Tell me about your archnemisis

[Sir Zachary]

The Archnemesis; Many characters have them. Your archnemesis is someone your character personally hates, one he takes upon himself to destroy. The need is something beyond duty or doing the right thing, it is a manner of personal honor and sometimes revenge. It is a beautiful antagonism that extends beyond rivalry that can enrich a campaign as they try to foil one another. This is the story of my character, the human Kazdand Infurious the Alchemist and his archnemesis. In your responses I would like to read about some of your own stories against your PC's archnemisis

So Kazdand is one of my first D&D characters dating back to when I first got into D&D. He is a level 15 wizard, our DM always has us play level 15. I was the newbie at the table, but by the standards of this forum we were really bad at D&D and bad at building characters. Please keep this in mind when reading my tale. Kazdand makes his living from the side panel of his carriage at the outdoor market in the town of Enderway. Within his cart he has is entire alchemy lab unfold from side panels. He even has a bed in there as he lives in there. This is for the adventuring Kazdand does on the side in addition to allowing his business to remain mobile.

Part 1: The Inciting Incident
Kazdand was at Grog's Good Ale(Run by Grog the Orc, our resident memetic badass) hanging with the other adventurey types(the party). One was Cleric of Pelor, and the other two were a Barbarian(haf-orc I think) and some sort of Dwarf Fighter. We have a few rounds of RP in the tavern we hear a commotion outside. We exit the tavern into the town square and see the man who changed our campaign, The God King. Yes that God King from Infinity Blade wielding the title weapon. He is there with some minions of some unimportant creature type I don't remember. In the initial fighting the tavern is partially destroyed by the God King's magic. Grog takes serious exception to this and announces, "I'll get my axe!" and enters deeper into the tavern to get his weapon. The tavern was at the south corner and one of the inner sides of the walls are exposed from the earlier destruction. God King is standing in the west road with some of his minions and in the center of the square is a water fountain. The warriors get right up in the face of the enemy and the Cleric stands a little bit back while I hang waaay back by the tavern. Our warriors are shredding the enemy one at a time and I am firing my blasting spells from the back line. God King on the other hand is another story. He his hard to hit and when we do hit he just shrugs it off. Meanwhile more minions approach from the east and stand at the northwest corner of the square. Kazdand, getting uncomfortable with the proximity of those new guys, but worried they won't be taken out by one of his spells comes up with a plan. Kazdand uses Control Water to spray water from the fountain over the enemy. (I know Control Water doesn't work that way, but we didn't check on that at the time and Telekinesis could have done the job anyway at that level.) The DM likes my creativity and rewards me with bonus damage when I cast chain lightning on the following turn. I obliterate the entire squad of minions at once and scorch that corner of the town! :smallamused: Ahah! Meanwhile we have God King wiping the floor with our party and the cleric is struggling to balance damaging the enemy or healing(he didn't really take advantage of self buffing or party buffing, but neither did I.) Kazdand sees that it is go time and decides to unleash his 1 per day 8th level spell, Polar Ray! I roll the dice...HUZZAH! The Random Number God smiles on me and I get a critical hit with the ray! Now know that at the time we could have rolled 15d6s but....we were lazy. So we rolled 1 d6 and act as if we rolled that for all the dice. Behold I roll a 6! Max damage, crit.

"As the ray passes by you, you feel a cold so strong that some of the hair on your arms freezes off. Your arms frost over with ice." - MY DM describing the ray to my fellow party members as it streaks by them.

But alas! The God King still stands. Not only that, in spite of the frost covering his armor I appear to have only made him angry. Then it happens. The moment that changes the game. The God King throws his great sword, the infinity blade, at Kazdand stabbing him through the chest and PINNING HIM to the exposed tavern wall from all the way down the block.:smalleek: Cleric decides to focus his healing on the warriors of the party, partially because he thought my earlier chain lightning was total overkill. By the way this Cleric was great, spouting out "Pelor loves you" whenever he could and asking people if they knew about "our Lord and Savior, Pelor." It was hilarious, trust me. Kazdand tries his best to remove the great sword but does not have the strength. The God King magically calls his sword back to him and Kazdand falls in a clump to the ground, bleeding out. Our warriors try their darndest to bring this guy down on their turn, but he still stands in spite of my Polar Ray. Tencaiously, Kazdand attempts to cast one last spell to bring harm to God King before he dies, but fails on account of how distracting a hole in his chest is. DM has me roll concentration and I fail. I was at 0 HP and fell unconscious when I took an action...or failed to. Round by round I roll to try and stabilize and make it dangerously close to -10. The cleric bring Kazdand just out of consciousness, but still low HP. By then the encounter is winding down though. Finally our warriors put enough hurt on God King that he teleports away. Grog finally arrives with his axe(this will be a thing.) Blazing with rage Kazdand silently swears revenge on The God King for what he has inflicted upon him and his beloved home. That day Kazdand met his archnemesis. That was over 2 in real life years ago.

Needless to say I was shocked by the brutal onslaught the DM had for us that day. The Dwarf and Barbarian got beaten up and my character nearly died. To some extent this was a bit of a wake up call. It was around this time I started doing some research online. I found the SRD online and read up on spells. I looked for character generators until I settled on Pathguy's. In making characters I looked up what the feats did and as the generator does not include spells I was picking those out too. I borrowed the PH to learn more about character creation and eventually I found these forums, brilliant gameologists and enworld. Learning from the wisdom of the masters I discovered optimization. This has undoubtedly become my favorite part of D&D. Now our DM mostly had us running one shots with many of us playing the same characters, introducing new ones and generally getting a whole lot of no where. Some of the sessions became important to the world's continuity and some didn't. Along the way Kazdand met his rival The Illusionary Gentleman(Chaotic Neutral Gentleman Wizard Extraordinaire!), but their rivalry pales in comparison to the hate Kazdand has for God King. Kazdand also becomes acquainted with Derry Lend the Gnome Wizard(another character of the guy who played the Barbarian.) Derry is known in-character and OOC for being pretty incompetent, but well intentioned. The Dwarf becomes more developed and becomes the Chimera riding and ale drinking John...something. I forget. :smallredface: Along our adventures the Barbarian/ Derry Lend player creates the human Barbarian Turic Stonewall The Human Wall/The Hero of Stonefoot Villiage. He's straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon in his heroism and he becomes Kazdand's best friend. He is even followed around by an entourage of fanboys(Leadership.)

Part 2: Rising Action
To be continued...:smallamused:

[Necromancy]

I played under a DM that liked to put his retired characters into games as NPCs, this one being the Dread pirate Raven (swashbuckler female I think).

I was playing a gnome sorcerer evil pyromaniac named Darwin. Now Darwin was a bastard, but he was a dead sexy bastard. Every time he hitched a ride on Raven's ship, he would drag her into her quarters for the entire time (which annoyed the DM to no end that I wouldn't stop doinking his old PC)

Eventually Raven decided she was going to try to leverage Darwin into attacking a keep for her men. He instead walked into the keep and negotiated a better offer.

The resulting epic showdown cost Raven her ship, as should be expected. Darwin tried to play a life sized version of snake with walls of fire and the crew.

[Falcon X]

I ran about three separate campaigns in the same world and ended up with some interesting character's who's backstory's connected. That is to say, not every bit of this happened at the game table, but a chunk of it:

The nemeses are largely a brother against his sister. Though his target changes every now and then.

Sepuku von Shamus vs. Evil Magicians:
Backstory: There is an order of 9 high-level mages about to start a war.
- The leader, Mundon Ogrekin is, at some level, benevolent. He is a half-elf, half-ogre magi who was oppressed most of his life, but overcame it, becoming a politician and the head of a magic school. He wants an overturn in the world's power, creating equality for drow, ogres, kobolds, and other such oppressed races. So, he starts recruiting. He is an ends justify the means type person.
- The diplomancer, Soyaliss Richards, the Saruman of the group, is a world-renown consultant for cities and nations. People trust him.
- The cultists, Perdi Bramburn and Drip are the worst of the 8. They are cultists of Imix who are secretly using this war to pull off a ritual that will unite the plane of fire with the prime material. Perdi is a Candle Caster/Wayfarer Guide/Pyromancer with a flaming arm and a Kefka attitude. Drip has a legion of undead at his command before he gets to his 9th level spells.

The Story: Sepuku and his sister Alyssa lived in the woods among a druidic tribe. One day, merely testing out spells, Perdi and Drip raze the entire village, with only the two children surviving. They each swear vengeance.
- Alyssa leaves the next day alone. She pursues sorcerous power to beat fire with fire. She is taken in by Mundon Ogrekin, gains much power, and becomes his right hand as he starts the war. She has never seen the whole of the 9 Mages, so she doesn't know that her sworn enemies are Ogrekin's allies.
- Sepuku, a very Edward Elric type, declares his own war against magical power, especially evil sorcerers. He joins a large Paladin organization who police the world, then goes to study lost secrets in the mountains to become a Witch Hunter.
He also has a few moments with Soyaliss Richards where he begins to look at him as a mentor and example of a "good wizard".

Sepuku's hunt leads him to Ogrekin, where he sees his sister, who is pretty cold to him. He thinks she has turned evil and swears to either kill or convert her. It is his responsibility as her brother.
After several adventures, Soyaliss Richards goes on a turn or burn diplomacy mission to an Eladrin city, with the whole 9 Mages and Alyssa coming as backup.
Sepuku knocks out Alyssa on the chase to the city, but she escapes.
At the city, Sepuku finally realizes that Soyaliss Richards is the true enemy and puts an arrow between his eyes.
Immediately, the other 8 Mages reveal themselves, and chaos ensues. Meanwhile, Sepuku and Alyssa see Perdi and Drip, realize the truth of everything, and immediately declare Ogrekin and the other 7 mages as their nemeses.

That's most of where it got, though I know where it's headed after that. But it was a fun story of a brother who pursues his sister, but they finally come together when they realize the true common enemy.