Seven Deadly Sins (as villains)

[Mezmote]

Hey playground.

I've been pondering how to build 11 iconic bad guys (or girls) to represent the seven deadly sins and the four horsemen of the apocalyhpse as villains for my upcoming campaign. A little background first, and then I'll give you my own, yet incomplete and totally discussable, ideas.

The world has an inprisoned god that wants to get free. The only thing he can do from his prison is to command and control 11 people to find a way to free him. These would be his 4 greatest generals: War, Plague, Famine and Death. If you got a good idea for these villains then please let me know. I have only few ideas for them. Something like making Plague a vermin lord or something.

Under these generals stands the 7 deadly sins: Wrath, Pride, Envy, Lust, Greed, Sloth and Gluttony.

I did imagine Wrath as a barbarian of some sort, maybe even a frenzied berserker. Or maybe a blaster caster that just hates other people and will blast their face off without warning.

There are a few spells that'll allow a wizard/sorcerer to swallow his enemies or create illusionary feasts, and that might be enough for gluttony. Plus I think he needs the Obesity feat.

I envision lust as some sort of a mindbender, casting charms and dominates. Other than that I'm blank.

Sloth could be a necro or some other minion master. Making underlings do his work. I think Sorcerer got some fun stuff for him to do, like unseen servant (horde). Otherwise I had the idea to make him a one-shot killer, cus he doesn't bother to fight people for long.

Im quite clueless on the rest, so if you have some good ideas I'd love to hear them. These NPC are meant to be obstacles for the party, like minibosses leading up to their fight with the bigger villains. The campaign starts next february, so I got time to flesh these out. But as I'm standing to my neck in work and exams, it would be an immense help if you playgrounders had some input.

By the way, for your information, I got the idea after watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I really like that anime and wanted to use some of the same concepts =)

[Greymane]

I did this for fun once.

Pride. I think that should be a Human Wizard optimized out that wazoo to be better than everyone else. I highly recommend Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil or Incantrix. He's so far above everyone else, nobody can touch him.

Lust was hard to be original with. I decided a female elven bard. She's sweet, seductive, and loves the chase. However, all she wants is to have kids, but as she's tragically barren, all she can do is viciously take out her frustrations on her lovers the morning after.

[Shadowknight12]

Wrath: Mailman sorcerer (Damage! More damage!).

Lust: Changeling transmuter (S/He becomes whoever you want him/her to be).

Greed: Rogue/Thief Acrobat (She will steal it all, dammit!).

Gluttony: Druid/Vermin Lord (The vermin will devour it all. Combine with Thrall of Juiblex for added oozes, who will also devour it all, or with Soul Eater for... more devouring).

Envy: Ur-Priest ('nuff said).

Sloth: Beguiler/Disciple of Asmodeus or Thrall of Graz'zt (Why do things yourself when you can get others to do it for you?).

Pride: The ultimate wizard. Either Abjurer/Master Specialist/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil or Illusionist/Shadocraft Mage or Conjurer or Transmuter. Basically the most optimised Batman Wizard you can build. Throw in Incantatrix somewhere too.

EDIT: Apparently we went for the same idea for Pride. Also, please don't make Lust the stereotypical seductress. (Straight) Women feel lust too.

[JaronK]

Famine: A Necropolitan Zhentarium Fighter 9/Warblade X with a pair of Keen Enfeebling Lifedrinker Kukris and the Eviscerator line of feats, plus Imperious Command. Every attack drains levels, and crits drain strength, while the repeated fear hits force everyone to cower for a minute at a time. Once he starts going, he's dangerous as all heck.

JaronK

[The Boz]

How powerful do you want them to be? How apocalyptic?
War is a dude in full plate, a shield and a sword. Iconic, recognizable. Any time anyone around him attacks and hits anyone else, he gets healed for some amount, and gains a +1 attack and damage bonus that stacks and lasts three rounds.
Plague is a completely unnoticeable kind of guy, never stands out of a crowd. He is immune to all diseases and poisons, even magical ones, and looks fit as a fiddle, if a bit plump. Anything he touches is infected, and must roll a Fort save after 12 hours, or be affected by a contagious condition chosen by the DM. For every person infected by Plague or any of his plaguebearers, he gains one permanent hit point.
Famine needs to be FAT, riding a FAT horse, and in his hand he needs to wield a leg of mutton as a mace. Anyone hungry near him must make a Will save and attack Famine, and Famine gets an automatic free AoO against anyone attacking him this way. He gets infinite AoOs per round. Six days before he gets anywhere, all the crops there die, and all the grain stores are soured.
Death is simple. Dude in a cloak, under a hood, holding a scythe. Permanent aura of death surrounds him, and everyone must roll a DC 10 Fort save or die. His scythe has reach, cleave, great cleave, counts as vorpal, attacks as a touch weapon and dispells Death Ward on hit.

[Dusk Eclipse]

For pride don't forget the Pride Domain's granted power, (Planar touchstone or that ACF from Complete Champion... and perhaps some reflavoured luck feats, this guy/gal is too prideful to accept the omnipotence of the dice gods, so he re-rolls everything that doesn't goes his/her way :smalltongue:

[Geno9999]

I would think that Greed would be a master thief/assassin. Rather than fighting directly, he/she pickpockets and steals anything the PCs have. Of course, if he had his own lair, you could make it filled with treasures from his previous adventures.

[Kaje]

War - Sorcadin of Slaughter. Give him leadership and an army to lead.

Famine - I dunno. Something drains constitution or levels.

Pestilence - Cancer Mage

Death - Necropolitan Necromancer or Dread Necromancer or Death Master or Cleric/Bone Knight

And all of them ride Nightmares.

[Flickerdart]

Greed is obviously a dragon, maybe with Spellthief levels. Then there are domains for all the sins, so any one could be a Cleric. For bonus pun points, make Pride a Druid who favours Lion shapes.

[LansXero]

There was an article in Dragon with domains for each of the seven sins, so that may help as to make them custom powers. There are also domains for the seven virtues, which you could use to create items to fight them sins?

[marcielle]

For a more FMA seven sins:
Wrath might be a Whirling Frenzy Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian 1/ Diamond Mind Warblade 19. It'll give him the flawless sword skill he needs and the Diamond Mind counters emulate his 'Ultimate Eye' quite well.

Lust can be a 'King of Smack'. In case you haven't heard of it, King of Smack is a build that grows a TON of natural weapons and rips things to shreds. Just refluff all weapons to finger spears and give them piercing damage.

Envy can be a Psion metamorphosiser. Go with Elan as a race so you can morph into abberations even at early times.

Sloth is DEFINITELY a Hulking Hurler

[Ajadea]

The original versions of the Horsemen are actually Conquest, War, Pestilence, and DEATH, if you're interested. But I digress.

War is war. War should be good at killing things in interesting ways. Not blindly violent, but very combat-focused. I'm actually imagining a sort of gish, that uses blasting spells at least as much as buffing spells. Combat manuevers too -sundering, tripping, feinting, grappling, whatever.

Pestilence is disease-oriented, obviously. I've got a visual of an elf on a white horse with vials of disease-ridden flesh and extremely toxic poisons hidden all over. With this visual, I'd suggest a changeling paladin of tyranny 3/rogue X/assassin y. The changeling bit makes the source of the disease almost impossible to find. The debilitating aura is perfect for Pestilence, as it makes it harder for the people around it to resist the diseases it spreads.

Famine would be a mostly non-combatant character. I'd think Blighter, if it wasn't so horribly weak.

Death...a lich?

[marcielle]

Also, don't forget Kaos, the fith horseman who left before they became famous.

[TheGeckoKing]

Maybe Sloth could be a Shaper/Constructor of some sort? After all, to be a good psion all you gotta do is think really hard, and the Astral Constructs will do the rest for you.

[Murg]

You might get some ideas from the plot for the game Overlord 1. In that game you fight 7 corrupted heroes, each one represents one of the deadly sins. In the expansion Raising Hell you again encounter the (now dead) corrupted heroes -- they are being tormented according to their sin. For example the glutinous hero is forced to eat until he explodes, and then he is immediately reincarnated to repeat the process. Humorously, you use these explosions to break down obstacles in your path.

The plot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Overlord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_%282007_video_game%29

[Mezmote]

Maybe Sloth could be a Shaper/Constructor of some sort? After all, to be a good psion all you gotta do is think really hard, and the Astral Constructs will do the rest for you.

Points for stating pure logic that I didn't see myself =P

And I like the idea of creating items that specifically combats the sins and horsemen. But as you know, evil is more fun than good so I'm not well aware of the seven virtues =) Would you like to elaborate?

I could also picture either Gluttony or Famine as a very thin, almost crippledly so, hungry person that would do anything to satisfy his insatiable hunger. Would be kinda creepy too if he started eating the PC's during combat.

As for the domains: I guess all the characters needs 1 level of cleric =) That gets them their respective Domain just for the lols of it =)

[Tvtyrant]

War: Crusader into Master of the Nine to get tons of maneuvers and the ability to regain them rapidly. She uses large groups of minions that use aid another each turn to make her more dangerous and pikemen with reach weapons to lock the enemy down with trips, and always goes to kill the weakest member of the party first and works up to the strongest.

Plague: Warlock/Cancer Mage, which allows the cancerous companion to use the Warlock's Invoactions because they are spell likes. Uses his ability to take control of an enemy using the viral companion to control local military leaders or politicians.

Death: Incarnate/Necrocarnate with two unicorn necarnum zombies.

Wrath: Goliath Barbarian with the substitution level so it becomes large when raging.

[Boci]

Also, please don't make Lust the stereotypical seductress. (Straight) Women feel lust too.

I assume you mean bisexual? I think its to make everyone a potential target. If the character of lust is striaght, the pool of victims is halved instantly. If I was going to make a character named Lust and someone wanted to avoid the "stereotypical seductress", I'd make them bisexual and male.

[Tvtyrant]

I assume you mean bisexual? I think its to make everyone a potential target. If the character of lust is striaght, the pool of victims is halved instantly. If I was going to make a character named Lust and someone wanted to avoid the "stereotypical seductress", I'd make them bisexual and male.

Or make them a doppelganger with no gender at all, and it just takes the gender that the target finds attractive. Why do demons and devils even have genders when they (mostly) don't reproduce?

[Ajadea]

Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. Those are the seven virtues.

Charity---Greed
Chastity---Lust
Diligence---Sloth
Humility---Pride
Kindness---Envy
Patience---Wrath
Temperance---Gluttony

[Mezmote]

Or make them a doppelganger with no gender at all, and it just takes the gender that the target finds attractive. Why do demons and devils even have genders when they (mostly) don't reproduce?

Because we as nerdy players want to look at sexy girls (or guys if that is your thing) and that no one can make a fantasy game without a succubus =)



Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. Those are the seven virtues.

Charity---Greed
Chastity---Lust
Diligence---Sloth
Humility---Pride
Kindness---Envy
Patience---Wrath
Temperance---Gluttony

Thank you my dear for the enlightenment =) I'll get to work getting to know these virtues and applying my magical 3.5 expert (<--- yeah right) science to create legendary stuff of angelic and benevolent power to represent these virtues =)

[Shadowknight12]

I assume you mean bisexual? I think its to make everyone a potential target. If the character of lust is striaght, the pool of victims is halved instantly. If I was going to make a character named Lust and someone wanted to avoid the "stereotypical seductress", I'd make them bisexual and male.

No, I meant straight. If the personification of Lust is a woman, that means only bisexuals of either gender, lesbians and straight men are being catered to. You're neglecting straight women (and gay men). And if you make it a man, then only bisexuals of either gender, straight women and gay men are being catered to. That's why the best option is a shapeshifter.


Or make them a doppelganger with no gender at all, and it just takes the gender that the target finds attractive. Why do demons and devils even have genders when they (mostly) don't reproduce?

That was my suggestion, actually. I have no idea what fiends are doing in this conversation, but I want to chime in to say that the Succubus in the MM can turn into a male (Incubus) at will. They're in fact the same creature. The reason we usually only see/refer to the female version is because Most Gamers Are Male (And Straight).


Because we as nerdy players want to look at sexy girls (or guys if that is your thing) and that no one can make a fantasy game without a succubus =)

Or incubus. They're the same creature.

[Flickerdart]

Or incubus. They're the same creature.
Except not. Incubi are traditionally depicted as hairy and repulsive, and in D&D they were statted up in a Dragon mag, where they are basically rape demons.

[Shadowknight12]

Except not. Incubi are traditionally depicted as hairy and repulsive, and in D&D they were statted up in a Dragon mag, where they are basically rape demons.

I went to look for the blink-and-you'll-miss-it quote in the MM where it says that Succubi are Incubi too, and it wasn't there. Then I remembered it's from Savage Species. So apparently D&D has two official Incubi.

Prizing equality over historical accuracy, I'm going to keep going with the "Succubi and Incubi are the same creature" notion.

[Ajadea]

Looking at the sins now...

Pride: Knight [PHB2] has Test of Mettle, which IMO is perfect for this. There's actually a bit where no one else can help the knight fight the foes affected by the test. That sounds pretty much like textbook pride to me.

Envy: Spellthief, Fortune's Friend, Luck feats, Chameleon. Whatever you have, they want to have, except better than you did. So they will be what you are, and take what you have, and make you bleed for it.

Lust: Doppleganger Beguiler. I am everything you ever wanted. Everything

Sloth: Whoever said shaper psion had the right idea. The guy could laze around all day and have his Astral Constructs do everything for him.

Gluttony: A monster with the Swallow Whole ability would be remarkably fitting in this situation.

Wrath: Frenzied Berserker. Easy.

Greed: Actually, Artificer might be good here, perhaps with some ranks in Sleight of Hand. Takes your things, makes it into their own shiny toys.

[Gensh]

Prizing equality over historical accuracy, I'm going to keep going with the "Succubi and Incubi are the same creature" notion.

Actually, historically, they really were considered the same thing. A succubus would take a man's *ahem* fluids, shapeshift into a male, then impregnate a woman with a comic book radiation baby. And that's where Merlin came from. :smalltongue:

As far as the characters go, I really dislike playing the sins in the usual manner; it's like playing Batman or Superman in a superheroes game. Here's a set of sins I did in a d20 Modern game I never ran:

Wrath: Ever find it odd how wrath is a sin, yet you always hear about "God's wrath"? That's this guy. He believes himself to be infallible in his interpretation of his god's word and horrifically crushes any opposition not with berserk fury but with cold, unrelenting hatred. In 3.5, I'd probably go with a low-wis gish. Perhaps a sorcadin.
Pride: He believes that the human body is the most beautiful thing in the world and tries to help everyone achieve their best, by whatever means necessary. Despite seeming to only be a makeup artist and clothing designer, he's also a licensed surgeon with experience in cutting-edge, if possibly immoral, treatments for dismemberment, burns, and the like. This one's easy: cleric.
Envy: Envy is actually the most famous actress in the world by virtue of constantly trying to improve her image to match her unrealistic perception of others. Her constant attempts to be the best have resulted in a deep (platonic) friendship with Pride. She also has a deep and abiding hatred of Lust, whom she tends to blame for everything. Another easy one here: bard.
Lust Luxury: Lust should probably be introduced when the players are expecting the traditional sort of sins, because that's exactly what she looks like. Except she doesn't flirt with any of the men. Or any of the women. Or any warforged or thri-keen. In fact, she's happily married to Sloth and finds any come-ons offensive. This is because while the societal perception of the sin of Luxury has changed, she hasn't. She specifically has certain favorite things and absolutely doesn't care about anything else. Such favorite things include her husband Sloth, Sloth's obscene wealth, her brother Wrath, strawberries, having fun at Envy's expense, cats, etc. In this case, I'd make her a bard with a higher Charisma score than Envy.
Greed: Greed takes very good care of his time; he doesn't give any to anybody. As a result, he's a hobo rather than the miser most people would expect. Not much to say about him; go with a Vow of Poverty nomad, I guess. Let him travel the world instantly without any baggage to slow him down and warp time.
Sloth: Sloth is accidentally the most wealthy man in the world because many of "humanity's" major advances in science were actually his as futile attempts to make things easier that ultimately made them more difficult. Very much the absent-minded professor here, so I'd go with the psychic knowledge ACF seer.
Gluttony: Gluttony needs to be introduced after several of the others have, or else she'll be misinterpreted as Lust no doubt. Since the sin itself isn't specifically about food, Gluttony does nothing but satisfy her basic urges at any given time. I'm not actually sure about this one. Perhaps spellthief so that she could "devour" other characters' abilities.

They'll definitely need some tweaking to fit a more villainous role, but at least they're not really obvious this way. Of course since you're setting up an "end of days" thematic, there's nothing wrong with them being obvious - it's just not what I'd do.

[Shadowknight12]

Actually, historically, they really were considered the same thing. A succubus would take a man's *ahem* fluids, shapeshift into a male, then impregnate a woman with a comic book radiation baby. And that's where Merlin came from. :smalltongue:

Yup, I knew that. I also knew that Incubi were also depicted as creatures who sat on your chest to cause nightmares (like hags) and/or raped people in their sleep. I've seen the painting about the "short, hairy, ugly demon" that was referred to by a previous poster, and I'm not entirely sure, but I think that depiction came first. So historically speaking, that one's more accurate.

But like I said, yay equality.

[Bakkan]

I assume you mean bisexual? I think its to make everyone a potential target. If the character of lust is striaght, the pool of victims is halved instantly. If I was going to make a character named Lust and someone wanted to avoid the "stereotypical seductress", I'd make them bisexual and male.

Captain Jack Harkness, at your service. If you know what I mean. :smallwink:

[Gotterdammerung]

Hey playground.

I've been pondering how to build 11 iconic bad guys (or girls) to represent the seven deadly sins and the four horsemen of the apocalyhpse as villains for my upcoming campaign. A little background first, and then I'll give you my own, yet incomplete and totally discussable, ideas.

The world has an inprisoned god that wants to get free. The only thing he can do from his prison is to command and control 11 people to find a way to free him. These would be his 4 greatest generals: War, Plague, Famine and Death. If you got a good idea for these villains then please let me know. I have only few ideas for them. Something like making Plague a vermin lord or something.

Under these generals stands the 7 deadly sins: Wrath, Pride, Envy, Lust, Greed, Sloth and Gluttony.

I did imagine Wrath as a barbarian of some sort, maybe even a frenzied berserker. Or maybe a blaster caster that just hates other people and will blast their face off without warning.

There are a few spells that'll allow a wizard/sorcerer to swallow his enemies or create illusionary feasts, and that might be enough for gluttony. Plus I think he needs the Obesity feat.

I envision lust as some sort of a mindbender, casting charms and dominates. Other than that I'm blank.

Sloth could be a necro or some other minion master. Making underlings do his work. I think Sorcerer got some fun stuff for him to do, like unseen servant (horde). Otherwise I had the idea to make him a one-shot killer, cus he doesn't bother to fight people for long.

Im quite clueless on the rest, so if you have some good ideas I'd love to hear them. These NPC are meant to be obstacles for the party, like minibosses leading up to their fight with the bigger villains. The campaign starts next february, so I got time to flesh these out. But as I'm standing to my neck in work and exams, it would be an immense help if you playgrounders had some input.

By the way, for your information, I got the idea after watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I really like that anime and wanted to use some of the same concepts =)


For War classes like martial, warblade, fighter, evil paladins and possibly bard come to mind. Prestige classes like Black Guard, Divine Crusader, Leader/ commander style prestige classes (theres like 5 of them).

For Plague, Cancer Mage, Blight Lord, Vermin Lord all work nicely.

For Famine Blighter kind of sticks out.

For death, a dread necromancer with unseelie fey template with winter chill. Focused on high Necromancy DC's. Tossing out save or die's. For bonus points put a save or die spell into the retributive metamagic. So the first person to hit her in combat gets turned to dust.


Wrath, Pride, Envy, Lust, Greed, Sloth and Gluttony.

Wrath - your barbarian, frenzied berserker works well

Pride - a wiz abj3/ master specialist10/ Io7FV 6/ arch mage 1 works well. As abjuration is the most prideful school of magic.
Alternatively, transmutation can also be seen as a prideful school, if you have a sort of "quest for the perfect body" thing going.
However, I think an abjurer who likes creation and transmutations spells is more prideful than a transmuter who likes creation and abjuration spells.
There is something very haughty about having spellcraft so superior as to unmake an opponents magic.

Envy- the suggestion of ur-priest works very well. But also you could do thief type builds. But instead of focusing on sneak attack damage you would instead just build a thief. Even if it didn't have any rogue lvls. Just think of ways to steal things from people and act appropriately. For instance, You could be a straight wizard who uses divination's to find things to covet. Teleportation's to steal the items you covet. Enchantments to force creatures to give you the things you covet. And even steal things that aren't tangible. Like using spells like trap soul. Or ability rip from serpent kingdoms to steal supernatural powers from creatures. If you want to use ability rip then set up this guy as a lair enemy. Stock its lair with a prison full of creatures. When the party attacks her lair she uses divinations to see them coming and prepare. Part of her buffs are to use Ability rip to suck out the supernatural abilities of her prisoners.


Lust- your typical sex based charmers work fine here. Thrall of grazz't, mindbender, enchantresses, any of Sune's prestige classes refluffed for evil work.

Greed- Works best as a dragon i think. Possibly would work well as support in envy's fortress.

Sloth- There is a demon called a Jovoc in the monster manual II that gets a retributive aura. This works real well with sloth. In other words, "I'm so lazy, I let you kill yourself."
Add in lvls in ardent (psionics is the ultimate lazy magic, can't even be bothered to lift a finger) with the Pain and suffering mantle. On your turn, psionically refocus and then cast psion powers to move your damage onto foes or share more dmg or just heal your own dmg. On their turn, shift damage around with your mantle power and your aura effect.

Gluttony- No specific build really for this. But there are feats that make you fat. Willing deformity obese for instance. Then you have trait's as well out of unearthed arcana. One possibility, is to try to work some swallow whole angle, but that is a pretty crap ability in D and D. Another angle is to go for an X-men blob type build. Take the roof-jumper feat out of cityscape and just fall on the enemy. Use teleportation abilities to fall on them multiple times per round. Use charge feats to increase the dmg as your fall is now treated as a charge attack. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219924 This thread has more details on the "how".
You won't really be able to fit in the dwarven griffonriding PrC but it isn't really needed all it does is give extra dmg for the weight of the character. But the build can be done without it, just using armor bonded with the crashdown graft and roof jumper in conjunction with anti-impact armor enhancemant.





Anyway, hope that helped. Just remember not every embodiment has to be a super strong in combat threat. Some of them can be built to be support or even out of combat threats.

[Bhaakon]

Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. Those are the seven virtues.

You know, I'd be interested in making those into villains.

[Shadowknight12]

You know, I'd be interested in making those into villains.

Chastity is a lock-down tripper, Temperance is a swordsage or psychic warrior, Charity is a DMM Cleric who buffs the everloving crap out of his personal army, Diligence is a Celerity-, Haste- and Time Stop-abusing Transmuter, Patience is a caster of any kind whose only prepared spells are Contingency and Teleport (and has taken the Craft Contingent Spell feat), and relies heavily on external conditions coming true to actually defeat anyone, and is not afraid of running away if things go sour, Kindness is a Beguiler or Enchanter who abuses Mindrape, Programmed Amnesia, Dominate Monster and other forms of mind control to turn people into meek, kind (and easily manipulated) mind slaves, and Humility is a Tiny creature with Permanent Invisibility (Pixie? Grig? Reduce Person'd Halfling?) who is optimised for surprise ambushes and Sneak Attacks.

[Rosleaw]

I haven't read everything, but ther's something about thta in dragon magazine #323 if you wanna make 7 clerics

[DoctorGlock]

I did this once as an idea, most of my examples were already used, but why not repost a bit

Lust: Lesser Fey'ri Transmuter/Beguiler/Ultimate Magus
Wrath: Half Minotaur warhulking hurler or frenzied berserker with the various impossible to kill stuff
Envy: Binder/Ur-Priest
Gluttony: Used an illithid savant, couldn't think of anything
Greed: Unseen seer with leadership abuse, network of criminals
Pride: I originally actually used a gish build over a god wizard type reasoning that pride would be omnicompetent. Eventually went Cleric/Prestige Paladin 4(of tyranny or whatever)/Good stuff X for sword of the arcane order and battle blessing. pride domain obviously. no leadership because he refused to rely on others
Sloth: this one was difficult until i ditched the lazy interpretation and used the despair version. debuff bard, doomspeak and everything

as to the horsemen?
Death is a wizard/human paragon/spellsword/abjurant champion/incanatrix gish who goes to town with a scythe and enervation metemagic or a cleric build that does the same thing but has surge of fortune and a vorpal weapon
War is a bard/warblade/warchanter (i think that's the one that can give others his BAB) with dragonfire inspiration and leadership.
Famine: Dunno yet
Pestilence is just a cancer mage build who overuses disease themed spells

[Cerlis]

going to post this idea now and then go back and look at rest of thread


I think that you should take the mantle of past good writers and make the 11 people spread out unevenly and have some actual thought as to their relationships.

for instance.

War:Envy, Lust
The general of war, conflict, destruction and fighting. He seeks to create rifts between people to sow chaos. Death is a by product but that is not what She seeks. In the past she went from being nothing to being something in war, she proves herself with her resilience and cunning be it in a battle or an argument. And when all else fails she muscles her way through and fights dirty. She most fears feeling worthless and helpless and seeks to be the face of change in the world, and doesnt care if it changes for the better or worse.
Two of the greatest instigators of strife have been Envy and Lust. Whether it was a warlord taking over a land to force the princess to marry him, or a neighbor being jealous of good crops. Outright bloodshed or simple hateful words....The silver tongued Envy and Lust, with knowledge of a variety of pleasures and glories Seek every opportunity to turn brother against brother, husband against wife. Lust flaunts her actions, while Envy is more subtle as he must first gain the trust of his targets (on some level) to make them hate each other. It doesnt matter if its a wench or a warlord, strife can start at any level, and so they sew as much hatred and longing as they can.

Plague:Pride: "Im ok" "Dont worry about me" "its nothing" "That wouldnt happen here". "I wont get sick..." Plague is spread by pride. One country believing they wont get infected by the mucking riddle of their peasants. A doctor believing he can control the infection. a Husband thinking he can fight the infection and still work. Plague himself has been infected, He knows it but he doesnt care. He hides his condition, knowing if such a powerful force of death where known many would seek to burn it. So he keeps silent, knowing he will survive his disease, knowing it doesnt matter if anyone else gets sick because they are just rabble. Perhaps he is really the harbringer of the disease, not realizing he is actually the embodyment of Plague. Or perhaps he is a carrier. Pride stroking his ego and making sure he doesnt expose himself, because his only strength is resistance to this disease. Tracking him down is difficult because of their hidden movement, more so because though Plague hides himself, Pride makes himself known in villages. He coaxes the population with herbs, medicine, lore, and knowledge to trick them into thinking they can combat any sickness that comes their way. So no one complains, no one is quarantined. So it spreads, and goes un-contained and uncured. and then the entire village dies.

Famine:Gluttony. Sloth. Greed.
Death by famine takes time. crops wither, food stores go empty, the rich horde money that could feed the poor. Maybe Famine is the only inhuman General, one empowered by infernal sources and seeks only death, with the greatest suffering possible. Gluttony goes through the night and steals food unto himself. A merry jolly fellow he convinces people "The rains come, let us celebrate with what food we have". He convinces people to ignore logic and induldge. In other cities Greed does Famine's work, though often alongside Gluttony. Why should others get our food? Why should our food and wares go to the lord when we need it ourselves? Why should i give up what i made just because others squandered what they have? He doesnt tell people to horde what they have, no he tells people to hide what they have. To deny others what little they have. This creates strife and paranoia, causing everyone else to horde, fearful of losing what they have they do not use it themselves. This is when sloth comes in. "Why should i work, when its their problem?" "I do what i'm suppose to, its the governments fault." Whatever it is, he reminds them about how the peoples suffering isnt their fault, that it is someone's else responsibility to help them. If there is no one to blame, the he points his fingers at the gods. So did people squander their resources with gluttony, then stole their goods away from each other in greed, and refused to do anything about it do to their lazyness.

Death:Wrath: Death almost seems redundant. But the other lords do not create their doom just for death, they do it for suffering. Unlike the others Death isnt blinded by ambition, pride, needs or wants of his own. For a reason we dont know he just wants to end it all. He seeks oblivion in all things, life makes him unhappy. He strikes mercylessly. Wrath is his bride he uses to slay those before him.

[AxeD]

Make a male incubus who is bi-sexual. Have him use charm and dominate to seduce the female and male pc's. Will save against seduction :smallamused:

[Runestar]

Tempting to use a famine spirit as gluttony, though his cr is kinda fixed, so is difficult to scale.

[Shadowknight12]

going to post this idea now and then go back and look at rest of thread

Your post is made of win and quality. Definitely a solid idea to base a campaign on.

[Mezmote]

You know, I'd be interested in making those into villains.

That it would. Actually I'm thinking of making this apocalyptic theme more of a conflict between good and evil, or angels and demons, or whatever, you get the idea. Kinda like what the Diablo franchise is going for. Having the material plane be the center of an eternal war between the high heaven and the burning hell, the cast of 7 sins and 7 virtues would make it very interesting.

Points to Cerlis for the wall of text =) And the good ideas in between, hehe. It would be nice to actually flesh out the relationships between all these villains, as to make them more credible.

On another note, I could also imagine pride as a greatsword wielding paladin/blackguard who refused to use shields as he believed himself above personal defense. Just a notion =)

[Ajadea]

Who said the sins had to be exclusive to each Horseman?

Greed and Lust can be said to be siblings. Both are manifestations of want, desire, for something. Greed for the material, Lust for the intangible, but both want. And wanting brings other sins...Envy, of those who have what you wish for. Later will come Wrath, towards them for not giving you what you desire, towards yourself for not taking it. And then, Envy and Wrath, they come together and light a spark, and WAR will ride once more....

Sometimes, bad crops happen. They do not call for a Horseman until later in life. Gluttony and Greed beckon people to hoard what they can and consume what they have. Pride blinds them to the end of the food, to their reliance on others. And eventually, a scale is tipped, and FAMINE emerges at long last.

PESTILENCE comes first, unlike its siblings War and Famine. It comes in secret, and it is rare for people to know where it came from. Pride and Sloth spread it. Under Pride's guidance, people refuse treatment. When touched by Sloth, people do not do enough to prevent the disease from coming to their door. And Pestilence continues to spread....

War. Famine. Pestilence. Three terrible forces. And in their wake, there follows another. He is everywhere. Nowhere. He was not there at the Dawn of time, but he will be there at the End. He comes for all, sooner or later. He is a patient one, DEATH. After all, he has all the time in the world.

[RollynT.Glal]

I'm running a game based on the book of revelations too! Whenever youre dealing with a god the lives of mortals are meaningless, their agendas span milinnea and their power is far-reaching. If your trapped deity has been recently imprisoned (say less than 10,000 years ago) its possible they planned an escape and it is finally coming to conclusion.

Whenever I think of the four horsemen of the Apocalype, I imagine them as inhuman, immortal beings. I usually think of them as fallen angels of an evil god (or spawn of Asmodeus) who are nothing more than physical manifestations of the energies their named after. As for their power, they are supposed to be nigh unstoppable, wiping out towns just by their presence alone. War brings nations to bear against one another and raises warlords to lay claim to the lives of the people, famine makes crops wither and livestock die, pestilence exudes a disease that spreads across the land and death breathes out death and raises the dead to devour the living.

In summary the four horsemen, in my opinion do not need class levels more than they need to be unnatural, and terrifyingly powerful to impress just how evil and destructive they are.

The 7 deadly sins could be spirits that in life embodied thier particular sin, and after their death were returned to the material realm to further plague the world. They can assume any form you imagine but the true driving force is their sin, sort as if it were their portfolio and they were trying to expand their influence.

Lust could temp others into carnal acts so that they to give into the same sin for example.

I'm hoping that these options give you the freedom to do with these being whatever you wish.

[AMFV]

I find it kind of interesting that the seven deadly sins angle always leads to personifications of the sin itself. I think I'd suggest an alternate approach. The sins are there to make players fall into them, their intent is to corrupt players or humans or whatever to evil. I will present them with this angle as it is (at least to my poor theology) more accurate)

Lust
Lust is the corruption of good wholesome love. The creature portraying lust is not a succubus, though it uses them. It is a genderless faceless creature. It, by itself, has no interest in sexual acts, but it does have an interest in perverting them.

Lust is an enchanter of some power, he typically acts to smooth inhibitions. His goal is to cause people to wind up in sexual trysts that lead to murder, ruin, or rape (his personal favorite, as it is the ultimate perversion of the act of lovemaking). He's also fond of murderous love-triangles.

Lust generally stalks a victim for an extended period. He bombards them with small suggestions to encourage and foster their more dangerous and depraved attractions. He may use onieromancy (a favorite of tempters) to send depraved dreams to the person he is trying to corrupt. In the end his goal is to trick them into committing the mortal sin of lust, and to corrupt the act of lovemaking.

In game terms: Lust needs to be stealthy in order to avoid being observed while he works his reverse cupid machinations. He also needs to be capable of casting suggestion or similar effects. I would make him a Bard/Disciple of Asmodus. This would allow him all manner of disguise and suggestion spells he could use to lure the players to fall into lust. He may attempt to cause the players to fall for each other, or cause the players to fall for the same person. After all, if one face can launch a thousand ships, it can certainly cause a knight to smother a friend while on watch.

Wrath
Wrath desires for the whole of the world to be enveloped in unending war. She wants destruction and death to wash over all of humanity (also other intelligent species) leaving them destroyed and damned. Wrath, herself, finds overt combat to be rather boorish and simplistic (after all, it is the thing she's trying to make those poor saps do).

Wrath is fond of directly confronting her temptees, she comes under the guise of friendship. She purports to show them secrets and speaks often of betrayal. She uses divination to reveal secrets that were long hidden and have long festered to those who were being kept out of the loop.

If this fails to drive her targets to a murderous wrath, she often uses augurations of ancient racial atrocities, after all pride in one's race is something that readily yields to wrathful desires. She sometimes works in conjunction with lust, but finds his slower more methodical approach infuriating (after all lust grows slowly, while wrath explodes).

Once Wrath has unleashed the rage of those she sought to tempt. She will use more and more falsified divination (typically she'll begin with true ones to gain the victim's trust. Eventually she'll have corrupted him to the point where he seeks only vengeance and death and kills most who stand in his way.

In game terms: Wrath needs to have some heavy divining ability, and probably some facility with illusions. I would recommend divine oracle, and possible illusion based prestige classes. One could start either from a cleric or wizard chassis and go from there. Wrath tends to spend a great deal more time finding the victims who would do the most damage, than she does on the actual temptation process, wrath again tends to be fairly easy to provoke.

Gluttony
Gluttony is the sin of over consumption. Of taking more than one needs and hording it. Gluttony typically uses famines and is fond of preying on the wealthy (like adventurers). He usually approaches his victims when they are suffering and offers to alleviate their suffering. He is fond of giving them things which are addictive, like good food and drink (also drugs).

He quickly builds a rapport with his victims feeding them, showing them the value of consumption. It normally does not take long before his victims are quite used to consuming horrific amounts of food. Then he slowly lowers the amount he gives them. Forcing them to take their food from elsewhere, making their sin worse as now to continue to live in the manner to which they are accustomed they must harm others.

Gluttony is compared to the other sins rather simple, he finds that consumption is an easy thing to provoke, and therefore he avoids complex machinations (like lust), or a heavy handed approach (like wrath). He focuses more on encouraging comfort, as such he often works with sloth to reduce the victims to lethargic mounds of constant consumption.

In game terms: Gluttony is almost certainly a cleric (or possibly some kind of artificer), he can craft scrolls and potions (and other objects to be consumed and horded) as well as create food. He is likely to start by approaching the players and giving them small gifts, then gradually increasing the size of the gifts until the players become accustomed to always having health potions, and scrolls, until the players believe that they cannot proceed without them.

Sloth
Sloth tends to have great difficulty with adventurers. After all they are the most prone to act when something goes wrong, the most prone to not lie in waiting. Sloth typically preys on their fears, she will often lure victims into encounters that they cannot hope to survive and will then save them. She encourages them to be aware of their own mortality.

She tends to also force players to be more dependent on items. Sometimes by craftily buffing the monsters they face or by making them appear more terrifying. After all a heavy dependence on items makes them less likely to act and more likely to wait in reserve. In the end sloth's goal is to make the players so miserly with items, and so afraid of their adversaries that they never act, that they hide with the peasants in the cellar while their village is destroyed. That they are heroes no more.

In game terms: Sloth is a dread witch, and an illusionist. She uses fearful illusions to make players aware of their own mortality, or aware of how difficult a task may be. She may masquerade as an ex-adventurer giving the players advice. She wants them to realize exactly how daunting and impossible the tasks before them are. She will rarely say so directly as it will cause the players to wish to overcome such allegations, she merely quietly implies it and buffs the monsters till they give up.

Greed
Greed is a jolly fellow, he typically appears as some sort of merchant, for obscure reasons he often appears as a halfling. He claims to have at one point had vast riches, but that he lost them all. He often begins by leading players to buried caches of treasure. Particularly when those caches lead them away from their responsibilities.

As he is fond of pointing out, one can be greedy for far more than simple coin. He is often fond of exploiting greed for ancient and forbidden knowledge (which being a living embodiment of temptation and evil he is no stranger to). He also encourages greed for status and recognition. He often has strong connections with the rich and the nobility (as many were in fact his victims). He uses this to encourage players to follow their greed.

Of course he tends to attempt to etch away at their morality in the process, forcing them to do more and more vile things to attain their greed. Like sloth he generally starts small though, by giving the players items, or by claiming he is rewarding them for small services (after all entitlement is a form of greed). Eventually his victims do not see beyond their greed and their material needs and are fallen into eventual damnation.

In Game Terms: Greed is likely a diplomancer, possibly some kind of factotum. He uses knowledge and material wealth and status to tempt the players. He generally scorns the other evils as they tend to be more underhanded, he generally doesn't even bother to hide his agenda. But if they follow it they will become wealthy kings.

Envy
Envy tends to be some kind of thief, often she pretends to be the head of a thieves guild or some such. Her job is to foster desire for things that belong to others. She often encourages players to want the things that they cannot take. Like looks, or reputation. She like lust tends to work in th background. Working to expose the players constantly to the more fortunate.

Every passing adventurer with better items. Every beautiful woman (or man) is an opportunity for envy to strike. She tends to act fairly disenfranchised herself, and will frequently complain about her lot in life (especially when in company of the players). This is designed for trick them into the same sense of despondency she feels.

In game terms: Envy is most likely a spell-thief, or a totemist. She is fond of replicating the abilities of others. She is also fond of demonstrating things that the players cannot do to them. As all envy is sinful.

Pride
Ah, pride, perhaps the worst and most dangerous of the sins. He is certainly chief among the tempters. He rejects all acts of the divine and trusts only in his own strength (of the tempters he is the most likely to fall prey to his own sin). He typically spies on the players for an extended period. He creates challenges that are just tough enough for them to defeat then encourages those around them to praise them.

He often crafts specific challenges for specific players, forcing them to believe that they are invaluable. Forcing them into pride. After months of this he will directly engage the players. He will fight them to an inch of their life and then will take a fall (fake his defeat), as his inevitable "defeat'' looms he will surrender. He will praise the players as they only ones able to defeat them. If they continue to talk to them, he will praise their accomplishments throughout. Likening them to Gods. He will encourage them to claim their victories as completely their own (ergo without the aid of the others or gods).

If they are so seduced, he will encourage them to challenge the Gods themselves (as this is the highest form of pride). If they are not he will either flee, or destroy the players. His pride obviously prevents him from allowing them to defeat him and escape unscathed.

In game terms: Pride is almost certainly an Ur-Priest. Rejecting the Gods and depending upon only yourself for strength is after all the highest form of pride. He is the strongest of the sins and the one most likely to face the players. He encourages them to take him straightforwardly as this will cause them to underestimate him (and increase their self-pride)

The genders were picked at random and alternate. Again the sins don't seek to kill you (if you die and go to paradise they lose), they seek to damn you. They aren't thematic bosses, or anime representations they are temptation incarnate, and their goal is the damnation and then the destruction of the players.

[APersonAmI]

I had an entire term consisting of the seven sins the last time i took an art class. Therefore, I read up on the biblical origin of these sins. As such, I want to point out that Pride is the worst sin: to consider oneself of greater worth then God.

I really liked Gensh's suggestions, but I have another one for Pride, unrelated to my above statement:

A Telepath Psion using Mind Seed to infect others with himself, recreating himself endlessly, in dozens of different incarnations, all attampts at ultimate perfection.

[nedz]

Rather than use your 7/11, you could base your setting on the Seventh Seal. It would have to be very low magic though.

[nyarlathotep]

One thing of note the four horsemen are actually supposed to be something closer to Conquest (through peaceful means), War, Societal Strife (specifically famine), and the only named one Death. In a way they can be seen as different layers of the destruction of human society. Conquest destroys religions and national ideals, War destroys the nations themselves, Strife destroys personal communities and families, Death destroys individuals after the other three have taken everything from them.

Conquest is easy, he's a diplomancer bard going into evangelist, or a cleric going dreadlord. His greatest weapon is his voice and his ability to reach the top of any organization he joins. He should be someone that the PCs trust from the beginning perhaps event the person who is their initial plot hook.

War I would probably peg as a careful strategist and manipulator to avoid stepping on wrath's toes. He is a warblade going into orc warlord (class race restrictions waved if you want him to be some other race) who gathers the rabble of the broken despotic countries that conquest leaves in his wake and forms them into rebel armies. These armies quickly destroy the governments and then collapse themselves as the hate that sustained them vanishes. War is a talented general who is completely unable to govern his conquests and in fact has no desire to, simply moving to the next battlefield after achieving victory.

Strife comes to the nations destroyed by war under the guise of a medicine man. He leads a group of doctors and holy-men who work to poison crops and spread disease throughout the land. When the sick come to them for treatment they leave feeling better but are actually carriers for any number of new diseases which will infect any population center they return to. Societal bonds break down as people turn against each other just to get the food they need to survive; eventually all that is left of the cities Strife visits are ghost towns full of decaying corpses. His build would be pathfinder alchemist vivisectionist archetype.

Death is everywhere and everything. He is always collecting the victims of his brothers and only intercedes more directly to observe or cause massive disasters, natural and unnatural, to wipe out the last bastions of survival and hope. His classes are wizard, shadowcaster, noctomancer, and mystic theurge. Specifically the wiz 4/shadowcaster 1 entry to noctomancer so he only loses one caster level of wizard.

The seven deadly sins could then act as elite specialists that all the generals share.

Wrath is a shock trooper that is able to whip soldiers around him into a frenzy and takes down particularly tough military targets, usually hangs out with War, though he will occasionally act as a strong man for Conquest.

and I'm sort of at a loss for further ideas. I might get back to you.

[Gensh]

I had an entire term consisting of the seven sins the last time i took an art class. Therefore, I read up on the biblical origin of these sins. As such, I want to point out that Pride is the worst sin: to consider oneself of greater worth then God.

I really liked Gensh's suggestions, but I have another one for Pride, unrelated to my above statement:

A Telepath Psion using Mind Seed to infect others with himself, recreating himself endlessly, in dozens of different incarnations, all attampts at ultimate perfection.

My thanks to you, sir. I apologize for not saying so sooner, but I'd somewhat forgotten about this thread amongst some other goings-on. Your idea for Pride is an excellent way to make the character more villainous; the obvious issue with my versions is that they were intentionally designed to be somewhat morally ambiguous, and Pride in particular could be interpreted as being more good than bad than, say, Sloth who invented nuclear weapons while trying to develop free energy.


One thing of note the four horsemen are actually supposed to be something closer to Conquest (through peaceful means), War, Societal Strife (specifically famine), and the only named one Death. In a way they can be seen as different layers of the destruction of human society. Conquest destroys religions and national ideals, War destroys the nations themselves, Strife destroys personal communities and families, Death destroys individuals after the other three have taken everything from them.

I rather like this breakdown. I'd always thought of the typical ideas of the Horsemen being too specific.

[Bekahre]

To throw everyone a curve ball, you could make Greed a Red dragon with a giant treasure horde.

[Sun Elemental]

The last 3 Horsemen are pretty clearly implied to be War, Famine and Death, but the first is tricky. Pop culture calls him Pestilence/Plague, but the Bible seems to call him Conquest.
You could actually make a weird questline where the PCs can recruit Conquest as an ally, because he's upset that the Big Evil fired him and replaced him with Plague, or vice versa. Maybe after the PCs kill/incapacitate Conquest, the Big Evil needs to patch up his team so he finds a quick emergency 12th dude, Plague, or vice versa.

Out of curiosity, do these dudes have immortality? Have they been around for thousands of years in-game, or did the Big Evil make them?

Edit- If you know anything about WH40k, you could make the 4 horsemen much more grimdark by making them act like the 4 Chaos Gods. Khorne would be War and Nurgle would be Plague, not sure about the other two. Maybe Slaanesh as Famine, because he/she inspires people to keeping having sex until they die of exhaustion. And Tzeentch would be Death, because he's always planning and always gets the upper hand on everyone. Eventually.

[Seto]

Pretty important question: what level/CR should they be?

[zyggythorn]

War I would probably peg as a careful strategist and manipulator to avoid stepping on wrath's toes. He is a warblade going into orc warlord (class race restrictions waved if you want him to be some other race) who gathers the rabble of the broken despotic countries that conquest leaves in his wake and forms them into rebel armies. These armies quickly destroy the governments and then collapse themselves as the hate that sustained them vanishes. War is a talented general who is completely unable to govern his conquests and in fact has no desire to, simply moving to the next battlefield after achieving victory.

...
Wrath is a shock trooper that is able to whip soldiers around him into a frenzy and takes down particularly tough military targets, usually hangs out with War, though he will occasionally act as a strong man for Conquest

I second the idea of War as a General, with Wrath being a soldier.

To further pull that relationship, I would say that Wrath is actually a Paladin of Tyranny subbing Rage for Smite, and is actually War's Cohort. Have them pull an El Cid too, what with the heavily armored, young, and ludicrously fit Wrath pretending to be War (because all combat is based of deception).

War himself would be a Venerable Marshall (young men die for old men's fights), with all the Leadership.

Play the expectations of the players, because nothing derails player plans like whiplash.

[Alistaroc]

If Pathfinder material is acceptable, the Herald of the Apocalypse Template(Advanced Bestiary) provides templates for a herald of each of the four daemons known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I believe it is also found on the srd.

[Prime32]

The original meanings of the sins were more like Apathy/Cowardice/Despair (Sloth), Envy, Hedonism (Lust), Materialism (Greed), Narcissism (Pride), Vengeance (Wrath) and Wastefulness (Gluttony).

A Sloth villain might set out to ruin the PCs' lives in order to crush their hope, or to throw a city into chaos to make it forget its moral principles (and could make a good servant for Pestilence, if it does so via an infectious disease). A Lust villain might be a drug dealer. Wrath might serve War by performing false-flag operations to set one nation against another. Greed and Gluttony might team up to sell weapons powered by captive fey, the absence of which slowly causes the land to become fallow.

[mabriss lethe]

Gluttony could simply be an Illithid Savant. You eat people's brains and gain their powers. The more you eat, the more powerful you become.

[TheBrassDuke]

The world has an inprisoned god that wants to get free. The only thing he can do from his prison is to command and control 11 people to find a way to free him. These would be his 4 greatest generals: War, Plague, Famine and Death. If you got a good idea for these villains then please let me know. I have only few ideas for them. Something like making Plague a vermin lord or something.

I've got Four Generals in my campaign with the very same theme; they herald the goddess of Shadow, Midnight.

For Plague, I use a cleric of Pestilence and Death; she wields a bow with poisoned arrows while spreading disease across the land.

[ShurikVch]

d20 Apocalypse have Four Horsemen as CR 13 (10 HD Large Outsider)

[Seto]

I built two Horsemen-themed guys (Pestilence and War) as a challenge for an ECL 7-9 low-op party. You're probably aiming for higher levels and higher OP than that, and besides my NPCs are more an homage than full-on incarnations of War and Pestilence, but I could send you the builds if you so wish. War is a mounted Cleric of Hextor/Ordained Champion with a slight focus on Sundering, Plague is Druid into Cancer Mage (he had a Warforged Rogue acolyte, because it was immune to disease and poison, which made thematic sense, plus it could use AoE infectious stuff centered on himself). For that matter, I made a Pestilence-themed dungeon, so if you want filthy/disease-transmitting monsters to go with your horseman, I looked them up.

[SirNMN]

To throw everyone a curve ball, you could make Greed a Red dragon with a giant treasure horde.
I think your a necromancer