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View Full Version : Favorite BBEG from your D&D games



ALOR
2007-06-22, 07:52 AM
I thought it would be neat to hear about everyones favorite villian. DM's let me hear about your most devious creations that have made your players weep. Players, let me hear about the BBEG that you loved to hate. the villian who seemed to be one step ahead of you at all times.
i'll start
my favorite villian i've created would have to be a simple drow sgt, who i don't even think I ever named. basicly the PC's were in this big elven city and it was being invaded by drow. one of the PC's was an elven bladesinger which are the protectors of elfdom. Long story short, the bladesinger gets captured but rather than the drow killing him, the sgt. orders his men to hold the bladesingers head up, while he leads women and children up and slaughters them in front of the bladesingers helpless eyes. The look i got from the PC while i was doing this was pure anger. Then when the drow were done killing the non combabtants they just simply knocked the bladesinger out and went on thier merry way. The drow sgt went on to be a minor recuring villan of little note, but that initial encounter and the emotional repsonse i got from it were classic.

so let me hear your stories all, i look forward to reading the responses

squidthingy
2007-06-22, 08:58 AM
I haven't done it yet but it was an idea, making a rust monster with a 10ft movement rate and a very weak regular attack(only a rust attack) a recurring villian, since the monster can't do a strong regurlar attack it can do a ranged attack that rusts all metals within a certian radius instantly, the party first acconters it but is able to get away wihout getting rusted. Even though they will learn of the special properties of the rust monster through a bardic knowledge check, a few sessions later they would of forgotten about it, that's when it will make it's return. When the party is resting the rust monster will inleash it's rust attack, than the party will have to try to fend it off with nothing but improvied weapons. It's going to be their reactions/what they choose to fight with that will make it worthwhile for me. BTW: their is no monk/drunkon master(complete warrior) in that party

Delaney Gale
2007-06-22, 09:13 AM
Ooh. I'd have to say my favorite villain was a Bozak (draconian) sorcerer from my long-running Krynn game in high school. My best friend Alex made the entire dungeon up off the top of his head. We kill the Bozak as a "random encounter", and we're feeling pretty good about ourselves. So, I have my ranger go check the body. Yes, the body. You heard me right. I know and other Krynnish people know that draconians have death throes. Guess who failed her Knowledge check?

It turns out that this draconian had a contingency set up to put himself into a magic jar if he was killed. Alex pulls me into the other room and tells me that I'm now holding a 12th-level draconian sorcerer, and asks me what I want to do.

We go back, the other player is noticeably nervous, but we then carry on like nothing happened towards the black dragon at the bottom of the dungeon. Once we get down to the black dragon's room, my dragonslayer ranger starts speaking in Draconic, so the other player doesn't suspect anything. Until my ranger draws her longsword and knocks him out.

The kicker is that the next adventure (with the rest of the party), my ranger goes into town with her arm "broken" (since a Bozak hasn't the faintest idea about archery or two-weapon) and all in a panic about the other guy getting captured. The party walks into the dungeon and the floor falls out from underneath them, and my character falls. At the end of the dungeon, I was the villain. ^^

rollfrenzy
2007-06-22, 09:20 AM
Favorite BBEG I faced as a player?
Prolly a sword. just a regular sword. It just happens to be infected by a demon lord and corrupts it's wielder while granting absolute power. It has cropped up in a couple campaigns and is always obnoxiuous.

Favorite BBEG I created/ ran?
I had home brewed a chronomancer. He infected the pc's with a plague that they were safe from, he then sent them on missions to every major court on the continent. They were the "typhoid mary's" responsible for spreading this plague to every natin in the realm. when they found out exactly what t was they were delivering, the OMG WHAT? reaction from the pc's was classic.

Honorable mention:
We played a campiagn for 2 years or so and during this time we had two thieves, Jack and Slick. Slick was just out for money and wasn't terribly good at being sneaky. Jack on the other hand was being played by an evil genius. He had deals with our enemies, stole from us and all sorts of other nastiness. All of which we never even knew as players let alone our characters. The best part was he constantly was trying to kill the other thief, but just never could. It got to be pretty funny.

FireSpark
2007-06-22, 09:24 AM
A creation of mine, that the group still refers to now and again two years later, was a simple lich named Quamnicia. Of course simple is a bit of an understatment. She was simple in regards to the fact that she was just a lich with wizrd levels (albeit she was advanced undead lich). What made her such a memorable villain (as I believe to be anyway) was not that she was so powerful, or that she had an entire army of undead at her command. Neither was it her two primary warriors that constantly pursued and harrassed the party. It was her attitude. She would show up periodically, usually after the party had succeeded/failed in spectacular fashion. She would taunt, berate, insult, and even try to corrupt, sway, and recruit. She held herself as a mighty lich queen, but when her plans began to fall apart, she threw the epic-level equivalent of a tantrum.
In the end she was defeated, but not before she had turned one of the party members against the heroes (she was just that kind of psion I guess:smallamused: ), nearly leveled an entire city, and almost killed the rest of the party. But she was destroyed, but her phylactry was never found, and thus they fear the day she might return. :smallbiggrin:

olaf
2007-06-22, 09:25 AM
I had home brewed a chronomancer. He infected the pc's with a plague that they were safe from, he then sent them on missions to every major court on the continent. They were the "typhoid mary's" responsible for spreading this plague to every natin in the realm. when they found out exactly what t was they were delivering, the OMG WHAT? reaction from the pc's was classic.

This is truly deviant brilliance. I'm shamelessly stealing this for some future campaign.

banjo1985
2007-06-22, 09:31 AM
Hmm the most famous villain from my games was a wonderful chap by the name of Vortigern Darkspur, a blackguard that tried to raise an evil goddess in two seperate campaigns! The main reason he was memorable was that he was almost Elan like in his childishness, and came up with random petty insults and psychotic monologues. He was completely insane but very powerful, meaning my players had to watch their step around him, but they eventually took him down and the goddess with him. However he was so popular with the players that I bought him back as a Dread Knight in my next campaign controlled by the main villain of that particular piece, and again the guy was popular, and being undead was even more powerful!

ALOR
2007-06-22, 09:39 AM
This is truly deviant brilliance. I'm shamelessly stealing this for some future campaign.

as someone who played in this game i can asure you it was a very shocking moment. The party had absolutly no idea we were spreading this plague.

The_Werebear
2007-06-22, 09:49 AM
My favorite BBEG? The one the PC's are working for. His Name is Duke Andur the Fierce, ruler of the Duchy of the Raven of the Human States. In my campaign, elves have invaded human lands, and the squabbling Duchies pulled together an army to stand in the way. Duke Andur, in charge of the most powerful Duchy, who has the largest collection of wizards, and who has sole access to Dwarven Mercenaries became the Default leader. Thing is, he has always had ambitions to conquer the other Duchies and this is an excellent opportunity for him to consolidate control.

The players absolutely hate him. The missions he sends them on are half against the elves, half for him. One mission had them raiding a temple from a conquered Duchy to retrieve an artifact. The situation caused them to have to kill human priests as well as defeat the avatar of a human deity. Another caused them to have to assassinate the leader of another Duchy. That unfortunate Duke was going to withdraw his troops because Andur had sold most of his land to druids without the leader's permission. He assigned the party to kill him and switch the orders the messenger was carrying so it looked like he had agreed to the change then been assassinated by the elves. Andur also drove the Paladin leader of another Duchy, the only Duke they trusted, to treason with his evil actions. The party had to kill him on their own initiative to prevent widespread treason of that Duke's people after he went to them to try and pull them with him.

Basically, they spend every mission trying to plot a way to kill Duke Andur, hate his guts, and know that he wants to undermine all the other duchies (for example, he will put another Duchies troops in a bad position for just a little too long), but they can't do a thing about him because he is the only person who can successfully lead the army, not to mention command the most powerful segment.

valadil
2007-06-22, 10:00 AM
Mechanics wise, my favorite BBEG to run was Malakai. He had some people killed and initiated a hostile takeover of the thieves guild where my PCs worked. They were tempted to side with him, but he was a just a little too evil. Anyway, he was a cheesed out abjurer champion 4 or 6 levels higher than the pcs. I took some option from the PHBII that let him do metamagic as a standard action despite casting as a sorcerer. Against dex based characters, sculpted black tentacles is 12 different kinds of rude.

Storywise, my favorite was a paladin who turned blackguard. That's all. Granted, the fall to blackguard happened in game instead of in back story and this was after the group befriended the paladin. Letting the group trust someone who later betrays them is a much more effective way to make them hate someone than simply telling them this guy is the boss of the last bad guy you just killed.

Ditto
2007-06-22, 10:19 AM
I love how everyone says, "My favorite? Just a simple little fighter. Who was not so simple! Bwahaha! :smalltongue:

In an Eberron campaign I played in, there was a little girl (a simple little girl, of course) who popped up near the end of our encounters sometimes, out of nowhere. She'd just stand there, say something in a very moony way, and disappear after ducking out of sight. I decided her name was Sally. I also promised myself I would take her out the next time I saw her, cuz there was no way she was up to any good, but the campaign disappeared and now I'll never know...

Xuincherguixe
2007-06-22, 10:20 AM
At one point, I threw an unidentified potion which we were certain was some kind of poison (it's a bit strange this, I know. It gets stranger though) into the mouth of a youngish red dragon, we were level 5 and well, that thing could have really messed us up. Figured since we had it? May as well use it.

Well, long story short later we find there's this strange plague which makes people start singing, in random draconic. And also they grew all kinds of black tendrils. Eventually we went back to the cave where that red dragon was and we found a bunch of these things singing, and moving in a circle formation that kept getting smaller. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I THINK our bard used his bardic music to disrupt them

We encounter another thing later, some woman. Turns out that the Dragon I killed with the potion was turned into a magical plague musical hive mind. There was a bit of strangeness involving colour and shape, but the thing needed something of a similar alignment to sing a draconic nursery in order for it to reform. Being Chaotic Evil myself I was able to help it do this.

Then we killed it again.

A song was playing on the GMs side and he made a comment about how it was like Neon Genesis Evangellion the way the significant monster suddenly dies a brutal death (he also may have used the word anticlimactic).


Too bad the game got called off eventually. Man was that fun. My character changed genders four times! Most disturbing of all was how well he took it. He almost went dress shopping. I have to use Hauc Feng again some time.

BlackStaticWolf
2007-06-22, 10:26 AM
From a game in which I was a player:

That would have to be me. My character was tiefling rogue named Rachis and was the defacto leader of the party. He subtley manipulated party members into doing his bidding and more often than not, overtly issued orders and ultimatums. He was both the brains and the face of the operation and was utterly and absolutely ruthless. Under his leadership, we entered into willing service to a demon lord.

When an NPC would challenge me to a duel or something along those lines, my response was to laugh and order the party's ranger to kill him with the often repeated phrase: "Lykoth, deal with this insect!"

When an undead warrior blocked our entry into a temple of a dead god, I not only avoided fighting him... I convinced him to swear fealty to me and join our party.

When our party encountered our good-aligned counterparts, I convinced them that we were, in fact, double agents and were actually on their side (alignment detection didn't work on that campaign world).

Then, mid-campaign, the rest of the party started to have changes of heart. They wanted to be pull an about face and atone for our misdeeds. Not Rachis, oh no! Rachis liked being bad and he was going places. So, in favor of player harmony, I averted the inevitable player vs. player murderfest by ceding control of the chaotic evil Rachis to the DM and creating a lawful good monk to help guide the others back onto the path of light!

Rachis proceeded to manipulate, connive, and betray his way to becoming the demon lord's right hand man. Then, at the eve the demon lord's dark ritual of world domination (because having such rituals that's what BBEG's DO), he proceeded to betray the demon lord and subvert the ritual to gain absolute power for himself. Rachis then fled our prime material plane, and left the party to deal with the very pissed off demon lord.

When the dust cleared, two PCs survived the battle, one sacrificed himself, and another abandoned the group in their hour of need to follow Rachis (with whom she was still in love). The demon lord was defeated... but Rachis... Rachis got what he wanted and no come uppance. And so the campaign ended.

ALOR
2007-06-22, 10:48 AM
From a game in which I was a player:

When the dust cleared, two PCs survived the battle, one sacrificed himself, and another abandoned the group in their hour of need to follow Rachis (with whom she was still in love). The demon lord was defeated... but Rachis... Rachis got what he wanted and no come uppance. And so the campaign ended.

wow, what a great story, i really would have liked playing this character . sounds like a great end to the campaign, well at least for your character
:smallbiggrin:

Swooper
2007-06-22, 10:52 AM
I guess my favourite is a toss-up between two from the same campaign, Moras the Evil and Makír.

Moras the Evil was a duke who reigned from his castle over some miserable peasants with a fist of iron, he was propably a blackguard though we never knew. The beauty about him was how he was the perfect image of a classic black knight. After fighting our way through his henchmen and into his throneroom, the DM gave us a description of his appearance, queing a one-liner from my paladin: "So... You like it black and spiky, dontcha?"

Makír was the head of The Mages Guild in this world. We were working for him for quite some time before we realized he was behind all the bad stuff going on, suspecting (and hating) his second in command all along. He had some fun things up his sleeve, including his trademark ability to shapeshift into a white dragon. One of the PCs fell from his tower after a (failed) confrontation with him, breaking his legs and his spine. He got better though, heh.

Ichneumon
2007-06-22, 11:37 AM
Mu first campaign ended in this final epic battle in which the players had to defeat a were-goldfish kobold. You should have seen their faces, when they noticed what they were fighting.

It was a great campaign.

rollfrenzy
2007-06-22, 12:23 PM
This is truly deviant brilliance. I'm shamelessly stealing this for some future campaign.

<Bows graciously> Steal Away.

I may siggy that because, well, I love myself. :smallbiggrin:

ALOR
2007-06-22, 12:39 PM
Mu first campaign ended in this final epic battle in which the players had to defeat a were-goldfish kobold. You should have seen their faces, when they noticed what they were fighting.

It was a great campaign.

wait what....???? a weregoldfish kolbold as the BBEG, and it wasn't pun pun? ok i have to hear more. Was it an underwater adventure? please tell me more about this truley unique and interseting threat.

Orak
2007-06-22, 01:02 PM
One of my favorite BBEG creations was a Ogre Magi, Mind Flayer and Blue Dragon combo. They had all been defeated by the player party earlier on in their careers. Now that the party was 18+ level and a super powered group the OM, MF and BD teamed up to take down the party once and for all.

In the year that they had to come up with a plan one of the baddies had managed to unearth an Orb of Dragonkind of the Silver Dragon variety. They used it to enslave an ancient wyrm silver dragon. They sent this dragon along with the Blue to attack the PC's home town.

The PC's recognized the Blue (it had torn to barbarian to shreds in a previous encounter) and the Silver (they had been to its lair and talked to it on a previous adventure). The blue was slain but the Silver was just too much for them, and they were forced to retreat. Two of the PC's remembered where the dragons lair was and decided to head there to grab some loot while the dragon was distracted eating their town. In the lair they found the Ogre Magi and the Mind Flayer using the orb to control the silver. A wave of recognition at seeing their old enemies was followed by a short and bloody fight which left the PC's victorious and the Silver dragon free.

BlackStaticWolf
2007-06-22, 01:11 PM
wow, what a great story, i really would have liked playing this character . sounds like a great end to the campaign, well at least for your character
:smallbiggrin:

The character was so much fun to play that he's actually the main villain of the campaign that I'm DMing now. The players are the same group, so it should be a really entertaining moment when they actually figure out just who they're up against.

Rigel Cyrosea
2007-06-22, 01:26 PM
One of my favorite BBEGs was an hideous and evil fighter called Lucius the Eternal. (based off of the WH40K Chaos Special Character of the same name) The first time the PC ran into him, they fought him in a sort of gladiator match for their freedom. They won, and the party barbarian killed him. Over the next week, the Barabarian started changing. His hair fell out and Scars appeared all over his head. (Lucius was bald and his face was covered in scars) It didn't take the players too long to figure out what was going on, especially with a name like Lucius the Eternal. They tried to find a way to help him, but at the end of the weak, the Barbarian completely turned into Lucius. The party fought him again, reluctantly, but they didn't really have any choice. Finally the party rogue killed him.
DM: "Lucius has fallen. He lies dead on the ground."
Rogue Player: "YES!"
Rogue Player: "S***!!"

Tallis
2007-06-22, 01:34 PM
My favorite vilains are the ones that are made to be bit players and accidently turn into more.
The best example of this is from one of my first campaigns. He was a simple bandit, a generic member of a small group that ambushed the party. He also turned out to be very lucky. The group easily dealt with the bandits, killing the leader and leaving only a few survivors trying to make their escape. This bandit (we'll call him Henry, since he never did have a name
) decided to run out of sight (the were in the forest) and ambush the 2 party members that were chasing him. He did some damage, knocked them down and ran. They got up and resumed the chase. He did it again, same result. This happened 5 times before he took them down and finally got away. Oh how they hated him.
I decided that this was worth some xp and leveled him. He showed uyp again a few months later with largely the same result. He did some damage and got away. Now they hated him even more. He kept showing up. Finally the group got the drop on him and the Samurai cut him in half before he could do anything. If the campaign had gone on I probably would have ressurrected him and had him show up again.
He was never a big threat, just a 2-bit thug that got lucky, but he was the most hated enemy the party had in that campaign. Moreso because they knew they should have been able to beat him easily.

Zim
2007-06-22, 01:48 PM
In a campaign I've run: Filge from Age of Worms: Whispering Cairn. I played him as a total nutjob mad scientist type. One moment he was ranting about how they were too late to stop his master plan, and the next he was muttering under his breath about a room with a moose. The PC's ended up hating him so much that they cut him down in his tracks when he tried to surrender. I later brought him back as an Allip (I know the conditions for creating an allip are not quite right, but he was insane and died violently) in the next module. Little do they know that he was never actually destroyed and will meet them again.

In a campaign I've played in: The Sherrif of Messelyne. The game system/world is Harnmaster/Harn. The guy was basically the evil sherrif of Nottingham, but totally likeable. Sure, he did dirty deeds (done dirt cheap), but he was so charming and reasonable that you just had to like him and often agree with his actions. I think we even ended up working for him in a campaign or two.

herrhauptmann
2007-06-22, 01:50 PM
My favorite bad guy was my first 2nd Ed. Ravenloft BBEG.
We were actually working with teh aid of the domain lord, who didn't want another necro to escape the island of Souragne.
We were playing the novel Dance of the Dead. We were a level 4 party. 2 fighters (one voulge and one broadsword), one paladin, and a elven transmuter. Plus the NPC bard heroine of the story, and her boyfriend. Neither of whom did much fighting.

We stormed the showboat as it traveled the swamp. Various forest critters tried to aid us, but generally ended up dying. Fought off the entire undead crew of teh boat, and watched the captain die horribly. He had lost an arm (to me) in our escape and it got reattached skeletally by the necro. Capt has a change of heart, doesn't want to watch his niece die (the bard girl), gets one free attack in on the necro, before his undead arm tears the heart out of his chest.
After freeing a few random prisoners from below decks (I didn't want them to suffer needlessly if we died, and doing so crippled the boat too), we started attacking the necro. Seemingly each round, a different member of the party was attacking him, we kept interrupting his soliloquies, stopping his grand escape, and his murder of the bard girl. Oh man, i twas a great fight.

ALOR
2007-06-22, 02:06 PM
One of my favorite BBEGs was an hideous and evil fighter called Lucius the Eternal.
DM: "Lucius has fallen. He lies dead on the ground."
Rogue Player: "YES!"
Rogue Player: "S***!!"

that is classic, if the story was shorter i would put it in my sig, lol. :smallbiggrin:

Ichneumon
2007-06-22, 02:53 PM
wait what....???? a weregoldfish kolbold as the BBEG, and it wasn't pun pun? ok i have to hear more. Was it an underwater adventure? please tell me more about this truley unique and interseting threat.

Sure,

no it wasn't underwater. The thing is, the kobold was a cleric of the big water demon that would eventually cause Ragnarok (the end of the world), the cleric tried to unleash his demon lord by opening a gate with a legendaric magical shield. He controlled an army of gnoll and Garangazu (a home made race of half-insect people).

The party tried to stop him, they got help from the god of rain who used his water elementals to fight the forces of the demon. They almost got to late and the kobold managed to finish the ritual of opening the gate. While the gates openend, the kobold transformed in his hybrid goldfish form and attacked the party. The party managed to kill the kobold (by pushing it into a large pit), but only just in time to see the arrival of the demon lord. The demon lord summoned more fiends and the party actually run for their lives, not knowing that allied troups (more water elementals) were coming.

Eventually the army of water elementals lead by the god of rain arrived and saved the party (after many exciting encounters with demons and gnolls). The army destroyed the demon army and the god of rain destroyed the demon lord, permanently (or so my players think...)

akira72703
2007-06-22, 04:50 PM
The Most Hated: Would have had to been a drow high priestess named Kimanteiri in a home brew game i ran for some friends over a 4 year period. They hated her because she out shone them at all turns (let alone could defeat the whole group dinglehandedly). There was no level disparity, she was only a couple levels higher than this 6 party group. It just when it came to her they all wet their pants for whatever reason.


The Hardest to fight: Siri- the first drow (also from the same campaign as Kimanteiri). They initially met him when they were level 1 and very early on the fighter and the wizard espescially took to him and saw to his training and he became sort of a side kick to them for a while. He then vanished and a new menace, one bent on destroying the elven empire that the players belonged to. They managed to track the villian down after several adventures and when they were going through his fortress overcoming his defenses, they all had this look like this is something i would do or we talked about this that time with Siri.... and when they confronted him finally for the showdown 2 players, the wizard and the fighter, actually thought he had been captured and when he began attacking they were completely floored since he used their own tactics against them and the others were quite stunned by the viciousness that i exhibited when attacking with him. They eventually took him down but to this day these two, Siri and Kimanteiri stand out to them as the best and worst visllians they have ever had to face.

Vaniel
2007-06-22, 04:52 PM
A demon disguised as a Paladin, loved by the people from all cities.:smallbiggrin: