What endgame for BBEG?

[Pinjata]

Here's the story playground, I'd appreciate your ideas. (5e edition)

BBEG is an elf caster, specialised in illusions. She is interested only in power, so as she travelled generic D&D lands, she came upon a Cult of the Demon. She joined the Cult and eventually realized its leaders are morons. Under disguise she contacted PCs and asked them to kill the Cult leaders. PCs did so sucsfully, enabling her to take over control of the Cult. Cult intended to amass great wealth by looting the lands, but under her command, that plan was cancelled. Instead Cult offered his protection to a region in Badlands. Worthless stretches of wild region, dotted with hamlets of savages have proven to be profitable quite soon. Caravans came in as did miners and others. Cult forged alliances with local dragons who further strenghtened and enlarged Cults' area of influence. Of course Cult was renamed and posed as something else.

All this brought upon them the attention of Merchant league (LN trader organisation of the setting) who had sent spies to figure out what is this competition made of. They discovered Cult is behind this and asked adventurers to go and smite the evil. Meanwhile PCs, powerful adventurers themselves, were also contacted by our elf. They witnessed an attack of Merchant league on Cults' assets and started to counter-attack adventurers, minions and servants of Merchant league.

Now at this point, elf is nearing her Endgame. Via the Cult she is in posession of:
- cadre of loyal luitenants
- large numbers of devoted Cultists
- a few powerful allies (dragons, giants ...)
- LOTS of wealth
- several powerful magic items she obtained via Cult (you can suggest which ones)

Along with this, Cult expects The Demon to be summoned soon, slowly but surely pressing the matter with the elf. She needs to do something and do it soon (soon in like 2 years in game time). I wonder what her endgame should be?

thanks

[noob]

Endgame:
Depends of the level of your elf
>20 : the elf suddenly stops waiting to summon that demon with complex rituals and instead cast an DC0 epic spell lasting one round to cast for summoning it.
17: the elf shapeshift stack and become completely immortal then he use scrolls of fusion to fuse with each of his high rank followers then use astral seed and have the perfect body and no longer have to worry about being defeated.
13: can destroy the earth by buying 1000 chickens and a scroll of consumptive field then putting all the chickens in the negatives and then grabbing the earth and teleporting near the sun and teleport on the plane of the earth with a scroll of plane-shift
5: the previous thing except you have to buy a teleport scroll.
Now that the elf have destroyed the earth or became impossible to defeat or summoned his demon he have all the time he needs to plot.

[Pinjata]

This is 5e btw.

[BWR]

Basically, you are looking for suggestions of strategy and tactics, not motivation? How to stymie or stop the PCs (and possibly other annoyances) from stopping The Plan (TM)?
If the cult fails to outright kill the PCs or the Merchants, play a mix of a stalling game and a bluff. Secrecy is fast becoming irrelevant so there's no real reason to keep in the shadows too much. No need to advertise your presence but secrecy is not paramount. What you want to do is make sure you have time to finish your plans, so you start hemorrhaging money (since pretty soon it will be irrelevant) to put in stumbling blocks.

- You hire mercs, bandits, humanoids, dragons etc. or send out cultists to various places around the world to make a spectacle of themselves and divert attention from where the real important action is. Coups in various places, some monarch being obviously blackmailed or dominated and causing a ruckus, diversionary wars, monstrous invasions etc. Anything to distract from what you are doing. You can even lead a trail of breadcrumbs that eventually leads back to you, but in such a circuitous and roundabout way that it will take people far more than two years to get to you. Basically, make a lot of crises that people have to handle right then and there before getting on to the BBEG. These problems should, if possible, seem grave enough that the PCs don't consider them lesser threats than what they know about the Cult, and bonus points if the diversions seem plausible as the BBEG's true goal.

- You lie to and abuse your underlings' and comrades' trust so that if one of them is captured or switches sides, false information is given (normally this sort of politics leads to deadly infighting, which is a bad idea even in an evil cult, but in two years' time it won't matter). You set up false heads of the cult, build false headquarters (or backup ones), set certain branches of the cult out on their own in the belief that they are the true core of Cult and the ones doing the real work.

Remember, the BBEG is an illusionist, and illusions are not just what she does but how she thinks. Subtle and undetected, hiding what's really going on if possible. Or big and loud and overwhelming so people don't think to question the validity of what they perceive until it's too late. PCs and players should never really be sure of what is really going on or the true goals of the BBEG until it's all over (and how will they know if what lies smoking at their feet is really the true BBEG?). Illusionists are con men, deceivers, sneaky gits and masters at guessing how people will react to what they see.

[Pinjata]

Hmm BWR, I do appreciate the input, but what purpose would these actions serve? Yes, suggestions on elfs motivation would be great.

[Keltest]

You say that this elf has manipulated the PCs for her own ends in the past, correct? But now theyre coming for her? Then her short term plans for the PCs likely involve faking her own death so that they get off her back. Trick them into thinking she is disposed of and put some puppet in charge after. Assume a new disguise and eventually use the PCs as enforcers for her cult after that by informing them of the actions of rebellious or dangerous cultists she doesn't want to live. She can also use them as mercenaries, obtaining items and other things that she needs for her longer term plans, which I assume involve summoning the ominously named Demon, if she joined the cult in earnest.

[BWR]

As I said, if the BBEG and the cult need to stay unmolested and safe for two years but have the PCs and the Merchants closing in on them, they need distractions. Things to draw attention away from the cult and their true activities. Just sitting still and planning for an inevitable violent confrontation with the PCs in their Volcano Lair of Doooooom! is for schmucks. Much better to keep the opposition busy elsewhere and make sure it's far too late to do anything by the time the PCs show up, if they ever do. Even better if your Cult is in another castle when the PCs do show up. The cartoon "Young justice" from a few years ago did this distraction game beautifully, with the true masterminds orchestrating a series of events that distracted the heroes with strawmen baddies and proxies and apparent goals while slowly and secretly getting closer to their true goals.

As for motivation, I believe you mentioned power. That's generally what motivates most BBEGs. Any particular reason she wanted power? Vengeance, greed, recovering a lost love, ruling the world, pure megalomania? Just because?
For some people, even if they started out with some other motive, the acquisition of power becomes a goal in itself. They don't do anything with it, they don't have any plans for it, they don't really have any reason. Why climb the greasy pole? because it's there. The BBEG may, if all goes according to plan, sit there with unimaginable power and then think "now what?". She's spent so much time and effort into realizing her goal she doesn't know what to do with it. No real goals to achieve, no real desires. She won but what does that actually mean to her? What should she do? Just basically go wild testing the limits of her power? Try something new? Basically go 'bugger all this for a lark, I'm off' and give it all up?

[Arbane]

If the BBEG doesn't WANT the demon summoned, she might just manipulate adventurers to cripple the cult, then plan on faking her own death and abandoning the cult with all the loot she can carry.

[Pinjata]

If the BBEG doesn't WANT the demon summoned, she might just manipulate adventurers to cripple the cult, then plan on faking her own death and abandoning the cult with all the loot she can carry.

This is more along the lines I had in mind.

As for her motive, she just deems the world "unoptimized".

I was thinking of her playing one last trick on PCs and presenting herself as The inside man (or woman) and sabotage the cult. The only question is how she keeps the wealth. Perhaps she even installs "puppet government" in the cult.

[Shadowsend]

She may also try to get rid of certain rivals in the process. It wouldn't be too difficult for a high level mage to send her lieutenants with gifts or perhaps service to the rivals, and then say to the PCs "Oh you just have to stop X, they're Ying all over Z." If the lieutenants happen to take the rest of the cult with them, oh well.

She can't take the long term wealth if she fakes her death. She might be able to deed it over to an ally, if the ally shares enough of the same goals. I'm not sure why she would have the wealth anywhere near the cult though.

[Keltest]

This is more along the lines I had in mind.

As for her motive, she just deems the world "unoptimized".

I was thinking of her playing one last trick on PCs and presenting herself as The inside man (or woman) and sabotage the cult. The only question is how she keeps the wealth. Perhaps she even installs "puppet government" in the cult.

She could create another organization that opposes the cult that she is in charge of. When the players bring her stuff, its for her second organization to use, ostensibly against the cult.

[Mutazoia]

The first problem, as I think you are finding out, is that power is a means to and end...seldom the end it self. I'm having a hard time thinking of anybody (fictional or otherwise) who is known to amass a huge amount of "power", simply to have it. In short, power is a tool, and amassing power with out a goal is like collecting hammers with no intention to ever pound a nail.

Your BBEG's end game should be one of, if not THE first thing you come up with when designing your campaign, as this is going to be the very foil against which your players will be testing them selves....the very reason they are leaving home as fledgling adventurers and setting off to right wrong. Your BBEG IS what's WRONG with the world. (Or at least one of the bigger ones.)

Your second problem is that you seem to have changed your BBEG's motivation near the end game, and now your BBEG isn't really a BBEG. She was just pretending to be the BBEG....you have no BBEG.

Honestly...I think the best way out of this is to give your non-BBEG a split personality, or two souls in the same body. One good, one bad, both working to foil the other. The evil one still wants to summon the demon, the good one is doing all she can to stop it. You could retroactively set up some kind of curse or past childhood trauma to explain this it comes down to it. Any time the characters interact with her, it's the good side (at least in the beginning, before they find out about the bad side). Hell, the bad side could always sport an evil looking demonic mask, which the good side takes off at the first opportunity.

Each personality has equal time controlling the body...when one is asleep, the other is awake, both using what time they have to further their own goals. The good one wants to live...so taking her own life is not an option.

This could also let you present your PC's with a conundrum....when the time comes, do they kill the good personality/soul along with the evil one? Or spare them both in an attempt to banish the evil one and leave the good one ?

You could have rare times when both personalities/souls are awake at the same time, and the "BBEG" appears to be arguing with herself. Go wild with it. If you really want to have fun...make them twin sisters that have to share a body, and the PC's think they are working for the "good" twin (well they are actually) but don't find out about the one body thing until the final chapter.

At any rate, doing this will allow you to keep your original "summon the demon" goal as well as your "trying to dismantle the cult from the inside" goal

[Red Fel]

Your second problem is that you seem to have changed your BBEG's motivation near the end game, and now your BBEG isn't really a BBEG. She was just pretending to be the BBEG....you have no BBEG.

Honestly...I think the best way out of this is to give your non-BBEG a split personality, or two souls in the same body.

I was pondering this, and I saw this suggestion, and it's a bit inspired. Allow me to offer something.

First, a disclaimer: I don't know 5e, I don't know the Cult of the Demon, but I assume it's some sort of apocalyptic cult, and The Demon is some sort of inevitable baddie and the Cult tries to prepare for his arrival.

This BBEG is a mixed-bag BBEG. She wanted power and wealth, and she's getting it. But she got it by getting in bed with the wrong people, and there's a price to pay. So here's the endgame I see.

She wants to turn this wasteland into a highly successful enterprise, of which she gets a massive cut. She has been promoting industry and settlement in an attempt to draw people in, and has been reaping financial benefits through the Cult. But if they succeed in summoning the Demon, all that goes up in smoke.

As others have suggested, her objectives should be: Prevent the summoning of the Demon. Continue to expand and become fantastically rich. Keep nosy folks out of her enterprise.
These three goals should converge in a tragic and disastrous way. Here's what I see.

She is trying to keep the merchants and heroes distracted, as others have suggested, by creating proxies and diversions away from her. Unfortunately, they're persistent. So she decides that if she can't beat them, she'll use them - she tries to manipulate them into thwarting the Cult. And perhaps, for awhile, she's successful.

Ultimately, the PCs confront her, still believing her to be the mastermind. In frustration, she explains to them that she just wants to be rich; she's been trying to stop the Cult, and has been using the PCs to make it happen.

At this point, the PCs can kill or imprison her, or let her help them.

If they kill her, the BBEG is the Cult's second-in-command, who has been pushing her on the matter this whole time. They arrive just as the Cult is preparing the last steps of the summoning. If they let her join them, they show up in time to stop the Cult, and thwart the summoning. If they imprison her, the same.

However, they didn't completely win. If they left her alive, The Demon manifests by possessing her. This is your BBEG - the tormented soul of a greedy fool who got involved with the wrong people, and is now the vessel for an apocalyptic entity. Big boss fight, go nuts, very climactic, much BBEG.

It's not about her endgame, you see. It's about her end.

[TheThan]

I agree with Red Fel. Your sorceress should be in it for the money. She’s already taken control of an evil cult and is using it to make a fortune. That’s great; run with it. This evil cult is trying to summon a demon or some such, that’s bad for business she should be working against her own cult to stop it.

Maybe approach the PCs in disguise and feed them information on the cult’s weaknesses, activity and locations.
She should also be working to stymie the merchant league, since they’re cutting into her profits. She can use the cult’s resources to do that; it shouldn’t be too hard for her to paint the merchant league as enemies of the cult.

Ultimately she should be confronted by the PCs and defeated, if they kill her, she’s dead but they still have to deal with the summoning of the demon thing; in which case it should posses the most powerful cultist present. If they don’t kill her she helps them by fighting against the demon thing, being possessed by it after they partially succeed in stopping the ritual.

[Nexahs]

I'm a big fan of Red Fel's advice, but allow me to add one little detail. The cult is pressuring an ILLUSIONIST to summon a demon? No problem. Any time the cult gets antsy, make a big fake of show of summoning the demon and have it give some command or some reason it's not staying. The cult can't get on her case if they've seen her communicating directly with their boss.

[Thisguy_]

Neat idea: if this is a high level campaign and she's flatly evil (or could be), maybe she's "helping" them.

The plan: Set up ****loads of rituals and glamour the hell out of them with permanent spells to make them look like they're there to summon demons. Or, indeed, just build them to look like that in the first place. Wait for everything to line up nice, and then stand on the focal point while the entire cult chants some things to put their life force in you. They solve the whole "We wanna summon a demon" thing themselves and you score loads of free magical power. Make off with a ****lot of money and night invulnerability.

Her motivations are that she bloody hates everyone and wants the money and power, and that's okay: Omnicidal maniacs make great villains in heroic settings.

EDIT: Go with Red Fel's possession idea when she gets chanted at for fun, profit, and tragedy.

EDIT: If you want her to have a nice "All according to plan" moment, that last part was an illusion, as well, and she makes off loaded and buys a castle somewhere else with less cultists and adventurers. Cue your next campaign.

[Reltzik]

Bottom line, you're not anywhere near the endgame yet. The PCs haven't worked out what's happening yet. You're still in the second act.

But okay, motives. You say she's after power. Yes, she's running a cult, yes, she's got a bunch of alliances, yes, she's getting buttloads of money, but the only POWER she has are a few fringe players off in the butt-crack of nowhere.

.... oh, hey, people already pointed this out.

For the sake of conservation of detail, her plot is to gain control of the Merchant League, and using its trade monopolies and threats of blockades and boycotts bring various smaller nations to their knees. For this she needs two things. First, lots and lots of money. (Oh, hey, she's getting that.) Second, weakening rivals in the Merchant League... the ones who are about to get shafted by a whole lot of banditry and getting drawn into war by the natives all along their most profitable trade routes. (Oh, hey, she's getting that.)

Basically, all you need to do is give her a false persona in the Merchant League (oh, hey, illusionist), maybe give her a heavily fortified Merchant Lord's enclave somewhere as her final dungeon, and drop a few hints of a connection between them. If she's on the ball and a good con artist (she is), she'll try to twist these hints to point at her merchant adversaries rather than herself.

[Templarkommando]

Idea #1 If your BBEG is smart, she needs to have a situation set up so that even if she loses, she wins. For example, if the good guys wipe out her army of cultists, have things set up so that the battle is on a large stone mesa. The party just thinks of it as a large landmark, but it's actually an altar to an evil deity/demon. The resulting slaughter will endow her with God-like powers/lots of candy/insert BBEG's wildest dreams here. If the party doesn't fight her army of cultists, she can have the cultists start seizing the Merchant League's possessions and brutally murdering its owners in a ritualistic manner that brings about the same result.

Idea #2 The entire scuffle with the cult is a ruse to put her next in line to inherit the Merchant League. Maybe the 2nd and 3rd in line are cult members, and she's trying to arrange to have them killed, because she's secretly #4.

Idea #3 The cult successfully scares the surrounding populace into caving into their demands. In exchange for protecting the local population from her allies (dragons and all), the local populace install the BBEG as Queen or some other reasonably powerful position. Cult practices thereafter remain to eliminate the BBEG's enemies and rivals. For example: "The Dragon demands a sacrifice! You! You're a local revolutionary! You'll do nicely."

[Vercingex]

First of all, love Red Fel's idea of making her in over her head. That sounds like exactly the sort of character you've set up here.

The only thing I want to add is that if your villain is currently opposed to the cult, then the best way to deal with them is to trick them into doing something suicidal. For instance, she could send them after a well guarded artifact that she claims is necessary for the summoning. The cult ends up expending a lot of resources to acquire the artifact. And having the cult suddenly come out into the open like that will add urgency to the campaign.

As an added twist, maybe the artifact that the cult is after will allow the villain to control the demon, or benefit from the summoning in some other direct way. The "send the cult on the suicide mission plan" then becomes win-win for her. If they fail, they are weakened, and easily wiped out, and no longer her problem. If they succeed, she has acquired more power than she could ever imagine.

[Reltzik]

Actually, Red Fel's excellent idea works well with mine and Templarkommando's of having it be a ploy to take over the Merchant League. She IS trying to take over the Merchant League... but she's unwittingly put herself in the position to be possessed anyway.