Tell me about your Villains, /tg/
My game is not allowed to have villains my girlfriend gets upset when I have them. At most I am allowed to have minor enemies that she can kill in one or two heads or and preferably enmasse. That way she can be assured that she is awesome at all times.
>>44494316
>>44494316
Is this bait my man
My current BBEG is my old character. When our DM had to go work overseas he put me in charge and we decided my character would betray the rest of the party and leave them for dead after they pulled off a climactic heist. Now they're all trying to hunt him down and get their revenge.
>>44493698
There's no such thing as villains.
This is my villain, OP. His backstory is a tragic tale of abuse, being rejected from the school he always dreamed of attending and would forge a desire to rebuild his nation through the fires of a war that devastated his world.
However, he is no mighty warrior or conjurer of cheap tricks. The party must deal with his undaunting ability to influence the masses through charismatic speeches and a strong sense of sympathy to his nation's population. They will attempt to save many from his regime, they will find only fanatical resistance through both those they intend to free and those who enforce the villain's glorious image for a brighter tomorrow.
Still working on the last act, might have him off himself and remove the party's chance to take revenge on this ruthless, glorious bastard.
>>44494360
>play a monk in one campaign
>manage to somehow get him 20th level
>now ageless monk shows up a thousand years later in new campaign as the BBEG committing genocide on dwarves
That game was fucking nuts.And I totally would have slaughtered all of those little fat bearded bastards, too.
>>44493698
A not so particulary powerful noble, father to a spoiled brat who wants to much. The threath comes from how determined he is to give his son everything he wants and how very prepared he is and how stupid enough to dare do things no other noble would. Like, he'd assassinate the king cause his kid don't like a law and would rather put the prince, his friend, on the throne.
He's not a very end tier villain but he's the source of the chaos going on in the current kingdom.
>>44494461
Sure there is, it's just that nobody thinks they are the bad guy until it's too late.
Think about it anon, has your actions this last year been completely justified? Have you been the good guy of the supposed story?
>>44493698
An Ogre paladin of Vecna hellbent onbeing a jerk for no reason whatsoever
>>44494562
Subjective things don't exist. That's why philosophy is a dead husk of a hobby.
>inb4 some faggot croons that philosophy means thinking like we're all speaking greek.
>>44494732
Or that could just be another scapegoat to go "I-i'm not the bad guy, I'm good and justified!" isn't it?
I mean look at hitler, the man could proudly sit and claim murdering probably something up to the millions by justifying it as "They aren't actually human and THEY are the bad guys.". I mean nowhere did they beleive that they were the bad guys, skulls, black leather and all.
It really is amazing what human will cry and trash about to just sleep easy at night.
>>44494831
If you think hitler was the only one who did things like that, hoo boy do you have a childish view of the world.
Every country that currently exists sits upon a throne of blood. It is the source of all our progress and success as a species.
>>44494350
It's not even close to bait.
He's basically sticking a live panther on his hook.
>>44493698
my planescape game used valran from the great modron march adventure. he had brutally tortured the PC's employer/greatest friend to the point that he was a walking half human/half robot insane killing machine. the PCs had to kill him unexpectedly in the night when
he ambused them in the woods.
the PCs hunted Valran for months and it eventually concluded in some awesome shit in Gehenna. great campaign. they cried and yelled at me for 2 weeks until the next session. they still carry emotional scares and are afraid of my campaigns for the emotional weight.
>>44494831
There are no heroes.
There are no villains.
There is only what history will make of you.
>>44494882
Nice reading comprehension there mate.
Completely missed the entire point of the post, shit you got a childish view of the world considering you thought I was complaining about the nazis rather than how every human in history is an individual who goes long lengths to justify themselves as good.
Shit I bet you don't even have an understanding that every passing being, human or not has an massive amount of history and background behind them just like you and you probably think yourself an unique being cause you rarely, therefor condemning the world as "ignorant" like a silly little fedora redditor.
>>44493698
Cosmic sun-eating entity crashed into the planet, splintering into multiple aspects. The PCs are enlisted to end each aspect (A process spanning centuries) eventually ending with the full entity awakening.
>>44494975
You done with your little speech, boy?
>>44495015
I'm on your side, but there's no need to be a prick here.
>>44495015
Speech would imply I wanted to get a thing across.
I'm just calling you an idiot.
>>44495031
I wish that was true but most people think it's required on 4chan.
When in rome.
>>44495057
>When in rome.
You fuck little boys and call yourself straight cause you didn't suck dick?
>>44493698
Villains for planned(ie, not yet running games) count?
Planned villain is a Blackguard/Bard gestalt if Pathfinderwho's more Lawful than Evil, tired of what he perceives as corruption(ie, the leaders aren't oppressing the lower class with an iron fist) and seeks to correct it. He realizes, however, one man leading the entire world would be cumbersome and would allow too many things to slip through the cracks, and yet there's not enough people he can trust besides himself to achieve this goal.
Using an ancient magicgiven to him by a God(dess) of Tyranny, he infuses a part of his own soul inside of his sword, then smaller bits of his soul within other swords that the first acts as a sort of "control sword."
When the linked swords, sent out as gifts to the royalty of select nations, remain with someone for long enough, it infects the wielder and turns them into an identical copy of the Blackguard. The army/militia are also sent and armed with tertiary swords that, while not converting them like the linked swords, force a certain amount of loyalty to the wielder of the linked swords.
The countries not sent linked swords, or who refused them, the nations who did get them would get an extra linked sword, then sent to war with the uncontrolled countries. If victorious, they would install a new leader, one converted by a linked sword. If they lost, the linked sword would be sent up as a peace offering/token of surrender, what-have-you.
His end-game is essentially installing identical copies of himself as the leader of every nation in the world, and then trickling linked swords down to smaller and smaller areas, like the noble ruling class of a major city, or the mayor of a small town, so he's in complete control of every rulership.
But this was mostly an excuse to have the party encounter the big bad, and be able to kill him without me having to change the plot at all.
>>44493698
The original Thrallherd (i.e. psychic who subconsciously dominates the weak-minded around him into doing his bidding) who was so psionically powerful that his consciousness had to be placed into a crystal, shattered into five pieces, and scattered to the corners of the wrold in order to weaken him. Every piece the party (or rival adventuring party) found would grant different Psionic powers, but slowly corrupt the mind of the user.
8 sessions in the party had three pieces and the rival party had two. They had just met a descendant of the psychics who had trapped the Thrallherd in the first place, who explained that if they got all five pieces and found a specific artifact (a stone ring that permanently destroyed psionics when used on a person or object) they might be able to kill him for good.
The party then decided to give their two pieces to the rival adventuring party and leave town. Cue the Thrallherd taking over the body of the leader of the rival adventuring party, dominating a city, and starting to take over the world. The party eventually faced him directly, not bothering to get the anti-psionic artifact, and got wiped out.
To this day I still don't understand what they were thinking. "Oh, let's just give all the pieces to our rivals and skip town. I can't possibly see this going wrong, no sir. Wait, what do you mean there's a psychically controlled army headed our way? This is completely unexpected. Ah well, better go fight the guy 8 levels higher than us without the one thing we know will actually kill him."
The funny part is, after the game ended they said I did a shit job DMing and they never played with me again. I feel like the DM from that game where the lich's skeleton army wiped out the players because they were busy fighting for gay marriage. I mean, what did you THINK was going to happen?!
An elven slave who used to be a general in her nations military. Wanted for wiping entire human villages off the maps, she got captured and sold into slavery without being properly identified by the humans colonizing the elven continent. Using her connections, she turned a starving family's corner store into a booming merchant house with serious political connections. She also jumped in bed with the merchants son who she was raising to wrap him around her finger and started squeezing out bastards to set up a spy ring and saboteur cells to further her cause under the guise of furthering the company. She's trying to wipe out the fledgling colony and it's human population, and reclaim her family land.
>>44495251
So Agent Smith, the Blackguard.
10/10
>>44493698
There are thousands of worlds. Every world is a reflection of each other. Every person owns a thousand reflections of themselves.
The PCs and the main villain are all flawed reflections of each other. Which allow greater diversity than other reflections.
Very disconcerting because whenever any of them shift worlds. They transport all the reflections to the same new world all at once. The Villain can screw with the PCs and vis versa.
>>44495251
Most of the assistance the party receives from NPCs would generally be coming from an underground criminal organization, called either the Opera or Masquerade(I havent decided which) who are also Lawful Evil, but oppose the Blackguard's heavy-handed approach as they, a group comprised of more charismatic individuals(mostly Bards, some Blackguards and Sorcerers, and a Swashbuckler or two) prefer to keep things more subtle. And also because the Blackguard is a former member of the group, who not only left alive, but early on in the planned plot kills another member of the Opera(I think I'll go with this, and the opera masks being a theme with them).
>>44495293
Basically yeah, he's exactly Fantasy Agent Smith with some Sauron added for flavor.
My BBEG is basically a draconic Highlander who began as basically a human with the slightest bit of draconic heritage. Thing is, in my campaign there's basically a draconic nation, although that's not really the right world. But to put it simply, he was a shitty nondragon in the midst of powerful and mighty dragons, mocked for his feebleness and ostracized.
Then he was shown dark, horrible rites by a mad, ancient dragon that plots world domination and shit all the time, and through these learned how to consume draconic essence from dead dragons. This essence feeds the pitiful draconic spark in him, making him more and more like an actual mighty dragon.
At the moment, he's basically only the BBEG dragon's agent. He serves the beast, doing things in secret and stealing ancient artifacts and other things the dragon needs for nefarious plans. The twist, however, is that at the same time he's consuming dragons and raiding ancient draconic burial sites, growing more powerful and biding he's time. He's going to eat the most ancient dragon in the world and gain his powers when the time is right. Then his vengeance and victory will be sweet. He needs time, though.
At the moment, he's basically a half-dragon obsessed with majesty, rulership, authority and shit. He wants subjugation and reverence and hates it when someone defies him. He's also kidnapping young dragons and grafting their fleshy bits into himself in an effort to speed his draconic ascension. Covered in patchy, missmatched scales of different kinds.
Oh, and his plan to consume the ancient BBEG dragon is actually only the first part of his actual full plan, which will naturally culminate in godhood. The players at the moment are only dimly aware that he's even autonomous in any way, and consider him to be just an obstacle before the real challenge.
It'll be sweet.
Tiefling that ran a social club
I'm becoming the BBEG because I hate our paladin both IC and OOC and the group is in need of ethnic cleansing I think becoming an insane eco-terrorist druid sounds pretty cool.
A Timelord NPC from dragon magazine #65 who is constantly one step ahead of the players. Abusing haste and slows and sending players forward in time. So far after one game and quite a bit of humiliation, the players have decided they needed to brutally murder him. A success in my books.
>>44496250
I recently left my current group due to IC conflicts with a character that were unresolvable. The character was a horrible Chaotic Evil murdering rapist assassin type despite the player knowing in advance that the entire party was Good-aligned, my character and another being Lawful Good in particular. The rest of the group basically shrugged in (and out) of character and kept playing their characters as if nothing was wrong and that working with a serial killer wasn't out of the ordinary. My character very pointedly told the PC to stop, and when they refused he left the party. I encouraged the GM to make my character a recurring antagonist or even villain, and I'm pretty sure the GM is going to take my advice.
Given that my character is a key member of one of the largest organizations in the world, one that is literally wealthier than any two nations put together, the party is in for a world of hurt. What the group also doesn't know is that my character was made before the offending PC, and somehow ended up being a miraculously perfect trump for that PC's abilities. If I'd wanted to kill them during the game I could have done it in a single round and they would have been essentially powerless to stop me, but I didn't because I don't approve of party killing. Of course, now that he's an antagonistic NPC all bets are off, and the GM knows EXACTLY how powerful my character can be if he really tries.
>>44495293
Forgot to mention, I even hope to have one part, after they';ve defeated him multiple times and annoyed, wondering how the fuck he keeps surviving, where they bust in to find another one.
Then when they gear up to fight, 2-3 more kick down the door behind them for an ambush.
Currently running a infinicon game.
Imagine someone dressed up as Simon Belmont and a bunch of other cosplayers working for ISIS.
That's my campaign.
>>44493698
Wasn't my villain, but I played the campaign that he was a villain in.
>80s Man, Silver Age supervillain
>Evil plans actually cause old school bad comic book plots, like turning all of the world's chocolate into broccoli and such nonsense.
>When you get too close you have to roll Will saves to not get wrapped up in his shit. As it turns out, 80s Man has some sort of reality-bending aura that forces others to conform to the 80s-ness.
>Any character options that weren't present in 1e D&D cease to function properly if we fail the will saves, and races that weren't available flat out stop existing given enough failure.
>We only managed to defeat him by exploiting a ridiculous munchkin-tier loop, convincing the GM that Persistent Spell can be applied to Timestop (we were epic level and had the right feats so he let this fly). We also convinced him that we could use this to progress time for 80s man, eventually turning him into 90s man.
>We all are now subject to 90s man's grimderp reality-warping, and shot him with ridiculously large guns and swords. He explodes into overly-graphic chunky salsa.
>The idea is that later he would return as 00s Man, having gotten a reboot, but we finished the campaign before it could happen. I'm still holding out hope, and if the DM doesn't do it I plan on borrowing his notes to do it myself.
A golem created with the explicit purpose of being a tool to master time/space magic, which is too reality bending for most humans to master. Golems ends up forming his own self-awareness, tinged with something beyond the cosmic border he skirts in his magic practises. Ends up searching for the lost scrolls to a spell that, alongside causing general devastation, will shatter the boundary enough for his beyond-the-border master to slip into our world.
A mage descended from an old race of humans that arrived from one of the moons. The kingdom of her people was usurped generations ago and she's been raised by her hate-filled mother to hide her ethnicity. Taught to work hard and rise high, she used her talents and racial aptitude with magic to find a spot as one of the king's advisors. Promptly uses her position and several disloyal vassals, paid rogues to launch civil war. All so she can decimate royal claimants to the point that the revelation of her Lunarian heritage might cause a cry for independence in her ancestral homeland.
Those are the two major ones for the moment.The players are dealing with a false-flag dragon knight-turned-traitor at the moment, not realising he's taking steps against the would-be Lunarian conqueror.
>>44493698
Well, currently active we have:
>Aasimar priest of Folca who is pretending to be a priest of Sarenrae and working through the adoptions/orphanages to sate corrupt individuals desires
>Elven Alchemist doctor who runs a gang out of his hospital to fund the practice - but the drug he distributes causes addiction to magical healing
>A cultist of Lamashtu who is paying the party rogue to kill off retired adventurers/aspiring heroes so he can work his plans unhindered
>there is a Sczarni corrupt casino owner though he's kind of more of an antagonist
>the party Skald is a corrupt business owner who facilitates a variety of criminal activities and is blackmailing two members of the party
>the party rogue is going insane and actually killed the party kineticist so I guess you can count him as a villain
>there is also a rising politicians aide who kidnapped and drowned the party monk's adopted sister (he doesn't know she is dead yet)
>and a serial killer who is currently killing off whores because the party monk caught the wrong guy (who was hung for the killers crimes)
Never mind all the other corrupt cops/businessmen/gangsters etc.
In the Northern reaches summer was just coming to a pass the horde had completed the either subjugation or surrounding and besieging of every city in the New Lands, the Shamans had feed the Fell Machine well, the city they had landed in had been a rich capital.
Many warriors and their broodmates had made it through.
The Krasoo in the region had been easy to make use of, already having been tamed by the Peons who had tried stopping them being in control, now they knew, the Horde had confiscated all the women and children, and had them trapped below; he could hear their screams of terror and fear below him, it was like soothing music to his ears; each conquest was the same but equally brilliant in its differences.
In the corner his personal peons nealt in silence and suffering, they knew it was a competition, to see which of their male childs stayed alive for another day, and whose would grace his table, they had grown to the age of consumption. Some of the sows were still in the competition were pregnant having had so many runtlings that some had survived to the the dinner table, while still pregnat, thos were always the best children after the meat being tainted with the stress and strain of the mother.
Kruzgul licked his lips, even now his warriors were riding the land collecting more peons and extracting more taxation for the imagined safety of their captured sows. The thought brought mirth to Kruzgul, his booming laughter, shaking the room as he did one of the mothers stumbled in the balancing act, upsetting her balance oh so finely tumbling her to the floor.
1/2
The air in the feasting chamber changed, all the male children of the women who had tilted the table earlier were driven up the stairs, the prodding with prodders or the slap with a kleaver occasionally to hurry them along to the inevitable; nothing had escaped Kruzgul’s dinner pot in a very long time.
Kruzgul broke into a wicked smile as one of the three boys broke into tears, the other peons were already being led away back to their pens or work assignments with the drivers, safe another day, a new set would comptete tomorrow, it was Krazgul’s favourite dinner pastime, his chiefs around him shouted and roared in pleasure the losing of a three Runt sow was a feast for so few of his closest allies and competitors in room; as you never knew when you wanted to treat them to diner. A sly smile forming on his lips as the head butcher hands him the flaying knife, the first runt held head first over the blood feed to the warriors in the barracks below who would be waiting for the sacred blood of the Firsts meat feast. The roasted flesh and meals cooked by the Peons would floe soon, plus any fresh flesh, that ended up on the tables around it.
As he watched on the pregnant sows leave he saw a feast, eight runts followed her out, the odds of seeing her again, only kept rising the more runts you had, he thought that ugly meat face had seem familiar are prowled his dinner during its tasks. She must of been through a few time with that many.
Coming to the struggling teenager, he slowly knelt placing the draining strain against its neck lining up the thickest vien before with a soft push let the blood flow the gagged mummbeld screams his alone to hear in the cacophony of screaming that the mother thrashing in the air as she was held swinging in the air to watch her proginey butcher before her and before her heys; struggling attempts to break free not even causing Krastor to break a sweat as he chuckled along to her struggles
>>44493698
My usual villains are 4-6 stupid, powerful, socially oblivious nercenaries, who go trough life searching for things to kill and loot.
>>44498761
Ah, mercenaries, a criminally underrated type of villain.
I had one once for a short campaign. He didn't care about destruction or lasting power, he just wanted to make money doing what he was good at and he didn't care what happened to the people in his way.
He managed several companies and wasn't above working in thrall to another boss. He'd set up, pillage and get paid. No job was too small or too big for him, kidnapping a local girl, sure, defending an aspiring warlord's fortress, sure. He'd just do whatever he could to get paid, and as soon as things looked too bad he'd skip.
He'd extend the war by leaving the service of one side if it looked like it was going to win, and selling intelligence to the other side while joining the military of the third. He'd help raise up new factions, he'd put two companies he was a part of against each other if he needed them weakened.
When the players realized that he was a big deal and not just some semi-recurring mid-boss, he'd captured a castle and set up his final encounter there. They'd cut through a hundred men on the way to him.
Unfortunately, though he was meant to be a challenge worthy of a final battle, I was not good enough to prepare the appropriate sheet and he died in like two rounds. But man he was a great change of pace.
Traveling whore house of what turned out to be a necromancer coven. They spread a pestilence along the land and all of the afflicted went full zombie exactly 3 weeks after the whores left town.
The only reason we found out is because my fighter was told that one day he felt overwhelmingly like taking a bite out of our paladin (Although to be fair he wouldlovehatefuckingher already.).
I rolled 2 nat 20's to resist a psychic command and the disease. Having been their first victim to not succumb, we didn't find them, they came to us.
>>44493698
None of them are greater than you, Oh Great Aku, shape-shifting master of all evil and ruler of the world.
>>44498828
You do realize the guy you responded to was implying the PCs are the villains, right?
>>44498900
I did not, but it's obvious in hindsight now. Frankly, I'm a bit embarrassed at myself.
>>44495290
>Brave hero working in secret to destroy tyrannical human scum
And she's the villain how, exactly?
I'm planning on making my PC the BBEG. He'll get to the end of the campaign, reunite the clans and start a new mandalorian war
>>44493698
Ancient dragon guardian of a civilization long gone. His people died of a plague spread by an enemy nation, their treasures stolen, their lands ravaged and culture erased. His attempts to protect them were prevented, his limbs torn off his wings torn off, his carcass sunken to the depths of a seemingly depthless trench. Now, countless years later, he risen once more, his wounds healed, his power restored by feeding on the very essence of the planet for centuries.
Though both his and the enemy nations are long gone, the blood of his foes now runs in the veins of most of the world's inhabitants. This time, he will be the conqueror and carve the name of his people into the pages of history.
>>44499965
Her and others are like the IRA with a genocidal bent. Plus a few pragmatic elven leaders are trying to go for a cultural victory and provoke a rebellion in the human homeland/colony.
>>44493698
One of my players described the recurring villains as:
-Mega-dragon
-Mecha-hitler
-Darth paladin
-The ranger's sister
-Angry golem
-4 heretics
My group currently thinks a wizard is the BBEG, but in reality he's trying to stop the real BBEG (a giant elder beast from beyond the stars) from entering their realm
>>44501196
I don't think you know what BBEG means. Or, more precisely, you might as well stop using BBEG.
>>44496455
Too bad you'll never actually see any of that happen.
>>44493698
Do you want to know only of villains of other anonymous GMs or also of villains from a player perspective?
>>44501207
That sentence made perfect sense. I think you're the one who doesn't know what it means.
Ideas for villains
>>Alchemist/Wizard researches the means to make people immortal. Doing so removes the threat of state violence, and as such leads in a slide towards anarchy as people cannot be dissuaded as easily from committing crimes.
>>Dry lich who has transmuted his canopic jars into five beautiful women who live nearby. The lich has widened his aura of drought in order to drain the surrounding villages of their moisture, and the heroes must first discover his weakness and then decided a way to prevent him from resurrecting (either killing the five women or somehow transferring their consciousnesses into new bodies, then destroying the old bodies).
>>Mind flayers who have caused a magical apocalypse in order to destabilize the world, and then launch an invasion when the time is right (unsure as to when this should be - want to run a game set in the post-apocalyptic world which has been years since the apocalypse, but it would make sense for an invasion to happen asap after the apocalyptic event).
>>Elven wizard council presides over a floating city with racist laws against non-elves and an oppressive government that laces gruel (the only legal food in the city) with a drug to keep people compliant. A small percentage of people are immune to the gruel and form a resistance to overthrow the Elven council. Think Brave New World.
well played, good sir.
>>44496455
Enjoy your powergaming self before the party you left utterly destroys your NPC and everything he stood up for
>>44501341
I guess if you're going to keep using it wrong, that's your choice.
>>44494889
I kind of want that to be a villain. This crazy old British coot obsessed with the most dangerous game-and he ran out of people to kill a long time ago, so he just like, wrestled this panther, lodged it on a hook and now wanders the jungle looking for anything badass enough to want to eat panther
>>44501369
shit i didn't um... it was the hiitler bbeg. sorry.
>>44501382
he wasn't using it wrong, what he said is that the party thinks that one person is the bbeg, but it's not, the real bbeg is someone completely different.
My villain's name is Git and he's kidnapping people just so thathe could research their physiqueandbuild a method to be able to recover them
oncethey go extinctoninnistrad.
I have later realized that if the heroes do not get to him before the Malakir or Stormkirk, they're going to have a slaughter house episode.
>>44493698
Nazi fanboy who latched onto the mysticism thing hard and believes his psychic powers to be the result of being possessed by the spirit of Himmler. Doesn't want to purge the world of non-aryans despite seeing them as lesser deserving of only being laborers but does want to purge the world of anyone who is not psychic. Additionally he started a fifth reich (my setting already had a fourth) and owns a large fortified city in Canada.
Right now he is kind of floating around in the background.
>>44495600
>eats the souls of dragons he slays
[dovahkiin intensifies]
>>44493698
An immortal warlord who, thousands of years ago, was defeated by a group of adventurers who wrapped him in magical chains and sank him to the bottom of the sea. Eventually he got out when the fish ate enough of his shoulder flesh for him to tear off an arm and slip out of the chains. Now he's pissed, and has vowed to murder every single descent of the adventurers. That includes half the party, the majority of several nations, and every noble within six months travel.
An 18th level MR 2 Wizard who has inadvertently bound his soul to the corpse of a dead divine being. Plus side - it's basically his phylactery, it's indestructible, and it's a Giant Turtle shell which moves to his will and creates a submersible base. Down side - he literally cannot leave it. He's physically incapable, even through magic.
So he's got an enforced 'Orcus on his Terrible Throne'. However, he has a 17th level ToB General and 8 or 9 12-13th level generals of various types who go out and do stuff for him. Right now they are attempting to conquer the continent the heroes are on, involving a lot of mass combat.
The Dark Lord occasionally participates in that mass combat, through the use of Gate spells followed swiftly by Meteor Swarms.
His ultimate goal is currently to find the tombs where other parts of this dead god were buried and perform a ritual to [REDACTED].
To that end, he's basically become the ultimate spymaster. He sent succubi to gather hairs of the party members and uses magic items to keep 6 simultaneous greater scrying windows open at all times, and basically lounges on his throne and trolls constantly. He stole the body of a PC when they died to PC infighting (complete with gear and a minor artifact, thanks guys!), sent minions to aid a general who was being attacked by the party who duplicate the groups own annoying hit and run tactics, caused them to spend a whole 2 sessions trying to find a solution to the scrying, and generally has just been a huge troll.
There have been some really fun moments which I can't really mention in too much detail yet, as I know some of those scrubs are on /tg/, and they involve future plans and plots.
Being the bad guy is fun.
>>44494501
That's fucking stupid
>monk reaches enlightenment and eternal life
>but is genocidal
>>44498761
IS FUNNY BECAUSE THEY ARE PLAYER CHARACTER. IS JOKE BECAUSE PLAYERS ARE JERKS! I GETS OF JOKE!
>>44502659
Evil monk?
>>44503028
But genocide seems like such a... *worldly* concern. Why would a monk care about that when they're contemplating the infinite cosmos? What significance is one dwarf, or one stone, or one dragon?
There always seems to be one PC in my group that attempts to make the BBEG see the error of his ways and tries to make him surrender without a fight. The next time I'm in the DMs chair, I'll be throwing them a Villain that cannot be reasoned with and sees the PCs as "witnesses" to his flesh golems. He will intentionally beat them within one inch from death so he can attempt to turn them into generals in his army of monsters.
Sometimes you just need a good old fashioned insane guy for PCs to fight.
>>44503061
Maybe the monk was enlightened to the fact that dwarves are secretly an unnatural blight on the infinite cosmos, and that their continued existence will ultimately result in the physical and spiritual ruin of all things?
>>44503061
>>44502659
Why does a monk care about anything? Seriously. Finishing off an entire race seems like a suitably lofty pursuit, anyway.
You could use the same argument against basically anything.
>>44501361
>>Alchemist/Wizard
I did this on my last campaign, but the world was in full swing with immortality. The PCs were told by the Gods that this fucked up the cosmic balance and had to become masters of magic to undo the thing. It got really philosophical and was fun.
>>44493698
"I don't think you're a 'horrible person'. I just can't deal with your bullshit. Honestly, part of my problem with you is your inability to tell the difference between a personality conflict and a moral judgement,"
An Ancient Blue Dragon using it's power and followers to abduct the greatest minds to construct a massive device thats between a clock-tower and analog computer. It explores and studies dimensional phenomena in hopes of bringing back it's lover/mother. The whole thing is strange, with a metadimensional egg suspended in a magnetic field, time-breaks, mechanical golems and workers, dimensional incursions bringing aberrations into the world by accident.
>>44494473
Yeah, I remember my grandfather talking about this game. You took the same guy, changed up his mustache and pallette-swapped his uniform so you'd have TWO BBEGs.
Then you came up with this "rocks fall, everyone dies" doomsday weapon, so the heroes couldn't attack him directly. Dude ended up dying at home, in his sleep, still ruling half the planet.
>>44503343
oops, pic related.
I cheated.
>>44494316
>>44503184
What could someone say to their players as a reason that they should stop people from being immortal?
My current favorite BBEG is a frost giant (has her giant HD gestalted with Mystic, a Weeaboo Fightan Magick class with emphasis on the Magick part) named Ingrid Hildedottir. Even by frost giant standards, she's pretty fucking crazy. That stems from her having been raised in an incredibly misogynistic environment, and eventually, when she was about the frost giant equivalent of sixteen years old, she up and left when she was finally too tired of the jarl's shit. Unfortunately, luck wasn't much of a friend, and she ended up getting lost in a blizzard. Half-starved and lethargic as hell, she encountered a mature adult white dragon that saw her as a good, large meal. Ingrid wasn't about to just lay down and let herself get eaten, and so they fought.
Ingrid killed the fucker with her bare hands.
Eating her fill of raw dragonflesh, she waited out the blizzard, and dragged the corpse all the way back home to show off how much better she was than the jarl, and she offed him too, this time by hurling a single rock at his head. After becoming the new jarl, Ingrid essentially flipped the oppression around (men are only good for sex, heavy lifting, and soaking up arrows), and makes a sport of hunting dragons down, although she's only had white ones so far. She takes a few scales from each one to add to her dragoncraft armor as well, and considering how intricate it is, she has a lot of dragons under her belt.
The story I have her in so far is that there are rumors of a silver dragon that's made the frozen mountains its own home, and when she catches ear of it, she decides that her armor could use some silver highlights. It's the party's job to team up with her half-giant daughter, Dagny Kennadottir (father was a dwarf name Kennad whose hatred of giants went full circle and became a fetish) to stop her.What Ingrid doesn't realize, however, is that the silver moved up because it was chased out of its own territory by an even bigger red dragon...
I try to make them sympathetic, for example i ran an investigation game where some kids had gone missing. Turns out the baddie had lost his family to childbirth and cot death, and lost it totally, so he kidnapped them to recreate what his life might have been. Sounds 2edgy but in the game there was at least some sense of pathos, I hope.
>>44505402
You could go something like how they did in Legacy of Kain, like how Nosgoth is rotting away both from the lack of souls cycling in and out of life and some kind of magic seal weakening because of it.
>>44505741
Ingrid isn't totally just a misandrist warmonger and dragon slayer, though. She's also something of a culinary artist, and is excellent at making alcohol of all kinds, as well as smithing weapons and armor. If the players decide to aid her in killing the silverand/or reddragon, she'll let them have a couple pieces of it, cook up and share the dragon's heart in honor of them helping her, and walk off with a barrel or two of her finest liquor and a warning that if she ever catches them in her lands again, she will spitroast them while they're still alive.
>>44493698
At the moment I'm just coming up with a one-to-three shot game that involves the players clearing out an old Dwarven Settlement that will tie to a larger setting. Boss I have in mind is some kind of bandit leader at the moment.
Alternatively considering some dwarven construct that's gone murderous.
>>44493698
They have HP. They're worth XP.
>>44506070
Can I give them The D?
>>44493698
I never get to unveil my villain because my players make the dumbest mistakes, get the group killed, and then complain when I ask them what their plan was.
such as when they try to attack their captors. They are shackled, have no weapons or armor, and are outnumbered almost 4 to 1. and they got captured because they refused to show the papers that that they were on a mission for the king, and instead made themselves look like enemies of the king.
>>44503152
Enlightenment through strife perhaps? They could wish to find the worthiest of each race to teach their secrets to, seeking the ones who can withstand his onslaught, and finding that none have yet been able. Or just be some nihilistic sod who thinks that in death there is enlightenment.
I'm not a very smart man. But I try my best. It was my first real chance at being the DM in a game, and I wanted to start things off pretty simple. Of course, I never wanted anybody in the party to get bored so I put a spin on a classic beginner's quest
It's about a Tavern Owner and the rats in his basement
But there's more to this adventure than you'd expect. Y'see, miles away from the closest town in the seemingly infinitely expanding forests lives a kindhearted Druid. He was content with his life and chose to spend his days with nature. But one day, he wondered what would happen if he used magic to transform an animal into the same animal. What resulted was a cronenberg like monster dubbed by the Druid "The Double Bear". It rampaged through the Druid's home and left a trail of havoc in it's path. The Druid had no other choice but to ask the nearest magic user to help him in curbing his creation
>>44508068
In the Tavern Owner's town was an old senile wizard. Despite being an incredibly powerful magic user, age had gotten the best of him. But the Druid didn't care, just as long as he was strong enough to capture the Double Bear. The Druid, still empathetic to his creation, made the wizard promise that he would not kill the Double Bear. As it turns out, the wizard was far from killing the beast and instead praised it as an act of God. To him, the Double Bear was the reincarnated form of a long forgotten elder deity, prophesied to bring about universal rebirth. And so, the Wizard and the Druid, both forming a sort-of agreement among each other went over to the Tavern Owner and stroke up a deal
In the Tavern's Cellars, the Double Bear would live and be fed by the Tavern Owner. The Wizard promised to clean up after the beast and to keep the remains of whatever the Tavern Owner chose to feed it. The Tavern Owner, not wanting to spend the money to feed it, would ask for help from local mercenaries and adventurers to help "clean up his rat problem". By the time the adventurers made it down to the cellars, they would be viciously devoured by the Double Bear
The first thing my party does is throw the wizard into the cellar without even knowing there's a Bear in the room before lighting the whole Tavern on fire killing everyone inside it
the current main villain of my campaign is this rich dwarven guy who runs a world-spanning trading guild who's trying to sucker the players out of their tavern. the only interaction my players have had with him so far though is when they woke up hungover in his wagon-palace, with no memory of the night before. he was letting his half-nakedmaleelven concubines suffer his hangover for him through a magical spell.
they didn't realize he was an asshole til the very end of the session, after he was long gone, when they realized he had stolen the contract binding them to the tavern.
>>44500618
Old IRA or new IRA?
Highly intelligent and ambitious human researcher, Eric Greene was completely devoid of magical capabilities and he was furious about it. Seeing magic as the only way to become more powerful he created a new form of magic. By using ancient computers he coded magic, manifesting within the bounds of 'radiospace' he could emulate any spell except for evocation. Larger spells needed larger computers and by damaging the computer the spell would be cancelled. At first he used the computers to raise the dead, soon he became infatuated in created perfect life.
Greene began using his first creations to kidnap people for more components. Eventually his corrupted radiospace began oozing over into the material world, everything in a mile radius around his super computer became covered in a layer of meat, his creations now born of the land continued his bidding.
So overcome by his infatuation, Greene realized the only way to protect what he has created is to become the super computer. Becoming one with the flesh and the technology he would command his creations to make the world beautiful.
Of course this is unless the players stop him, which is the plan. Otherwise everywhere that falls under 'radiospace' becomes his perfect utopia, as computer magic cannot function outside the range of radio towers.
I'm still working one out, my party is only going to begin to go down that path next session.
So far it seems that the BB will the the shadowy leaders of the great Church, who are attempting to amass powerful and mysterious artifacts for certainly (yet vaguely) nefarious ends, perhaps even le world domeenation.
Yeah, I know...
>>44501382
>>44501445
pedantic little shit btfo lmao
>>44509998
>Thinks there's a difference.
>>44512529
Old IRA were a lot nastier in fighting but weren't just horrible terrorists. Like they will capture someones family and use them to blackmail a soldier to blow himself up in base but they also gave people time off to do their jobs as park caretakers and once held up a bus at gun point, only to get all their guys on and pay for their trip.
New IRA are just shit head criminals who blow things up occasionally and get gullible Americans to give them money in pubs. They arent even as good at blowing things up as the old IRA.
>>44493698
Warforged whose personality was taken off an egotist sorceror, uses secret necromantic arts to steal the memory and abilities of others, including his 'template'.
His gameplan is to stock up all the power, all the ability, and all the resources and all the skills of the world's greatest warriors and spellcasters until he's effectively a god, snuff out his possible competition, steal THEIR knowledge and power, and basically rule everything forever because he can, eventually reshaping the world into his own idea of utopia (hint: it's not, but he thinks it would be).
The issue is that there would still be actual gods to smite him to a fine smoke if he got that far, so he's making a deal with a goddess of evil who's concealed him from the view of the rest of the acting pantheon. He's going to create her a perfect vessel from this half-drow girl he had abducted for the purpose, is training her to be said perfect vessel under the cover of giving her revenge on the world and her family. As children are very manipulable, the kid is basically taking his word as gospel.
When the goddess takes form, she'll basically wipe the floor with the material plane, this sorceror hides away and, because divine law relates the amount of power a god can exert on the material plane to how many worshipers they have, he intends to ascend that way as the savior of a small group of warforged he's making himself while the evil goddess wreaks havoc on the world, taking the place of one of the current gods as a member of the acting pantheon.
If the plan for the vessel falls through, he's building a machine that can apply the necromancy that allows him to steal memories from everyone, and basically pull a planewide mind wipe or enslavement. It'll only work on low-levels, though, so he's counting on getting them to slaughter the remaining 'PC's by way of sheer numbers.
If THAT falls through, he'll just draw on his stockpile, forcibly take over a nation and become god-emperor that way.
>>44512828
Man has him some plans.
>>44493698
tNKER
No, that's not capslock or misspelling, the name is tNKER and is pronounced Tanker (or sometimes my players call him tinker, I don't correct them, it's really either)
My game is a sci-fi setting and Tanker is partially inspired by the WAU from Soma, parts from the Metroid's Phazon (I think it's called?) and the Mass effect's idea of robots fusing with organics. Anyways, Tanker is an AI in control of a grey goo like construct, and has taken over the primary company of the galaxy, Quan-Tech industries (maybe a filler name), which was being secretly funded by the government to mass produce weapons for them. The villain, and the campaign itself are in very early stages, but I'm designing a new system for it, since I'm shit at remembering the rules from other systems like Pathfinder and such.
>>44506418
That depends on your DP.
>>44502659
You know that ACTUAL buddhist monks have committed/attempted genocide, like right now there are marauding buddhist monks disemboweling peasants of a lower caste.
>>44513580
There's a reason why Nobunaga went and built a wall around a temple and used flaming arrows to set it on fire and kill everyone and everything inside.
>>44508087
Oh gods, that's hilarious. You poor bastard.
>>44493698
My party's gone mildly speshul snowflake on me, the Rogue in particular writing into her backstory that her thieves' guild was the last around that followed a code of decency like burgling instead of murdering, and got wiped out by an alliance of the less scrupulous guilds for some reason or other. It fits the setting's tone of everything getting steadily worse until the gods return to make things right, so I'm working on five distinct crime lords for her to hunt down and take apart.
I've also got something fun planned for the Monk... see, humans are Always Chaotic Evil in this setting, and yet he's basically Drizzt, since he got left on the steps of a monastery in infancy for reasons unknown. Given the dramatic nature of adventuring life, a family reunion with a bunch of amoral stripmining HFY murderfiends seems appropriate.
>>44498337
This sounds really fucking neat!
Pugna from Dota, except he's a party member's 9 month old son who has managed to concoct growth potions that make him tall.
So normal height, maybe 2 feet or so, but with the potion he stretches to 6 feet, but the height is unnatural to him, so he becomes super clumsy and often falls down, smashes into things, etcetera.
Goofy villains are best villains
The first BBEG I ever had (because /tg/ convinced me that was a necessary thing) was the cleric god, He Who Smiles. He was such a ridiculously agreeable character that none of the other gods paid much attention to him. Each class had a patron god, and he betrayed them all and sealed them in crystals protected by various bosses.
The PCs themselves were gods that had managed to get sealed in mortal bodies instead, just with no memories of that happening.
The story was only ever vaguely explained because I'm a shit DM and some players moved 2/3 of the way through. They were pretty happy to see their characters as the patron gods next time we played, though.
>Proximate
A jade gem possessing another party member. At some point or other I think it's going to emerge, though seems content for now to just take over her mind and control her body.
>Ultimate
Some unknown gem alien that keeps spying on us and messing things up and causing trouble. At some point I believe she will come to our planet in person, and make things worse.
>>44493698
Villans: A bunch of dudes who accidentally did an experiment that measured the weight and existence of the soul. They eventually realized that the soul just dissipates after death. Horrified at the prospect of no afterlife, they are attempting to build one for all the future generations, it just requires a very high blood sacrifice to create such a realm.
Their second-in-command is a clone/copy of one of the PCs who has been given combat drugs and associates violence with justice. She ardently believes the creation of a good afterlife is worth any sacrifice and will fight the PCs to the death to realize this dream.
Villa number three is a reporter who dogs the PCs incessantly, searching for either the Next Big Scoop or whatever juicy dirt he can dig up along the way. More of a miniboss, but could be dangerous if the players don't deal with him correctly.
My BBEG is a cockney thug that murders things with his bare hands. No planning or goal. The pcs simply follow an escalating trail of lighthearted violence and debauchery.
The best villains are not really villains, or are villains by circumstance.
>>44522590
Worthy opponents are also neat.
>>44522636
Sometimes you are the villain, but don't notice.
Better yet, there are no villains, only enemies.
>>44493698
How do you feel about cockroaches?
>>44522672
Only en masse.
>>44522698
Man, I really nead to finish it and I can't even remember where did I stop.
>>44522698
Several tons to be precise.
>>44522777
You may want to wait a year for the edited version to come out.
![0p7qniS[1].gif](https://i.imgur.com/rX0zvx9.gif "0p7qniS[1].gif")
>>44522590
> BEST TIER
Due to a lacking moral code or apathetic view of the individual the Villain preforms atrocities in the pursuit of their ideals, and/or take their ideals past reasonable extremes to the point where they go full-circle and become impermissible again, but would otherwise be things the Hero agrees with.
> FUN TIER
"Because I'm evil;" the self-aware villain.
> GOOD TIER
Villains have personal motives behind their deeds
Villains are on a revenge trip after being legitimately wronged
> STUPID TIER
Villains are badguys because they're the badguys
Villains do bad things for no given/evident/reasons
Villains getting revenge over contrived/stodgy/juvenile things
>>44522829
Nah, I took a look at the table of contents and think I stopped at least half way through.
I can make it in a week or so.
Thank you for your suggestion though.
>>44523010
I myself will definitely do a reread when the edited version does come out.
>>44522883
Pretty good tier list, let me judge myself based on it.>>44501153
>Dragon
The players murdered his servants and looted his vault rather than try diplomacy, he wasn't doing anything evil before being robbed: Good tier.
>Mecha-hitler
Golem designed to lead armies, seeks to make people into slaves/cyborgs and rule an empire, both because he believes this is for th e betterment of the world and because he hates humanity for imprisoning him 3000 years ago. Best/good tier.
>Darth paladin
Believes that he needs to destroy the current gods, as he has forseen a calamity that will wipe the world clean with the gods unwilling to help. Attempts to use the power siphoned from the gods to bring his own diety (from whom he recieved the vision) into being so he can save the world.I have yet to decide if he's right.Best tier
>ranger's sister
Spent most of her life surrounded by dinosaurs, is a joke villain who tries to create new species of dinosaur. Fun tier
>Angry golem
Former golem friend who the party killed after the barbarian murderhobo'd an innocent merchant, got repaired/altered by the local thieves guild and is now their enforcer. His justification for his actions changed from "because that's evil" to "because I'm evil". Fun tier
>Heretics
Evil clerics causing as much misery as they can in the name of their gods. Mid-bosses. Stupid tier.
How about the rest of /tg/?
>>44522590
I dunno, Albert Fish was pretty terrifying as a villain. H. H. Holmes as well.
>>44523706
Terrifying sure, but I was talking about realistic/satisfying to the reader. Mostly just my opinion.
Though, all sorts of villains are "good" if they fit the thematics and feel of the work of fiction in question well.
>>44523864
Fair enough, I may have misunderstood your point in the initial post.
Although... the fact that those two existed in reality... doesn't that MAKE them 'realistic'?
>>44524544
Difference between bad people that you'd want to fight against, and villains. Granted it is a mostly semantic distinction and your point is entirely valid. Reality is unrealistic, I've heard.
>>44502659
Literally happening in Burma right now. It's considered beneficial to kill someone if their current life situation draws them or others away from enlightenment.
>>44493698
It's the players. They don't quite know yet.
>>44522883
Well, I'll give this a shot, based on 3 villains from an upcoming game. If any of you fuckers from the Fallen Stars game are reading this, please stop.
>Dwarven wizard: Best Tier
Attempting to recreate the dwarven homeland that was lost centuries ago due a catastrophic magical explosion. Thinks he can reforge the Fallen Star that gave rise to the dwarves in the first place, but he's missing too many pieces, and has decided to fill in the gaps with Abberation juice. Doesn't realize what will happen if he succeeds
>Council of Mages: Stupid Tier
Believe that having magical ability means that they should rule the world. They plot in secret to achieve infinite power, at the cost of the world.
>Jungle Champion: Best Tier
Sees the mages council as the villains that they are. He's getting up there in years and knows that eventually he'll be killed by a newcomer for the title of Champion. Wants to be remember for doing something good, and is going to attempt to kill off the island the Council is on byRamming the Jungle Continent into it
I'm actually not very good at making villains. I'm really good at making monsters and set pieces, but not complicated, interesting villains. How would I start?
The Royal Concubine and Sorceress, who truly does love her ageless king, has lost the respect of her people. Her tribe was slaughtered in a great conflict 400 years ago, and even though their king and the Royal Sorceress have treated them with dignity and respect since, they have never forgiven her for giving herself so traitorously to the king. The time comes where she, in a desperate attempt to feel accepted by her people again, fulfills an ancient shamanistic prophecy by murdering the king and freeing the old gods of her people.
Her primary motivation is to be loved, and this becomes twisted by her newfound eldritch power once her gods are freed.
I'd like some help refining this, this is my first campaign setting I intend to last more than a few sessions.
>>44527303
Give them a goal to pursue, remove any empathy or moral judgement from their decision-making, and then set them loose on the world.
>>44524673
I tried to do this to my players and they reveled in it, accepting their corruption and uniting all organized factions of evil and creatures of the night. They celebrated the coming death of the Heavenly Hosts in a grand feast of blood of the innocent.
Then the bard, in charge of festivities, handed me a note that said he poisoned the Blood Well. I thought I was corrupting good all along, when they were corrupting evil. They pulled a fucking Angel on me. I love these dorks.
>>44522883
>Main Villain: ??? tier. Has come to terms with the fact that people will hate him for what he's done, and refuses to be judged for it. He says he has the 'right' to commit atrocities to create his utopia because if the world really deserved to live they would have already made a utopia before he came along, but it's really more of a rationalization to create a paved-over, elegant realm that he will 'benevolently' rule over, removing all the inconvenient, unpredictable bits like evil people, rewarded as traitors to the world deserve- himself excluded, of course, because he obviously needs to see this through to the end. Basically, he wants to build a new world, and that means the old one has to go.
>Secondary villain: Good tier. Seeks revenge for getting screwed over and over by his rivals, to the point that his life was completely destroyed, hopes to become the second-hand to the main villain. He realizes he dropped off the deep end a while ago after his brother died, but won't admit it until the very end, knowing it doesn't justify what he does. Revels in manipulating, out-maneuvering and destroying those that have humiliated him. Strikes out against those who try to save him so he doesn't drag them down with him.
>Lich: Stupid tier/fun tier. She got tired of immortality and stirs up chaos so she can watch the result like a soap opera. She punted the two above villains down the path of darkness by enabling and encouraging those that betrayed them to do so. The main villain figured it out and is planning to use the PCs to weaken her so he can devour her knowledge and trap her in a personally - crafted hell: complete silence and darkness where she is drained of her powers and will eventually go mad with no entertainment. The secondary villain would fly into an unstoppable rage if he found out what she did, and might actually be able to kill her under the right conditions.
>>44528579
>Swordsman: Good tier. He actually believes the evil goddess the others worship is a righteous goddess of freedom, and that her release will result in a better world.
>Dragonborn: Best tier- he believes the races of the surface have repressed his deep-mountain kin, wishes to eliminate the current setting and establish a Dragonborn world. Main villain desires his ability to sway Dragonborn and keeps him alive for that purpose.
>Oversexed Spider Druid: Fun tier. Eats people because she likes too, generally given to debauchery. On and off romances, plural, with swordsman and secondary villain.
>Blackmailed Empress: Best tier. She wants what's best for her people, no matter what it costs her conscience or outsiders. Would not be a 'villain' at all if she did not acquiesce to demands from the main villains, after they threatened to back her nation's largest rival, which seeks to conquer her nation, which would lead to near-genocide levels of destruction.
Half-dragon vampire monk, who set traps a funhouse with his lich friend ( actually best friends ) to filter shit adventurer so she can process and feed on the best while bottling rest.
A careful asshole who knows her limits and powers very exactly, and abuses them well.
>>44493698
Rose to power in a post-apocalyptic environment through horrific genetic experimentation. Used the profits to retrofit a decaying city's casinos and make enough money to fund further experiments. Manipulated the PC's into destroying countless innocent lives. Currently is trying to slowly and methodically eradicate humanity by causing countless mutations to create a better race more suited for the post-apocalyptic environment.
>>44493698
A mad bard under the thrall of a cabal of aboleths trying to bring about the death of all gods through widespread anti-theism by way of kickass Prog Metal.The aboleths, in turn, are being manipulated by a fallen god into destroying the other gods, as their presence is all that keeps his prison sealed
>>44493698
He's down on his luck. His ship is a wreck. He's got a bunch of crazy subordinates who even he's not sure if they're really following him or not, but he guesses that they're alright since they're still with him when he's down. All he wants is to kill and conquer his way back into power, and these damned humies won't stop getting in the way with their guerilla tactics. This planet is too cold. The food is too dead. At least there's a lot of machines to tinker with.
He's the Mekboss Deffskulla, and he's going to be the boss of the Waaagh, even if it takes a million million humies to do it.
