ideas for a villain

[Gilladian]

I'm working up a (really neat, I hope) new location in my campaign world. In ancient times, a now-vanished culture moved a huge solid slab (lentil shaped disk) of stone from somewhere unimportant to a location deep in a swamp. They built tunnels and passages through the disk, essentially forming a city below the swamp's surface. The disk is about 1/4 mile thick at center, and about 5 miles across.

Much later, another civilization built a city on TOP of the disk, probably never realizing that the first location was there. Eventually that civilization also decayed and vanished. Since then at least one more empire has risen and fallen, and possibly 2,000 years have gone by.

Now someone has managed to penetrate the swamps and begun to explore the ruins. He has found a way from the top city to the undercity, and is exploring it as well. He has both allies (I'm not sure who) and enemies (Yuan-ti, maybe?) as well as general swamp residents to deal with (gnolls and trolls and a variant lizardman race, among others).

I've decided that in the very deepest reaches of the city there lies a gate, kinda like a stargate. It is guarded by a nearly immortal being, trapped by his guardianship; that creature is ancient, weary, nearly insane with boredom, and desperate to pass the guardianship on to a new, responsible and trustworthy gatekeeper. Of course the explorer is anything but responsible or trustworthy.

I'd appreciate some advice on what my villainous explorer should be , who his allies might be, and things I could do with the top layer of city to make it interesting to the PCs.

At this point, I expect the PCs will stumble on the outskirts of the ruined city at about 4-5th level, and spend much of the rest of the campaign exploring, possibly reaching the gate guardian by 12-15th level, if their interest holds that long!

Gilladian

 

[Oren the awakener]

Cool idea, I would probaly make the villain allied with lizardfolk, and perhaps yuan-ti. Also, another idea, when the bad guy starts running the place, have the guardian die somehow, and possibly give the PC's some info. (By the way, can you tell me the bad guys race etc.)

 

[Gilladian]

I think I have decided that the bad guy will be a lich. He was a member of the second, above surface civilization and was driven away at some point for his evil actions. He has now returned to find some artifact he desires; he was one of the few of his culture that knew about the undercity.

The being who guards the gate is effectively immortal so long as he remains the guardian. He is desperate to find a replacement. Possibly one of the PCs??? He might be a gold dragon, or a half-gold. Definitely a LG creature, but rather pressed by his near-insane loneliness and despair. After all, he's been guarding the damned gate for several thousand years.

The bad guy lich is allied with one of two forces who occupy parts of the overcity. One of those groups - most likely NOT his allies - are yuan ti. I think his allies will be led by a szathair - a creature rather like a lizardman but not quite as powerful. Szathair were bred by the second culture to be warriors; they have dragon blood and many are also sorcerers. When the second culture went away, the szathair were left behind and became independent. Now the nearby human culture sends slaver bands into the swamp to seize szathair and make them into slaves.

Occasional szathair are born who are throwbacks to the dragon blood. These quarter dragon creatures are usually black dragon descended. I think that one of these creatures and a whole bunch of szathair who have been fooled into following the creature will be the lich's allies.

Any more ideas, anybody?

Gilladian