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View Full Version : Favorite villains and the horror they bring



ZeroGear
2011-11-07, 10:17 AM
What are the favorite villains you have made/encountered and why where they scary?

Mine is Garrus.
Garrus the Aberrant blooded is a fighter/blackguard that has just showed up in my game. He is one of the scariest guys you will ever meet. He stands about 6" 7, with white hair and burning red eyes. His mouth is filled with sharp metal teeth and he has a massive scar across his face.
The reason he is called the "Aberrant blooded" is due to the Purple and Black Aberrant Mark that runs along his left arm. Like most evil beings, he wears black armor that leaves his arms exposed to show off the mark, with metal gauntlets covering his hands.
There are 3 things that make this guy scary as hell:
1) He is almost completely insane. To give an idea, picture Zaraki Kempatchi. Granted, his overwhelming Aura of Despair doesn't help.
2) He wields the weapons of his former victims. Currently, his weapon is an adamant +2 executioner's sword taken from a master fighter he killed. It is worth noting that he can change his weapon proficiency though training.
3) He is soul locked. If he dies, he comes back STRONGER! It doesn't matter how many times you kill him, he comes back, and he comes for you! Again, picture a Pyramid head build with a Zaraki Kempatchi mentality and Jason's ability to come back from the dead.

So, who is your favorite?

Silus
2011-11-07, 11:24 AM
I call it "The Mad House".

In game terms, I suppose it would be considered an Epic Level Sorcerer/Wizard Genius Loci. It's one of those things you can't fight.

In it's first incarnation, it appeared as a two story, sky blue New England style house with a wrap-around porch on a lush, grassy field. In the middle of Carceri (which is all jagged mountains and swamps).

It ended up behaving very much like the room from the movie 1608 (which most of the inspiration came from). It showed one of the characters his dying daughter, who tottered towards him, fell into his arms, died then crumbled to ash. There were medical experiments as well in the basement (vats of bodies like in Aliens: Resurrection and an autopsy room full of corpses). And that was only on the first run through.

So the party thinks they get out safe, back with their families. The the walls start coming down and the people start dissolving in front of their eyes. They were still in the house, the door was locked and the windows were bricked up. Things started get weird then. The autopsy room ended up getting all corkscrewed with everything adhering to the "floor" except the characters, the basement was oppressively dark (All vision was cut by half), Advanced Evolved Shadows began bleeding from the walls and things were just going from bad to worse.

Morithias
2011-11-07, 10:09 PM
Definately "Princess Olivia"

Basically imagine a mary sue disney princess. Vow of Peace, staff of healing, in no possible way evil. Also a DMPC.

Now imagine getting totally pissed off at this DMPC, but since she's the only staff chick in the party you can't just kill her off. Being royalty also.

Now you just beat the big bad evil dragon, the castle is in ruins.

....and the bitch gates in a pit fiend to backstab you.

My players never forgot her.

herbe
2011-11-09, 05:50 PM
Albino RedDragon as villian makes my players scary :)

Dr.Epic
2011-11-09, 05:55 PM
the Lich

Has countless years (decades, even centuries) to calculate his plan meaning he's factored nearly everything into it, is a powerful caster, is undead, and is easily a recurring villain so even if the good guys do beat him he'll just be back in a matter of days.

Yourshallowpal
2011-11-09, 10:34 PM
Two villains that worked well are below. Maybe not "terrifying," but they got a strong, personal reaction from my players, whic drove some excellent role-play. I also translated personality into fighting style pretty well with at least one of them, which I think makes for a good fusion of role-play and combat.

- Personal nemesis for one of my PC's, a Devil named Memuzin. Macho to the point of misogyny, smooth-talking, but highly temperamental and prone to rage; he hits hard at first but gets cowardly once he's bloodied. Additionally, he can be provoked into concentrating on one enemy and making himself vulnerable to said enemy's allies.

Additionally, he had his personal nemesis' mother hostage, but refused to acknowledge any enmity between them. He put on a jovial pretense of being their friend, and taking care of the "batty old sobbing crone" as a FAVOR. He was condescending, insufferable, and always appeared with overwhelming power behind him. The party really, truly hated him. (In a GOOD way. They made a point to choose a quest which involved him, because their characters really relished the idea of killing him brutally.)

His build had FOUR action points that make him devastating in opening combat, but he loses defense AND certain abilities when he's bloodied. (Although his speed goes up, and he gets access to a teleportation power)

Personality wise, he uses up all but one of those action points immediately to harm the entire party, then tries to take them down one at a time. He reserves that last point for fleeing.

His mark, while granting bonuses to grapple checks against a single target with his garrote (+4 attack, +2d6 damage, +4 def if the enemy is trying to escape a grab), but this makes him vulnerable to non-marked enemies (-2, all def, vulnerable 1d6 per tier to all damage from non-marked enemies). He'll put himself in this disadvantage if they role-play some effective taunting, although the party never exploited this.

Anyway, that information was available via Insight/History checks (his personal enemy got +5 to those).

The first time they met him, he had 40-odd minions with him, and more on the way, so they ran for it. The second time, he appeared halfway through combat, and killed a party member (who was res'd, unfortunately).

The last time, they tried to ambush him; I made a challenge to do so which was probably a bit too easy (whoops). They beat the challenge, so they caught him with his pants down. They were prepared for him to hit hard all encounter, so they buffed up early and healed often, and after his action points were spent they killed him pretty handily. (He tried to run, but their warlock/rogue chased him down the hallway and whittled him away.)

Maybe not TERRIFYING, but he got a big reaction when he showed up the first two times. His death was a bit anticlimactic, but I had back-up villains.
Probably should have made him harder to sneak up on, but I liked that the party took the initiative to plan an assassination in the first place, so I rolled with it.

Also, when they finally rescued the PC's mother, Memuzin's final insult was he had "forgotten" to mention he transformed her into a devil herself.

- Vilemma (the mother), who was a pauper in life, is now OBSESSED with money, power, and convincing her (paladin!) daughter that there's no dignity in poverty. It's a lie the weak cling too while the strong laugh at them.

Also, she's "very proud" of how much her daughter enjoyed killing Memuzin. The Paladin was so shaken by that tidbit she's still flirting with an alignment shift to neutral.

They still haven't killed Vilemma, she's taken the place I'd saved for Memuzin at the end of a future dungeon.

Aidan305
2011-11-09, 11:03 PM
Albino RedDragon as villian makes my players scary :)

The idea of this makes me lol. I might throw one of those at a party some day.