Favourite homebrewed villain
G'day
I have had three villains that have been very effective. Marduk, Heinrich Sachsenet, and Emperor Regikhord IV.
Sachsenet was a recurring opponent of the PCs in a 'Justice, Inc' campaign I ran in 1986. He was a 7'2" acromegalic giant and a secret agent of the Schwertbruderbund within the SS (and the PCs never did work out which side he was on). Sachsenet wasn't all that dangerous in combat (because he was slow and had a crummy Offensive Value), but he was smart, sauve, and practically unkillable. His defining moment came in an adventure in which the PCs were trying to foil Sachsenet's plot to take over the northern part of South America (the campaign was set in 1939). To make a long story short, a PC with a double-barrelled 12-gauge managed to get a clear shot as Sachsenet. But he decided that both barrels of the shotgun would proably not kill him, so he took a shot at someone else (the president of Colombia) instead.
Half a dozen times in that campaign I would begin "Suddenly you notice, looming in the doorway, a figure seven foot two and a half, two axe-handles across the shoulders..." and the players would finish in chorus "...and with a face that only a mother could love."
Sachsenet had style.
Marduk (Maddox) was a mad immortal hunting other immortals while they (the PCs) were trying to collect the set to save the world in a very successful mini-series campaign I ran right up against the end of second semester 1986. He was almost redeemed by love, but driven back to hatred by the distrust of others. But the moment in which he showed that his character had changed was just enough that the PC who loved the woman Marduk loved (and was loved by) turned down the chance to kill him, a decision that ended up getting a lot of people (including Marduk and that PC) killed.
Marduk had tragedy.
Regikhord was the villain of my first Gehennum campaign, back in 1988. Emperor of Gehennum, Regikhord was having trouble with the Assembly of Mayors and the Council of Nobles, who would not grant him taxes: so he stopped spending on public projects, and spent what little royal income remained on his own safety and pleasure. He was affable and charming, but a bit of a dick.
Regikhord was maintained on the throne by his Marshal, Count Jasper of Souvenir. Jasper was ruthless military genius with a private army, who had lost his wife and son in the last Civil War and was prepared to do anything to prevent or postpone the next such war. Jasper's modus operandi relied on lots of spying, bribing people's slaves to inform on them, summary arrests, imprisonment without trial, and quite a lot of executions. There wasn't much left of the IMperial Family. But on the other hand Jasper would not condone skulduggery for what he considered base ends, which is to say anything other than preventing a war. Regikhord needed Jasper to prevent himself from being overthrown in a coup, but paradoxically the chief reason people wanted to overthrow his regime was because it included Jasper.
Regikhord had a wife named Lesterra, who was a princess from the Blessed Isles, and they had a daughter named Lysandra. But in the culture of the Blessed Isles women have far more liberty than in Gehennum. Regikhord insisted on Lesterra behaving and being treated as a Gehennese wife, and they had quarrelled and had become estranged. After he [won the Civil War and] ascended the throne Regikhord had tried to divorce Lesterra on trumped-up charges of adultery, but adultery in the Emperor's wife is high treason and punishable by death. Jasper refused to intimidate the Council of Nobles into convicting, so they had acquitted her. Furious, Regikhord banished Lesterra and her daughter (then eight) to a remote and tiny island with a guard consisting entirely of women. Unfortunately, that meant Lysandra, heiress to the throne, being raised by her father's enemies and according to Blessed Isle concepts of the rights and roles of women.
Now, Regikhord had a mistress with several bastard children, but he also had an older bastard begotten before he was married, and no-one knew about him. And he was very anxious to be succeeded on the throne by (a) one of his sons, and (b) by someone who would preserve the Gehennese way of life (ie. not someone affected by Blessed Isles feminism). He couldn't get Lysandra declared illegitimate because the Concil of Nobles was full of his enemies, Lesterra's sympathisers. And he couldn't have Lysandra assassinated because Jasper would not permit it. And he couldn't replace Jasper with a complaisant Marshal because as soon as Jasper was sacked there would be a coup.
So he equipped his bastard Jokanekh with a bunch of magical weapons, magical armour, a magical shield, and magical sailboat, a magical item that indicated the direct to Princess Lysandra, and other magical gear. Then he arranged for a Faironese pirate to kidnap Lysandra. Then he manipulated the Council of Nobles and the Assembly of Mayors into guaranteeing that they would ennoble, and oblige him to confer an estate upon, whomsoever rescued Lysandra.
Unfortunately for Regikhord, the PCs rescued Lysandra from the pirates before Jokanekh could manage it. And when he came to 'rescue' her from them they killed him.
So the players brought the rescued princess home to her father, and were staggered that instead of being grateful he was furious. He ordered their executions, but Jasper wouldn't allow it. Obliged to ennoble them and grant them an estate he raised them to the minimum rank that would technically qualify as noble, and granted them an estate that was haunted and unihabitable. And he demanded that they pay their taxes on it, and do their military service by garrisoning the haunted castle.
So they cleansed the haunting (or actually, made a deal with the ghost), rehabilitated the estate, and became rich. Then one fell in love with and asked to marry Lysandra. Regikhord agreed provided that the PC could obtain the Sword With No Name from the hoard of the ancient dragon Khlorophane. The PCs did that (and killed Khlorophane), and became richer and more glorious than ever. After Lysandra's children were born, the PCs became leading figures in the Opposition (they were richer than the tax-starved Emperor, and one was in line to be consort of the Empress-regnant and/or regent for the next emperor. When another of the PCs married Count Jasper's daughter and took up a commission in Jasper's private army Regikhord saw the writing on the wall. He assassinated Jasper, called out his supporters, and took an army to destroy the PCs' castle, sack their treasure, and recapture his grandchildren. And then he died bravely in battle, cut down by Jasper's son-in-law using Jasper's poleaxe.
The great thing about REgikhord as a villain was that the level of conflict between him and the PCs rose steadily through a year of adventures, and that the PCs had to develop to resolve the conflict. It gave that campaign the structure and intensity of a good novel.
Regards,
Agback
Though I am distressed by the realisation that the most recent was fourteen years ago.
