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kieza
2010-10-05, 09:16 PM
This is a thread for everyone to post their favorite villains, whether they were the DM that made them or the PC that defeated them.

I've got a couple of good ones that are just now showing up in my 4e campaign, Sayyad al-Markesh the Burned, and Barsaad the Ifrit:

Sayyad was born into a tribe of desert nomads. At an early age, his intelligence attracted the attention of the tribe's shaman, who taught the boy the rudimentary knowledge he had of magic. As his family traveled, he picked up more knowledge at every opportunity: he learned from village wise men, mystic hermits, and the ruined workshops of ancient wizards. He eventually learned the arts of summoning, and began to call forth djinn, the spirits of the desert wind. By this time, the desert winds had shifted, and the oases where his people watered their herds were dry. They turned to banditry, and Sayyad bargained with the djinn to raise sandstorms for the tribe to strike from. Eventually, he found himself a bandit king, the warlord of a large region.

When one of his vassals brought him an ancient tome in order to curry favor, Sayyad jumped at the chance to increase his power. The book contained most of a ritual to summon ifrit, spirits of the desert sun and heat, but was missing parts. Sayyad attempted the ritual nonetheless, filling in the gaps to the best of his ability, and summoned the only ifrit whose true name was still legible in the tome. The ifrit, Barsaad, broke from his circle and overpowered him before escaping. While Sayyad recovered from the horrible burns he received, Barsaad wreaked havoc across the region, burning the camps of Sayyad's subjects. As soon as he could walk, Sayyad set out to find and bind it properly.

He succeeded, but the only terms he could force on the ifrit were...unfavorable. Barsaad is only compelled to refrain from harming Sayyad directly and obey the letter of his commands, and it constantly tries to put him in harm's way so that it can be free. Sayyad is unsure whether he could kill Barsaad, and hesitates to try for fear that the binding might fail if he attacks. So, Sayyad puts Barsaad in danger as often as possible as well.

Noedig
2010-10-05, 09:34 PM
My favourite (or least favourite) was sort of a tragic villain. Just a simple, yet powerful young man who lied to get out of trouble, and the lie came back and bit him. He had to work for some other powerful bad guy as 'penance' if you will. He was absolutely wracked with guilt and self loathing, but was trying to do the 'right' thing and make amends, but he kept doing such evil things over the years in order to lift his penance.

My absolute favourite saying from him was as we killed him he said "All my woes could have been avoided if but for youth and stupidity."

Halae
2010-10-06, 07:02 PM
I remember a DM of mine had set our party up against an entire kingdom in a war scenario. Interestingly, this king, who sought to destroy all the elves and dwarves of the world and then hunt down the last of the dragons, both metallic and chromatic, had a good alignment. He was just so obsessed with human superiority that his racism started to get... out of hand. It was a lot of fun dealing with him, particularly for the fact that he had swayed the ideal and views of every noble in the country in order to get them to attack us. made getting to him to fight that last battle quite difficult.

Crosswinds
2010-10-06, 07:05 PM
This. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55087)

While I have never played it nor played against it, it is the single most awesome thing I have ever seen.

Morithias
2010-10-06, 09:39 PM
Princess Olivia was born to a high royal family and was extremely well treated. However unlike most people which are raised to be evil, she simply was born that way. Over time she quickly bought items to fake being good aligned as well as faking other powers like the vow of peace, but actually was a very powerful dark cleric. Over time she started joining adventuring parties in the hopes of one day getting them to slay the succubus queen so she could absorb her life energy and take her place.

(The campaign ended while the players still thought she was good aligned, she was played up as a major-exalted staff chick mary sue, for the sole purpose of making them hate her, so when she revealed herself as evil they would get a TON of pleasure killing her. Needless to say when I revealed to one of my players what I had planned to do, he nearly threw his laptop out the window).

Dust
2010-10-06, 09:56 PM
I remember reading about the most mindbogglingly incredible dragon villain on the rpg.net forums ages ago, but I can't find the specifics for the life of me.

I am also fond of the elderly dragon coming back to his old stomping grounds as outlined here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168695&highlight=dragon). Tragic and dangerous.

My current game has a pair of psychos/killers for hire known as Mr. Stone and Fiddlesticks that managed to instill some serious dread in the PCs when one of the players got a little cocky and ended up getting his character killed in the first session.

It's freakishly hard to come up with villains that my group actually takes to. I've had a skin-taking scientist fanboy and a murderous phantom that had possessed the clothes it wore in life, a xenophobic intelligent artifact and a HIPPO-LICH...the list goes on.

Drakevarg
2010-10-06, 09:59 PM
Otou-san, a Level 12 Lawful Evil Elf Lich Cleric of Nerull. He showed up seemingly out of nowhere, murdered the party's entire village and zombified it, inexplicably saves them from being massacred by undead cows, politely askes them to leave and wanders off.

Four days later they arrive at the nearest town after fending off a group of bandits after a bounty posted on them. Otou-san is already waiting at the inn, explains he set the bounty on them as a challenge, tells them flat out that his zombie army is going to kill everyone in town tomorrow, tips his hat and leaves. The party's reaction is somewhere between wetting themselves in terror and fawning in adoration. At the same time, one of the PCs put the pieces together and realize that Otou-san is her father, who she believed dead and was accused of his murder.

The next day, he wipes out every competent NPC in town in less than a minute, opening this demonstration of his power by turning the most powerful NPC in town into red mist in the first round. The PCs immediately attempt to negotiate an alliance.

...

Otou-san comes off as a bit of a Villain Sue (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainSue) due to his raw power, but in all honesty he's simply an order of magnitude stronger than the PCs at the moment, hence the casual decimation of everything he comes across. The reason I like him so much is that despite the fact that he's completely and utterly evil and honest about it, he's so suave and commits these atrocities with such style that my PCs can't help but admire the man, no matter how many times he ****s all over their lives. :smallcool:

Dienekes
2010-10-06, 10:09 PM
My current favorite, is in my SWSE game. A Senator named Frevak Yeth, the PCs know he's evil, they know he's got connections, hell they are even vaguely aware of what his plot is.

And they can't pin a thing on him. And they hate it oh so very much. And ultimately that's why he's my favorite villain. The look on my players face whenever they are forced to act cordial to him.

Dust
2010-10-06, 10:16 PM
Psycho and Dienekes, you both are very lucky to have the players you do. The former Villain Sue would be an instant game ender if I tried to pull that off, and Frevak Yeth would cause at least one of them to snap, set fire to his head, and land the PCs in jail or the intergalactic equivalent of death row.

/envy

amaranth69
2010-10-06, 10:20 PM
My favorite villain was when I was DMing first edition advanced D&D. In those days you had to find a trainer and pay said trainer to advance in level. The party thief (no rogue crap then, you were a thief) was looking for a trainer. At that time there was an assassin NPC attempting to infiltrate the group who hired on as his trainer. The PC did not have enough money to pay for his training so he spent a few days stealing enough to pay for training. When he brought the money to the assassin, said assassin killed him and took the money too. I was nice after the party had him raised and ruled that the thievery needed to acquire the payment had been enough to allow him to advance.

Dienekes
2010-10-06, 10:21 PM
Psycho and Dienekes, you both are very lucky to have the players you do. The former Villain Sue would be an instant game ender if I tried to pull that off, and Frevak Yeth would cause at least one of them to snap, set fire to his head, and land the PCs in jail or the intergalactic equivalent of death row.

/envy

Oh don't worry. When what you predict inevitably happens I have a plan for that.

The Dienekes art of GMing, pick the stupidest thing you think the PCs could possibly do and count on it happening.
And of course have a vague outline of what is supposed to happen if everything goes right. You know, in case the stars align.

Dust
2010-10-06, 10:26 PM
Words to live by, those.

shadow_archmagi
2010-10-06, 10:36 PM
John Brindle, rebel elf, only living thing ever to steal an airship (who are a fiercely isolationist empire that has way better stuff than everyone else) from the elves and survive.

John is an onion with three layers:
1. Hero who does all sorts of heroic things. Slays dragons and doesn't afraid of anything. Sorta like this (http://www.faithandfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/IndianaJones.jpg)

2. Incompetant jerk. (http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/gaston.jpg) Survives mostly via extensive PR efforts.

3. Secret agent for the empire. Ruthless and competent. (http://elydis.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/vindicare.jpg) His ultimate goal is making sure the people of the world are as weak and divided as possible.


He was a lot of fun because I worked it out with a party member in advance, and they were brothers so great RP. Also, an excuse to sing the Gaston song.

Cahokia
2010-10-06, 10:39 PM
Methuselah
Methuselah was born in a small village about 50 years after the Psionic Dawn (an event that brought personal magical power to the humanoid races, who before could only be granted power by spirits). Methuselah was introverted and awkward with little aptitude or direction in his life, but he had one guiding passion. When Methuselah was 8 years old, Sophia's family moved next door, as there had been a fire in her native village that burned the house down. Sophia, like Methuselah, was shy and spoke little. But the first time he heard her sad, sweet violin, he knew--his heart was in her hands.

When Methuselah turned 16, his psionic powers awakened in him, and Methuselah's aspirations solidified into plans: he would travel to the capital and hire himself out as a seer until he'd savde up enough money to buy the most beautiful diamond ring he could find. Two years later, Methuselah returned to his village, knocked on Sophia's door, and found out that she had married another man not six months before.

Lacking an idea for what to do for the rest of his life, Methuselah simply continued doing what he did best--researching and practicing the psionic arts. He holed himself up for years, reading and doing odd jobs for those who needed it, until he had amassed a small fortune. All the while, he used his powers to check up on Sophia and her family, to make sure they were doing alright, until one day Sophia and her husband (who had become a well-to-do merchant) found themselves on a capsizing ship, and both drowned. Things weren't looking so good for her family--the ship had contained a huge amount of trade goods, and a 17 year old Enoch, Sophia's eldest son, inherited not his father's wealth, but his enormous debts. Methuselah couldn't just sit idly by as the children of his one true love, children he had known (from a distance) since their births, became the victims of circumstance.

The next day, Enoch woke up to find that all of his debts were cleared--the merchant's guild decided that the fault wasn't his, and that they would settle the debts themselves (or at least that's what Enoch was told). Enoch had nary a day of bad luck for the rest of his life, nor did any of his brothers and sisters.

By the time he reached his sixties, a terrible thought dawned on Methuselah. One day, death would take him, and his love's children--his children--would be without his protection, and would surely succumb to the cruelty of happenstance. In his years of study, he had come across a terrible ritual created by a dark druid named Samael, allowing him to remove his soul from his body and transplant it somewhere else to attain eternal life. As far as he was considered, Methuselah had no choice in the matter. With a heavy heart, he gathered the necessary components for the ritual and placed his soul in the wedding ring that began his journey. This was not the first act of evil Methuselah committed for the love of his children, and it was not the last.

The House of Enoch has continued accruing wealth, power and status in the hundreds of years since, and it's said that a guardian angel watches over the family. Only Methuselah knows the truth.

Theme Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErVP6xLZwg)

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore

And love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it, take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you

Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you...

Notreallyhere77
2010-10-08, 12:55 AM
I haven't finished the stats yet, but in a word:

Demidracolich.

Yes, you read that correctly. Dracolich plus demilich, ancient red. His huge floating skull is coated in gold and encrusted with hundreds of rubies cut to resemble the scales he had in life.

Fear him, and fear his dragon followers, who have humanoid and monstrous followers of their own, and so on.

I have others, but this is my favorite so far. My second favorite, and one that I actually got to use more than I expected, was an advanced bearded devil that tried to befriend the paladin, saving his life here and there, only to be killed by said paladin just for being himself. Tragic, but at least he came back 99 years later.

Crossblade
2010-10-08, 12:57 AM
Thunder Stormreach, Half Dragon/Goliath Gish
(being retconed into a Half Dragon/Half Orc as we're converting to Pathfinder)


Thunder started his career as a more or less Lawful Good-to-Neutral adventurer. His adventuring party "coincidentally" even included my PC's (singular, playing a solo campaign with my gf) human knight birth-father, dwarf bard adopted father (I'll explain that in a bit). The heroes for hire group, which also included a female human rogue, a male dwarf mystic theurge and a male halfling, went around righting wrong and generally slaying evil as needed. During this time, the female rogue fell in love with Thunder, which was returned.

While adventuring into a subterranean temple inside the floating continent (floats because it's home to the trees that make airships float), dedicated to a home brewed colored dragon... (Sapphire. The dragon being a living god for the material plan, and mortal counterpart/midpoint reference between Bahamut who was god of the Heavens and Tiamat a god in H*ll. And since the dragon was mortal, but a living god, only 1 could live at a time, when one died, it laid an egg, to hatch later when its destined mortal race other half -the PC-, found the egg) ...to clear out in infestation of gargoyles, Thunder found a mysterious and ancient stone tablet. As the group was resting after barricading themselves in a room to rest from all the gargoyles, Thunder read the tablet; it promptly exploded after being read and embedding its powerful knowledge into his mind. Que evil laughter from Thunder as he realizes the knowledge can help him take over the world; exclaiming his new revelations aloud, the gallant knight (PC father) doesn't like hearing his long time friend going all James Bond Villain before his eyes and challenges him to a duel to the death... and loses. He gets better. The queen/prime minister of the floating continent had him resurrected because they were lovers, after Thunder leaves the floating island, and the knight and queen have a child; the PC... more on that later. Thunder isn't in the best condition after his victory though, and the female rogue thinks she can fix him as she nurses him back to health; the dwarf mystic theurge agreeing with this and joins her with Thunder. The halfling disappeared and hasn't been seen from since, and the dwarf bard retired to the capital city and opened a theater.

Three years pass, Thunder and the rogue have a daughter and so do the knight and queen. This whole time, Thunder and co have been living in the desert area of the main continent, because the rogue though the seclusion would help get his mind off conquering the world. Predictably, this is not true, in this time he even convinced the dwarf MT to follow along with his plans; but Thunder knows the rogue wouldn't follow. So, he suggests a family trip by airship from The Desert Town to The Capital; midway through the trip, he states, "Honey, this isn't working, we need a divorce. I'm also taking custody of the baby. Don't try to find me, you won't." Then jumps off the the side of airship with their baby (he has wings).

More time passes, and he starts experimenting with the knowledge he absorbed in the dragon's temple, the knowledge in question being how to preform the Rite of Draconic Affinity (how to change your half dragon color). For the record, Thunder was half blue dragon to start with (likely guess-able from the name). Thunder isn't dump though, he took precautions; those being that he tries the ritual on his daughter first. Yes, that's right, he is evil now after all. It worked and changed her blue draconic nature to copper. (Baby was a draconic human, with draconic wings feat, so color of scales on wings is visible) Knowing the ritual works, he sets about preparing to preform it to change his type to Sapphire (custom dragon) however that procedure requires being hit with the breath weapons of ALL colors of dragons, something that if tested on a child would kill it, even from wyrmlings (which he happens to have 'found' 10 of). So, having kept tabs on the adventuring party, he knows Thunder is aware the knight also has a draconic child (queen is a gold draconic human) and flys to the floating continent to steal his baby, the PC... however it's the only place in the world that produces airships; this is a huge monopoly; there are a ton and a half of guards protecting the 'royal' family. Thunder almost succeeds in stealing their baby.... but he gets shot up pretty bad as he's flying away, and drops baby PC off the side of the island. The baby survives the thousands of feet fall because people who live on flying islands aren't stupid, the baby basket she slept in was weaved out of floating wood, so it floated down to the ground gently... which happened to be in The Capital, as the island was flying over it at the time. And by 'pure coincidence' the baby is found by dwarf bard. (However, somehow he never sees posters of the search for the child, and thus raises the PC in his theater house as his own).

Being slightly out of options, Thunder does the ritual on himself and it succeeds. He becomes a half sapphire dragon, being granted... not much extra power. So he wants more. He then sets to work to figure out how to become either a Platinum or Multi-Chromatic half dragon, figuring the Sapphire half dragon's powers are limited because it's a mortal god. That research is slow going, it takes 20 years to get most of it.

Time passes; PC grows up, PC starts adventuring, PC runs into Thunder's daughter who found the Sapphire egg, PC hatches egg after kicking baddy butt and taking the egg. PC stumbles onto Thunder's plans after meeting a) one insane lacky of Thunder's, who's wizard notes give hints and some crazy ritual and b) later the Mystic Theurge dwarf; who fills the PC in on everything Thunder plans. (This fills PC with fear, as it is now a powerful villain who she has never met but hears lots of bad stuff about, aka the DM's favorite kind of villain)

PC meets up with Thunder's daughter again, PC captures daughter, while the daughter is traveling around gathering bandits trying to get an army to overthrow Thunder, so she can take his power. Daughter escapes capture because she is a sorcerer and Teleport has only a verbal component (I checked before I pulled that stunt). That actually pissed off the PC/my gf so much she threw a Mountain Troll mini at me... it's a huge size monster for the record. We'll leave out some RL drama that act of frustration caused.

Few sessions later, my PC/gf says she's getting bored of always running into Thunder's daughter (Thunder is BBEG, never met before, daughter is reoccuring LBEG); this matches up in time with about when the daughter gets her army on Thunder's doorstep. His doorstep being infront of a mile tall plateau in the middle of the desert, so how does Thunder deal with his misbehaving daughter? He grounds her... or rather has ground fall on her... by casting a scroll of Meteor slam into his plateau, causing it to fall on her army. Yes, that's right. Rocks fall, everyone dies. Daughter included. PC is told this by some followers she picked up who have a scrying orb and have been watching daughter for a while. However, if my gf wants daughter to return, I can always pull the old trope of Never Found The Body (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverFoundTheBody)

Thunder then calmly presses onto his next task in his plan... trying to find the Orbs of Dragon Kind, in hopes their aura is strong enough to transform him into a Half Dragon God, which he already has the Bronze one of.
And with the conversion to Pathfinder, I may give Thunder a secret, 10 year old son... that he knows about, and has trusted in holding possession of the Blue Dragon Kind Orb, since he doesn't want to risk it being able to control him, since Thunder was born half blue dragon.
I'm thinking Young template half blue dragon/half orc ranger.
If the PC never runs into him, I can reuse him in the next campaign, as my PC said she wants to play the offspring of her PC and my DMPC cleric healbot/romance interest.

Callos_DeTerran
2010-10-08, 02:42 AM
I will do more then just post a simple villain...I'll post the stats and everything for Gashaggeth'Amarylthlhu Tahalbastruki 'Moonfury' and it's terrifying city-mech, Meteo, the City that Lives.

thubby
2010-10-08, 03:26 AM
a fairly minor villain of mine quickly became hugely popular, my group still talks about him.
do'ral (the party never learned that) was a mid level barbarian and eventually frenzied berseker.
the party met him when he was eating the townspeople. a series of very lucky saves let him kill one of them and get away. they speculated so wildly as to how he got away i basically canonized it.
he was so set on destroying everything that he naturally dampened magic around him (mechanically it reduced the ecl on spells cast at him, gave him bonus on saves and reduced the bonuses of magic items), and his insanity made many mind affecting spells work differently on him. (the party learned that he killed his "friends" on sight)
he fought using 2 claw weapons that i had been toying with that, if they both hit, did rend damage.
on paper he doesnt sound like much but what really sold him was his violent mania.

one that was mechanically fun but somewhat lacking in story was an assassin the bbeg sicked on the party
he used a home-brew greater version of mirror image that let the images move independently. the fight got rather interesting as the thing they had been stabbing them in melee a round ago was now an illusion

GoatBoy
2010-10-08, 04:08 AM
Murrak Saevul was an unremarkable young half-elven student at the Hall of Mages, but his success was just as much due to his skill at manipulation and abuse of enchantment magic than his actual talent. His longtime friend Farthing Jott was more research-focused and made great headway in interplanar studies, even as far as piercing reality itself to unimaginable space-time continuities beyond the multiverse. For his part, Saevul become an enforcer for the guild, since he had no ambitions towards magical study and preferred the feelings of power he experienced when imposing the Hall's will upon its members.

During Jott's critical interplanar junction experiment (attended by the party), Saevul entered the chamber and demanded a cessation of the ritual. However, contact had already been made, and an extradimensional entity had manifested in the test chamber. There was a huge rush of energy, and the party was swept into another reality. Jott himself was blasted to the limbo between space-time, and Saevul was crushed to death beneath the golems he had brought in order to stop Jott's work.

However... examination of the chamber revealed the remains of the entity, a malleable lump of organic flesh which exhibited sentience. The substance had bonded to Saevul and restored his life, but at a terrible price. He was now under the domination of the substance's progenitor, the plane/entity of unimaginable power and evil, known as NETH.

Though Saevul's magical power and mind remained, he was bound to carry out NETH's wishes, to facilitate the entity's absorption of all possibilities. He continually dogged the party as they were swept from world to world, always one step ahead.

But Jott had found a way to assist the party from his extra-dimensional prison. He was able to use them to gather information on the planar tangle, and eventually guide them to NETH itself. Once again, Saevul greeted the party, but after (relative) years of living under NETH's control, he begged for release. Upon his defeat, Saevul directed the party to NETH's neural trunk, where they were able to battle and destroy the being's core and escape the planar tangle.

(NETH was the primary villain of the campaign, but Saevul was the party's true nemesis. A level 10 half-elf beguiler with the half-golem template, he was able to pull the party into long, tense battles, and easily escape when the tides turned. What's worse, he was immune to many kinds of attacks. The party's sense of triumph upon killing Saevul was well-earned, to say the least.)