D&D 5E Suggest the enemy for my 5E war campaign?

[MonsterEnvy]

Hobgoblins are actually fairly human and villainous. They have a culture that is devoted to war and conquest. If you read the Goblin section of Volo's I feel that Hobgoblins make great War villains.

Another idea I have is Devil Worshipers that command a fairly powerful army. Maybe a fairly powerful church of Asmodeus or something summons forth a powerful Pit Fiend or Duke of Hell and he starts organizing a army with the cult and the people and monsters in the land of a various types to create a conquering host.

This gives you a fairly diverse set of a villains with clear evil motives. There is the Devil leader any Devil lieutenants you also want him to have. The Higher ups of the Church of Asmodeus and their lesser members. Any forces they managed to subjugate or hire into their service. (Which could include stuff like a Hobgoblin Legion)

I can imagine a typical force would include stuff like a group of thugs or mercenaries that serve as basic grunts alongside some additional hired muscle like some ogres or trolls, commanded by a few Devil Clerics, Warlocks or Mages from the Devil worshiping group who are guarded by more elite cultist warriors. The casters further increase their armies forces by summoning forth additional devils to aid their forces.

 

[Delazar78]

I know you asked for "they should be PEOPLE who are up to evil badness which must be stopped through military action. " but I would take the opportunity to go more "gray".

Your PCs kingdom's state religion is the God of Honour, while their neighbour's religion is the Goddess of the Sun. The two gods were in good terms (maybe even "married") and they created a wonderful holy city. Millenias went by, and the two gods drifted apart, even becoming enemies. Now they both want the holy city for themselves.

Who's right? Who's wrong? Will the Paladins of Honour slaughter the Paladins of Light for a few cobblestones? Where do the PCs fit in all this?

Are the gods really enemies, or is it just the corrupt clergy of one side (or both) lying about it to start a war, and damn as many souls as they can to their true dark lords? OK, this ended up as "evil badness" after all...

 

[Ath-kethin]

A bordering nation has experienced years of drought and famine, and its leaders are at a loss for solutions. Then a minor seer - who could be a "seer" - "learns" that your PCs' homeland has been leeching all the resources using some vile magical ritual.

What should have been a minor tall tale is overheard by a populace desperate for relief from an insurmountable natural phenomenon, and when its rulers hear the rumors they see a great way to, at very least, distract the starving population and harness its anger. So they gear up for war and invade.

It's now 5-10 years (or longer) into the conflict. Both sides are weary, but the aggressors feel they have no choice and the defenders need to defend themselves.

Truly a time for heroes, and room for multiple non-conflict related adventure options and subquests.

 

[Ancalagon]

Which means that the first answer (from Vincegetorix) is the one that best fits my desired flavor. A Wild Hunt drawing reinforcements directly from the Feywild, on a crusade for dominion over the entire (prime material) world, and considering any culture that speaks a language other than Elvish to be filthy animals undeserving of the basic rights of sapient beings.

This could lead to some interesting roleplay by elven PCs who are opposed to the actions of the Wild Hunt.

 

[jasper]

My clients Mr. G. and Mr. S. have made the suggestions of "those nasty hobbitees!"

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

If you really want to avoid using ''monstrous'' creatures, I would also suggest to stay away from the temptation of having the bad guys the equivalent of Nazis, they make for great ''obviously evil bad-guys'' but also tend to quickly feel just like monsters and no different than your regular horde of orc, necromancer/undeads etc. It could be interesting to say that the opposing camp (the Wild Hunt) might have a ''legitimate'' claim to wage war: maybe the world WAS better when they own it, maybe they see themselves to be the only possible defense against some (perceived) greater menace, maybe they are fleeing something etc. That's still no reason to destroy a whole culture but gives the enemies something more than just evil for evilness sake. It also give the opportunity to your players to face enemies they might want to turn, capture or infiltrate; roleplaying encounters become as important as combat.

Elven PC could be war prisoners, traitors or disabused soldiers. Half-elf could face even worst: seen as potential spies and imprisoned, distrusted by both sides.

You may also consider using ''Victory Points'' to calculate how the war is going.

 

[cbwjm]

They could just be a people fleeing some kind of ecological disaster. Maybe a volcano erupted and toxins released have poisoned the land. The people had to flee and they have chosen to settle in this new land because they have no choice.

The players and the established kingdom see them as foreign invaders and may not find out about how desperate their situation is until later in the campaign.

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[Draegn]

My players are currently involved in a war. One of the things they have been doing is attempting to take down the "nasty" officers from the other side. Instead of simply killing them I have had on occasion added special requirements. Such as taking the person alive for interrogation, handing a specific person over to a third party, or framing them to cause strife among the enemy formations.

 

[Eltab]

Nazis and Communists are an easy villain to use. And maybe too cliché.

A volkerwanderung, as in Germanic tribes vs. Roman Empire, would be a way to have not-evil-for-Evil's-sake opponents: they are fleeing the Huns (a few hundred miles behind and successfully fighting everything they meet), who are REAL monsters!
Or they could be moving off the steppes into the civilized farmlands because climate cycles are running dryer and the steppes are becoming semi-deserts, more like Arizona than Iowa. 10,000 sheep and cattle gotta eat too.

SPECTRE. The PCs (as James Bond) get to take down known crime syndicate assets. SPECTRE does not just sit still and accept losses; they retaliate. Later the PCs are tasked with gathering intelligence and busting SPECTRE lieutenants. Near the end they face off against the leader himself, plus whatever reinforcements he has handy. Bonus: you get to watch the Bond movies! (To copy plot threads, of course.)

 

[OGIHR]

If you really want to avoid using ''monstrous'' creatures, I would also suggest to stay away from the temptation of having the bad guys the equivalent of Nazis, they make for great ''obviously evil bad-guys'' but also tend to quickly feel just like monsters and no different than your regular horde of orc, necromancer/undeads etc. It could be interesting to say that the opposing camp (the Wild Hunt) might have a ''legitimate'' claim to wage war: maybe the world WAS better when they own it, maybe they see themselves to be the only possible defense against some (perceived) greater menace, maybe they are fleeing something etc. That's still no reason to destroy a whole culture but gives the enemies something more than just evil for evilness sake. It also give the opportunity to your players to face enemies they might want to turn, capture or infiltrate; roleplaying encounters become as important as combat.

Elven PC could be war prisoners, traitors or disabused soldiers. Half-elf could face even worst: seen as potential spies and imprisoned, distrusted by both sides.

You may also consider using ''Victory Points'' to calculate how the war is going.

I read though that module you recommended, and (leaving aside the edition-based differences in how combat statblocks are constructed) I'm really struck by how elegant the Victory Points system is for modeling the effects of the heroes' actions upon the mass-battle scenario playing out around them. Particularly compared to the Skill Challenge device I've seen used in other 4th ed books.

I also agree (with several contributors) that my villains do need some sort of legitimizing factor to keep them from being "evil for evil's sake". Having recently re-watched Star Trek TNG's "Gambit", I find myself inspired by the Vulcan Isolationist movement to which that storyline's ultimate villain belonged.

Vulcans are typically characterized (at least by those writers who are themselves fans of Trek) by their philosophical ideal of embracing "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" (IDIC for short), welcoming the differences of other cultures to build a more robust Federation together. However, these Vulcan Isolationists were convinced that contact with alien cultures had "polluted our culture and is destroying Vulcan purity". And as was pointed out in the episode in question, extremists often have a logic all their own.

So the image in my head is for a high-magic nation of Feywild-native elves (be they High Elves, Eladrin, or something homebrew), who have decided that the best-Lawful-Neutral solution to their society's problems is to ruthlessly wage war against these humans / etcetera who are in their way.

I'm still trying to figure out the shape of the problems motivating them. I know that I don't want it to be "the scary people are running at us because they're running away from something even scarier than them", because that would deprive the villains of any agency and thus any real responsibility for their actions. And because I'm also fond of the Tyranids in WarHammer 40K, who deserve a better motivation than either "mindless hunger when they go out of their way to cook meals for each other without eating the food themselves" or "mindless fleeing from some vaguely nebulous thing that's vaguely even scarier in some nebulous way".

Ecological disaster could certainly be a motivating factor, but I'm kind of intrigued by the notion of a gravely-mistaken seer providing the inciting factor.

I shall continue to ponder...