Hey /tg/, I want to start a BBEG thread - in particular, to get your opinion on a BBEG I'm brewing up for a homebrew fantasy campaign.
He was a simple blacksmith, corrupted by an external power (I'm thinking an artifact which made him supernaturally brilliant at smithing and artifice, but eventually drove him to madness).
He seeks the hottest flame, and to get it he's going to rend the dimension he's in to access an infernal plane otherwise accessible and occupied only by demons and firey creatures (think of a map of the world, and then drawing a slightly squiggly line down the middle, cutting along it, and pulling it apart like curtains to reveal another map underneath. That's what's going to happen.).
To do this, he needs to gather some thaumatic artifacts and secure specific points of power across the world. To this end, he's created his army, which will be the primary antagonists to the party - a variety of constructs, usually made out of bronze but varying greatly. They'll roll the world until he can split the realm, and if he does that then there'll be a major crisis for the party to deal with.
How's that sound?
I also want more construct ideas - golems and warforged and whatever. The goblin equivalent in his army is going to be the Slicer Construct, which looks like some sort of bronze, skeletal bird-like creature, razor-sharp and capable of folding down into something that looks like Swiss army knife that's about the size of a Pringles tube, good for infiltration in shipments to settlements they plan to raid.
What do you think? Can I do better?
Pic related.
>>47614335
what setting? 3.5/páthfinder? 4th edition? 5th edition?
there are some construct/golem-like monsters in the Iron Kingdoms Monster Manual 1 and 2
there is also like 3 golems in each 3.5 monster manual from 1 to 5, also check the draconomicon for dragon golems
>>47614335
alternatively you can turn anything into a construct by adding a "golem" template and you will have whatever you want as minions for your bbeg
>>47616103
Entirely homebrew. Setting's homebrew, elements unashamedly stolen from other things or thought up of own accord. System's homebrew, also a Frankenstein's monster of bits and pieces I found neat about other things.
I'll look up those books for ideas. Thanks much.
So far, I've got...
- Slicer: As described.
- Soldier: Clockwork humanoid, zombie parallel.
- Wolf: Primarily glorified alarm systems, but also good for harassing party in packs.
- Berserker: Steam-powered spinning monstrosity with an erratic number of weapon-mounted arms/
- Heavy: Lumbering siege breakers.
- Harrier: Bird-like construct for aerial assaults.
And the bosses...
- Burning: flaming ifritii demon style construct; a clever party can notice and act on its fuel supplies
- Tengu: Big, agile flying bird-man construct with a sword and a temper.
- Hydra: You can guess what this is. It'll even start constructing extra heads if given too much breathing room.
- Soldier (Prototype): Essentially an intelligent enemy Warforged PC with several levels on the party.
I'm thinking about more traditional golems, but I'm seeing how far I can get with metal and steam etc. first.
>>47616314
>Burning: flaming ifritii demon style construct; a clever party can notice and act on its fuel supplies
make it an ifrit trapped by the bbeg into a iron golem construct, its original purppose was to be "that" perfect flame, so he trapped the ifrit into a living construct furnance, upon realizin his fire wasnt hot enought he turned the trapped genie into another minion, if the players manage to save him/her, instead of killing him/her, the genie might realize some favors to the party as an expression of gratitude, or even help them with knowledge about one of the bbeg's fortress
>- Tengu: Big, agile flying bird-man construct with a sword and a temper.
same with this guy, the bbeg thought using the power of a lightinstrike could be what he was "needing" so he summoned an air elemental / or an air genie, and ended up just like the ifrit
also
> a simple blacksmith, corrupted by an external power
maybe he found a rare ore, tenebrine, a piece of pure evil shaped like an ore vein, not knowing what it was, he used it to try and forge a weapon and got poisoned with madness (similar to mercury poison), now he craves for more of this ore, and is searching the world for it, killing whenever AND whoever he finds and hapen to have more
eventually he realized he would need to open a portal to the ore's plane of origin to sate his hunger
>>47616526
shit forgot pic, its a corpse collector from one of the D&D monster manuals
>>47616526
Oddly enough, the demon idea fits into one of the probable ways I was going to have this artificer tear open the world - through negotiation with the infernal demons on the other side.
>Madness from some strange poisoning
Now, that's an idea. It fits into a bit of a running theme, which is disguising sort of mundane things as magical.
In my last campaign, one of the villages that the party visited seemed to be full of life, until one player made a hell of a check and realised that all the villagers were glamoured, their true appearances hidden (though they didn't seem to realise it themselves). They traced it to the barman, who revealed himself to be a lich who had revived the entire town after wandering there on his travels and discovering that everyone in the village was dead from some strange disease called the Shadow, which causes the body to slowly grow lumps that put pressure on one's innards and organs until death.
The necromancer pointed them towards the culprit - a fragment of a head from a long-since dead neutronium golem near the town, killed in the final encounter of a different group's campaign - and they destroyed it, with much difficulty. They were luckily not around it long enough to feel the negative effects, and the lich could quietly let the clueless villagers rest for the last time in their homes that night.
I snuck radiation-induced cancer into my game.
Waffling aside, the idea of a ore poisoned with some sort of evil definitely has some legs. I'll see if I can run with them.
>>47616884
Immortal second BBEG imprisoned in poisonous strong metal in the past. Blacksmith is going after the ore.
>>47617231
A wish was used to create the poisonous magically strong metal because the immortal had at least a contingency spell against wishing for the cessation of his existence. The inprisonment was so strong they just gave up and left him there.
>>47617231
>>47617318
I want to be careful about making a space flea, as I finished my first campaign with one and had mixed feelings about it (though my players loved it). Then again, if I write it into the lore so that the PCs can research it and try to take a more intellectual approach to stopping the Artificer, then it might work very well...
>>47617398
good luck with everything anon
