• The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!

I want to.......Destroy the World!

redwing

First Post
What are your villians' motives for wanting to bring destruction to the world? Is it vengeance, greed, the desire for power? Pure Madness? What are the most common tropes of the fantasy genre concerning this question? What are the most developed reasons you have used?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

strumbleduck

First Post
Reasons to destroy the world:

1. You hate existence and want to end it completely.

2. You were against the original creation of the world, and would like to see it unmade.

3. You prefer the undead.

4. You want to own the world, but first you need to implement a few changes (e.g. putting out the sun, lowering the temperature, covering the planet in water, or setting the planet on fire).

5. You want to return to your home dimension. Unfortunately, your plan involves the destruction of this one.

6. You are predestined to play an important role in the end times, and you are overeager to see them start.

7. You literally eat planets.

8. You hate all other forms of life, and you decide to exterminate them all.

9. You want to prove that you are smarter than everyone else, and your megalomania has gone a little overboard.

10. The world is an important spell component for the immortality spell you have devised.

11. You are under the control of alien beings who wish to use this dimension for their own purposes.

12. You think that destroying the world will elevate you to godhood.

13. If you were to kill everyone, the world would finally be at peace.

14. You are extremely powerful, and sometimes you destroy worlds accidentally.

15. You were programmed to kill.

16. You want to hold the entire world for ransom.

17. You believe that this world is a prison, and its destruction will mean freedom for everyone who lives here.

18. You really enjoyed your trip to the far realm, and you're pretty sure everyone else will enjoy it, too.

19. You have been wronged, and this is your vengeance.

20. You are simply evil, and destroying the world seems like an evil thing to do.
 

Maldin

First Post
Assuming that the destruction of your world means that you've got no place to enjoy your success, then I'd say "reward in the afterlife" (presumably from your evil god) has got to be a biggie. If you plan on surviving your dastardly plan, then "remaking the world to your own personal preferences" is likely a close second (perhaps with the mythical uber-artifact that is supposed to reveal itself only after the destruction of said world).

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
 

I liked the reason the Trillith have in the War of the Burning Sky. They're dream creatures and the physicality of the world is very limiting to them. They're setting the world truly free by turning it into an incorporeal dreamscape...sure, tons of folk are going to die but it'll be a better, comfier place :)
 

Kaodi

Hero
21. The grand experiment of life has failed, and you must wipe the slate clean in order to give a new existence a chance.

22. A bigger, badder, eviler evil is coming to enslave and devour the souls of all the innocent folks, and you figure you are doing them a favour by sending them to the side of their gods before they become unspeakably evil entity chow.
 

Aus_Snow

First Post
Your 'Good' (or actually Good) deity has told you to do it, and that's that? Or, at least, those voices / some books / that preacher are telling you that's so.
 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
23. The world is riddled with and ruled by Evil. It must be destroyed to give Good the upper hand once again. ("We had to destroy the village in order to save it.")

24. It is blocking my view of Venus.

25. It's my ex-girlfriend's planet, and if I can't have her...

26. Blifisgurgle! (Need I say more?)
 

ProfessorCirno

Banned
Banned
Whoever knows where this comes from gets bonus points. Sadly, the points do nothing - but you can still brag about them! Also, don't cheat and google it!



'My reasons for returning are not what you would think. I have no aspirations for power or domination as so many do. No. Those are the motivations of the living, and I no longer place myself among them.

'If only I could show you the places I have seen, you might understand the things I say. I have been to the Desolate Lands, wandered by those souls who still see the lands of the living, yet wear the cloak of the dead. Blind to their own ends, they cry, passing through one another like shadows in the dying light of day. I have traveled to where souls rot in torment, pierced with the jagged shards of life and vision, clinging to memory - regrets of the flesh. I saw that this prison was of their own making, and that the key was in unknowing, in release... and still, I traveled on.

'And finally, I came to the place where souls go to die. Where the mirrored and worn spirits fall into an endless sea of grey, mirrored glass... and I lowered myself within...and lay among them... and I almost did not return.

'And do you know what I found there? There, among the silent and battered shells of the innumerable? Peace. Enlightenment. Truth. Only then did I realized that this place, this "Life", is an abomination, a horrible distortion of the natural order. This "Life", who mothered Pain, and Fear, and Envy - these twisted children who exist only because we are here to feed them, to nourish them! This "Life", this... afterthought - a disturbance, a mere ripple in that great, dead sea, not even a cause, but merely an effect, sending these souls upwards, screaming for release from the day they are torn from their waters! The effect of what?!

'I do not know. Nor do I care.

'Have you ever spoken with the dead? Called to them from this side? Called them from their silent rest? Do you know what it is that they feel? Pain. Pain, having been torn into this wakefulness, this reminder of the chaos from which they had escaped. Pain! At having to live! There will be no more pain. There will be no more chaos.

And so I go to be an end to it, and then I will join the souls of the dead, when it is done.

'I see your souls, travelers. It screams, tattered and spent. Do you feel its pull? Do you hear its wailing? It is within my power to calm these waters, and that is what I shall do.
 
Last edited:

Trickstergod

First Post
The antagonist in the campaign I'm running will likely destroy the world if he's successful in his plans, but it's not actually his goal. In this case, his reason for destroying the world is simply that he's blinded by hubris.

He's the high priest of a dead god intent on resurrecting said deity. To do this, he's going to put the remaining essence of the god into a soulless, vacant shell. Said shell is a primordial creation of doom and destruction that even the gods weren't able to destroy.

He feels that if he can resurrect his god in the things body, his god will effectively be beyond destruction ever again. Besides, it's a soulless, inanimate body, right?

Of course, the shell is still a tainted body geared towards a specific purpose from it's initial creation and the god-soul will be tainted from inhabiting it. Once animated, it will go on a world-destroying rampage.

So in this case, the antagonist doesn't actually want to destroy the world. He's just too short-sighted and overly proud to realize his actions may very well lead to just that very thing.
 

MeMeMeMe

First Post
Reasons to destroy the world:

1. You hate existence and want to end it completely.

2. You were against the original creation of the world, and would like to see it unmade.

3. You prefer the undead.

4. You want to own the world, but first you need to implement a few changes (e.g. putting out the sun, lowering the temperature, covering the planet in water, or setting the planet on fire).

5. You want to return to your home dimension. Unfortunately, your plan involves the destruction of this one.

6. You are predestined to play an important role in the end times, and you are overeager to see them start.

7. You literally eat planets.

8. You hate all other forms of life, and you decide to exterminate them all.

9. You want to prove that you are smarter than everyone else, and your megalomania has gone a little overboard.

10. The world is an important spell component for the immortality spell you have devised.

11. You are under the control of alien beings who wish to use this dimension for their own purposes.

12. You think that destroying the world will elevate you to godhood.

13. If you were to kill everyone, the world would finally be at peace.

14. You are extremely powerful, and sometimes you destroy worlds accidentally.

15. You were programmed to kill.

16. You want to hold the entire world for ransom.

17. You believe that this world is a prison, and its destruction will mean freedom for everyone who lives here.

18. You really enjoyed your trip to the far realm, and you're pretty sure everyone else will enjoy it, too.

19. You have been wronged, and this is your vengeance.

20. You are simply evil, and destroying the world seems like an evil thing to do.

Great list. My favourite is number 10. (and also 18).
 

Voidrunner's Codex

Remove ads

Top