Author Topic: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?  (Read 2709 times)

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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2017, 05:17:24 PM »
i have several current villains in my campaign at present.

Danny O'Gunnian - leader of the thieves guild known as the Big Fish Gang. He has 3 subcommanders - a swordsman, a burgler and a rogue

Draven the Slayer - leader of the assassins guild called The Order of the Black Lotus aka the Lotus

Jubal - the crimelord. He is an slaver and ex-gladiator. Leads a fighters type guild of mercenaries known as Hawkmasks so called because of the masks they wear when on missions.

The Beggar King - former head of espionage for Jubal, he betrayed him and is now leader of a rival organisation.

Offline Voriig Kye

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2017, 05:59:26 PM »
I think what my players fear the most are passive/mysterious NPCs.
If an enemy attacks, they know how to defend themselves.
But every time they encounter someone that has shady attitudes, or implies a threat but with a smile, they are at a loss on how to face them.

I once told them that a shady guy in a town (who ended up hosting them for the night) was stalking into their room as they slept.
They woke up, and the man had some weird excuse for "checking up on them" in the middle of the night.

This was a well equipped party of 4 adventurers, who had slain demons and conquered many a battle.
But they didn't trust the guy, didn't know if he had some ulterior motive, so as soon as the sun was up, they left the town...

Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2017, 08:51:29 PM »
It depends entirely on the campaign, honestly. In one I had a shadowy mage who kept sending minions after the party after they (accidentally) interfered with one of his plans. But on the whole mine tend to be faceless and might actually be a group as opposed to an individual. In my non-fantasy stuff I had an egomaniacal cattle baron who spent a great deal of time, money, and hired gunmen's blood trying to get rid of the PCs before he was eventually killed in a fairly epic shootout. In my spy stuff one character was stalked for several sessions by a disturbed KGB agent who loved intentionally missing the character with long-distance shots.
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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2017, 01:45:02 AM »
It depends entirely on the campaign, honestly. In one I had a shadowy mage who kept sending minions after the party after they (accidentally) interfered with one of his plans. But on the whole mine tend to be faceless and might actually be a group as opposed to an individual. In my non-fantasy stuff I had an egomaniacal cattle baron who spent a great deal of time, money, and hired gunmen's blood trying to get rid of the PCs before he was eventually killed in a fairly epic shootout. In my spy stuff one character was stalked for several sessions by a disturbed KGB agent who loved intentionally missing the character with long-distance shots.

haha. i love the intentionally miss guy. i might use that one. the party have plenty of enemies and far few allies. kinda didnt help that one of them tried to murder his was up into a promotion and got found out. he was sent to rescue his boss's subcommander from the dungeon. he did but then proceeded to frame him as a traitor and killed him off. masterfully done but things started to unravel when he had to explain his proof the guy was actually the traitor he claimed him to be... under intense questioning the cracks were apparent and rather than kill off the pc (and his unknowing pc accomplice) the boss dropped a bomb shell... turns out the guy they killed owed him a large dept... guess who inherited the dept when they killed him? Yep. The pc's. Can you say "carefully laid plans undone?"

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2017, 02:03:43 AM »
The identity of the Beggar King was kept secret for a time. it took a bit of detective work from the plyers. his motive for betrayal is still unknown (his daughter was killed by Jubal's men as an example for others not to betray him... she was innocent and did not betray him but was merely used as a way to keep his other informants inline... enter The Beggar King).

Offline Peter R

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2017, 05:49:52 AM »
I had a lowly Orc that had taken to piracy complete with eye patch and swarthy crew of cut throats. He gave the characters no end of trouble to the point where they avoided the entire coast line and anything to do with boats.
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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2017, 06:01:19 PM »
I hav recently created 6 more powerful villains. 5 are undead. 4 of them are Vampire Lords and their leader is a lich. There is an evil cult who the party are battling that seek to resurrect the 4 vampire lords and when they do, they will in turn bring back their leader the lich who is i exile in another plane.

The party know of the cults plans and seek to stop them, with the help of some key npcs. The newest player is a paladin that is part of an ancient order of knights that battled the vampire lords in the past. his backstory was created with the over arching plot in mind.

The 6th villain is really just a 'bridging' villain who is a sorcerer that is helping the cult. this sorcerer seeks power and mastery of black magic. He is sort of an apprentice to the lich lord who leads the cabal of vampires.

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2017, 03:15:12 AM »
The Plot. Centuries ago a powerful lich named Murmaranus Soulstealer created a cabal of vampire lords. There were four vampire lords. They had many names: The Soul Stealers, The Sons of Dyareela and The Assembly of Chaos. The Blue Star Magicians destroyed the cabal but this came at great cost to their order. Murmarandus was banished and imprisoned in The Plane of the Damned. As a safeguard the remaining Blue Star magicians used their magic to trap the soul of each vampire within a stone. These artifacts were called Soul Stones. One Soul Stone was created for each vampire lord. These relics were scattered and hidden throughout the Known World. Even though the vampire lords were destroyed, evil this powerful is never totally eradicated. The Bloody Hand have been searching for the Soul Stones for centuries, gathering followers and forbidden lore. Should they find the Soul Stones, The Blood Cult would be able to resurrect the Soulstealers and then free Murmarandus from his exile in the Plane of the Damned.

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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« Reply #9 on: July 15, 2017, 05:24:18 PM »
one intersting turn of events in the campaign has been with jubal the crimelord. He has recruited the party to join his hawkmask mercenaries. his power was diminished when he was betrayed by his head of espionage  Salisman. Jubal was then captured by Salisman (aka the Beggar King) and tortured (his eye was cut out).
Turns out Jubal isnt such a nice guy himself and he was somewhat deserving of his treatment at the hands of Salisman (Jubal's men killed Salisman's daughter to make an example of her to his other informants). Salisman proceeded to wipe out most of Jubals 50 sell-swords as revenge for his daughters death.

Jubal has now regained much of his former power and has recruited more sell-swords - a mix of ex-soldier, gambling addicts, thieves, murderers, drug addicts and ex-gladiators. He has been licking his wounds and gathering intel to strike back at the Beggar King. These two have been vying for control of the underworld of the city.

The players are just starting to figure out that their boss isnt a guy you want to cross (or even work for).
They bungled a mission and due to greed and poor judgement now owe Jubal a dept of 600 gold. A hefty sum. They have a month to pay it off or they will be kicked out of his organisation (or worse).

The campaign is poised ready for Jubal to make his move against Salisman, his former employee. He will make two raids into Salismans territory - a warehouse full of smuggled goods and an underground hideout in the sewers below the city. The players are part of the strike force that will make the raids. Wealth and glory await!

Offline jdale

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2017, 01:23:33 AM »
Our most hated enemy, in the RMSS game I play, is an educated and sophisticated goblin. Not sure of his profession. Maybe an evil healer? We first heard of him from some prisoners. We've never actually fought him, or even encountered him up close. Here are some snippets from the game logs.

Balarc Pass (pg 19): After we are attacked by a goblin and another humanoid, we question them. "Their leader was at the tomb, and has orders to find out what we are doing here and to capture us. Their leader was a short figure, wearing round wire-rimmed glasses. The scout is motivated by a desire for status and ascension to the rank of Chosen. Their cause is to bring Bane the Destroyer to ascension, power, glory, and freedom, to punish unbelievers, and further the cause of some other leaders (a high cleric of Bane)."

Balarc Pass (pg 23): Brandi and Alexia recount that after their capture, "A four-foot tall creature in a dark grey cloak with small, round, wire-rim glasses revived them, laughing, by transferring their wounds from their bodies to the body of an orc, who promptly died."

We also experienced him scrying on us at one point.

Siege of Balamor (pg 27): "We are on the battlements with Hawkins when we see a 4 foot figure stepping out of a 200 foot high pillar of flame. Around him, a ring of about 50 taller figures, chanting. This is 700 feet away, just out of range of our ballistas and catapults. As we watch, arms emerge from the earth, skeletal arms that grab the people in the circle and drag them down, amidst screams. Hawkins tells us the short figure, a goblin, with the familiar small circular spectacles, is Elgin. Watching this, Hawkins says he has to leave, and vanishes magically."

This was the first appearance of undead in the game. Up until this point, they were considered storytale material.

Return to the Lighthouse (pg 73): "Listening to the orcs guarding the lighthouse, I learn that they were in the north, then somewhere hot (Nilth?), then back here. A whole month with no action, which is a long time for them. They clearly have travelled a lot, and been busy. They call Elgin 'Boss.' They also complain about having to scrub bones."

This group of orcs was a unit of heavy cavalry. They were well equipped (high steel, warhorses), trained, disciplined, and included a paladin and a sorcerer. (Orcs as part of an advanced and almost industrialized civilization is a major theme in the game, something that we only realized later on as the scope continued to increase. They were considered storytale material at the beginning of the campaign, too.) We ran into them several times and had to run away (although we killed a lot of their advance scouts). Given their level of discipline, it really weirded us out that Elgin was on a completely casual basis with them.

It also really weirded us out when we realized, much later in the campaign (pg 178 in our log) that the group of orcs we had just fought and defeated, was actually the same unit of heavy cavalry that had chased us around so many times. (No horses though, they snuck into the city and attacked us there.) It turns out that threats are different after you have advanced in enough levels, but that fear doesn't go away on its own!



In my own game, the main present enemies are corrupted dwarves who have been trying to steal a set of relics from the party's patron and his allies (the dwarves did obtain one, but the party has foiled their other two attempts). But the party is convinced that the real villain is their patron, who set them up to transport one of the relics in the first place! Not sure if they are serious or it's a running joke. Probably both. ;) As for whether they are right, obviously I'm not telling!

I haven't really had the chance to make a good dwarf villain yet. Gamunn Lanterneye was good for a few encounters. He was a stone knight (earth-based warrior mage). One of his eyes was replaced with an aetheric artifact (which glowed, thus the name). His most annoying trait was mental illusions that deceived enchanted (giant) insects into attacking the party. Since one party member was an insect priestess (basically), it was personally offensive and not just an attack. They first learned of him after an insect attack, when one of the surviving insects told them it had seen "glowing eye" and then they spotted him disappearing into a tunnel with the priestess's scrying spell (this particular spell gives a view of a large area from far above, but the priestess has a very keen eye, so she sees a lot). I hoped to get more mileage out of him but he failed to escape a critical battle... 

The next guy up the chain is Brynh Arcscar (he has extensive electrical burns), an earth mage. He was all set to do a nice villainous monologue but after the party's archer critted his ally, he decided escaping alive was a higher priority. Maybe next time! He did pull off a nearly-successful assault, so they take him seriously, even though it's not really personal... yet.


Really good villains need to stick around for a while, so it's good if the players get the chance to see their handiwork long before they actually encounter them. If they do see them, a situation where a fight is impossible (maybe for diplomatic reasons, maybe just a sighting at a distance) helps drag things out. Once you actually get into a fight, aside from the chance of your villain dying, a lot of the fear of the unknown and abstract goes away, and now you are dealing with something that may be dangerous but without the mystery it's not the same. Still, even before that fight, they need to be believable as threats. But to be a great villain there also needs to be a personal connection. Maybe it's a character history thing (you killed my father; you are my father), maybe religious heresy, maybe they stole something of the players', but something that elevates them above all the other things to fight in the world, which are usually numerous.
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Offline netbat

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2017, 09:04:56 AM »
The villain I use in my campaign is an up and coming young noble high man(Armsmaster Profession from MentCo) from an evil kingdom neighboring the PCs kingdom. He stays several levels above the PCs as he carries out various schemes to advance himself and his kingdoms agenda. My PCs first met him when they are tasked by a local lord to find and stop bandit attacks on caravans in his isolated area. They are hooked up with one of the "best" local scouts to help track the bandits down; the scout is a secretive, taciturn jerk who is always disappearing for an hour or two before coming back to get them on the right track. At one point he disappears ahead of them and they hear fighting. As they come into view they see him fighting the villain in the middle of the road and charge to help when the villain looks at them and yells "look out, Ambush". The party fights off the orc ambush as the villain kills the scout, but is knocked out and has a broken arm. When the party brings him around he tells them the scout is one of the orc "bandits" and his brother that he has been trying to kill for a while to erase the stain on his families honor(it is really the other way round). He then takes them to the bandit hideout and uses them to kill the evil orc shaman that had usurped his command of the orcs making his mission impossible. Back in command of the orcs he captures the party and leaves them tied up as he and the orcs pack up an leave since he had given them his word that he meant them no harm as part of his deception. For the rest of that campaign, the party was constantly running into evidence of his actions against their kingdom(and foiling many of them) but they never did get to that final confrontation I was planning. They hated the fact that he had tricked them into thinking he was one of the good guys and had used them, so they spent a lot of time trying to catch him.
 
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Offline Roll 3d6

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2017, 02:25:22 PM »
I had a Dyari Elf herbalist wiggle her way into the party's graces and subtly poison two of them before the rest of the party knew what was going on.  By the time they figured it out, she had vanished and became a recurring villain.  A female Druid later joined the group and only at the climactic battle at the end did the party find out that the Druid was the herbalist's daughter.

In a different campaign, I had a villain known only as "The Master" create a 10-level deep dungeon between two cities.  The top three layers were stocked with various critters to keep the rabble away while levels 4 through 10 were each designed by one of several spell casters.
Level 4:  Ice Mage
Level 5:  Warrior Mage
Level 6:  Monk
Level 7:  Illusionist
Level 8:  Evil Cleric
Level 9:  Magus
Level 10:  The Master
It took the majority of the campaign to clear out and kill the Master of that complex, but the stories were amazing.

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #13 on: July 21, 2017, 10:31:26 PM »
I had a Dyari Elf herbalist wiggle her way into the party's graces and subtly poison two of them before the rest of the party knew what was going on.  By the time they figured it out, she had vanished and became a recurring villain.  A female Druid later joined the group and only at the climactic battle at the end did the party find out that the Druid was the herbalist's daughter.

In a different campaign, I had a villain known only as "The Master" create a 10-level deep dungeon between two cities.  The top three layers were stocked with various critters to keep the rabble away while levels 4 through 10 were each designed by one of several spell casters.
Level 4:  Ice Mage
Level 5:  Warrior Mage
Level 6:  Monk
Level 7:  Illusionist
Level 8:  Evil Cleric
Level 9:  Magus
Level 10:  The Master
It took the majority of the campaign to clear out and kill the Master of that complex, but the stories were amazing.

very cool. well done

Offline dutch206

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #14 on: July 22, 2017, 10:02:09 AM »
My favorite villain of all time was a level 30 Dark Elf Evil Magician modeled after Morgana LeFay (English Mythology).  She was delightfully, unapologetically evil.  My players loved to hate her.
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Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #15 on: July 22, 2017, 01:02:17 PM »
I had a Dyari Elf herbalist wiggle her way into the party's graces and subtly poison two of them before the rest of the party knew what was going on.  By the time they figured it out, she had vanished and became a recurring villain.  A female Druid later joined the group and only at the climactic battle at the end did the party find out that the Druid was the herbalist's daughter.

The herbalist reminds me of one of my more interesting D&D characters. He was an elven assassin who posed as a thief and had a vendetta against half elves (including party members). Any time we stopped in a town, half elves started dying mysteriously until we moved on again. I even took a contract or two against party members and killed one of them before the character was found out and managed to escape. Since I was playing Lawful Evil I could rant on for hours about the perils of Chaos and they never figured out either my alignment or class.
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Offline Pazuzu

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #16 on: July 27, 2017, 10:36:56 AM »
As GM, my favorite recurring villains are the Black Death Goblin Ninja Hit Squad (BDGNHS). I use them to show arrogant players that team work will trump badassery almost every time. It is hilarious to see the reactions of haughty players brought low when they become aware of the BDGNHS brand on their forehead.

My second favorite is a seriously twisted Lay Healer that shares traits with Hannibal Lector, Jack the Ripper, and Milo. Since it is quite rare for players to want to play one of the healer types, I like to insert him as an NPC healer who slowly starts framing one of the PCs for the murders and disappearances that he commits.

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #17 on: July 29, 2017, 01:47:49 AM »
As GM, my favorite recurring villains are the Black Death Goblin Ninja Hit Squad (BDGNHS). I use them to show arrogant players that team work will trump badassery almost every time. It is hilarious to see the reactions of haughty players brought low when they become aware of the BDGNHS brand on their forehead.

My second favorite is a seriously twisted Lay Healer that shares traits with Hannibal Lector, Jack the Ripper, and Milo. Since it is quite rare for players to want to play one of the healer types, I like to insert him as an NPC healer who slowly starts framing one of the PCs for the murders and disappearances that he commits.

very cool

Offline Spectre771

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2017, 10:05:18 AM »
My most recent favorite came about unintentionally.  The party was sent out to find out what had happened to a small trading town about 2 days ride from the main port city.  Along the road, they ran into a roadblock manned by goblins and a couple of orc captains, and (unbeknownst to them), three humans.  As the battle wound down and the players approached the barricade, they saw the humans and started up a conversation.  The players immediately took to the three brigands and invited to join the group.  The conversation went a little like this:

Bad Guys: Thank you for the help!  Where are you heading?!

Players: Heading to the trading town to find out what happened there.  We've been sent us to investigate and to stop and raiders in the area.

Bad Guys:  We're from that town!  We were trying to drive off these orcs and goblins. They've attacked the town and set up this road block.  They took everyone from the town as prisoners.

Players:  You should join us then!  We're heading that way.

...... no one rolled for Lie Perception and the Bad Guys rolled pretty well on the Acting skill.  Then the fun began.   The NPC's in the group were killed off or "deserted" in the middle of the night.  Far better planned ambushes awaited them and when the big battle happened, there were two enemies in their ranks and the back attacks happened and sent the party into scrambling.
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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: What are some of the best villains you have used in your campaign?
« Reply #19 on: August 02, 2017, 01:25:42 PM »
My most recent favorite came about unintentionally.  The party was sent out to find out what had happened to a small trading town about 2 days ride from the main port city.  Along the road, they ran into a roadblock manned by goblins and a couple of orc captains, and (unbeknownst to them), three humans.  As the battle wound down and the players approached the barricade, they saw the humans and started up a conversation.  The players immediately took to the three brigands and invited to join the group.  The conversation went a little like this:

Bad Guys: Thank you for the help!  Where are you heading?!

Players: Heading to the trading town to find out what happened there.  We've been sent us to investigate and to stop and raiders in the area.

Bad Guys:  We're from that town!  We were trying to drive off these orcs and goblins. They've attacked the town and set up this road block.  They took everyone from the town as prisoners.

Players:  You should join us then!  We're heading that way.

...... no one rolled for Lie Perception and the Bad Guys rolled pretty well on the Acting skill.  Then the fun began.   The NPC's in the group were killed off or "deserted" in the middle of the night.  Far better planned ambushes awaited them and when the big battle happened, there were two enemies in their ranks and the back attacks happened and sent the party into scrambling.

awesome!