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View Full Version : Your most memerable Villains.



Pokonic
2011-07-28, 03:54 PM
Well, noticing there are a few threads detailing villain quotes and motivations but none about the villains themselves, I decided to start one. So, whether it be a petty but fleashed out bandit chief or a world breaking evil spoken of only in the most dreaded parts of the abyss, lets see what you have dealt with in the past or present.

HyperionWolf
2011-07-28, 04:22 PM
I Have one that i remember well. It was an 3.5e Campaign, set in a Pretty normal setting. It was a Barbarian Half-Giant, Déscio Machado. ("Desce o Machado" in portuguese is something like "Strike Brutally with the Axe")

The DM who created it wasnt that creative, but he really were memerable. When we chased After him, He Threw sewered body parts, ( I could swear he was a Hurking Hurler) like legs or arms. Not very dangerous, but sure was terrifying. Once we went into a village he had pillaged (On his own) and found over 60 arms scaterred in the ground, with respective bodies missing. Later we found the legs, and only in the last epic battle, he began throwing heads. Flaming ones.

Man, that was a loong battle...:smallfurious:

Zonugal
2011-07-28, 04:35 PM
Around two years ago I ran a one-shot game using the Savage Worlds campaign based briefly off of Operation: Valkyrie.

In Operation: Phoenix the players had to pull off an assassination attempt towards Hitler for the British government, they naturally failed. But my best friend in the game played a great character, he was basically Bruce Wayne but with the personality of Patrick Bateman. He decided he wanted an extra trait so he chose the nemesis flaw. Five minutes in Berlin and he ran into his nemesis, Yorkshire, an influential celebrity & member of the Nazi party. Yorkshire immediately alerted the guards to the player being of Jewish ethnicity & the party was captured (to only be secretly rescued by the British underground movement). This is where that player met his intelligence contact Dr. Schneider, who he immediately fell in love with.

Well skip ahead to their mission where it failed miserably. With the dining house in flames and falling around them the player raced to a window to see Hitler being lead out of it by Dr. Schneider. He was absolutely crushed and right before she crawled out the window she simply said, "I'm sorry... By the way, I've been cheating on you with Yorkshire." Which lead to the neighbors being awoken as my best friend screamed, "YORKSHIRE!!!!"

Pokonic
2011-07-28, 04:51 PM
Dang, now I want to have a half-giant chucking body parts at PCs...oh wait, I am the DM!:smallbiggrin:

Anyway I posted this guy before, but here he is.

Ajin Merrofall is the current lich chieftan of a group of semi-civilised tribes living in a near lifeless-mordor like area. The tribe suffered starvation and monster attackes frequently, but when a necromancer traviling in the area decided to lay low in one of the small tribes,teaching all who wanted to learn his trade. The necromancer died eventualy, but life in the wastes was changed for the better, for the wiseist,strongest,and brightest among them could be immortalised forever. However, after about 5 generations after the necromancer came, the already small goat herds where depleated and mass starvation is coming to the now great tribe. As the most influencal tribe member at the time, he is now orginising mass land grabs from the unknowing kingdomes that border the wastes, none who wish to rule a unlivable wastland.

To the average person, the lich is just another dark lord who wants land and power, but to the average tribes member they are simply taking what they need to survive what the kingdoms would not give.

Edit:Bahaha, thats the best thing I have read in a long time!

claricorp
2011-07-28, 04:53 PM
In a campaign i did for some friends on a road trip, I had a rakshasa who framed the party for dozens of horrific murders, robberies and other evil acts(like killing and eating a unicorn) while he raced against the party to find a series of magical macguffins.

My friends absolutely hated him, but in the best possible way.

OnePep
2011-07-28, 05:14 PM
One group of opponants I still remember, although it is about 15 years ago.
It started when our DM had planned a sneak and steal mission for us. "Get the magical item from the castle"-type thingy.
We didn't wanted to do it that way, so we emptied our pouches and rented us an army (5 lvl 5 fighters, loads 2nd and 1st lvl fighters (about 150) and some ballista's). We raided the castle and succeeded in our mission.
I thought it was very cool of our DM to allow it.
Even cooler: a few sessions later we heard of a band of roaming thugs, plundering villages, in search of their 5 leaders, us...
We'd created a monster :smallyuk:

DaragosKitsune
2011-07-28, 05:20 PM
My players still hate the mere mention of Blood Swallow. He was a low-level human rogue in a low-level campaign who's biggest advantages were a +1 human bane short sword and a high UMD check, which allowed him to make excellent use of invisibility and suggestion wands. That isn't why they hated him though. He is still remembered as "the crazy guy who hid in an iron maiden to make the character's think he was a victim of himself" and "the vigilante who went genocidal". The party ended up fighting to prevent him from gaining an artifact that was effectively an "on-kill" version of Familicide. The iron maiden thing was still his best moment. He almost one-hit killed the party's psychic warrior, who had thought he was protecting the twitchy man they just pulled out of the torture device. It left my players paranoid for the entire rest of the session.

Pokonic
2011-07-28, 05:45 PM
Oh, yet another example. After having a fine meal with a rather nice human duke we where investigating under the orders of a gold dragon patrion, he decided to hand out gifts to my pcs as tokens of thanks. The rouge got a nice dagger,the barbarien got a spare set of hide armor, the sorcerer got a fine robe,and the wizered got a bag of spell components.

As the mage opened his bag, he found several large teeth and a eye. A dragons eye. The host than smiled when he saw the mages expession, and said with a sickly sweet voice" You know, he was hard to put down, but I think he tasted great, what about you?''.

The party soon went balistic on the duke, who teliported off somewere after about 4 rounds, and the sorcerer was mortifide to learn that he just ate some of his father.

Jude_H
2011-07-28, 05:48 PM
The thread title has inspired me to run a Don't Rest Your Head game featuring scads of un-funny internet flotsam.

Techsmart
2011-07-28, 06:50 PM
My favorite enemies my players have actually faced had to have been the much-hated sahuagin. The party wasn't extremely optimized, and went into a dungeon burning several of their ranged damaged spells already on the first few, setting off alarms along the way. After sending a few in to show them that the sahuagin knew they were there, I had the sahuagin fall back into a large cavern. 3 sahuagin across a raging river and 2 on a bridge above the party. for a level 6 party who thought they were awesome, they got their rear ends handed to them. They came back and killed the sahuagin, but not after taking serious damage. That's the only time I've seen some of our players want to kill something that bad. After that, tactical combat became more and more important (such as mobility spells/buffs instead of fireball, and taking advantage of terrain to hurt enemies/players).

My favorite villain that I want to use hasn't had an appropriate group for yet. He is the human founder of a steampunk dystopia set in a winter wasteland. There were originally 4 founders, but each of them had found ways to reach demi-god status through draining power off the souls of the dystopian citizens. As they became strong, the people worshipped them. This particular villain, however, never seemed capable of maintaining the power he obtained from the people, so he never had the ability to rise as his peers did, but was able to achieve near-immortality. In the campaign, the players were going to be outcast from the dystopia fairly early in the game, and chased around the area for a while because they were of the few individuals with complete souls left, as their families were either too prominent to have a family member "mysteriously disappear," or their families at the time were too insignificant to be considered.

Jay R
2011-07-28, 10:56 PM
This is an easy question for anybody who's ever played Flashing Blades. The most memorable Villain I've ever role-played with is Cardinal Richelieu.

Pokonic
2011-07-28, 11:00 PM
Shame I dont play Flashing Blades.:smallwink:
Sounds interesting, whos Cardinal Richelieu?

QuidEst
2011-07-28, 11:51 PM
Who's… Cardinal Richelieu? 0_o

Well, I am happy to inform you that I have a great book recommendation for you. :D He's the arch-villain of "The Three Musketeers", which is a very good read for helping make memorable villains.

Pokonic
2011-07-29, 12:26 AM
Arg, how could I forget a villain of Dumas second-greatest work!:smallmad:

However, while on the subject of Dumas, a reworking of Danglers, Villfort, and Ferdinad as opponents of the political verity would be most interesting.

hangedman1984
2011-07-29, 12:39 AM
The DM who created it wasnt that creative, but he really were memerable. When we chased After him, He Threw sewered body parts

i'm assuming you meant severed body parts, although sewered body parts would be pretty memorable

Jay R
2011-07-29, 10:14 AM
Arg, how could I forget a villain of Dumas second-greatest work!:smallmad:.

Third greatest, actually, although it was second greatest until a few years ago, when they found the manuscript to Dumas's last novel, The Last Cavalier.

Yes, that's right - there is a new Dumas swashbuckler out.

Adam...?
2011-07-29, 10:31 AM
The players in the campaign I run have built up a passionate hatred of two recurring NPCs. There's Emmerich, a human cleric, and his associate Kogan, half-orc barbarian/Devoted Defender. Initially they fought just because they were on opposing sides of a brewing war, but after that fight left some friends dead on both sides, it became more of a personal vendetta. Since then, they've fought a few more times. Every time, the PCs have forced them to teleport away (they're really starting to hate Emmerich's travel domain), but they haven't always been able to foil their plans.

What makes them memorable, though, is the extremely tactical approach they are forced to use during those combats. A major part of the campaign itself is the idea that extremely powerful magic artifacts exist that completely break the rules of DnD. The PCs work for a group that aims to quarantine these artifacts so that no one can ever use them. Emmerich and Kogan work for a group that want to use them to overthrow the current government and create a utopia. Therefore, both of them have fun artifacts to play with.

Kogan has a brick amulet (literally a brick on a chain) that projects a small wall of force-style effect in front of him, thus providing total cover against any incoming attacks from the front, while allowing him to attack unimpeded. And since Uncanny Dodge prevents him from being flanked, he's damn near untouchable.

Emmerich has the stained glass ward, a powerful shield that projects an antimagic field bubble-type effect. Spells act completely normal inside the field, and can even be cast out, but anything crossing over the barrier into the field it has all its magic fizzle.

All the combats with these guys have been a lot of fun. The PCs keep trying new tactics, and figuring out new ways to get through what they at first thought were impenetrable defenses. And as they find new tactics that work, Emmerich and Kogan develop new strategies to counter those tactics. I suspect there will be much rejoicing when they're finally put down for good.

Choco
2011-07-29, 11:44 AM
My players truly hate and/or fear a lot of the villains I throw at them, but nothing comes close in either department to Princess Nuilae. She is an Ice Mage that I basically played like Baron Von Schtandholdt from AGC (http://agc.deskslave.org/)(Dr Stan's old character, who is the NPC villain of the current arc). On top of that, her minions are all trained in the ways of Tucker's Kobolds. Oh, and did I mention she also has more of a sense of honor (by far) then the PC's and doesn't just sit around waiting for them to cleave their way through her minions to get to her?

I don't think I need to explain any further why they fear and hate her so much :smallbiggrin:. Although a few TPK's do add fuel to the fire for sure.

On the player side of things, I personally most fondly remember the nameless body-snatching slug villain the DM threw at us in a Modern game once. It took us months of weekly sessions (years in game time) to finally figure out what it was, track it down, trap it, and kill it (after multiple failures and it learning how to better evade us each time).

Pokonic
2011-07-29, 12:43 PM
Back before our DM left the earth and I took over, one of the most memerable entitys we had to face was a troll chief who always had a massive suit of full-body armor on at all times. He had a flail and seemed far more intelligent than the rest of his tribe. After about 3 sessions we finaly managed to torch the forest where the trolls where living in and alerted the wild elves of there existance.There was evidence of the trolls feeding something bigger than them but we didnot think of it at the time.

After about 10 levels, we where siegeing a massive fort of a powerful warlord and his cronies. Near the very end, said troll was standing right before the gates. He than gave a traditional '' You shall not pass" speech before combate. Naturaly, we fought it until he was about half HP, which he than said" I am done with these games!" at which he than ripped of the reisraints of his armor and than reviled a pair of red,scaly wings.He was a half dragon the whole time! After taking flight, he used his breath weapon on us a few times before we got good cover. He than landed on a balcony and, after seeing our position, simply said a three small words." Brother, dinner time!" After which a half-troll red dragon flew off its perch and did a fly-by attack on us!

In the end, it became apparent that the half-dragon troll was taking care of his "little"brother, and by wiping out his tribe he wiped out his brothers food supply. Afterword,he was looking for a way to feed there themselves until he found employment in a powerful warlord that saw advantages in having a powerful fighter in his disposal,and the dragon was iceing on the cake. They eventualy gave up and flew through the roof, and the final fight,while rather epic, still is not as fondly remembered as those two. Now that I am DM, I think I have a idea for two new recurring antagonists now...

Brauron
2011-07-29, 03:26 PM
Carl Stanford, a Cthulhu-worshipping wizard in the published campaign Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. I'd extensively re-written the campaign, and the players very quickly grew to hate Stanford. He was a short, pudgy, mousy, nearsighted guy who nevertheless always seemed one step ahead of the PCs, and always had a get-away planned and ready to execute in case things went sour. Every time they thought they killed him he came back with a grim smile and sarcastic remark, usually showing up just long enough to cheerfully hinder the PCs in some way. First time they realized he was a baddie, he managed to teleport away just as a player swung a baseball bat at him. ("He disappears in a cloud of red smoke as your bat passes through it." "How hard did I just hit him that he turned into smoke?") Second time, they shot down the plane he was riding in. Finally at the end of the campaign, even though he had a spell prepared to defend himself as he rose into the air to meet the revived Cthulhu, I let the PCs take a shot at him. They hit him, disrupting the spell, and he plummeted to the ground...with the liquifying body of a half-summoned Cthulhu landing on top of him.

Fiery Diamond
2011-07-29, 08:13 PM
Mine isn't as impressive as some of these others, but my former players still talk about him. He was a human sorcerer//rogue known as the Mad Blazer. He had been a respected individual before he tried an experiment to make himself immune to fire, as he was a fire-focused blaster. The experiment went wrong and left him insane, though still retaining some of his reasoning abilities. He was in possession of a powerful item that allowed summoning of multiple fire elementals at a time.

The party first encountered him without seeing him at all. He had greater invisibilitied himself and started torching the town they were staying in while they were sleeping in the inn, aided by his fire elemental minions. He cackled madly as he introduced himself as the Mad Blazer, flung a few spells and some more powerful elementals at them and turned tail and ran, leaving them to clean up the mess. They couldn't track him, as he was flying and invisible and they were still fighting elementals. Right then and there they decided they hated him.

Later, they learned there was a price on him: double, if they caught him alive. So they scryed to find him and then chased him down, eventually engaging him a a battle where he was at a disadvantage. At the last moment, as they were surrounding him, he cast a fireball, centered on himself. Did I mention that his experiment actually worked, but only worked on his body, not his equipment? And that he was wearing a Necklace of Fireballs? And that he willingly failed his save? KABOOM! It almost took out several party members (who survived thanks to a special fate mechanic in play because they had been chosen by the gods). He, however, was trapped in his own melted chain shirt, laughing madly. They knocked him out.

Eventually, after putting him under a half-dozen unique Curses, they dragged him back to the city and turned him in. Whereupon an experimental powered-up version of Heal was cast on him by multiple clerics to cure him of his insanity. He turned out to be quite a nice guy.

My players loved to hate him as a villain, and thought he was hilarious once at their mercy, and were rather taken with him once he became sane again. Unfortunately, the campaign was brought to an abrupt halt soon after that. That was a fun campaign.

Dr paradox
2011-07-29, 09:19 PM
I really couldn't say for sure... b ut here's the list of the villains I think made the biggest impression.

EXTAMAR

Defined as one of the most powerful wizards in existance, it's been hinted that she's been around for more than a thousand years. she's gleefully insane, but also a scientist, to some degree. one of the tensest sessions was when the party managed to break into the laiur that she had moved out of a few months earlier, finding rooms full of her twisted experiments, like skeleton constructs struggling against their bonds, screaming silently with blow glass tubes full of blood running through their bodies, lobotomy rooms, a clockwork orange style "Through insanity and out the other side" type room, ghosts in jars, libraries with non-euclidean geometry, and the broken bodies of at least thirty town soldiers. She tended to be a laughing, mutilate-you-to-find-out-how-much-you-could-survive immensely powerful nigh immortal who had just lived so long that she just didn't care about conquest or power or revenge anymore. she just wanted something to keep her amused. oh, and she had oranges with human teeth instead of seeds, much to the horror of the character who tried eating one. They've since been affectionately dubbed "Extamoranges"

DOCTOR KARANKOST

The big bad evil guy from my Mutants and masterminds Legacy game (Basically, you start in the Golden age of Comics and work your way forward, keeping continuity and occasionally backtracking from later ages to build a larger past. It's cool, but it takes a HELL of a long time if you want to spend any amount of depth in any given age.) A classic Nazi mad scientist, with a primary obsession on manufacturing superpowers. he's a bit of a xanatos, and has a penchant for building robots that explode, or that explode the zeppelin it was in, or that distract the party from noticing the mobile bombs approaching them. He's a really fun villain to play, just because of his grandiose vision, german accent, and massive intellect. interestingly enough, he doesn't do a lot of maniacal Laughter.

THE VISIGOTH
Same Legacy game, in a struggle between Doctor Karankost and the superhero team, the Liberty League, a previously minor character, the commander of Karankost's "Pneumensch," was saturated by the immense energy from a meteorite buried with the first superpowered being in France 2000 years before. when I described him glowing, radiating heat, and monologueing while pulling down a tapestry to use as a cape, all in a soldier deadpan, the players FREAKED THE HELL OUT. They were completely aware that they probably couldn't beat this guy, and had the impression that he had Godlike abiliuties, although as I had whipped up his stats, he probably wasn't THAT strong. still, 5 power levels above them. They tested a few shots, he blasted at them a few times, and they were about ready to call in every force at their disposal, from the magical team "The Masters of Mystery" to the less powerful "Homefront Heroes" to the British "Templar Society." It really was the first event that gave a sense of the world as a larger continuity, with a thorough sense of what's at stake, and that failure should be assumed if they don't manage to whip up enough forces. Eventually, it took the patriot Leader of the team activating, basically, a nuclear blast from his magic musket to knock him out. It drained the character basically for the rest of the Campaign, but it worked. They called in the Masters of Mystery to run containment, and he was eventually trapped inside a pocket dimansion series of locked, nigh impenetrable spheres, with the smallest one on the outside and the largest on the inside. although it's generally accepted that he'll be escaping for the series Finale, the Storming of Berlin.

Overall, I've been really satisfied by all of my villains, from The Ichor, to Brom, to Baron Blaze, the Plague Doctor, Captain Black Razor, Robomensch... And I hope that some of the ones I come up with will be half as cool as some of the ones the rest of you have come up with.

hiryuu
2011-07-30, 01:25 PM
I remember a demon lord who caused nearly every horrible disaster in the setting she was in for the last several thousand years because she was harvesting memories (read: XP in a crafting reserve) in order to create an artifact that could answer any 13 questions asked of it. We're talking massacres and wars, genocides, the collapse of entire empires, instigating continent-wide plagues, and so on.

Her question, which the PCs were present for after tracking her convoluted plots and discovering this truth, meeting up with her former lover/boyfriend (a LG gold dragon) then hunting her back to her lair just as she activated the artifact, was "why did my boyfriend break up with me?"

Ooh, their hatred for her, I could've chipped it into blocks and built a dwarven stronghold out of it.

Calemyr
2011-07-30, 03:00 PM
Definitely not the most fearsome or interesting of the enemies my party faced, but probably one of the more amusing, was a barbarian named George from a Pathfinder campaign. He was described as not wearing armor, but instead a blue and white striped uniform, spiked boots, and a helmet that covered only one ear. His weapon was a wooden warclub.

It wasn't until after they'd beaten him that they realized he was a baseball player.