Your Favorite Villains

[demiurge1138]

We all have them. DMs have the most rat-bastardly bad guy they've ever tortured the players with, and players have the enemies they've loved to hate until they put an end to his reign of terror.

So, what enemies from your D&D game have been the most memorable?

For me, one of mine, and my first, leaps to mind. Based off of a "Fight Club" article on the WoTC homepage, I created a half-dragon kobold sorcerer named Kojark (the original was, I believe, Lojark). Kojark basically dared the party to tromp through his "Kastle" and meet him at the top. They took him up on it.

Poor PCs.

The combination of a series of highly illogical (but very fun) deathtraps and guardian monsters and Kojark's Kafka-esque laughter mocking them through each blunder caused the players to vividly imagine the tortures they had in store for the kobold when they met him at the top. And the final battle, with a demon-possessed Kojark in a hurricane, was quite impressively climactic (and I was hoarse for a week from doing "the Kojark voice" and the "demon Kojark voice").

Anybody else have any good villain stories?

Demiurge out.

 

[Teflon Billy]

In my "The Last City" campaign, a local Strongman has a personal guard of Lizardmen he has rasied from eggs. Foremost amongst them is Vugog, a positively relentless tracker and warrior, armed with a two-bladed sword and skilled in the use of his "tail-mounted morningstar"

The PC's live in fear of the guy.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I was running OD&D, and had a nice little plot running. A wizard with a powerful artifact was the henchmen to a greater evil, who was searching for the other two companion artifacts, (all were rings, named Klato, verata, and,and something else...). They had faced him before, they put a hurt on him, he put a hurt on them, but neither could get the better of the other. This was fine by me, as I actually tend to underestimate my gamers, but it peturbed the to no end.

Then one night in the depths of a besieged dwarven hold, they met between two clashing armies. Spells, arrows, insults the gods had not seen were thrown, and thou the PCs looked like the clear victors in the war, it appeared as if their devious foe would once again escape to fight another day. Until a certain player pipes up, "I cast dispell magic!".

:\ "On what, his wand, the ring?"

"No, on HIM!"

I should mention that at the time he was in flight over an esentially bottemless pit.

I blinked a few times, then started flipping thru the book. By this time, everyone at the table had broken out into either laughter or cheers. Not using minis, I gave him a straight 50/50 shot at being over the pit or not. He wasn't, and while he didn't QUITE die from the fall, one good axe upside the head finished it. They got the ring and a very heart felt victory over someone who had at best always been a mediocre foe. But he was fun while he lasted.

 

[Phineas Crow]

Khargal the Defiler, which I posted for the Cooperative Dungeon #1, was based on a villain I had used previously. The previous Khargal wasn’t a half-fiend like he is in CD1, he was just a pure-blooded orc barbarian warlord.

He and his half-orc brother Drenik led one of those standard orcish hordes. However, Khargal was more cunning than his orcish brethren, and his half-brother wasn’t lacking any brains either. Together they had enough intellect to command their army into one of those epic, earth-shattering wars.

While Drenik fell in battle, and the orc army finally crumbled, Khargal managed to escape the final battle, and he spent quite a few years trying to enact vengeance on those that killed his brother and crushed what he thought was his destiny. One of those villains that just didn't know when to quit.

 

[Eosin the Red]

A player in one of my 1E campaigns played an emerging cambion - think something akin to Magik of the New Mutants/Xmen. The player did commit his five unholy acts under the noses of the players and cost the paladin his status for several months. Eventually, the character was caught in one of his own traps and ended up teleported to the far side of the world.

Fast forward one year and the party runs into him again, only now as a NPC and he has earned his wings so to speak. He and the players butted heads several times and they were always terrified of him because I played him supremely confident and the PCs knew that the Cambion knew their weaknesses as well as their strengths. He intimidated the dog snot out of them. Lounging around like he was taunting them to attack.

When they finally took him out it was bitter sweet cause he managed to kill the 11th level paladin. The Cambion was a 10 Fighter, 10 Wizard, 7th level thief in 1E IIRC and the party was averaging 13th level. They could have whomped him at any given moment.

 

[ivocaliban]

My favourite dirty-dealer was a backstabber. An assassin who infiltrated the PC's crew and proved himself a valuable sailor and soldier, Harridan Churchill was a very patient man when after a kill. During a particularly deadly battle aboard the PC's recently required and one of a kind airship (hey, they wanted it *shrugs*), the ship pitched to one side and the PC captain failed his Balance check...and every other check I offered him to stay aboard.

While the rest of the crew was busy hanging on for dear life or fighting the opponent, Harridan took the PC's arm, looking for all the world like he would haul him up...just before sticking his nasty dagger into his chest and sending the good captain plummeting to his death. He was saved by the keen-eyed giant eagle companion to the group's resident Windrider, saved from death that is.

They just happened to be over Iuz's territory. The eagle caught up with the PC and slowed his descent, but being pelted by orcish arrows had to release him to get out alive. Of course, all this was necessary to get the PC into the Empire of Iuz so he could meet his father...but that's another story.

Churchill conveniently left the ship's crew after they returned to port for repairs and the PC still hasn't forgotten the betrayal. He's planning to reappear shortly, though in a unique position to help the PCs. Anything for the right pay.


My other favourite villains consist of a trio modeled after Shakespeare's Sebastian (drunken butler), Trinculo (mad jester), and Caliban (monstrous brute). In my game, Sebastian is a sly, charismatic rogue who is always slightly tipsy. He's the brains, if any of the three could be called that. Trinculo is basically an insane bard, who happens to be a good with a rapier (the PC had been begging for someone to duel). Caliban is an ex-slave half-giant that's somewhat like Fezzik from The Princess Bride only...not quite so good-hearted. Come to think of it, these three pretty well mirror the trio of "villians" from The Princess Bride, too. They're much fun.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The noble mother of one of the party members (fighter). Used her power to and henchmen to make sure he had land, a bride, and that his friends (low lifes all) met their ends so he would move on to become a very powerful man in the kings court. Everything was for his own good.

 

[Ryltar]

A blackguard of Talona, slowly corrupting the faith of the lead PCs and destroying everything they believe in. Even if it is a bit cliché ... it creates a darn emotional atmosphere.

I think once the PCs have a chance to get their hands on the BBEG, nothing in the planes can save him .

 

[Gez]

(For Jondor: I believe that dispelling a spell cause it to end, and when fly ends, it turns into a slowfall spell. Look: Should the spell duration expire while the subject is still aloft, the magic fails slowly. The subject floats downward 60 feet per round for 1d6 rounds. If it reaches the ground in that amount of time, it lands safely. If not, it falls the rest of the distance, taking 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet of fall. Since dispelling a spell effectively ends it, the subject also descends in this way if the fly spell is dispelled, but not if it is negated by an antimagic field. -- from the SRD.)

 

[Richards]

Jondor: It sounds like the rings you were talking about were probably named "Klaatu," "Barada," and "Niktu" - the three-word greeting from the alien Klaatu in the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Those three words were also used as "magic words" in the movie Army of Darkness.

Johnathan