How much evil can a mundane man cause?

Klaus · Nov 9, 2005

"How much evil can a mundane man cause?"

[opens newspaper]

Hmm...

Stormborn · Nov 9, 2005

The Barkeep idea is perfect. An ordinary person who is really dedicated to seeing evil for its own sake can do a great deal of damage by spreading lies, or just distorting the truth. They can be the motivation for a great deal of evil, but never draw enough attention to themselves to be noticed by adventurers or other potential agents of good. In game terms such a person would have to be LE or NE to keep from drawing attention to himself.

I can picture some little village full of angry rude people. No one is happy and the crime rate is high. Out of this enviroment seem to come several noteworthy villans, a mortician who has turned to necromacny, a particularly violent criminal gang, etc. And no one ever knows its just the local barkeep, or barber, or deputy sheriff who keeps it all going.

Tonguez · Nov 9, 2005

Read (or see) Othello - Iago's a good example

Einan · Nov 9, 2005

The best part is Gus the Scheming Barkeep never needs to lie. He simply abuses his position by breaking confidences. If he's based in a large city or busy crossroads town, he never even need be suspected. In fact, in some cases he might even be lauded. If he tips off the mayor that the mayor's wife is cheating on him with the local sheriff, there's nothing evil or wrong about that. It's nice and honorable. Now, if he adds some particularlu lurid details that cause the mayor to get a little hot under the collar and cause him to do something rash, eh, who could blame the barkeep?

Einan

WayneLigon · Nov 9, 2005

Look at any good crime movie, especially where the mundane man has some power. Even if he doesn't, though, he could send kingdoms to war and put entire groups to the sword just by being in the right place at the right time (and a good villain will create the right place and right time - no accidents!) or saying the right thing to the right person. The Dragon article on the Ecology of the Feyr comes to mind.

Sejs · Nov 9, 2005

You know, with enough talent for gathering information, a good selection of stock, and the proper demeanor, a guy could do a pretty good job setting up his own branch of Needful Things.

abri · Nov 9, 2005

Stormborn said:
The Barkeep idea is perfect. An ordinary person who is really dedicated to seeing evil for its own sake can do a great deal of damage by spreading lies, or just distorting the truth. They can be the motivation for a great deal of evil, but never draw enough attention to themselves to be noticed by adventurers or other potential agents of good. In game terms such a person would have to be LE or NE to keep from drawing attention to himself.

I can picture some little village full of angry rude people. No one is happy and the crime rate is high. Out of this enviroment seem to come several noteworthy villans, a mortician who has turned to necromacny, a particularly violent criminal gang, etc. And no one ever knows its just the local barkeep, or barber, or deputy sheriff who keeps it all going.

I love this idea, he could cause the circumstances that caused the mortician to become a necromancer (lets say his wife was killed by a gang that "happened to be there" and he initially try to bring back dead to life, then evolve into trying to get revenge on the living...).

This could be a great vilain for the PC to defeat, since it would require so much investigation to figure out. Actually it probably would take many violent event by the people he has corrupted before any PC could figure out that something is really wrong in the town.
NE would be the perfect alignement for this guy: he is the corruptor, not doing evil but creating it. And in a highly lawful society there's the added problem for the PC that it's going to be very hard to fight him: there's few proof that he has done any crime

Aaron L · Nov 9, 2005

Spreading viscious rumors and stuff. Ive always thought of playing an evil bard who just screwed over everyones reputation. Imagine the damage an evil bard devoted to ruining every hero he came across could do! Everywhere you go, theres a song about youre misdeeds being sung, no one will sell to you, city guards constantly watch ans harrass you, and you get rotten tomatos thrown at you by kids.

Not to mention the general bad stuff he could do, ruining marraiges, destroying decent peoples reputations, causing a civil strife and resentment towards the government, etc.

Umbran · Nov 10, 2005

Consider that in our real world, every single evil ever done was done by mundane men and women. Sometimes they're mundane people in positions of political power, but they had no backing of ancient dark gods or demons or anything.

Anything you've seen done in the real world can be done by mundane folks, and transferred pretty much verbatim to the fantasy world. And that's a whole lot of different evils...

VirgilCaine · Nov 10, 2005

Umbran said:
Consider that in our real world, every single evil ever done was done by mundane men and women. Sometimes they're mundane people in positions of political power, but they had no backing of ancient dark gods or demons or anything.

Anything you've seen done in the real world can be done by mundane folks, and transferred pretty much verbatim to the fantasy world. And that's a whole lot of different evils...

Ironic that your avatar is that normal lawyer guy from Angel...

This is a good thread.