Post your Big Bads...

[Zappo]

Here are the main villains of my two current campaigns.

Sarai. She is a LE wizard, who does business trading magical weapons. Once, she got a contract to sell a large number of magical weapons to the Baatezu. While delivering the arms, she had the chance to visit Hell, and what she saw as well as the realization that it was her eventual destiny, scared her to death. She travelled to Mount Celestia to obtain forgivance, but since she asked it just out of fear it was refused. Naturally, se couldn't understand this. Currently, she is trying to become as evil and powerful as possible, hoping that in death she will be directly transmuted to a greater devil instead of going through the wretched larva stage. At the same time, she is afraid of death to the point of paranoia and has spent large sums in powerful magics to protect her from everything possible.

Hemmet. Insane CE sorcerer. He is using magic and trickery to gain control of a powerful LG nation, and is leading it to its eventual doom. He acts extremely noble and honorable in public, driven and charismatic, but when he's alone or with his faithful servants he becomes a moster of perversion, performing unholy experiments on the flesh of the living. He has created a Simulacrum, which has the same personality, only less so. Less obsessed with law and goodness in public, and less insane in private.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Well, the Drow I mentioned earlier is the head of a Dragon Cult. Felt like running a Droclich type cult in a non-Faerun setting, so I've got this guy at the head of it. And just to scare the players, he's started experiments on...Kobolds. My PCs have learned for fear the Half-Air Elemental Kobolds..and especially the Winged Kobolds Fighters. Though they've only met the Drow once. He was caught off guard, and ran...they're currently trying to figure out where he went....and he's building up a large army to send after them.

 

[Angcuru]

Rake: Honorable, psychotic ranger. He's a noble, and extremely rich. He was bored with the standard trophy hunting, and started hunting sentient humanoids. Groups of harvesters kidnap people for him and bring them to his island. He treats them to a nice dinner and conversation, then hunts them the next day.

You forgot to mention that when he sets them loose, he gives them only a hunting knife and a head start of 1 day. Also, if anyone he hunts ever takes him down, they get to keep all of his stuff as well as his island/real estate. Also, the island is surrounded by dangerous ship-wrecking reefs, so that there are plenty of stranded sailors to hunt down.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

You forgot to mention that when he sets them loose, he gives them only a hunting knife and a head start of 1 day. Also, if anyone he hunts ever takes him down, they get to keep all of his stuff as well as his island/real estate. Also, the island is surrounded by dangerous ship-wrecking reefs, so that there are plenty of stranded sailors to hunt down.

some pop-culture reference I'm not getting?

 

[Angcuru]

You must have fallen asleep in English Class, kid.

Ever read "The Most Dangerous Game"?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

You must have fallen asleep in English Class, kid.

Ever read "The Most Dangerous Game"?

You make it sound like a bad thing. I've always loved that story and I never actually thought to use a BBEG like that...and I have a world with thousands of islands...*plots*

 

[Mouseferatu]

The Deathless One, a lich so powerful that the best the church of Pelor could do was imprison him (at least until he duped the PCs into setting him free).

I've always loved doing stuff like that. There's a similar character in the forthcoming Shadow Branch Campaign Setting; one of the villains is a lich named Hroskof (or Hroskof Ice-Hand, Hroskof Frost-Bringer). Until recently Number One on Shadow Branch's Most Wanted, he is now imprisoned in the Shadow Branch facility beneath the city of Allusair, sentences to execution. Problem is, they can't carry that sentence out; they don't know where his phylactery is, so killing him is really just setting him free.

Hroskof is basically the Hannibal Lecter of the Shadow Branch setting. Everyone's scared of him, he's the worst of the worst, but--for the moment--he's caught. He even helps agents of Shadow Branch out with advice and brainstorming when he's in the mood, because it gives him something to do, and because it gives him insight into how they operate and think.

Oh, his nicknames come from his appearance. Cut-and-paste from the rough draft of the book:

Hroskof is surprisingly unimposing, if one can ignore the fact that he's a rotten mobile corpse. Barely 5 feet 10 inches tall, he probably didn't weigh more than 150 pounds even before he died. A thin circle of stringy blond hair hangs from the back and sides of his head, and his eyes are icy panes, as though the ocular fluids are frozen solid. Unlike most liches, who tend to become dried and dessicated, Hroskof's flesh appears hard, cracked, and so purple as to be almost blackened-the flesh of a man long since frozen to death. A crackling not unlike that of frost-covered snow can be heard as his joints bend, and his flesh fractures and separates as he moves, leaking a foul sludge that appears to be frozen blood and other, less identifiable substances. His teeth are cracked and yellowed, and are constantly exposed by split and stiffened lips that never seem to close properly. As though to provide a deliberate contrast to his own foul presence, Hroskof's wardrobe consists entirely of the finest silks, velvets, rich furs, and supple doeskin leathers.

Okay, so it's not a villain from my "home campaign" per say, but maybe you'll find the idea inspirational anyway.

 

[Mouseferatu]

You must have fallen asleep in English Class, kid.

Ever read "The Most Dangerous Game"?

See, when I read that, I assumed he made the reference deliberately--and I thought it was pretty cool. Literature, movies, TV... Some of the best character/villain ideas come from other sources.

So long one doesn't try to claim obviously borrowed characters as one's own in published sources, I say borrow, copy, and steal to your heart's content.

 

[Angcuru]

You make it sound like a bad thing. I've always loved that story and I never actually thought to use a BBEG like that...and I have a world with thousands of islands...*plots*

I will now join you in laughing maniacally, BBEG-Style: MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!

 

[Moe Ronalds]

You must have fallen asleep in English Class, kid.

Ever read "The Most Dangerous Game"?

No, I haven't. It any good?