Who makes the Coolest Evil Noble Family?

[Scrivener of Doom]

I don't have many Eladrin in my campaign right now, so including them as a family would be a lot of fun, and open up a lot of potential. I think I can justify power-hungry Eladrin in a human-dominated court as well... doesn't seem too difficult. In some ways I feel it makes them more threatening as well, with potential ties to Fey powers and such.

Just some early morning ramblings.

Trit

If you don't object to looking at Forgotten Realms material, the Eldreth Veluuthra of FR are an interesting take on evil elves (and, now, eladrin). Basically they're racists who hate, inter alia, humans and half-elves and are actively working to take back old elven lands.

I can definitely see their interest in being represented in a human court... while they conspire to destroy the human kingdom from within.

 

[Riastlin]

I went with other. Mainly because I just absolutely love vampires as villains. More than a tad cliche I know, but they are just so close to perfect imho. Particularly prior to 4ed, vampires were great because they had the inherent cool factor already built in (again realizing that this is a matter of opinion), but they also made awesome recurring villains because they are just so dang hard to kill.

They were weakened a bit in 4ed, but there's still the Blood Cauldron (I think) variant which is essentially as hard to kill as prior edition vamps.

I will concede though that if your vampires sparkle, you should just be shot.

If; however, we were to stick to the non-traditional races as per the poll, I would go with the Elves/Eladrin because they are that much less obvious and there's so many sources in terms of backgrounds and motivations to draw upon.

Edit to add: Okay, this is what I get for reading and voting in the poll without reading the actual post with it.

So, to be a bit more helpful, I think there are plenty of good ideas here. As for the tieflings, in my current campaign, I more or less switched them and dragonborn, making the tieflings the good guys and the dragonborn the bad guys.

 

[Kinak]

An alternate (or supplemental) idea if you decide to go with eladrin:
They have a sweet manor house with a hedge maze out back. The players can turn the manor house upside-down and not find anything, because nothing's in there.

The hedge maze, in addition to being home to some animals and lesser fae, works as a portal to the Feywild. If you walk a certain path through it, the maze seamlessly transitions into a much more dangerous maze in the Feywild.

If you escape the maze, there's a palace where the manor house stands. That's where all the family's secrets are held.

Figuring out the path through the maze may not be difficult if the party thinks to spy on the eladrin. If they kill everyone and take their stuff, the path might be written down somewhere. Or they may have to use a ritual (or skill challenge) to punch through at the weak point between planes, drawing the attention of the denizens of the Feywild maze.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Will Doyle]

You said grudges. That sounds like Dwarves to me.

 

[Trit One-Ear]

Well the votes are in (along with some awesome ideas) and we have our winner. I feel I should note I'm not just going along with the most popular choice, but by my own ideas and your descriptions as well. I wish I could use all the unique and crazy ideas posted here. But without further ado!

Dragonborn

3 9.38%
Dwarves

3 9.38%
Elves/Half-Elves/Eladrin

9 28.13%
Gnomes

5 15.63%
Halflings

3 9.38%
Tiefling

2 6.25%
Humans

4 12.50%
Other (please post below)

3 9.38%


The Elf-folk have it! Thanks to all your help, the heroes will now have to face:

The Dawnstar Family.

Headed by Davice Dawnstar, this Eladrin family has been part of kingdom politics for some time. Rumored that they are exiled from the Fey Realm, the Dawnstar family instead has a strong interest in "mortal" affairs. Over the human generations, Davice (now 245) has made several attempts at power-grabs. In one such grab (an attempt to blackmail and magically persuade one of the realm's dukes to nominating Davice as his replacement) Riffen Bregar, father to one of the PC's, revealed his duplicitous nature. Faced with little other choice, The King punished Davice, humiliating him and reducing his family's influence to that lesser lords. Furious, Davice has waiting for years for his revenge.

His opportunity came to him in the form of an alliance with a neighboring kingdom. For reasons unknown to Davice, they wished to plan an assault on Riffen's home castle using an army of orc slaves. Davice used his family connections, a few bribes and a few threats to ensure the orc army was able to pass the border between the two kingdoms undetected. The attack was successful, and Riffen Bregar is missing, presumed dead.

Years have past since the attack, and now Riffen's youngest son, Indos, and his band of companions, seek to avenge Riffen's "death." As they close in on who is responsible for the attack, they will have to cross blades and wits with one of the crueler and more ruthless families in the King's Court; The Dawnstars.


Thanks everyone for the inspiration, discussion, and help creating a fun family of foes!

Trit

 

[Kinak]

Thanks everyone for the inspiration, discussion, and help creating a fun family of foes!

Now you have to come back and let us all know how it went

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I like the story you've come up with for your villain, Trit, though I do have one problem with it. That problem is that being caught trying to mess with the laws of succession and/or to get oneself appointed to a noble office seems like something that one could escape with a simple demotion... one would think that would be a capital offence.

So, I would recommend that you either change the reason for his fall from grace (which could still easily involve the "dad" being the cause), or think of some reason why the eladrin's crimes did not get him executed.

 

[Trit One-Ear]

Very solid points, [MENTION=81104]Dr_Ruminahui[/MENTION]. His background is a little shaky at the moment. Perhaps it was his father/predecessor who was previously responsible, and perhaps he was killed for his treason. Now Davice thinks his father's actions were just, and his punishment uncalled for. The only problem I see in this is the age-span of Eladrin makes it... messier when talking about heirs and such. But I could also ignore my hangups there and let the players run with it.

Trit

 

[Kinak]

So, I would recommend that you either change the reason for his fall from grace (which could still easily involve the "dad" being the cause), or think of some reason why the eladrin's crimes did not get him executed.

These are really good points.

I'd personally go for the latter myself. The king's obviously afraid of him for some reason, probably related to Davice having been around forever. The people old enough to remember the betrayal all know he got off easy and wonder what hold he has on the king.

You don't really need details, just a vague aura of menace. The king himself may not even know. If your father, your grandfather, and your greatgrandfather, all kings before you, were terrified of this guy, you may not want to test him.

If it needed details, I'd probably give Davice evidence the king's grandfather was illegitimate and knowledge of the bloody cover-up (that Davice himself was involved in). The king knows if he pushes Davice into a corner, Davice could throw the realm into chaos. So he censured Davice as much as he dared.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I'm glad you found my suggestions helpful.

That said, people tend to destroy what they fear in the abstract... especially people in power. So, it will seem strange that he wasn't killed.

Which is fine in the short term, but ultimately you'll need to come up with a better reason than that... and "he's been around a long time" won't cut it, as that's an equally valid reason for the other nobles to be baying for his blood.