Looking for Villians and friendly NPCs to fill my cityscape adventure!

[PeekingPenguin]

Some Backstory
The city is based in my own, custom homebrew Renaissance era world, where the party is leaving their old world for a new exciting life in the newly discovered lands! (Think leaving Europe for the Americas) One of the first cities to be founded, Torhov, quickly became a central port on the newly discovered continent of Carthanes. Looking for power and money, factions and people from all over came to appease their need for greed.

What I Need
I am looking for factions, villains, heroes and NPCs to fill my great city.

Influential individuals (any alignment) (Any Level)
High Level Villains (14-20)
Mid level Villains (7-14)
Low level Villains (1-6)
Factions (Guilds/Theocratic Churches/Cults...ect)
Faction Leaders
Any Level NPC



How I Need It

Name
Level
Backstory
Motives
Any important facts



Examples

Xanden Lex
Level 11 Ranger
Race: Human
Backstory: Xanden was born in Torhov. At a young age his family was killed by a gang of Elves, ever since then he has been trying to avenge his family by tracking down and exterminating those elves and their families.
Motives: To exterminate every living relative of the elves who killed his family
Facts:Uses his trusty Bow, Nomiss, for important assassinations. Uses red and orange feathers on his arrows.



Thieves Guild
Backstory: The thieves guild was founded only 17 days after Torhov was established. Thanks to legendary Torhov thief, Blurtz Lonem, the guild has been thriving. As one of the largest intelligence organizations in Torhov, it has its hand in almost everything, from political events to common theft.
Motives: To own Torhov through information and Gold
Facts: The guild is quickly separating into two groups, ones who want more information and those who want more gold


Rules

All Dnd 3.5/3.0 books allowed
no dragon mag
no ToB (its sad that i still don't have this book)



All help would be appreciated

[Zakerst]

What books do you have available? It wouldn't do you much good to get NPCs that you can't use due to lacking the book(s)

[PeekingPenguin]

What books do you have available? It wouldn't do you much good to get NPCs that you can't use due to lacking the book(s)

Thank you for pointing that out i will fix that in the original post, and I have access to all 3.5 books except ToB.

[Zakerst]

cool beans do you have access to any 3.0 books, OA and SS are ones I tend to use a fair amount?

[PeekingPenguin]

cool beans do you have access to any 3.0 books, OA and SS are ones I tend to use a fair amount?

Indeed I do have them as well

[Zakerst]

OK here're some of the ones I've had laying about:


ECL 7
Anthropomorphic Giant Squid 3HD/Sprit Lion Totem, Wolf totem Barbarian 2 levels, fighter 1 +1LA
Backstory: likely raised near the coast of Torhov, with his primary occupation being piracy/banditry/predation (the last being how he view the former). His primary MO is going to be Jetting onto/near the target and splattering anything that doesn't cooperate, if he gets what he wants he'll leave with no one slain, and can even be bribed into guarding people or taking on hit jobs. Not one to be limited to the near coast he caries a few potions of air breathing and a portable hole filled with water.
Motivations: He seeks wealth, glory and power and will try to take the quickest route to getting it, in his eyes all he has to do really is become the top of the local food chain or near it, then go about living the life he's earned.
Facts: He wears spiked armor, and wields an eight handed large sharktooth staff (grappling anything that survives) and an eight handed glaive when reach is called for, with a back up composite long bow, he caries 100 ft of rope and several sacks and a handy haversack at any given time and is prone to taking captives to ransom is he thinks they'd be worth the hassle (taking the -4 to hit to deal nonlethal as needed). For feats he has EWP sharktooth staff, combat reflexes, power attack and cleave.



ECL 3
Race Poison Dusk Lizard Folk
Class: Generic Warrior 3 [UA]
Backstory: He's been bought and sold since he was little, if he's free now he's likely to gravitate to whatever group will have him, he's got some talent with being sneaky and fighting it out but because other's have always been doing the thinking often misses the big picture, even though he's smart enough to figure it out himself he just doesn't think in those terms.
Motivations: More than anything he wants to find his "forever home" he's been burnt more than once on being "set free" and had his share of good and bad owners and he's convinced that the best thing he can hope for in his life is a good owner a full belly and a warm place to sleep anything else he has to take or be given and other than a few select baubles not much is going to catch his eye.
Facts: took 2d6 sneak attack as one of his warrior feats, improved initiative, two weapon fighting and quick draw as his others as well as hide and move silently and iaijutsu focus as skills, likely with one more as you see fit. He caries a number of "tools" to disable rather than kill, 2 nets, 3 lassos, two saps, a couple bolas, 3 bags or marbles, 6 daggers (iaijutsu focus at range), and a couple tangle foot bags. In combat he'll use any surprise round he gets to try and drop a target with his daggers as well as any others he can before they get to go, disabling others by stacking nets lassos and marbles on them to reduce their effectiveness and either knock them out or slay them quickly before rapidly looting what he can and retrieving his items with a priority on getting his stuff back.


I may add some more later

[daremetoidareyo]

1.)
Were there sentient beings on this continent before the settlers? If yes, see below, if no, go to 2.)


This will shape the entire dynamic of the country for years to come. If the natives are friendly, how do they feel about living near this colony? How do they feel as more people move over and eat up more prime hunting grounds? How will justice be done for murders and sexual assaults between the two groups?

From this dynamic, making villains is super easy: who has been overcompensating from trauma and from whom? Now, go to 3.

2.)
If the country is uninhabited by sentient beings with a sense of claim to the territories (like mindless undead or whatnot), the the conflict that will make heros and villains will arise through competition to gobble up resources for profit and power. Go to 3.

3.) What natural value is provided by the new country? See the categories below. Pick a few. Then develop your bastards and saints by fleshing out how they interact with these economic drivers, so pick a few of these possible things that the new country offers the old country and then take them to #4.


A) Mundane Raw ExtractiveGoods: Gold mines, Coal, Oil (if your using it in your campaign), Copper, Iron, charcoal, granite, sand, Natural Lumber (either super dense, super large, or super lightweight trees.


B.) Magical raw resources: flying rocks, eternal youth.


C.) Agricultural opportunity: new drugs, new poisons, new medicines, arable land for specialty crops from the old world (cotton), Unspoiled Fishing grounds, new animal meats, Furs, New funguses.


D.) Human capital: source for slaves to sell to the old world.


E.) Solution to Old World Problem: Overcrowding in oldworld, Exporting prisoners is cheaper than paying them to stay in prison, Refugees from attack/ bigotry/genocide escape from rulers/rules/ religion, A tactical military/Naval advantage against an oldworld ally

4.) So now you've chosen a few resources offered by the new country. So let's begin. Let's assume that there are sentient natives, let's also assume that they can reproduce with the colonists. Some old world approaches will be to smoothly integrate into their culture, take wives and girlfriends, open up mutually helpful trade, build an embassy, negotiate for space. This will be similar to how the French just sort sexed and hunted their way into native american culture in Canada. The British approach was one of domination and subjugation: extinction and supplantation. There were souls on the british side who saw the carnage and ran away to live with the natives, only to be flayed when caught. On top of that, the race for resources caused the most dastardly of pioneers to meet success.

Really from here, you just choose a few businessmen working in a new place and think about what their dreams are and how they are going to get it. Then let them meet enough success to hire big BADA mofos to get things done, no matter what, and make them villains and heroes. Then imagine what an ex- soldier plantation owner who uses child/slave/indentured/fairlycompensated labor would do to make enough profit selling (new expensive crop) to have a wife and a few mistresses. Who would he hire to secure the labor and transportation?

[Know(Nothing)]

Feel free to use my character (https://the-elixir-of-life.obsidianportal.com/characters/nal-vyr) from an evil campaign I was in as a mid-level villain. That campaign we were awarded Bonus Feats as treasure, so subtract those as well as the Shadow Bloodline feat, since that was semi-homebrew, and it should be all legal. Also you may need to tweak the skills, since we were playing a semi-PF game, so some of the skills were combined. I believe we also used PF's rules for undead HP.

Take note of his items-- some are two combined into one as per MIC rules. This dude is a survivor, and he makes use of every little edge he can to come through in the end. He wouldn't directly engage a party of adventurers unless it was very beneficial for him to do so. He makes ample use of the No Light cantrip in conjunction with his Ring of the Darkhidden to make anything with only normal vision and darkvision blind to his actions. Kelgore's Grave Mist is another favorite of his, as is his Empowered(from the spell shard) Ray of Enfeeblement. If fighting him on whatever home turf he might have, he will have an insane amount of undead at his disposal. If he can't win he will run, making use of his wand of fly, belt of battle(extra actions), and third eye freedom if he is grappled/entangled. If he sees a Good cleric he will likely not engage at all, or attempt to end him immediately. He's both undead and a drow, so he won't make his existence obvious to anyone he can't control, and almost always has his third-eye(hat) of disguise running.

He's only level 8, but if played right, he would be an extreme challenge to most equally leveled parties, and even a victory on their part will likely not result in his death.

[TheNivMizzet]

I've been thinking of a Villain for a new campaign, at least the first stretch to get them working together and set the tone for how the politics and how major threats can come around. A pair of a cleric and wizard. The cleric is devoted to death, being lawful evil and seeking rewards from his god in return for aiding the Wizard remove a large portion of the population from a large city. The Wizard is a nutcase who is trying to get the "Detect City" bomb to go off, but hasn't got the feat "Explosive Spell" yet, so is searching for a metamagic rod of it (Which doubles as part of the reward for the adventure). The group has to find the pair which have decent divinations and enchantment magic to deal with before meeting them with several enthralled NPCs.

Caicus the Blind (Not actually blind, his blindfold just masks his true sight)
Sorcerer 12
Backstory: Having been rejected from a wizards college due to his natural magical ability being untempered by learning and general procedure he was deemed too dangerous to have at the university. This rejection led him to research ways to find show exactly what untempered magic can do (ignoring that he was showing them exactly why he shouldn't have been taught more advanced magic). When he met Gerald (the Cleric), he was taken in as a prophet of great catastrophe and between them they searched for the pieces and knowledge to bring about collapse of a civilization.
Facts: Has to have taken the following feats: Snowcasting, Flast Frost, Energy Admixture, Born of the three thunders. Several Enchantment and Divination spells,such as Charm Monster and Dominate Person.

Gerald Silver
Cleric 12
Backstory:Raised to a family of cultists, worshiping Hextor, the family business seemed the way to go having been taught the teachings of Hextor and brought up in a very religious environment. Reaching adulthood he set off to spread the teachings of Hextor and prove his worth in the eyes of his lord. Feeling it is easier to brainwash people into serving his purposes then actually talking to them he also works heavily in charm and divinations, asking Hextor guidance on his quest to bring about great destruction. When he received instruction to aid Caicus he jumped at the chance and has since been spending almost every spell slot divining location of important materials and resources to complete the spell.
Facts: Also uses Charm Monster and Dominate person through the Domination domain, but supplements them both with Irresistable Spell, using divine metamagic to make it +0 spell level. A very dangerous opponent for those not prepared for mind control effects.

Between the two of them the fight can either be difficult, where the protagonists start being dominated and controlled to fight each other, but if played correctly and with the right protective spells they can negate the worst of the two characters abilities. Defeating two level 12 tier 1 casters is still difficult, but they're far from optimized for pvp. If the party don't reach the pair before they find the metamagic rod of Explosive Spell, they'll find the city in ruins outside as every NPC who failed the check takes several thousand d6 damage.