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[Bob Aberton]

Lord Meiron of Dwellyn's Glen...

...a 4nd level Aristocrat. I'm totally serious. He was also abvout 5 feet tall, plump, and was a borderline cross-dresser (he dressed in very effeminate styles, wore perfume and makeup, but never actually wore women's clothes, at least in public.).

Doesn't sound very intimidating, does he? He isn't. It's his friends and the sheer amount of connections he has that are scary. At the time my campaign ended, he had an immensely complicated, Machiavellian scheme to incite a three-way war between the neighboring fiefs, while simultaneously playing two rival clans of dwarves off against one another, arming the discontented peasants of the region, and then using a Great Wyrm Red Dragon to wipe out the remains. The noble Knights of the Golden Guard would then wipe out the dragon for him (because killing dragons is what they do), and he would iniate a massive land-grab.

He probably would have succeeded, too - the campaign ended right before he put his scheme into action. Had he known the players were working against him, legions of assassins who owed favors to him would have killed the PCs in a twinkling...

 

[Mark Chance]

...a 4nd level Aristocrat.

Doesn't sound very intimidating, does he?

Power can transcend game stats. I had a recurring villain, Five Star, in a DC Heroes campaign. He organized the city's most violent street gangs into a highly-disciplined army who wreaked havoc, robbed armories, and conducted assassinations, thus paralyzing the city with fear

When all was said and done, the heroes discovered that Five Star was a 12-year-old boy whose only "superpowers" were the charisma of a Hitler and the tactical skills of a Rommel.

 

[Kweezil]

lessee now...

The Wyrm: sadistic archmage and right-hand-man of a force of utter negation and opposition. Best described as equal parts Pinhead from Hellrasier and Ishamael from Wheel of Time. For his first appearance he torn his way out of one of the PC's chest, later started a war just to annoy them and returned after death as a unique form of balor.

the Hawk: partner to the Wyrm, an inhumanly-skilled warrior. In the ancient past he had been a hero, and was believed to have ascended to godhood as a god of justice and valour after facing evil for the last time. In truth, he had been tempted and fell to evil in his final battle, reduced to an immortal mockery of what he had once been. The god that bore is true name was the ideal of him. During the final battle with the PCs, a glimmer of his original self shon through and let one of his descendants kill him.

Tallow Guilders: an ancient necromancer who had been fated from his birth to turn the tides of war and usher in an age of peace. When the time came he turned his back on destiny, the war raged on and ended an era of the world. Since then he has been cursed to walk the earth. After two millenia of this, he has grown bored and wished the peace of death, even if it is naugh but oblivion. But, he will not go quietly into that good night. He has been breeding a 'pet' bloodline, descended from the heroes that were once his friends and allies. Once a generation he allows one of them to find him and try to kill him. If they fail, he kills them and the entire family, except one child who will grow up to try again, never knowing he is just a pawn in Guilders' game.

Sess'talyn: demon princess, the mother of mariliths. Was returned from the dead by the accidental actions of the PCs (and one of their limbs), and took a shine to one of them. The poor guy got snatched to her realm and tortured (foreplay). When the rest of the group attempted to rescue him, they barely escaped with their skins. The unfortunate PC found she had decided to 'improve' him while he was a guest and ended up tearing his own eyes out to undo some of what she had done. Since then, her plots have earned her enough power to gain true godhood, albeit as a demipower.

[Edit: added one more]

 

[Ace]

BBEG's huh?

Lets see

My favorites (from my aborted Final Vision of the Record of Vinar campaign)

M'Noren the Gatekeeper -- An Archmage (18th level) who is nuttier than Profion on crack and possesses a device that can cast any teleport at will (this is what drove him mad teleport is dangerous IMC) and open any gate

Lady Escafalon,-- Medlesome and dangerous employee of the Gallitep (thin North Korea with a govenrment that actually cares about its people and a patron demigod)

Firstlings-- Things man was not meant to know. Eldritch horrors of all stripes

Alacister -- He just won't die! Another evil mage, this one is a kind of ghost who wants a new body real bad. When enformed he is a CE 25th level wizard of the blasty sort

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

There's a bunch of minor ones. I'm a big moral relativism guy.

But the one I point to is meerly an ancient Red Dragon with the vampire template slapped on. He doesn't do much at all, really. But I invoke his name when the players ask "who's the toughest guy in the game and when are we going to fight?"

Suddenly, when I answer, they lose the desire to fight the dude. I wonder why?

 

[Avarice]

Well, she's not exactly the BBEG, but she certainly is a favorite of mine. Her name is Nis, and she's the daughter of an elven warrior and her husband, a drow turncoat. While out on a scouting mission deep in the underdark, her parent's warband was overwhelmed by the dark elves and all were slaughtered save Nis' mother, who was dragged away in chains. After a few cursory divinations, the king who had sent them (as rabid a drow hater as there ever was) wrote them off, counting himself well rid
of the troublesome pair.

Nis was born into bondage in the dark elven city a few months later. She quickly grew into a ruthless and sadistic young lady, winning freedom for herself as reward for torturing her own mother to death. With a natural flair for duplicity and reputation for unpredictability, she rose through the ranks rapidly.

Nis toils for a different master these days, though. She's currently working at widening a rift between two rival elven kingdoms (19 levels of rogue and a high charisma can make for some pretty formidable Bluff, Disguise, and Diplomacy scores).
Relations just keep on getting worse, and all the PCs have done so far is wring their hands and wonder why. She also recently served as a guide to the party, leading them to a dragon's lair that no one else dared approach. It turns out, of course, that the dragon, evil though it was had been bound into the service of the elven nation the PCs were trying to protect. They didn't find that out until much later, I'm afraid.

She's bound to slip up eventually, though. Her skill has made her arrogant, and with her love of inflicting pain, she just leaves too many bodies lying around. One of these days, the PCs will pick up the trail, and her life will get a whole lot more interesting...

 

[Mouseferatu]

Heh. Remembered one I wanted to mention earlier...

King Kalath: For the record, I'm not sure I remember his name exactly; this was way back when in a 2nd edition campaign. But it was something like Kalath. Anyway, King Kalath was...

A kobold.

Not a big bad fighter kobold either, at least not to start with. Just a kobold. Initially, he had a very little faculty with magic, and that was it. In 3rd edition, he'd probably have begun with only a single wizard level, with maybe another one of fighter or rogue tacked on.

Kalath was the leader of an enormous horde of villains--humanoids, mercenaries, undead, even a few demons. The party laughed their butts off when they first snuck in to HQ and saw Kalath take the podium for the first time. They killed him with a single arrow shot and moved on.

And then he showed up again. And they killed him. And he showed up again. And...

You get it.

You see, in an earlier campaign set in the same world, the heroes had finally managed to destroy a lich who'd been a major thorn in their sides. But they didn't get all his servants. One of those servants, one of the most minor, was Kalath. And Kalath, after the death of his master, got into the lich's spell books, and tried to use a ritual way over his head to make himself powerful.

The result? Purely by accident, Kalath made himself just about unkillable. Or rather, he could be killed, easily. But each time, he'd spontaneously rise from the dead--not as an undead, basically resurrected--and he was now immune to whatever killed him. Thus, he could be killed by a sword, but only once. He could be killed by a long fall, but only once. And so forth.

He began as a joke so far as the party was concerned. By the end of the campaign, he was immune to so much stuff the party had a hell of a time trying to defeat him.

The most frustrating thing about this is that I can't for the life of me remember how they finally destroyed him. I can think of several options I'd left open for them, but I don't recall how they actually did it.

 

[Avarice]

Heh. Remembered one I wanted to mention earlier...

King Kalath: For the record, I'm not sure I remember his name exactly; this was way back when in a 2nd edition campaign. But it was something like Kalath. Anyway, King Kalath was...

A kobold.

<snip>

Heh.

Hehhehheheheheheheheh!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!



*Yoink!*

 

[mearls]

I like villains. They're really the DM's stars. The current big bad in my Known World campaign is a 3rd level aristocrat. Can't post details, though, as my players read these boards.

But, I can mention two older villains.

Cassatta was a cleric/automaton created by a villainous alchemist who had a thing for creating new creatures and combining parts to make new ones. She was a real ball buster. The PCs disguised themselves as thieves to sneak aboard her ship, and she spent the entire trip chewing them out for various mistakes or just on general principle. The players never realized she was a construct. They tried to cast a few enchantments on her, and I kept describing how the spell simply slipped off of her without any effect. I think I also asked for caster level checks, to keep them guessing. They were convinced that she was a big, bad, villain. The cool part was when they finally arrived at her master's tower and she had to report to him. Since she had failed in her mission (she was supposed to capture or kill the PCs) the main villain casually reached into her eye sockets and plucked out her eyes as punishment. (She was an automaton he had built, and he could easily repair the damage once she had suffered through blindness for long enough.)

I still remember the looks on my players' faces when they realized that A) losing her eyes didn't kill her and B) the inside of her skull was full of gears and springs.

The other "villain" is from a 2e game from high school. The characters had to guard a wagon filled with gold ingots disguised as bars of lead. A gnome illusionist and his thief partners managed to steal the wagon in the dead of night. As the characters pursued them, the wagon went out of control, careened into the side of a hill, and into the hidden lair of a brass dragon named Chrynox. Good 'ole Chrynox was greedier than he was good and decided that, since the gold had left a big hole in his hill lair, he'd keep it. The PCs had to put up with an arrogant, whiny, petulant, complete snot of a dragon for several adventures before they finally worked off their debt and got back the gold. If they didn't have a paladin in the group, they would've gone back and gutted the miserable lizard once they hit 8th level.

That was a fun NPC. If the players hate 'em, I know I've done my job.

 

[senodam]

Currently, it's The Undying One in my FR campaign. He's a Wizard 9/ Archmage 5/ Alienist 10, with the Worm That Walks template. Centuries ago, he was one of the most powerful of Netherese Mages, until he went utterly insane following his translation of an ancient text- and tried to open a gateway to the Far Realm. Now he's back, and undead..and trying to open up the gate again. Only thing is, the ritual will coincide with the coming of the Violet Rain, leaving Faerun bereft of divine magic once Cthulhu and his buddies show up.
His minions aren't as unpleasant- an Aristocrat 6/ Thaumaturge 14 who controls a Cthulhu cult beneath the streets of Everlund, while she masquerades as a charitable and pious noblewoman. And Senodam- A former paladin of Helm, turned Vampiric Blackguard.