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elliott20
2009-01-20, 05:39 AM
I remember there was a time where every campaign I did had characters or items that would show up from other mediums. some of them my players instantly went OOOH! and there are others they didn't even realize were references.

One of those instances was when I put Bonehead from Quest For Glory 1 and 4 into one of my games, my players simply assumed that he was a reference to Murry the talking skull from monkey island instead.

What's yours?

Malacode
2009-01-20, 05:44 AM
The game im in at the mo is set in Sosarius (Ultimas world).. As I'm the only player at the table other than the co-DM who's played any Ultima games, I'm the only one who gets the references, like cows having four legs when you eat them, and bread/bolts of cloth staircases.

Grail
2009-01-20, 06:07 AM
The Half-elven armour trader, Yvan Eht Nioj.
The Dwarf Mercenary captain Abe Froman.

AslanCross
2009-01-20, 08:20 AM
A nimblewright (agile construct that has alter self) in my current campaign, when it revealed its true form, deployed like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Xlsp0FpcA (Code Geass reference)

Though we were all watching Code Geass at that time, so everyone got the reference.

Ka'ladun
2009-01-20, 10:08 AM
An alchemist in my current game is named after one of my math professors, with another named Dr. Caligari.

valadil
2009-01-20, 10:34 AM
I'm not sure what the most obscure thing I've done is, but the most obscure thing I plan on doing is a Mage game I keep trying to write. Remember Chuck Norris facts? There was a parody of that called Bruce Schneier facts. Schneier is a (relatively) well known computer security expert with a beard more awesome than Chuck's. Schneier facts were really only popular with extreme computer nerds and sysadmins. I'm basing an entire campaign on one particular Schneier fact: there are no prime numbers, only numbers that Bruce Schneier hasn't bothered to factor yet.

Satyr
2009-01-20, 11:26 AM
I am fond of historical cameos from time to time, so I have put in lesser or unknown historical figures, changed their names and used them in the game. So my characters could try to find the killer of Tyros Prahe, try to find proof the Mata Hari is a spy or get between the fronts of the power struggle between Stalin and Trotski after Lenin's death slghtly changed and adapted for the setting we played in.

But the strangest adventure idea was based on a dishwashing liquid ad.

Starscream
2009-01-20, 01:21 PM
Once had a player who'd based his character on Bruce Campbell, so I based the campaign's villain on fellow actor Jeffrey Combs.

It's a reference to a comic book miniseries called "Army of Darkness vs Re-Animator"

The fact that I can do a reasonably good Combs impression (and the player can do an absolute spot on Campbell impression) made the one other person who got the joke constantly double over with laughter, while everyone else thought we were loons.

Darrin
2009-01-20, 01:28 PM
What's yours?

In my current campaign, we started with three players, and they all made female NPCs. I created a patron to recruit them, a secretive and mysterious spellcaster named Varley, and later on they heard rumors that this had become something of a habit of his, leading some people to call his various female adventurers "Varley's Celestials"... which I think I might have stolen from an earlier OOTS strip. I even gave them an NPC helper named Brisby (which was actually a name I swiped from Secret of Nimh because I was desperate for something that sounded vaguely like "Bosley".) The players didn't really catch on for the for the first couple of sessions, so I eventually pointed out the similarites with Charlie's Angels. When we added two new players, they were told they needed to make female characters, even though I had never made any such requirement.

Here's one I noticed recently in Dragon #327. Under Class Acts, "Animal Allies" for Druids: stats for a Moose and Flying Squirrel as animal companions. Either its a rather bizarre coincidence, or the author was a Rocky & Bullwinkle fan.

Warhammer FRP 1st Edition was also horrendously notorious for NPC names that were really, really bad puns or something silly translated into German. For example, the evil demon BBEG in the Dying of the Light campaign has a German name that translates into "Dentist".

hiryuu
2009-01-20, 01:50 PM
I have had multiple, almost equally obscure references.

The bug that causes one type of vampirism is called the N5S virus.

The first sentient golem was named "Maria."

One of the female explorers the PCs met in The Game, a static realm ruled by tech spirits and washed in a sepia tone, was named "Ash."

The Whether Man ("It's important to know whether or not there will be weather rather than what the weather will be!").

The spirit of the steel mine in one session was named Joe Magarac.

John Trent, occult investigator.

Nerd-o-rama
2009-01-20, 01:56 PM
The entirety of my Eberron with Giant Robots campaign. I don't think I've had an original thought in that yet, although I change up the enemies' abilities from their original inspiration as it amused me.

Piedmon_Sama
2009-01-20, 02:19 PM
I once DMd a campaign (for just one friend, it was a solo game) based on the Eastern Mediterranean. The PC was a special "courier" (a do-anything kind of agent) for the Emperor of a Fantasy-Equivalent Byzantium slowly being eaten away at by a rising Empire from the east (based on the Seljuk/Ottomans but with Mongol elements thrown in). Although slowly losing, however, the Hellenoi had a special weapon being constructed, in a cave far beneath the coast of their capital city.

Nearly 100 feet tall, an automaton of gears, levers, pulleys and steam engines as massive as it was intricate, a walking armored fortress in the shape of a man. It was a weapon known as the Neon Genesis Evangelion, for it heralded a new age and a rebirth of the Basilea ton Romaton!




.....What do you mean it's not funny? >_>

Kurald Galain
2009-01-20, 02:29 PM
The game im in at the mo is set in Sosarius (Ultimas world).. As I'm the only player at the table other than the co-DM who's played any Ultima games, I'm the only one who gets the references, like cows having four legs when you eat them, and bread/bolts of cloth staircases.

Huh? I've played pretty much every ultima except the MMORPG and I didn't get that either.

(It's only called Sosaria in U1-3, by the way; Britannia afterwards; and I'm reasonably sure that those early three games contain neither cows nor bread)

Da Beast
2009-01-20, 02:30 PM
One time I made a bard who was on the run from the thieves guild he grew up, called the Sacred Heart. At some point, I planned to get thrown in jail and escape so I could say "No ball nor chain, no prison shall keep; I'm the Rebel of the Sacred Heart!" The campaign died after one session so I never got the chance.

When I was writing a Mutants and Masterminds campaign that never actually got off the ground I based a villain off the music video for monsters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbZ0OQ6F_HM). She was going to leek black, tar like fluid from her eyes that would take the shape of demons and attack the players (summon power). Shame she never saw any use.

If I ever do find a new group and manage to get a campaign together (very unlikely) it'd probably borrow heavily from (read: blatantly rip-off) Burn Notice for several adventures.

Izmir Stinger
2009-01-20, 04:02 PM
we started with three players, and they all made female
... patron to recruit them, a secretive and mysterious spellcaster named Varley
... leading some people to call his various female adventurers "Varley's Celestials"
... I even gave them an NPC helper named Brisby
... The players didn't really catch on for the for the first couple of sessions, so I eventually pointed out the similarites with Charlie's Angels.

I gotta say - your players are pretty dense. You smacked them in the face with this reference.

PurinaDragonCho
2009-01-20, 04:04 PM
I couldn't think of a name for a river in my homebrew setting, so I called it the River Hesse (Herman Hesse wrote Siddhartha, and a pivotal point of the story involves a river). I decided I'd give xp to the first person who commented about it. It took about a year, but somebody finally made the connection.

JupiterPaladin
2009-01-20, 05:01 PM
Huh? I've played pretty much every ultima except the MMORPG and I didn't get that either.

(It's only called Sosaria in U1-3, by the way; Britannia afterwards; and I'm reasonably sure that those early three games contain neither cows nor bread)

Well then you missed the one place those referenced did come from. Players in the Ultima Online MMORPG can buy houses and decorate them with anything they like. A lot of people do weird stuff with renaissance period items to make it look more modern. Stacking bolts of cloth to make stairs as in the above example, taking piles of cut wood an animated painting and some gemstones to make a TV, and there's even a way to make a toilet with a white bowl and some other junk :P

Drascin
2009-01-20, 05:25 PM
Weeeellll... the PCs were crossing the Mournlands, then I suddenly had an evil idea. So, among all the sanity-rending visions they found a peaceful patch of sunflowers, and in there, there was this lady with a parasol... (http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u262/drascin/882bc98bcd7c07ca11e3ea0c3ad1a139.jpg) :smallwink:.

Also, Dark Falz, the big bad final boss from Phantasy Star Online, made a stellar appearance as a Daelkyr monstrosity in the same campaign.

Fax Celestis
2009-01-20, 05:28 PM
I built an entire adventure around a Porcupine Tree song (Even Less).

Xallace
2009-01-20, 07:28 PM
One of my players asked me if he could hear the song that created the universe.
I told him it sounded like Phil Collins.
Nobody got the joke.

I also had a sorcerer-drug called "Dragon," (originally "Neverland") which was based off a book wherein there was a super-drug called "Never."
Nobody got that one either. Not surprised there, really.

EDIT:


...So, among all the sanity-rending visions they found a peaceful patch of sunflowers, and in there, there was this lady with a parasol...

And here I was hoping I would find Rosalyn from Okage on the other side of that link. Speaking of which, I should go play that again, get some ideas...

ShadowFighter15
2009-01-20, 07:35 PM
And here I was hoping I would find Rosalyn from Okage on the other side of that link. Speaking of which, I should go play that again, get some ideas...

I was hoping for Rip van Winkle from Hellsing. Though she only had a parasol in one scene so it's probably not a trademark item for her.

MickJay
2009-01-20, 07:35 PM
Basilea ton Romaton!

Considering everything, I find the idea strangely fitting (not to mention awesome) but it should be Basileia Rhomaion or Basileia ton Rhomaion :smallwink: (and they would never have called themselves "Hellenoi", which was synonymous with "pagan" at the time)

Some years ago I used in game the idea of a reversed pyramid. From the ground, it looked like a stone square, since the rest was in a pyramid-shaped hole. I never decided on any real purpose behind it, so it remained a mystery, though the pyramid had a (limited) property of slowly draining living creatures that stood on it from (physical) energy and dispersing it into the ground.

I think it qualifies as obscure, since I was pretty sure at the time this wasn't an entirely original idea (the pyramid itself), but I wasn't able to recall where I might have gotten it from. I still don't know.

shadowfox
2009-01-20, 08:04 PM
I tend to make a lot of song references in my campaigns, though the songs I make references to varies depending on what year I was in (comparable to my high school/college years, but they also work into my years of DMing quite easily).

HS Freshman/1st Year: Stairway to Heaven (was a marked location on the map; I originally put it in for kicks, but decided to actually use it... My campaign died because two of the PCs were going out together and broke up).

Sophomore/ 2nd year: She's In Love With the Moon, Roselina, Heavy Body Bag, and Sad, Sad Song by a local band called Pepper's Ghost. I either said the titles directly, or quoted a few lines. Only one PC had ever seen/heard the band, so he was the only one to get the references... if anyone got them.

Junior/3rd Year: Some MCR songs: Helena, House of Wolves, and Sleep; with the exception of naming an undead dancer Helena, only lyrics were used. No one got them, since I'm the only one out of my entire group to listen to them. (Yes, I'm called emo for it. No, I'm not emo.)

Senior/4th Year: Can't recall. I didn't do much DMing.

College Freshman/5th Year: I think I'm going to make a not-so-obvious reference to Stairway to Heaven, but make it an actual stairway to heaven. Other than that... Who knows?

Um... I also make some video game references, and, ironically (for a, atheist), a number of Christian references. I've named evil NPCs Kane, for instance (not sure how it's spelled in the bible, but thank Command and Conquer for teaching me that reference), had a Land of Nod (helped by C&C yet again). Some WH40k references pop up, but they're either things I learned by researching myself, or things about the army I play (Tau), which means that only a couple people might get it.

Fax Celestis
2009-01-20, 08:08 PM
Oh, I forgot: I had another campaign arc named after a Pelican album, entitled "The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw".

orchitect
2009-01-20, 09:21 PM
My first ever RPG character was the Scotsman from Samurai Jack. Surprisingly no one got the reference.

The Demented One
2009-01-20, 09:29 PM
I had a (high-level, world-spanning) game that revolved around what was essentially a TARDIS. Another was set in a dungeonpunk'd version of Rapture from Bioshock...and then there were the Marxist kobolds.

thegurullamen
2009-01-20, 09:55 PM
I had a (high-level, world-spanning) game that revolved around what was essentially a TARDIS. Another was set in a dungeonpunk'd version of Rapture from Bioshock...and then there were the Marxist kobolds.

Yes, the first campaign is glorious. So is the second one. Wait, was the first one based around that Library homebrew contest entry?

I once successfully ran Snow Crash after someone claimed he had created the "baddest mother******* PC in the world."

I also ran an undead warlock PC by the name of Alec Trevelyan who wanted to kill his traitorous partner from a former life.

KillianHawkeye
2009-01-20, 10:04 PM
My most obscure reference was a pilot character I made for a Star Wars game (which unfortunately never got started). The character's last name was Viks, which was a reference to the short-lived character Vicks at the beginning of the game in FF3 (FF6j), who himself was an homage to the character Biggs Darklighter from the original Star Wars film.

mikeejimbo
2009-01-20, 10:31 PM
My references usually aren't obscure... though there was one that escaped my players' for far too long.

There were these sentient rats, and they had a king. The king had DR Infinity/Slipper

Kesnit
2009-01-20, 11:06 PM
I put together a short campaign to run on weeks when our normal DM couldn't be there.

The party was looking for young man who had disappeared years before. When they found him (though the party didn't know it was him), he denied ever hearing of himself and introduced himself with a different name. Later in the conversation, he told them he was under a curse and for one hour a night, he turned into a horrible monster. To protect others around him, he was tied into a large silver chair that was kept in his room.

In reality, that hour was the only time he remembered who he really was and if he was freed from the chair, he would retain his memories.

I got the idea from The Silver Chair, from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

Curmudgeon
2009-01-21, 03:09 AM
I once had a pair of spies, whose only giveaway was their use of the term "wonderfulness" -- an in-show reference to the Robert Culp/Bill Cosby TV series I Spy (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0058816/).

Danin
2009-01-21, 03:13 PM
Aah subtlety http://www.xkcd.com/516/

I've thrown a few references into my campaigns, some more subtle than others. I once had the PC's holed up in an inn with a Crimson Knight who wielded a glaive and jumped a lot, an arrogant red wizard of Thay I called Edward, a redheaded waitress who wielded a cast-iron frying pan, and an artificer who made helpful gizmo's out of scraps named Quithisil'arkaunumn'mokrendine, or Q for short. Obvious references, but none of my friends were quite as nerdy as me. The Q one was the only one they got.

Piedmon_Sama
2009-01-21, 03:36 PM
Considering everything, I find the idea strangely fitting (not to mention awesome) but it should be Basileia Rhomaion or Basileia ton Rhomaion :smallwink: (and they would never have called themselves "Hellenoi", which was synonymous with "pagan" at the time)

My first mistake was just a typo, but I didn't know that about the term Hellenoi... thanks, it's embarrassing to think I've been using a wrong term for years now. XD

Dhavaer
2009-01-21, 03:49 PM
I once had a joke dungeon inhabited by Cheese Goblins (goblin wearing badges with a picture of cheese on them) and Orcs Without Pants (self-explanatory). The goblins were led by a goblin (or possibly a hobgoblin, I forget) who had an actual piece of cheese, and the orcs were led by an orc which had pants. If the PCs put the cheese in the pants, it would turn both items into a shower of gold coins with a jester's head where a king's head would normally be. The reference was to the Nuklear Power forums, where one of the boards is described as Cheese + Pants = Comedy Gold.

MickJay
2009-01-21, 04:31 PM
I didn't know that about the term Hellenoi... thanks, it's embarrassing to think I've been using a wrong term for years now. XD

It's not surprising, really, it appears to make sense, and certainly some Westerners referred to Byzantines as "Greeks"; the Byzantines always called themselves "Romans" (Rhomaioi in nominative plural, but you probably know that already) ;) "Hellenoi" (and "hellenism" in general) gained negative (at least in Christians' eyes) meaning of "pagans" ("paganism") quite early and became widespread by the 4th century.

Incidentally, since more-or-less 5th century onwards, calling someone a "Byzantine" would be suggesting they come from Constantinople - and the person using the word was being somewhat pretentious (the name "Byzantion" went out of regular use quickly).
-----

One other reference I remember using was in putting in front of the players an enemy armed (among other things) with glass balls filled with strong acid. Intended reference was to one of Harry Harrison's sci-fi books, but the idea of throwing acid-filled objects became more widespread since the time the book was published, so the actual reference probably wasn't easy to guess.

Shotaro
2009-01-21, 05:22 PM
My party met a group of traders

Adam
Benjamin
Caleb
Daniel
Ephraim
Frank
Gideon

I thought, musicals - no one will have heard of this one

30 seconds after reading the names someone nailed it.

TrogdorX
2009-01-21, 06:14 PM
I used to always have various obscure references to other things that either I enjoyed or that I knew people in the game did. Here are some of the more random ones that I can recall at the moment:

- Created an NPC that would join the party from time to time named Onyx who dressed all in black like a ninja and had an obsidian dog statuette that summoned his attack dog. Was a mix of Shadow from Final Fantasy and Snake Eyes. Ironically enough, no one ever picked up on the references, though they did come to covet his magical dog which ultimately led to a fatal confrontation where him and the dog killed the 3 PC's.
- In an encounter with a roomful of Goblins that leaves only 1 survivor, the party decides to capture him and pump him for information about the dungeon and whoever was controlling them. They found out his name was Gharbad and the first thing I make him say upon being captured and threatened is "No hurt, Gharbad!" Several of the players were Diablo fans and caught the reference and got a lot of laughs, especially since I did a spot on imitation of the voice.
- The party gets sidetracked from what I had plotted for several sessions, and I'd made several subtle hints on what they should be getting back to, which were either missed or ignored. So I have a little white rabbit show up that proceeds to lead them back on track. This was back not too long after the first Matrix movie was released, so some of them caught the reference.

KillianHawkeye
2009-01-21, 06:43 PM
So I have a little white rabbit show up that proceeds to lead them back on track. This was back not too long after the first Matrix movie was released, so some of them caught the reference.

You know that the white rabbit in The Matrix was a reference to Alice in Wonderland, right?

GrassyGnoll
2009-01-21, 06:50 PM
I once had a joke dungeon inhabited by Cheese Goblins (goblin wearing badges with a picture of cheese on them) and Orcs Without Pants (self-explanatory). The goblins were led by a goblin (or possibly a hobgoblin, I forget) who had an actual piece of cheese, and the orcs were led by an orc which had pants. If the PCs put the cheese in the pants, it would turn both items into a shower of gold coins with a jester's head where a king's head would normally be. The reference was to the Nuklear Power forums, where one of the boards is described as Cheese + Pants = Comedy Gold.

Were it not for that explanation I'd think you were making a Richard Cheese reference. That would only really apply if the warlord was a bard...

Avor
2009-01-21, 07:48 PM
My favourite 3

-LorR, "You are bumged by a halfling running past you. He shouting something about a ring as a fatter halfling struggles to fallow him"

Then latter

"You see a old man in grey robes looting the bodies of the halfling that bumbed into you last week. He walks away with the ring, muttering something along the lines "not again""

-Sailing ship Enterprize, enough said

-In the campain I am currently makeing, the Inn is called the Green Lantern, and the owned is Alan Scott.


My party met a group of traders

Adam
Benjamin
Caleb
Daniel
Ephraim
Frank
Gideon

I thought, musicals - no one will have heard of this one

30 seconds after reading the names someone nailed it.

I know a dm who used that for every NPC who had a name. It was funny, but it saved a hell of alot of time comeing up with names.

Tengu_temp
2009-01-21, 08:44 PM
I have a whole Mutants and Masterminds campaign based on Nanoha... which is anything but obscure among the people I play with. The major antagonists, however, are based on Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske from Guilty Gear (only female), down to using the same attacks - and I don't think if anyone got this reference yet. More people must play Guilty Gear, I tell ya.

There's also more Super Robot Wars and Azumanga Daioh references than you can shake a stick at, but these don't count as obscure among these people, either.


I was hoping for Rip van Winkle from Hellsing. Though she only had a parasol in one scene so it's probably not a trademark item for her.

But would the players be able to identify her as a lady on the first glance? I wasn't sure about her sex until someone called her a "she" - silly Hellsing and its ambiguously gendered characters...

I expected Yukari from Touhou, myself.

LibraryOgre
2009-01-21, 09:01 PM
I recently wrote an article where the title, and every subheading, was a song title from The Clash's "Sandinista!" album.

archon_huskie
2009-01-21, 09:15 PM
Vampire the Masquerade. I had the characters meeting up for the first time to plan the invasion of a Sabbat city. For the setting of the meeting I used the same setting of the Supernatural Interracial Council from Stolen by Kelley Armstrong.

Instead of meeting at some fancy and expensive mansion owned by the Prince of the City, they rented a conference room at the American Legion Hall. I even kept the joke that the staff at the Legion expected the character to pay 50 cents for the doughtnuts and coffee they supplied for them.

(with a note reminding them that it was 50 cents each not 50 cents for the coffee and the doughnut)

Jera
2009-01-21, 09:23 PM
My group had just stolen a ring of invisibility from a powerfull necromancer. They get chased by wraiths all the way to Brandywinelane where a battle insues at the local inn and the ring is taken by the wraiths.

About two sessions later one of the players comes in p*ssed off because he finaly caught the reference and was convinced that he had to retrieve the ring and destroy it.

This led to about 3 sessions of them trying to get back the ring and sending it to the elemental plane of fire.

They wouldnt believe me when I told them the ring was just a normal ring of invisibility.

elliott20
2009-01-21, 09:42 PM
My group had just stolen a ring of invisibility from a powerfull necromancer. They get chased by wraiths all the way to Brandywinelane where a battle insues at the local inn and the ring is taken by the wraiths.

About two sessions later one of the players comes in p*ssed off because he finaly caught the reference and was convinced that he had to retrieve the ring and destroy it.

This led to about 3 sessions of them trying to get back the ring and sending it to the elemental plane of fire.

They wouldnt believe me when I told them the ring was just a normal ring of invisibility.

By that point I would have just retroactively made the ring awesome just so they would have felt like they did something important.

Coplantor
2009-01-21, 09:55 PM
Well, on one of my custom settings the main city is called Aran, and near a tree by a river there's a hole in the ground, where an old man from aran goes around and around. That's from the song "The Riddle"

There's this campaign idea I have wich would be based entirely on songs, it all started during the ogre battle, wich humans won thanks to their secret weapon, the iron man.

A joke character of mine for tomb of horrors: Korn Manowar. He was the blind guardian of the coal chamber, he was assisted by a deff leppard and he leaded a quiet riot during the march of the black queen.

Recent character, Blaise Telvann. A factotum with a particula interest in magic, I took the most magical noble house from morrowind, the telvanni and took away the i. He is the son of a famous alchemist, Charles LeSorcier (Any lovecraft fans?)

Once I had a character with such lame stats that I decided to play him as an eccentric neurotic paranoid, therefore I called him Woody Zadok Allen.

feghoot
2009-01-23, 01:03 AM
The Whether Man ("It's important to know whether or not there will be weather rather than what the weather will be!").

That reference made my day, thank you for posting it.

As for myself, my players once ran into a werewolf stuck to a tree with a magic arrow.

Rathgar
2009-01-23, 01:59 AM
I once built a whole short campaign around the song The Soapmakers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJzb-5YN9eU) by Clutch. Later on, when I revealed that it was a reference, the players wouldn't believe me. Actually, I might run that campaign on this board sometime...

Behold_the_Void
2009-01-23, 03:02 AM
I'm running a campaign set in the Slayers universe to playtest my anime hombrew system and am going to be running them through a Romeo and Juliet spoof subplot.

Admiral Squish
2009-01-23, 05:16 AM
I've only done three references, not especially obscure.

One, I was DMing around christmas and the players found themselves in a gnomish town named Hooville, which was gearing up for their annual greasemas celebration. But then the town was attacked by Grunch, a feral gargun along with Meks, his deep hound companion.

The second was a gag post where my players running through a zombified fortress in Thrane ran into a massive, humlking undead monster who hissed and groaned one word: 'staaaaaars'

The third is a shifter barbarian NPC who talks like a jager out of girl genius.

Rasilak
2009-01-23, 06:59 AM
Hm, I ran a Shadowrun campaign which was all but a blatant ripoff from Neuromancer (with some Deus Ex and Golem XIV mixed in), and no one noticed until I pointed it out. It's incredible what just shifting names and places can do - no need to be out of genre.

RebelRogue
2009-01-23, 10:59 PM
I once used two of my professors at uni (quite nice fellas too, btw) as bad guys in a Werewolf: The Apocalypse game. They were reworked as a Black Spiral Dancer and a nasty fomor repectively.

In the D&D game I run with a friend we've named a villain Schwarzwächter (he doesn't actually have the implied class. It's more of a nod at his alignment).

There's been some sillier stuff for sure, like fighting two gallic characters, one short with a moustache and a short sword, one fat, carrying a stone monolith, only to obtain their potions of heroism afterwards, but that's what I remember at the moment.

Ellisthion
2009-01-24, 10:18 AM
Villain called Lord Izod, named after the Izod impact test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izod_impact_strength_test) for determining material strength.

RebelRogue
2009-01-24, 10:42 AM
A friend of mine once had a game, in which sevaral large story arcs were dedicated to fighting the cults of the demon lord Agrajag. We eventually defeated him, but he was resurrected for more madness...