Randel
2010-11-21, 03:05 AM
Just listened to the song 'Misery' by Soul Asylum and it got my thoughts flowing.
Suppose a BBEG has a factory or company set up to make money or otherwise profit from the misery of others? Not necessary literally, but the big thing is that every minute that he's got his factory set up he's either hurting people, polluting the world, or making weapons/stuff for other villains in the world. Or he's just out to make money and doesn't care how many lives he ruins in the process.
What could he make? (feel free to propose some kind of cheese that exploits the rules)
How would his actions hurt good people?
How would they help other evil people?
And, how would a team of adventurers go about stopping him and how would he protect his setup?
Assume that the setting has various good and evil kingdoms/nations and that this guy is running a "legitimate business" that is either operating under the radar of any good aligned nations, is working with evil aligned ones, or is exploiting a good aligned nation that's too weak to resist him.
Ideas I can think of:
1). Producing Liquid Pain - Book of Vile Darkness has Liquid Pain that can be extracted from a sapient being who is being tortured. One dose can either be used as a highly addictive drug and sold for 100gp or be used to provide 3 or so xp for crafting magic items. The extraction methods are expensive and time consuming so the Factory Owner would likely have to have multiple loans or other ways to get money to get the starting funds for the equipment... then be really cheap with expenses and try to get as much money as possible from the resulting product to pay for the equipment.
Destroying the equipment not only stops his operation but totally ruins a huge investment and leaves the guy with no way to pay off the debts. Expect him to go through any lengths to protect his stuff, most often taking hostages or threatening loved ones of the adventurers.
2). Lycanthrope Hides - I read about this from this board when someone talked about their game. A group of people captured lycanthropes to skin them for their pelts. However, lycanthropes turn human when they die so the gang has to skin the lycanthropes alive before killing them. Also, have some tied up and force them to bite innocent people to spread the curse.
Best course of action: Kill the gang members as efficiently as possible.
3). Zombie Factory - Making zombies for other necromancers to control. Normally it takes 50 gp or so of onyx gems to animate a zombie from a corpse. But with the Fell Animate metamagic the spellcaster can make a zombie out of any creature they slay with the appropriate spell.
Thus, a team of fighters or thugs gather living people or animals to the factory and beat them to within an inch of their life (either 0hp or -9 or so) then a spellcaster slays them with a low-level metamagiked spell. Use pearls of power to replenish used spell slots and make the most of each days worth of spells. Or the spellcaster just sleeps alot.
That would result in people being captured and kept prisoner, regularly beaten and forced to wait for eight hours until the spellcaster replenishes his spells to zombify them. The zombies are then sent off to other necromancers or nations that make use of undead labor. This zombie company makes money by selling zombies for cheaper than the others (they might even sell them to other zombie companies who pocket the onyx gems they are supposed to use to animate long-dead corpses).
4). A meatpacking plant - Basically a normal meatpacking plant as it was in the early 20th century and written about in The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). Unsafe working conditions, low pay, poor sanitation, wage slavery (if not outright slavery in a fantasy setting), or possibly including sapient beings in the product (even if largely by accident).
Could add all sorts of hazards to the factory like green slime to dispose of animal parts (or evidence), brown mold to provide refrigeration, plenty of workers with sharp implements if fighting breaks out, and various animals that might be dangerous.
Plus there could be magical or mundane pollution as a result of crafting factories.
Suppose a BBEG has a factory or company set up to make money or otherwise profit from the misery of others? Not necessary literally, but the big thing is that every minute that he's got his factory set up he's either hurting people, polluting the world, or making weapons/stuff for other villains in the world. Or he's just out to make money and doesn't care how many lives he ruins in the process.
What could he make? (feel free to propose some kind of cheese that exploits the rules)
How would his actions hurt good people?
How would they help other evil people?
And, how would a team of adventurers go about stopping him and how would he protect his setup?
Assume that the setting has various good and evil kingdoms/nations and that this guy is running a "legitimate business" that is either operating under the radar of any good aligned nations, is working with evil aligned ones, or is exploiting a good aligned nation that's too weak to resist him.
Ideas I can think of:
1). Producing Liquid Pain - Book of Vile Darkness has Liquid Pain that can be extracted from a sapient being who is being tortured. One dose can either be used as a highly addictive drug and sold for 100gp or be used to provide 3 or so xp for crafting magic items. The extraction methods are expensive and time consuming so the Factory Owner would likely have to have multiple loans or other ways to get money to get the starting funds for the equipment... then be really cheap with expenses and try to get as much money as possible from the resulting product to pay for the equipment.
Destroying the equipment not only stops his operation but totally ruins a huge investment and leaves the guy with no way to pay off the debts. Expect him to go through any lengths to protect his stuff, most often taking hostages or threatening loved ones of the adventurers.
2). Lycanthrope Hides - I read about this from this board when someone talked about their game. A group of people captured lycanthropes to skin them for their pelts. However, lycanthropes turn human when they die so the gang has to skin the lycanthropes alive before killing them. Also, have some tied up and force them to bite innocent people to spread the curse.
Best course of action: Kill the gang members as efficiently as possible.
3). Zombie Factory - Making zombies for other necromancers to control. Normally it takes 50 gp or so of onyx gems to animate a zombie from a corpse. But with the Fell Animate metamagic the spellcaster can make a zombie out of any creature they slay with the appropriate spell.
Thus, a team of fighters or thugs gather living people or animals to the factory and beat them to within an inch of their life (either 0hp or -9 or so) then a spellcaster slays them with a low-level metamagiked spell. Use pearls of power to replenish used spell slots and make the most of each days worth of spells. Or the spellcaster just sleeps alot.
That would result in people being captured and kept prisoner, regularly beaten and forced to wait for eight hours until the spellcaster replenishes his spells to zombify them. The zombies are then sent off to other necromancers or nations that make use of undead labor. This zombie company makes money by selling zombies for cheaper than the others (they might even sell them to other zombie companies who pocket the onyx gems they are supposed to use to animate long-dead corpses).
4). A meatpacking plant - Basically a normal meatpacking plant as it was in the early 20th century and written about in The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). Unsafe working conditions, low pay, poor sanitation, wage slavery (if not outright slavery in a fantasy setting), or possibly including sapient beings in the product (even if largely by accident).
Could add all sorts of hazards to the factory like green slime to dispose of animal parts (or evidence), brown mold to provide refrigeration, plenty of workers with sharp implements if fighting breaks out, and various animals that might be dangerous.
Plus there could be magical or mundane pollution as a result of crafting factories.