Here is my own suggestion for an epic scope villain. Consider the following scenario:

Lets say that Xaxos is a very high level diviner. He wants basically to be all knowing. He has managed to reach the very peak of mortal power, and is a powerful and feared wizard king, has vast armies at his command, and is essentially the ruler of the world. Of course, for Xaxos that is just not good enough. So he keeps searching, and delves into the very fabric of the cosmos at the time of creation, simply wanting to know what had come before.

Then he manages to learn the Terrible Secret that Man was Not Meant to Know. Beyond time and space there is a great and terrible intelligence that is barely aware of the existence of mortals. But his constant prying into the secrets of the cosmos managed, for a brief instant, to gain the direct attention of that intelligence. And it spoke to him.

The merest sound tore through the minds of every living creature within 50 miles. For many years afterward, those who entered the city to discover what had happened went mad from the mere suggestion an echo of that unearthly sound. Eventually, when the city could be entered, there was no trace of any living creature. The kingdom of Xaxos faded from the memory of mortals.

Xaxos himself though, was not dead. The great one had taken him for closer study. For one breif instant, Xaxos was forced to exist outside of time, and the very fabric of his existence was laid bare, taken apart and reassembled to satisfy the curiosity of an intelligence so vast that even gods cannot comprehend it.

The great one did grow bored with Xaxos, however. Time had no meaning to it, and when it was finished, he returned Xaxos more or less where he had found him, in more or less the condition he had discovered him. Xaxos had learned the merest fraction of what he wanted to, but the cost was too much. He suffered pain beyond imagining for a period of time beyond the ability of his mind to comprehend. His soul was no longer completely intact, and the remembered agony was more than he could handle.

But he did learn some things about existence. He learned, for example, that his agony would never end so long as he managed to exist. Death would not be enough because what was left of his soul would bear the imprint of his experience. He now belongs to the things from beyond, and every time he dies, he is returned to them, to suffer once more. His mind would always be returned, in one form or another, to the mortal world.

But Xaxos learned that it was possible to undo his existence, so that he would never have to that place beyond time. But the nature of creation is that every soul is bound to every other, and all souls are bound to the creations of the gods. To undo his own existence would be to undo the existence of what passed for reality.

Xaxos is ok with this. To end his own suffering, he will do anything.

Result:
You have a mad wizard who essentially knows way too much, and does not wish to exist any more.
You have a villain you can kill as many times as you like and have returned.
You have a cosmic scale plot (I suggest that protection from Chaos will become very important)

END COMMUNICATION

 

[wedgeski]

Problem is, he has no clue how to go about doing it. So what's the easiest way of going about it? Ending the world. If everything else goes, surely he will too.

Good idea, except that the villain and the PC's suddenly have the same goal: killing the villain.

 

[Rechan]

Good idea, except that the villain and the PC's suddenly have the same goal: killing the villain.

Actually, the PCs have the goal of stopping him from destroying the world, et al.

 

[Tal Rasha]

A good epic villain has to be at once powerful and mysterious. Some points to consider:

+ actions speak louder than words: it is one thing to hear someone talk about wanting to exact bloody revenge for his wife's death. It is quite another to find a village of 200 people all impaled on stakes simply because the wife-killer came from that village. Make your villain do evil things, but at the same time bear in mind the next item:

+ moral ambiguity is good. Personally I find out-and-open villains a bit boring. It's like having a flat character in a book - you know that's all there is to him. So even if the necromancer king has some proper motivation for wanting to invade your kingdom, you still know that the end effects will be bad and that you have to stop him. A morally ambiguous villain however (think Magneto in the X-Men comics) adds unpredictability, drama, sows doubt into the players' hearts as to whether they should really be fighting him, etc etc. And on these lines I reach my third point:

+ Keep your villain a mystery for as long as possible. Moral ambiguity is the result of not knowing the full intentions of your villain, and we may expand this guideline to not knowing very much at all about the villain, at least in the beginning of the story. Make your characters slowly discover more and more of the villain's plans, until at last they are shocked to find what he was really up to.

Of course, the epic villain has to be powerful and a real threat to the PCs. For inspiration, might I refer you to Artemis Entreri by R.A. Salvatore. Now imagine he started to train students to become as talented as he is, and was slowly building a guild for some unknown purpose. Hope this helps get the ball rolling.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What about a Villain that's not quite a villain? Let the PCs kill someone (directly or indirectly) that didn't really deserve it, have some other guy think of them as evil, and let him try to foil their "evildoings" all the time. This could work as an additional adversary you add to your normal villain.


Or something like the guy from the Serenity Movie: He thinks he's making the world a better place, and is willing to slaughter innocents for that if the end result is "positive" (more people saved than slaughtered). He knows he's evil, and will burn in hell, but someone's got to do it.