Starting a campaign... Need some help.

[Lyrad8791]

Okay, so I am attempting to start a campaign. I have made campaign places and such but never actually made the storyline behind it, nor have I ever gone and run what happens either. Now on the other hand, I am making a campaign in my own setting and working on creating the big "Villain". I would like to post the ideas I have come up with and see if anyone can help me flesh them out.

Main Villain
- Human, age 30s
- Has taken control of a few towns, is in the process of getting more
- Is look for someone to learn and take over as second in command (possible traitor PC here)
- Started their life as a cleric and then went to arcane magics to control undead and gain power.
- Wants ultimate power over people through fear
-- Controls armies of undead, or at least rumored too.
-- Takes control of small towns
-- Public Torture
--- Dismemberment by stretching
--- Forces people to participate
--- Disfigurement by fire or acid
-- Murder
--- Randomly kills a mother and leaves her children to fend for themselves.
-- Kidnaps virgins for unknown rituals
-- Specifically targets goodly aligned people, but any will do.
- Has a cult
-- Helps with the public torture
-- Inflicts harm on random people at random times for no reason other than to hurt people.
-- Commits theft and murders whole families.
- Mini Villain
-- Possible PC
-- Takes orders from the main Villain

Thats all I have been able to think of so far for backstory details and such. I want to make sure that the villain is evil seeming enough to get the group to go after and try and stop them, OR to join the villains side and go against the rest of the country.

Either way, if anyone can point out possible flaws in what I have, or add to it, I would appreciate it very much.

Lyrad8791
ain

 

[Dandu]

Arcanists make worse necromancers than Clerics.

 

[kingius]

If he's a cleric and he's raising dead, he probably serves an evil deity that is granting him this power and pushing him on to megalamania. Perhaps the deity thinks that only it should be worshipped and that other clerics (and deities) are somehow inferior to it. In spurring the villain on to conquer and rule the land, the deity ensures that ultimately it will rule through the villain.

The fey (elves, dryads, treants) would make a stand against this rising evil that threatens the balance. Perhaps this would make the villain begin to torch sacred groves, cut down the trees of druids and repurpose the stone circles as summoning sites for ritualistic necromancy.

The clerics of the other deities would be motivated to stop the villlain as soon as he starts to pull their temples down, but they would be a step behind as they would not be expecting this to start happening in the first place.

The rulers of cities (Kings, nobles) would oppose the villain with their armies but they may have traitors in their midsts and some of them may take gold to side with the villain.

Add all this together and you've got one very dangerous villain indeed. He's allied with a deity who wants to rule the world and possibly some of the nobles and kings of the land. He's got dangerous enemies in the fey, clerics of other deities that are being threatened by what he is doing and any kings and nobles brave enough to resist.

 

[Samloyal23]

Do not forget more subtle operations, such as getting the government to enact laws that help you as a villain. For instance, if the country has no death penalty, you could push to enact strict death sentences not just for murder but things like robbery and tax evasion to increase the number of executed criminals you can turn into undead.

Want virgins to sacrifice to your dark god? Make the economy worse so poor families have to sell some of their children into slavery to feed the youngest ones. Then you can start buying up the teenagers who look the least used.

Manipulation and tyranny go hand in hand...

 

[Grogg of the North]

Perhaps the villain needs both Arcane and Divine magic for some sort of large ritual. Maybe he is trying to open a permanent portal to the plane of shadow and unleash some of those nasty undead that live there. Of course these undead will gladly bestow their "gifts" on the cultists.

First thing that the villain might do is solidify his power base within the church and then start trying to eliminate any force that may oppose him. Either by bribing/allying himself with them or by using his cultists to weaken them. [MENTION=85123]kingius[/MENTION] has some good thoughts as to why people would oppose him.

Depending on the faiths and allegiances of the PCs, they may start getting wind of what the villain is doing and decide to hunt him down. If they do, try to have the villain manipulate them into furthering his own plans.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

That whole list of stuff in the original post.... the same guy does/did ALL of that?

Assuming he did, you'll likely have to make him siginificantly more powerful than you may have originally intended. Vlad the Impaler only got away with his atrosities as he had one bad ass army to back him up. This guy, 30 something, human, had better be both powerful, influential and charismatic - with tons of crazed devoties ready and willing to lay down their lives to protect him - or do his bidding. I say this, as the forces of light - the good guys - simply won't be able to abide his existence. Yes, the players can represent agents of Good here, but if this guy is as nasty as he supposedly is - he will have made some very dangerous enemies. In a fantasy world, we're talking powerful PCs/NPCs, supernatural creatures of good, even good dieties, demigods or their git.

So I would reccomend either taking Shuma Gorath here either down a notch, or make him so potent that we're talking Epic Level range before the PCs are ready to try and tackle him.

 

[James the Newbie]

A take on it might be, that he is a chaotic evil cleric, that follows his own ideology. If they want ultimate power over everyone, then they likely wouldn't serve a god, but instead their own philosophy.

What does a person who wants ultimate power crave, well in the D&D world one of the answers may well be, not just land, or power but Godhood, and so, in doing all this, they may decide to be less cruel to those who agree to worship him.

Obliterating temples of other Gods is a highly risky move, as then all other faiths would come after him. However, removing temples of Good god's and allowing evil creatures to build their own, as well as building his own temple's, would win him favour at least among his allies.

In the town hall he may set up zones of truth to publicly ask random people questions which may include
1) Do you worship me
2) Do you plan to rebel.

If no to the first, and they do not worship an evil deity, a punishment would be issued.
If no to the second, questioning on any plans made would be performed, before a swift execution, maybe even raising them as an undead servant as a message.

Now you need some big bad brutes, to keep your little brutes in line. This means you need to answer several questions

1) How does your hierarchy work
2) Who is in your hierarchy
3) How do you maintain the hierarchy
4) How many towns do you control
5) What size are they
6) How do they compare to the opposition

A quick look at the hero's of battle book is almost vital in a campaign where war is brewing, it has details on siege engines, magic and mundane defences, troop organisations and how battles work. I strongly recommend it if you intend to have him invade towns.

Your hierarchy should probably have only him at the top, underneath him you may choose to have only a certain type of creature, or you may make a pre-requisit that they have shown him some kind of special loyalty.

The bulk of your troops and fear inducers should probably be a monster, be it gnoll, goblin, bugbear, orc or some other nasty, giving monsters power is a sure reason for them to follow you, just so long as they know crossing you is dangerous.

In charge of your platoons or fear mongers you should probably have any powerful beings you think fit the role. An ideal choice may be to have a litch general. If you coat your towns in permanencies darkness, then vampires in the area would cause mass panic, especially since there are only evil aligned holy symbols, making one of the only safe places to be, under your clerics boot.

the last three questions are really up to you, as I am not certain what kind of scale you intend to create, but I hope this input helped.

 

[James the Newbie]

Sorry for my double post.

 

[Lyrad8791]

Wow, thanks to all of this. Currently, this Villain hasn't even started doing any of this. I plan to have the Villain to start this process not long before/after the start of the campaign. I intend to have the PC's encounter this Villain later on in their adventures. As someone said, using rumors and the like to entice the party in that direction.

Personally, I like what Grogg mentioned. A "portal" would be a good reason for a ritual.

I plan on him getting a small band of bandits and like minded individuals to start this off.

For reference though, in my world small towns truly are small.. Around 50 or people is the average population of a small town. A small town is also near the bottom of the town-size scale I have.

I will take a look at that book as it will be needed for sure!

On a side note, I saw the mention of his age. Would it be better to have him older? If so, let me know what age or age group you think he should be in. I could use the help!

Now, going with what else I saw here, I think I like the idea of him worshiping a philosophy that he has instead of some dark god. I can't see him worshiping a god power. At the same time, I'm not sure if godhood should be his ultimate goal. At the same time, it might work out if they ever made it that far.

Keep bringing the ideas please. I like the ones about tearing down forests and replacing good god's shrines with evil ones. As well as the idea for the permanent darkness to get vampires into the mix.

Last but not least. I was thinking of having his army to be mostly goblinoids. At least at the onset. Later on I plan to have him using an undead army. Whether that army is still goblinoid in nature or not is up to the dice and the game. Again, thanks for the info!

Also [MENTION=12367]Bleys[/MENTION], I see what you mean. I could very well make it so that they don't encounter him until epic levels, or I could take him down a notch. At the same time though, there is also the power of the rumor-wheel to consider. One person escapes and tells another. By the time the heroes hear of it, it is likely that it has been blown way out of proportion.. This could be good or bad though in many ways. This could cause the group to say "Nope, just rumors. It's probably just some bandit story that people exaggerated"; also possible is the whole "Ah crap, lets go kill them now before he gets too powerful. I don't want that guy breathing down our necks later on". Either way, I thank you for the pointer on being a bit OP in evilness.

 

[Samloyal23]

If you want him to be to cynical to have faith in a god, make him an ur-priest, stealing mana from gods for his own use and using sacrificial victims to gain power from fiendish patrons...