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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Misanthrope Prime" data-source="post: 9883942" data-attributes="member: 6776166">Looking at successful serial killers with long confirmed lists, or who went a long time without being caught, is a good starting point. One of the popular images of serial killers, that they're cool, calm, collected Patrick Bateman style narcissists, doesn't really bear out; they're often barely controlled, emotionally unstable wrecks who cause pain and pleasure on a whim.Part of what makes a serial killer "successful" is how they fit into the local power structure. Killers like Luis Garavito and Samuel Little often target people who "won't be missed" by groups with the authority to punish them; sex workers, homeless people, gender, sexual and ethnic minorities. Others, like Joseph James DeAngelo, used his position as a police officer to commit heinous acts over miles and decades, staying ahead of forensic science and protecting himself with the blue line and the culture of brotherhood and silence common to American police.All this is to say that a good chaotic evil villain is suspended in a matrix that protects them from the chaos and evil that they inflict upon others. A "dumb" chaotic evil villain is your common guttersnipe who steals for kicks, and then gets his naughty word kicked in by the local street thugs who don't appreciate theft; it's a problem you can solve easily. A "smart" chaotic evil villain is the local nobleman who donates to the Watchman's Benevolent Union and simply shows his donor card when the police come by asking about all the headless bodies found at the brothel.EDIT: A good example of this is, well, the abyss, the dimension of pure chaotic evil. It's very hard to punish a demon for what they do in the mortal realm; you kill them and they just get sent back home. They are, ultimately, insulated from the consequences of their actions, unless they either get imprisoned or piss off someone powerful enough to go to the Abyss and kick their ass a second time. That's the horror inherent to chaotic evil; "sometimes bad people do bad things and there is no orderly system of justice in place to punish them, just chaos determining who gets punished and rewarded."</blockquote>

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