Humorous Villains

[Luthien Greyspear]

I find myself wondering how many DMs have used truly ridiculous or silly villains in their campaigns. Not humor campaigns, mind you, but serious campaigns. And if you have used them, did they ever actually become truly villainous? Did the party ever consider them worth fighting, even while they were snickering at them?

As an example, I offer Brulug. Brulug was a minor villain back in a 2nd Edition campaign, which used the Fate of Istus module as its framework. The party first encountered him when he abducted the daughter of a local lord (who also happened to be the secret lover of one of the characters--the daughter, not the lord), and took her off into the swamp to become his bride. The major problem with this, other than the whole kidnapping thing, was that Brulug was the most pathetic creature on the planet.

His highest stat was 12 (Constitution), and his next highest was 11 (Wisdom). He really only qualified for one class (Cleric) and he worshipped Wastri, The Hopping Prophet. For those of you who don't know this god, he's the diety of racism and frogs. How's that for a combination? In addition, he had a Charisma of 6 (at most), and a collection of random psionic powers that basically made him even more toad-like. He also had a horrible lisp, a hunched body, slightly oily skin, and lots and lots of warts. Think Toad from the X-Men comics (back in the Silver Age), and you're close.

The party rescued the girl with a minimum of bother from him (his bullywug tribe was the real threat), and went on their merry way. (Brulug had dove into the swamp to avoid getting dead. His only intelligent decision EVER.) Over the next few months, Brulug became the de facto benchmark in the group for lameness, despite the fact that they had still only encountered him the once. The party assumed (rightly, for the most part) that he was a comic villain, and that I threw him in just for laughs.

So, when he hired a dangerous doppleganger assassin to murder a party member and bring back his heart to complete a dangerous ritual, the party was a little surprised. They chased down the killer, got the heart back, raised the dead party member, and went full-tilt against...Brulug. They had declared war against the lamest NPC they had ever met. This time, he had the help of a Hezrou demon (the toad-looking one), who was using Brulug to conduct a ritual that would free him to wreak havoc. Again, in the final showdown, Brulug was mostly useless, jabbering on about how the 'Angel of Wathtri would thmite hith foeth and conthume their fleth!" Nevertheless, the party was pushed to the wall in that fight, dealing with a Hezrou that was imprisoned in an animated statue, a couple of hundred Manes demons, and Brulug's insignificant attempts to influence the fight. (Oh, actually, he did spit poison into one person's eyes, so he helped. A little.)

Iit was a good couple of sessions, some memorable combats, and a nice chunk of role-playing surrounding the assassinated character. All from the actions of one ridiculously humorous NPC villain.

Anybody else got something like that to look back on?

 

[Tonguez]

I knew this guy at school who looked like a geek - tall, thin, pale with thin lank hair no muscle tone, buck teeth and you get the idea. (He was a great person he just looked like the quintssential geek)

Anyway I decided to create a villain based on him and came up with Ainsley Fodder, a geek who wanted power (and was willing to sell his soul to get it). Anyway Ainsley had to collect seven hearts (each of a particular sort) anyway because he was too weak and pathetic to become a murderer he decided to try and get a job at the local morgue. It worked for 3 corpses but then a side effect of his rituals was that the corposes reanimated as zombies - and thats where the PCs came in. 3 zombies (with hearts missing), a geek diabolist with no idea what he was doing, a haunted house and of course the 'demon' come to collect his soul, it all combined for a fun game

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

I knew this guy at school who looked like a geek - tall, thin, pale with thin lank hair no muscle tone, buck teeth and you get the idea. (He was a great person he just looked like the quintssential geek)

Yeah, but was the character portrayed humorously? Did the party have a hard time suppressing a chuckle when he tried to rant villainously?

 

[Melkor Lord Of ALL!]

I

So, when he hired a dangerous doppleganger assassin to murder a party member and bring back his heart to complete a dangerous ritual, the party was a little surprised. They chased down the killer, got the heart back, raised the dead party member, and went full-tilt against...Brulug. They had declared war against the lamest NPC they had ever met. This time, he had the help of a Hezrou demon (the toad-looking one), who was using Brulug to conduct a ritual that would free him to wreak havoc. Again, in the final showdown, Brulug was mostly useless, jabbering on about how the 'Angel of Wathtri would thmite hith foeth and conthume their fleth!" Nevertheless, the party was pushed to the wall in that fight, dealing with a Hezrou that was imprisoned in an animated statue, a couple of hundred Manes demons, and Brulug's insignificant attempts to influence the fight. (Oh, actually, he did spit poison into one person's eyes, so he helped. A little.)

Iit was a good couple of sessions, some memorable combats, and a nice chunk of role-playing surrounding the assassinated character. All from the actions of one ridiculously humorous NPC villain.

Anybody else got something like that to look back on?

So they killed him? Did he try to beg for mercy?

 

[Tonguez]

Yeah, but was the character portrayed humorously? Did the party have a hard time suppressing a chuckle when he tried to rant villainously?

Ah yes he was portrayed as a whiney schoolboy geek with delusions of grandeur, his villainous rants were often tantrums which slowly developed into diabolical schemes. He was extremely clumsy and accident prone but in the best slapstick tradition it was this clumsiness which allowed him to escape harm - he was also a complete coward (like Rincewind of Discworld fame) - I played him very camp....

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

So they killed him? Did he try to beg for mercy?

Actually, it was even more ridiculous than that, appropriately enough. The party's wild mage had, as one of his earliest actions, put a Wall of Fire up to block off any attacks from Brulug while the party dealt with the horde of Manes and the Hezrou's telekinesis. Brulug was up on a high platform, making dealing with him the wizard's job. Well, as usual, the wild mage rolled a wild surge (remember them?), and got a result that caused the spell's target to see an image of his own death (or his final judgement by the gods, or something like that). Brulug spent much of the combat, at least until the Wall's duration expired, on his knees apologizing for all the kittens he had drowned, and the neighbor's pet bunny he stole and ate when he was a little boy, and all the innocent girls he had tried to abduct...

Basically, every time his initiative count came around, I launched into a short rant about yet another crime of petty evil that he was desperately trying to apologize for. His only worthy action was at the end, when the Wall came down, and he spat poison in someone's face. Then they chopped him into kibble.

 

[kolikeos]

there was this elven barbarian with a voice like (as the dm described it) his balls were being cut off. he wasn't supposed to be a villain, just some unimportant npc we met on the way. we tried to rob him and he got pissed off and kicked our butts (the dm wanted to teach us not to rob high level npcs). he didn't kill us, just left us unconscious and took all our gold. we searched for him ever since but never found him (mostly because the dm wanted us to go on a different adventure).

 

[Richards]

I once used a deviant ogre who "had a thing" for dwarves as a major (surprise) enemy for a dungeon crawl adventure with a predominently dwarven party. They were not amused when, having pretty much cleaned out the dungeon, they found Big Irv the Ogre Perv blocking the only exit.

...I think it was his fishnet stockings that really creeped them out.

Johnathan

 

[STARP_JVP]

I use comic villains all the time. Two examples:

• Serulius the Mad. Serulius, or Seru, was a PC who I took over as an NPC after the player left. Always eccentric, I portrayed his descent into borderline psychosis and finally into underpants-on-the-head madness. He used to talk over his plans with his sock puppet sidekick, "Mr. Sock" - when a PC 'killed' Mr. Sock by yanking it off Seru's hand, Seru went into a Rain Man-type fury and from that point on was one of many people out to kill the PCs. His madness was brought on by a malfunctioning raise dead spell. I should note he wasn't much of a scheming villain, more a sort of 'find them and kill them' type. Think Rimmer from Red Dwarf in the episode Quarrantine, complete with Mr. Flibble...
• Lara and Sheena, the Temptresses. They were always fun to play - a bard and a sorceress, both with high charisma, that achieved their ends by making kissy faces at people and pouting. They were con women and thieves, and they completely put one over on the PCs, resulting in a 110% victory.The second time, they were less successful and went to prison. They were 'funny' in the sense that I used them to put the PCs in humourous situations - a PC under a charm is always cause for hilarity...

 

[demiurge1138]

My first villain was an exercise in comedy. He was Kojark, a kobold sorcerer who lured the party into his tower and forced them to continue through it with promises of a reward, threats and taunts. Kojark himself was funny, with a ridiculous high-pitched voice and plenty of insulting jokes aimed at the party. The carnage his tower inflicted on the players was not so funny. At least, not to them.

Demiurge out.