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Message: <blockquote data-quote="knasser" data-source="post: 7176801" data-attributes="member: 65151">'What though the field be lost'Thus speaks the protagonist of the greatest of "Villainous Poems", Milton's Paradise Lost. You could do worse than quote lines like the below:Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;And, in the lowest deep, a lower deepStill threatening to devour me opens wide,To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.Oh, then, at last relent: Is there no placeLeft for repentance, none for pardon left?orSo farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;Farewell, remorse, all good to me is lost;Evil, be thou my good;The latter especially can be good for a villain - he bids farewell to hope, and with hope's farewell he also thus abandons fear and remorse.It's a great poem but it is very tightly bound to Christian world view and so you have to be selective in what you quote for a generic fantasy setting; or else change a word or name here and there. Hell of some sort still exists in many fantasy settings though including D&D default, so you're probably alright.The other thing is that this, as well as Eltab's excellent recommendation of Richard the III (to which I'll also add Macbeth), is all Blank Verse. And maybe you wanted more fanciful rhyming poetry. In which case you can look to the gothics such Poe or Byron. If you want a more jaunty and sinister villain who seems more off the rails than tragic as suggestions have been leaning towards, try Poe's Conqueror Worm for example:Mimes in the form of God on high Mutter and mumble low And hither and thither fly -Mere puppets they who come and goAt bidding of vast formless thingsand That motley drama! - oh be sureIt shall not be forgot!With its Phantom chased for evermore By a crowd that seize it not or dial the raving up even further and head of Tom O' Bedlam land with a dash of Coleridge. The advantage of S. T. Coleridge is that a lot of his poems have a vaguely medieval setting to them. Try Christabel. It is perfect for "crazed muttering" style poetry:Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,Hath a toothless mastiff, whichFrom her kennel beneath the rockMaketh answer to the clock,Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;Ever and aye, by shine and shower,Sixteen short howls, not over loud;Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.And there are always wonderful little snippets of poems you can throw in from all over the place:"Because I could not stop for Death,Death kindly stopped for me,The carriage held but just ourselves,And Immortality!" --Emily Dickinson.</blockquote>

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